According to Lord Herbert of Cherbury – but can his story really be true? – Philip II of Spain once saw fit to rebuke one of his ambassadors for neglecting some piece of business in Italy because of a disagreement with the French ambassador over a point of honour. How, he asked his ambassador, had he “left a business of importance for a ceremony?” The ambassador boldly replied to his master como por una ceremonia? Vuessa Majesta misma no es sino una ceremonia. “How, for a ceremony? Your Majesty's self is but a ceremony”.

The elaborately ceremonious character of Spanish court life was notorious among Europeans of the late sixteenth centuries. But if they laughed, they also imitated. Charles I of England, deeply impressed by his experiences on his visit to Madrid as Prince of Wales in 1623, introduced a decorum into the ceremonial of the English court which bid fair to outdo that of the Spaniards. Yet in spite of the pervasive influence of Spanish manners and ceremonial in Early Modern Europe, all too little is known about the character and organization of the court of the Spanish Habsburgs, and the ways in which it developed. From Saint-Simon to Norbert Elias it is the court of Louis XIV of France that has been taken as the archetype of courtly society in the age of absolutism.