"All the Court is at the new house" (_i.e._ the Buen Retiro) "for a fortnight," wrote Hopton in July 1634, "which time hath been spent in all manner of entertainments and much to their Majesties' contentment, wherein the Count of Olivares took great pains, all things being ordered by himself; and so well, as it savoured of his excellent { 281} judgment in all things, especially in the furniture of the house, which was such as not to be thought there had been so many curiosities in the whole kingdom; and this at very little expense, for it was for the most part done by presents. Howbeit the things that were bought were dearly and punctually paid for, inasmuch as nobody can wisely complain."
Doubtless no one could _wisely_ complain, but many had reason to do so, for few great people with art collections escaped spoliation, and the other palaces were to a great extent denuded of their treasures, for the purpose of cramming the Buen Retiro with rarities. Some of the nobles, like the Auditor Tejada, were artful enough to have copies made of their best pictures, and sent the copies as originals to the Buen Retiro. But, as in his case, this was bitterly resented by Olivares if it was found out. The Marquis of Leganés, the nephew of the Count-Duke, had a superb collection of pictures and articles of vertu brought from Flanders and Italy; but when he was called upon to disgorge, his wife stepped in and claimed the whole collection as her dowry, and the Marquis was let off with the present of a piece of tapestry. The chapel was fitted up at the expense of the President of the Council of Castile; the Infante Fernando continued to send beautiful objects, many of them spoils of war from Flanders; Olivares' brother-in-law Monterey had to surrender much of the vast store of pictures he had collected at Naples; and all the painters in Madrid were kept busy copying or designing canvasses { 282} for the new palace,[18] under the direction of the King's painter, Don Diego Velazquez, who, having returned from his long visit to Rome, was now, and had been for the last three years, again working indefatigably in his studio in the old Alcazar.
This, indeed, was the period when the great artist produced some of the best of his work, such as the Surrender of Breda (the Lanzas), the portraits of the child Prince Baltasar Carlos, the fine portrait of Olivares reproduced in this book, and the famous equestrian portrait of Philip himself. In the midst of all the growing national trouble, this in many respects was the most brilliant and perhaps the happiest time of Philip's reign, so far as he personally was concerned. His habits were fixed and his pleasures keen. His fits of contrition were frequent, it is true; but they were always banished by fresh pleasures or amours contrived by Olivares. The { 283} King intermittently attended to State business himself; but the interminable discussions and reports by the various Councils upon every subject made the despatch of business peculiarly irksome and tedious. The Spanish system of a consultative and deliberative bureaucracy, indeed, seemed specially devised to disgust anyone but a patient laborious plodder like Philip II. His grandson, impatient of detail and quick of apprehension, loathed the dull pompous discussions of the Councils, and not unnaturally was content to hear a summary of results from Olivares, whose final decision he always confirmed.