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.