The ladies, too, were no better treated, and many a brazen-faced madam was hauled out of her trundling coach and put to shame, or had portions of her forbidden finery profaned by the coarse hands of catchpoles. The Calle Mayor and the Prado were up in arms at such sacrilege, and bewailed the time when, the stern pragmatics notwithstanding, each hidalgo and his dame who could get money or credit dressed as splendidly as they liked. The worst of it was, that except the time when all the Court was ablaze with the welcome to its English visitor, the King, for the first time, followed his own pragmatics. Philip, like his grandfather, disliked gorgeous attire for himself; though, when the dignity of his position demanded it, he could be refulgent. He was, moreover, {133} sincerely desirous of remedying the terrible penury that existed everywhere. He had been told by his advisers that one of the ways to do this was to limit personal expenditure, in order that there might be more money for the State to spend, and he endeavoured in his own person to set the example of economy. [Sidenote: Philip's reforms] Philip has left a document in his own hand,[5] setting forth the reforms he introduced in the service of his own palace (February 1624). It is addressed to the master of the household, the Duke of Infantado, and although far too long to reproduce entire here, some few passages of it may be quoted, as showing that, severe as the cutting down might be, the royal household was still much larger than would now be considered necessary for a monarch.[6] The distressed condition of the public revenues, says the King, the many calls upon it, the end of the truce with the Dutch, and Spain's many foes on sea and land, make it imperative to cut down every unnecessary expense. A beginning is to be made in the salary of the master of the household himself, all _future_ holders of the office to receive a million maravedis less salary (_i.e._ £330 less), but to retain all the perquisites of the office. Only the four senior stewards are in future to be paid, the rest to serve without payment, but to retain their rations, with some small reductions, namely, the dish of chicken custard or rice is to be suppressed, and the {134} allowance of twenty pounds of ice hitherto given to each steward daily to be stopped. The number of "gentlemen of the mouth" is in future to be restricted to fifty, the gentlemen of the chambers to forty, who are not to have more than two lacqueys each. The pages in future are to be only twenty-four. The numbers of officials of the bakery, fruitery, cellar, spicery, chandlery, and butchery are all reduced to what still seems an extravagant personnel according to modern ideas, and the old scandal of the enormous "rations" drawn (and in many cases sold) by all the palace officials is once more attacked. For instance, the perquisite of sixty wax torches taken by the chief gentlemen of the bed-chamber is abolished; and only