[6] Charles really seems to have fallen in love with her. Howel writes in July. "There are comedians once a week come to the palace, where, under a great canopy the Queen and the Infanta sit in the middle and our Prince and Don Carlos on the Queen's right hand, and the little Cardinal on the Infanta's left hand. I have seen the Prince have his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half an hour together in a thoughtful speculative posture, which sure would needs be tedious unless affection did sweeten it. It was no handsome comparison of Olivares that he watched her as a cat doth a mouse." Endymion Porter, writing to his wife soon after the Prince's arrival in Spain, says: "The Prince hath taken such a liking to his mistress that now he loves her as much for her beauty as he can for being sister to so great a King. She deserves it, for never was there a fairer creature." _State Papers, Domestic_, March 1623. [7] Hardwicke, _State Papers_. [8] From a somewhat ungenerous letter from Charles to Bristol (who was made the scapegoat), written on the 21st January 1625, he says: "you will remember how at our first coming into Spain, when taking upon you to be so wise as to foresee our intention to change our religion, you were so far from dissuading us that you offered your services and secrecy to concur in it; and in many other open conferences pressing to show how convenient it was for us to be Roman Catholic, it being impossible in your opinion to do any great action otherwise." The letter is full of reproaches and condemnation of Bristol's conduct, but it is quite clear that Bristol saw the only condition under which the match was possible from the first, which Charles and Buckingham, deceived by Olivares, did not. Cabala (ed. 1691) p. 188. [9] _Hecho de los Tratados_. Camden Society. [10] Carey, Earl of Monmouth, _Guerre d' Italia_. [11] Lord Bristol's diary, MS. in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, gives a minute account of the Prince's movements from day to day. [12] Soto y Aguilar gives a glowing and pompous account of this festivity, which, according to him, was a cane tournament and competition of horsemanship got up in honour of Charles by the Admiral of Castile. Charles is described as being dressed in black satin, with the blue ribbon and jewel of the Garter on his breast, the simplicity of his garb being praised as being very distinguished in appearance, as it may well have been amidst so gorgeous a crowd as that described by Soto. It should be noted, however, that Philip himself rarely dressed in bright colours, though his red doublet in the Dulwich College picture is splendid enough, his favourite colour being brown with steel or silver trimmings. On this occasion he is described as being dressed in this way, with a chain consisting of four linked jewelled crowns on his breast.