The events of the next few weeks are related by the Spanish authority,[21] very differently from the version given by the Prince and Buckingham to King James. The Spaniards aver that Charles' counter-proposals and amendments were considered exhaustively by the various commissions, and unhesitatingly rejected, the Prince, in his final interview with Olivares on the subject, when the answer was given to him, signifying his intention to return to England at once, and requesting an audience to take leave of the King. The Prince is represented by the Spaniards to have asked Bristol to draw up for him a valedictory address which he might read to Philip, but when Lord Bristol submitted his draft the Prince expressed dissatisfaction with it, and said that he would trust to the inspiration of the moment and take leave of the King in his own words. The leave-taking was fixed for the 17th July, in the evening, and when Charles, with Buckingham and the whole of his train, were in the presence of Philip, to the intense astonishment and dismay of Bristol, the Prince expressed his intention of accepting the conditions laid down by the Spaniards with regard to religion, and said that he would, in his father's name, give due security for their fulfilment. Couriers were sent post haste to Rome to obtain the Pope's final consent to the slightly modified conditions accepted by Charles; and for a time {111} the Spanish Court ostensibly regarded the marriage as irrevocably fixed. This is the story as told by the Spaniards, and it is probably not far from the truth; but in the letters to King James[22] the Prince and Buckingham naturally represent the conditions they accepted as being an important modification of the previous Spanish demands, which, so far as can be seen, they were not. On the very day when the reconsidered conditions were first handed to Charles, and, according to the Spanish story, rejected, he and Buckingham wrote to King James. (26th June-6th July.)