[See MEMOIRS, p, 201.]
Madrid, Thursday, 7/17th September, 1665.
My letter to your Lordship, delivered his Catholic Majesty, King
Philip the Fourth, in a condition utterly deplored by most, though
with a little spark of hope in some, even physicians, upon a
lightening that showed itself before death as it proved, his Majesty
giving up the ghost this morning between four and five of the clock,
witnessed immediately by all the bells in the town; this being
somewhat observable in my opinion, that neither his Majesty's
sickness, nor his death, was concealed one moment from the people.
Some care is taken that the news thereof shall not be sent out of
these kingdoms till it hath first gone by their own Correos, stopping
all others.
In observation of the custom which ought to be observed in like cases,
the Council of the Chamber of Castile met to open his Majesty's
testament, which he left closed; the which accordingly was opened and
read before the President and said Council, by Don Blasco de Loyola,
Secretary of the Universal Dispatch: this was done at eleven of the
clock this forenoon. His Majesty left the Queen declared Governess of
his kingdoms, assisted by four counsellors ex-officio, viz., the
Archbishop of Toledo, that is or shall be; the President of Castile,
that is or shall be; the Vice-Chancellor of Arragon, that is or shall
be; the management of the kingdom, in like cases, belonging, by
ancient laws of the kingdom, to these three dignities, though his
Majesty should omit to name them; and the Inquisitor-General, that is
or shall be: he is introduced by a new law. His Majesty added to this
number of four, two more, one for a Grandee of Spain, which is the
Marquis of Aytona; and the other, who is the Conde de Penaranda, for
Counsellor of State. His Majesty left for executors of this his will,
the Duke of Medina de las Torres, Fray Juan Martinez, who was his
Majesty's confessor, and the Marquis de Velada.
Don John of Austria came post from Consuegra, soliciting to see his
Majesty by the means of the President of Castile, who, telling his
Majesty that Don John desired his blessing, his Majesty answered, 'He
had not called him, and that he should return presently;' which he
did, as soon as the King expired. This as to the seeing him at the
King's hour of death; but for all that, it is said, his Majesty had
already so far remembered him in his will as to recommend therein to
the Queen and her assistants, his son Don John of Austria, to regard
him and employ him, and if the means he hath be not found sufficient
for his support, to augment the same in some other way. [Footnote: In
the margin, Sir Richard has written, "Sic transit gloria mundi."]
It is said it will not be necessary to make more ceremony for the
giving of obedience to the new King Charles the Second, than with a
banner upon the tower of St. Salvador, to proclaim, 'Castilla,
Castilla por el Rey Don Carlos Segondo nuestro Senor!' and this ought
to be done by the Conde de Chinchon, unto whom, being Regidor of
Madrid, it belongs to execute the said ceremony.
They have embalmed his Majesty, and found in one of his kidneys a
stone of the bigness of a chestnut, in the other a kind of thin web.
They put his dead body, open-faced, with the state accustomed, in the
great gilded hall of the Palace; and upon Saturday, at night, will
carry it to the Escurial to be interred in the incomparable Pantheon
there, begun by his grandfather, carried on by his father, and
finished by himself in his life-time to a ninth wonder, if the
Escurial be the eighth, as the Spaniards term it.--Ibid. f. 387.