The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in Decadence

David Hume · en

But in the following spring of 1622 there was a great series of
festivals at Aranjuez, where the Court was then in residence, to
celebrate Philip's seventeenth birthday.  Already the glamour of the
stage had seized upon Philip and his wife, and one of the attractions
of the rejoicings was the representation in a temporary theatre of
canvas erected amidst the trees on the "island garden," and beautifully
adorned, of a comedy in verse by Count de Villa Mediana dedicated to
the Queen.  The comedy was called _La Gloria de Niquea_, and Isabel
herself was to personate the goddess of beauty.  It was night, and the
flimsy structure of silk and canvas was brilliantly lit with wax lights
when all the Court had assembled to see the show; the young King and
his two brothers and sister being seated in front of the stage, and the
Queen in the retiring-room behind the scenes.  The prologue had been
finished successfully, and the audience were awaiting the withdrawing
of the curtain that screened the stage, when a piercing shriek went up
from the back, and a moment afterwards a long tongue of flame licked up
half the drapery before the stage, and immediately the whole place was
ablaze.  Panic seized upon the splendid mob, and there was a rush to
escape.  The King succeeded in fighting his way out with difficulty,
and made his {58} way to the back of the stage in search of his wife.
In the densely wooded gardens that surrounded the blazing structure he
sought for a time in vain, but at last found that Villa Mediana had
been before him, and that the half-fainting figure of the Queen was
lying in the Count's arms.  Whatever may have been the truth of the
matter, this, at all events, made a delightful _bonne bouche_ for the
scandal-mongers, who hated Villa Mediana for his atrabilious gibes, and
it soon became noised abroad that the Count had planned the whole
affair, and had purposely set fire to the theatre that he might gain
the credit of having saved the Queen, and enjoy the satisfaction of
having clasped her in his arms, if but for a moment.

[Sidenote: Murder of Villa Mediana]