This was suspicious, and smelt of the Evil One; and soon the poor
tailor and his uncanny instruments were haled before the dread tribunal
on suspicion of witchcraft and sorcery. It could not make much of the
tools, but as, in any case, the collars were lined with silk, and that
was against the pragmatic, the poor tailor's stock and instruments were
ordered to be publicly burnt before his door. The tailor, in trouble,
went to Olivares, who was furious at the King's collars being burnt,
and he and the Duke of Infantado sent for the president of the
Inquisition Council, and rated him soundly. The president declared
that he knew not that the strange things were for his Majesty; but
pointed out how dangerously new they were in shape, how mysteriously
stiffened, and how they sinned against the pragmatic. But he was soon
silenced by the Count-Duke, who told him they were the best and most
economical neck-gear ever invented, as they needed no washing or
starching, and would last for a year without further expense.
Philip[9] and Carlos, with many of the courtiers, wore the new
_Golilla_ for the first time during the visit of {140} the Prince of
Wales, and the fashion caught the popular taste. Thenceforward all
Spain, Spanish Italy, and South America wore golillas, the curve, size,
and shape changing somewhat as other fashions changed, but the
principle remained the same, until Spain was born again and a French
King banned the golilla as barbarous, and imposed upon his new subjects
the falling lace cravat and jabot of the eighteenth century.
Though the satirists and poetasters might gibe anonymously at the small
remedial effect that followed the well-meant measures of the King and
his "bogey," as they called Olivares, and might whisper spitefully, as
they did, that the latter purposely kept Philip absorbed in frivolous
pursuits, the better to be able to rule unchecked himself, the
favourite went on his way sternly and forcefully, pushing aside roughly
those who stood in nis path, and behaving none too generously to those
who aided him. He gave up none of the duties of personal attendance
upon the King, although now the whole of the details of every
department of State passed through his hands. The jealous courtiers,
whose perquisites he had curtailed, sneered beneath their breath at him
for coming into the King's room hung all round with packets of paper,
with similar packets stuck in sheafs under the band of his hat, and
bulging from his pockets, the very way, they said, to disgust with
affairs a youth already disinclined for business and constitutionally
idle.
[Sidenote: The policy of Olivares]