The small towns and villages of Old Castile welcome Charles Stuart

In the course of the journey of September 1623, Prince Charles would see places not so accustomed to receiving embassies and royal visits. It is admirable to learn how the small towns and villages in the plains and mountains of Old Castile threw themsleves into welcoming him. 

The stops in the towns and villages of Castille

Neither in Santa María de Nieva, Olmedo, Carrión, Herrera de Pisuerga nor in Reinosa would the common people know who was arriving to stay overnight. At most, that he and his entourage had to be “hosted and treated with a lot of love and entertainment” and that they had to abandon their work to go out to receive him. Those from smaller towns such as Santiuste, Puente Duero, Dueñas, San Cebrián de Campos, Osorno or Aguilar de Campoo, where they had planned to stop for lunch at noon, would know even less. There he was seen and not seen: the tables were barely assembled and the food served, when they were disassembled to continue journeying.

None of them had the money to face unforeseen events (especially that year that the fields had not seen a drop of water since April), but those were His Majesty's orders and as always, they tried to faithfully carry them out.

The welcoming they offered the prince

In Santa María, when the English prince went out to the countryside, they welcomed him with a dance of peasant women, "which pleased him," and on his return, with luminaries as a sign of joy for his visit. Those from Santiuste had time to program a bull run and perform labyrinth dances in his honour. The Olmedo Council bought bulls to run through the streets and, in the evening, released another with mounted fireworks. The one from Herrera drained its treasure to prepare Charles's bedchamber and hire bulls, music and dancing, even a company of comedians. In Aguilar, the Marquis of the town made him enjoy an exhibition in the river, a man "entering the water and coming out with a trout in his hands."

Despite all their efforts, it seems that only in Santa María and Aguilar did the prince enjoy himself. The king's counselors could not hide it from His Majesty: "He appears to come so displeased that he doesn't want to see anything." A new diplomatic disagreement with Philip IV, this time by mail, had served to underpin Charles's initial decision to shorten up the jornada as much as possible.