he conscientiously and without swerving pursued a single aim.  This was to rob the exchequer by every possible mode and at every instant of his life.  Never was a more masterly financier in this respect.  With a single eye to his own interests, he preserved a magnificent unity in all his actions.  The result had been to make him in ten years the richest subject in the world, as well as the most absolute ruler.

He enriched his family, as a matter of course.  His son was already made Duke of Uceda, possessed enormous wealth, and was supposed by those who had vision in the affairs of court to be the only individual ever likely to endanger the power of the father.  Others thought that the young duke’s natural dulness would make it impossible for him to supplant the omnipotent favourite.  The end was not yet, and time was to show which class of speculators was in the right.  Meantime the whole family was united and happy.  The sons and daughters had intermarried with the Infantados, and other most powerful and wealthy families of grandees.  The uncle, Sandoval, had been created by Lerma a cardinal and archbishop of Toledo; the king’s own schoolmaster being removed from that dignity, and disgraced and banished from court for having spoken disrespectfully of the favourite.  The duke had reserved for himself twenty thousand a year from the revenues of the archbishopric, as a moderate price for thus conducting himself as became a dutiful nephew.  He had ejected Rodrigo de Vasquez from his post as president of the council.  As a more conclusive proof of his unlimited sway than any other of his acts had been, he had actually unseated and banished the inquisitor-general, Don Pietro Porto Carrero, and supplanted him in that dread office, before which even anointed sovereigns trembled, by one of his own creatures.

In the discharge of his various functions, the duke and all his family were domesticated in the royal palace, so that he was at no charges for housekeeping.  His apartments there were more sumptuous than those of the king and queen.  He had removed from court the Dutchess of Candia, sister of the great Constable of Castile, who had been for a time in attendance on the queen, and whose possible influence he chose to destroy in the bud.  Her place as mistress of the robes was supplied by his sister, the Countess of Lemos; while his wife, the terrible Duchess of Lerma, was constantly with the queen, who trembled at her frown.  Thus the royal pair were completely beleaguered, surrounded, and isolated from all except the Lermas.  When the duke conferred with the king, the doors were always double locked.