to transact business with applicants who never came; while ushers, chamberlains, and valets were rushing up and down the corridors, bawling for all persons so disposed to come and have an audience of their monarch.  Meantime, the doors of the great duke’s apartments in the same palace would be beleaguered by an army of courtiers, envoys, and contractors, who had paid solid gold for admission, and who were often sent away grumbling and despairing without entering the sacred precincts.

As time wore on, the king, too much rebuked for attempting to meddle in state affairs, became solitary and almost morose, moping about in the woods by himself, losing satisfaction in his little dancing and ball-playing diversions, but never forgetting his affection for the queen nor the hours for his four daily substantial repasts of meats and pastry.  It would be unnecessary and almost cruel to dwell so long upon a picture of what was after all not much better than human imbecility, were it not that humanity is, a more sacred thing than royalty.  A satire upon such an embodiment of kingship is impossible, the simple and truthful characteristics being more effective than fiction or exaggeration.  It would be unjust to exhume a private character after the lapse of two centuries merely to excite derision, but if history be not powerless to instruct, it certainly cannot be unprofitable to ponder the merits of a system which, after bestowing upon the world forty-three years of Philip the tyrant, had now followed them up with a decade of Philip the simpleton.

In one respect the reigning sovereign was in advance of his age.  In his devotion to the Madonna he claimed the same miraculous origin for her mother as for herself.  When the prayer “O Sancta Maria sine labe originali concepta” was chanted, he would exclaim with emotion that the words embodied his devoutest aspirations.  He had frequent interviews with doctors of divinity on the subject, and instructed many bishops to urge upon the pope the necessity of proclaiming the virginity of the Virgin’s mother.  Could he secure this darling object of his ambition, he professed himself ready to make a pilgrimage on foot to Rome.  The pilgrimage was never made, for it may well be imagined that Lerma would forbid any such adventurous scheme.  Meantime, the duke continued to govern the empire and to fill his coffers, and the king to shoot rabbits.

The queen was a few years younger than her husband, and far from beautiful.  Indeed, the lower portion of her face was almost deformed.  She was graceful, however, in her movements, and pleasing and gentle in manner.  She adored the king, looking up to him with reverence as the greatest and wisest of beings.  To please him she had upon her marriage given up drinking wine, which, for a German, was considered a great sacrifice.  She recompensed herself, as the king did, by eating to an extent which, according to contemporary accounts, excited amazement.  Thus there was perfect sympathy between the two in the important article of diet.  She had also learned to play at cards, in order to take a hand with him at any moment, feebly hoping that an occasional game for love might rescue the king from that frantic passion by which his health was shattered and so many courtiers were enriched.