Leaving Charles at the embassy after the drive, Olivares and Buckingham, with Porter as their interpreter, re-entered a coach and drove off in the gathering darkness to the gardens behind the palace, to arrange the details of the coming private interview to be held that night between Philip and the English Prince. Whilst the coach, with Olivares and Buckingham, was in the green alleys of the garden, a man, unaccompanied, with his cloak masking his face, and sword and buckler by his side, was seen walking towards them. "This is the King," said Olivares, to Steenie's intense astonishment. "Is it possible," exclaimed Buckingham, "that you have a King who can walk like that? What a marvel!" and, leaping from the carriage, he knelt and kissed the young King's hand. Entering the coach again, the party, accompanied now by the King, were driven through the quiet streets of the unlit capital, for it was ten o'clock at night, to the Prado, where the Prince, with Gondomar, Bristol, Aston, and Cottington, in another coach, awaited their coming. Descending and embracing warmly, the King and Prince then re-entered the carriage with Bristol alone, and for more than half an hour discoursed amiable banalities in the darkness under the overhanging trees of the promenade.
Thenceforward Buckingham and Olivares by agreement changed offices, the former constituting himself chief equerry in waiting to Philip, whilst Olivares attended Prince Charles. In pursuance of this idea, the suite of apartments in the palace occupied by Olivares as master of the horse were hastily prepared with great magnificence for the occupation of the English Prince; and whilst their redecoration and furnishing were being accomplished, Charles was invited to transfer his lodging to the rooms in the monastery of St. Geronimo in the Prado, to which the Kings of Spain usually retired in times of mourning, and previous to state entries to the capital, an invitation which he did not accept.
In the week that followed the first meeting of Charles and his host, until Sunday the 16th March,[36] which was the day fixed for his public entry into the city, Madrid was astir with excitement. The pragmatic decrees recently promulgated forbidding starched and fluted ruffs, embroidered dresses, and the use of gold in tissues, and generally suppressing extravagance of living, were all suspended by proclamation during the visit of the Prince; the streets were ordered to be swept and garnished, and the houses on the line of route richly adorned; and Madrid, by the morning of the day fixed for the public entry, had covered its squalor and dirt by an overcoating of finery. All the gaols, too, were emptied of prisoners, by way of welcoming the English guest.[37]