Madrid, Wednesday, 12th November, 1664, N.S.
On Monday last, in the afternoon, I should by appointment have had a
conference with the Duke of Medina de las Torres, but in the morning
his Excellency sent to excuse it for that time, upon notice then
arrived of the death of his kinsman, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, which
obliged him to the offices which those cases require.
The manner of this Duke's death, like his quality, was extraordinary.
His Excellency was, for his diversion and recreation, being as then in
good health to all outward appearance, and not much stricken in years,
at a town of his own, not far from Valladolid, where you know his
constant appointed abode was; in that place of recreation, his
Excellency had some number of dogs, newly given him, the which,
looking out of his windows, he happened to see worrying a poor woman.
They neither killed nor maimed her, but the Duke's apprehension was so
great they would do the one or the other, that violently crying out
from the place where he was unto his people to prevent it, he fell
into a sudden ecstacy; from that into a deep melancholy, and from that
into a fever, which dispatched him before his physicians could come
from Valladolid; so thereby verifying in his particular the surname of
his family, de puro bueno murio.
Upon the 7th of November, N.S. I gave the King, Queen, Prince, and
Empress, the parabien of the Prince's birth-day. The day itself was
the precedent, and then it was that I desired audience to that end, by
the Master of the Ceremonies; but it was appointed me, as I have said,
to avoid concurrence with others, as I do believe, according either to
the old or new style of this Court, the which I have formerly
mentioned. However, for the English Ambassador alone, as might be
supposed, all the royal persons put themselves de gala, both as to
apparel and humour. True it is, to make up the jollity enough for two
days at least, there met in one, and the parabien was accordingly both
from the other Ambassadors the day before, and from me then, the Peace
of Germany, and the Prince's birth-day, and both were very well
taken.--Ibid. p. 290.