Poetic and romantic Prince Charles was soon won over to so compromising and dangerous a course; but King James wept and slobbered like a frightened infant when "Baby" and "Steenie" wrung from him unwilling permission to undertake so hare-brained an adventure.[22] Only Cottington and Porter were to go with them to Spain, and the former at least, who knew Spain well, was dead against the voyage; but Buckingham's violence gained the day. Distancing all posts, and riding for a fortnight an average of sixty miles a day, through France and over the rough mule tracks in the north of Spain, {72} the little party pushed onwards. Cottington and Porter were distanced and left behind a day's journey from Madrid; and when the man with the valise, who gave his name as Thomas Smith, entered Lord Bristol's study, and, throwing aside his cloak and hat, disclosed the handsome face of "Steenie," the Marquis of Buckingham, the King's favourite, the ambassador was in dismay, increased almost to terror when he learnt that the Prince of Wales, the only son of King James, masquerading under the name of John Smith, was holding the horses on the other side of the dark street.[23] [Sidenote: Charles and Buckingham] What was to be done? The presence of the heir of England could not be hidden for many hours from gossiping Madrid, for the couriers from Paris, where he had been recognised, were following close upon his heels. A voyage to Spain in those days was a far greater adventure than an expedition to Thibet would be now, and the temerity, nay the foolhardiness, of putting such a pledge as the Prince of Wales unconditionally in the hands of the Spaniards, who if they chose to detain him could exact what terms they liked as the price of his safe return, struck the harassed ambassador with alarm. "My Lord Bristol in a kind of astonishment brought him (_i.e._ Prince Charles) up to his chamber, where he presently called for pen and ink, and despatched a post that night to England to acquaint his Majesty how in less than sixteen days he was come safely to the Court of Spain."[24]