The only provocation for styling Morecraft's 'widow' an Infanta in this scene of _The Scornful Ladie_ is that there was much interest in London at the time in a proposed marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales, and the second daughter of Philip III of Spain, the Infanta Maria. And the conjunction of the "Infanta" with a "Don Diego" has reference to the activities of the astute Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuna who had arrived as Spanish ambassador, in 1613, "with the express object of winning James over from his alliance with France and the Protestant powers."[248] During 1613 Queen Anne was favouring the Spanish marriage. In February 1614, Don Diego Sarmiento was sedulously cultivating the acquaintance of the King's powerful minion, the Earl of Somerset; and in May he was writing home of his success. In the latter month, the Lord Privy Seal, Northampton, was urging the marriage upon the King; and the King soon after had signified to Sarmiento his willingness to accept the hand of the Infanta for Charles, provided Philip of Spain should withdraw his demand for the conversion of the young prince to Catholicism. In June Sarmiento was advising Philip to close with James's offer. And a month or so later the Spanish Council of State had voted in favour of the match. Negotiations, broken off for a time, were resumed a few weeks after the treaty of Xanten was signed; and with varying success Don Diego was still pursuing his object in December 1615. The reference in _The Scornful Ladie_ cannot possibly be to negotiations for the marriage of Prince Charles's elder brother, Henry, who died in 1612, with one or the other of King Philip's daughters;[249] as for instance in 1604 or 1607, for the Cleves wars had not then begun; or in 1611 and 1612, for no Don Diego had yet arrived in England. The upper limit of the reference to Don Diego Sarmiento's negotiations is May 27, 1613. Gardiner tells us, moreover, that "for some time" before Diego was created Count Gondomar in 1617 "he had been pertinaciously begging for a title that would satisfy the world that his labours had been graciously accepted by his master." This desire to be "stiled noble" was undoubtedly known to many about the Court. If Beaumont and Fletcher did not hear of it by common talk, they might readily have derived their information from Don Diego's acquaintance and Beaumont's friend, Sir Francis Bacon, Attorney-General at the time, or from a devoted companion of John Selden of the Inner Temple, Sir Robert Cotton, the antiquary, who in April 1615, was King James's intermediary with Sarmiento. Taking, accordingly, all these considerations into account in conjunction with the fact that no Cleves captains had yet been 'cast' from their commands abroad before the Queen's Revels' Children ceased playing at the old Blackfriars in January 1610, I have come to the definite conclusion that the play was written between May 27, 1613 and the beginning of 1616, and