The families fled to the mountains whenever they saw in the distance the king's representative, and so the towns remained deserted and fell into ruins.

Hunger came in even to the royal palaces, and Charles II., Lord of Spain and of the Indies, was unable on several occasions to procure food for his servants.

The ambassadors of England and Denmark were obliged to sally forth with their armed servants to seek for bread in the suburbs of Madrid.
"And amidst all this the innumerable convents, masters of more than half the country and the sole possessors of wealth, showed their charity by distributing soup to those who had strength to fetch it, and by founding asylums and hospitals, where the people died of misery though they were certain of reaching heaven.

The ancient manufactures had all disappeared.

Segovia, so famous for its cloth, that had employed over 40,000 persons in its manufacture, only held 15,000 inhabitants, and these had so completely forgotten the art of weaving wool that when Philip V.wished to re-establish the industry, he was obliged to import German weavers.
"And it was the same thing in Seville, in Valencia, and in Medina del Campo, so famous for their fairs and their manufactures," continued Gabriel.