The nominal sovereign, Philip III., was thirty years of age.  A very little man, with pink cheeks, flaxen hair, and yellow beard, with a melancholy expression of eye, and protruding under lip and jaw, he was now comparatively alert and vigorous in constitution, although for the first seven years of his life it had been doubtful whether he would live from week to week.  He had been afflicted during that period with a chronic itch or leprosy, which had undermined his strength, but which had almost entirely disappeared as he advanced in life.

He was below mediocrity in mind, and had received scarcely any education.  He had been taught to utter a few phrases, more or less intelligible, in French, Italian, and Flemish, but was quite incapable of sustaining a conversation in either of those languages.  When a child, he had learned and subsequently forgotten the rudiments of the Latin grammar.

These acquirements, together with the catechism and the offices of the Church, made up his whole stock of erudition.  That he was devout as a monk of the middle ages, conforming daily and hourly to religious ceremonies, need scarcely be stated.  It was not probable that the son of Philip II. would be a delinquent to church observances.  He was not deficient in courage, rode well, was fond of hunting, kept close to the staghounds, and confronted, spear in hand, the wild-boar with coolness and success.  He was fond of tennis, but his especial passion and chief accomplishment was dancing.  He liked to be praised for his proficiency in this art, and was never happier than when gravely leading out the queen or his daughter, then four or five years of age—­for he never danced with any one else—­to perform a stately bolero.

He never drank wine, but, on the other hand, was an enormous eater; so that, like his father in youth, he was perpetually suffering from stomach-ache as the effect of his gluttony.  He was devotedly attached to his queen, and had never known, nor hardly looked at, any other woman.  He had no vice but gambling, in which he indulged to a great extent, very often sitting up all night at cards.  This passion of the king’s was much encouraged by Lerma, for obvious reasons.  Philip had been known to lose thirty thousand dollars at a sitting, and always to some one of the family or dependents of the duke, who of course divided with them the spoils.  At one time the Count of Pelbes, nephew of Lerma, had won two hundred thousand dollars in a very few nights from his sovereign.

For the rest, Philip had few peculiarities or foibles.  He was not revengeful, nor arrogant, nor malignant.  He was kind and affectionate to his wife and children, and did his best to be obedient to the Duke of Lerma.  Occasionally he liked to grant audiences, but there were few to request them.  It was ridiculous and pathetic at the same time to see the poor king, as was very frequently the case, standing at a solemn green table till his little legs were tired, waiting