CHAPTER XLIX.

JAMES I.

{1622.} To wrest the Palatinate from the hands of the emperor and the

duke of Bavaria, must always have been regarded as a difficult task for

the power of England, conducted by so unwarlike a prince as James: it

was plainly impossible, while the breach subsisted between him and the

commons. The king’s negotiations, therefore, had they been managed with

ever so great dexterity, must now carry less weight with them; and it

was easy to elude all his applications. When Lord Digby, his ambassador

to the emperor, had desired a cessation of hostilities, he was referred

to the duke of Bavaria, who commanded the Austrian armies. The duke of

Bavaria told him, that it was entirely superfluous to form any treaty

for that purpose. “Hostilities are already ceased,” said he, “and I

doubt not but I shall be able to prevent their revival, by keeping firm

possession of the Palatinate, till a final agreement shall be concluded

between the contending parties.”[*]

* Franklyn, p. 57. Rushworth, vol. i. p 38.

Notwithstanding this insult, James endeavored to resume with the emperor

a treaty of accommodation; and he opened the negotiations at Brussels,

under the mediation of Archduke Albert; and, after his death,

which happened about this time, under that of the infanta: when the

conferences were entered upon, it was found, that the powers of

these princes to determine in the controversy were not sufficient or

satisfactory. Schwartzenbourg, the imperial minister, was expected at

London; and it was hoped that he would bring more ample authority: his

commission referred entirely to the negotiation at Brussels. It was not

difficult for the king to perceive that his applications were neglected

by the emperor; but as he had no choice of any other expedient, and it

seemed the interest of his son-in-law to keep alive his pretensions

he was still content to follow Ferdinand through all his shifts and

evasions. Nor was he entirely discouraged, even when the imperial diet

at Ratisbon, by the influence, or rather authority of the emperor,

though contrary to the protestation of Saxony, and of all the Protestant

princes and cities, had transferred the electoral dignity from the

palatine to the duke of Bavaria.

Meanwhile the efforts made by Frederic for the recovery of his

dominions, were vigorous. Three armies were levied in Germany by his

authority, under three commanders, Duke, Christian of Brunswick, the

prince of Baden-Dourlach, and Count Mansfeldt. The two former generals

were defeated by Count Tilly and the imperialists: the third, though

much inferior in force to his enemies, still maintained the war; but

with no equal supplies of money either from the palatine or the king of

England. It was chiefly by pillage and free quarters in the Palatinate,

that he subsisted his army. As the Austrians were regularly paid,

they were kept in more exact discipline; and James justly became

apprehensive, lest so unequal a contest, besides ravaging the palatine’s

hereditary dominions, would end in the total alienation of the people’s

affections from their ancient sovereign, by whom they were plundered,

and in an attachment to their new masters, by whom they were

protected.[*] He persuaded, therefore, his son-in-law to disarm, under

color of duty and submission to the emperor; and, accordingly, Mansfeldt

was dismissed from the palatine’s service; and that famous general

withdrew his army into the Low Countries, and there received a

commission from the states of the United Provinces.

To show how little account was made of James’s negotiations abroad,

there is a pleasantry mentioned by all historians, which, for that

reason, shall have place here. In a farce, acted at Brussels, a courier

was introduced carrying the doleful news, that the Palatinate would

soon be wrested from the house of Austria; so powerful were the succors

which, from all quarters, were hastening to the relief of the despoiled

elector: the king of Denmark had agreed to contribute to his assistance

a hundred thousand pickled herrings, the Dutch a hundred thousand

butter-boxes, and the king of England a hundred thousand ambassadors. On

other occasions, he was painted with a scabbard, but without a sword,

or with a sword which nobody could draw, though several were pulling at

it.[**]

* Parl. Hist. vol. v. p. 484.

** Kennet, p. 749.

It was not from his negotiations with the emperor or the duke of

Bavaria, that James expected any success in his project of restoring the

palatine: his eyes were entirely turned towards Spain; and if he could

effect his son’s marriage with the infanta, he doubted not but that,

after so intimate a conjunction, this other point could easily be

obtained. The negotiations of that court being commonly dilatory, it

was not easy for a prince of so little penetration in business, to

distinguish whether the difficulties which occurred were real or

affected; and he was surprised, after negotiating five years on so

simple a demand, that he was not more advanced than at the beginning.

A dispensation from Rome was requisite for the marriage of the infanta

with a Protestant prince; and the king of Spain, having undertaken to

procure that dispensation, had thereby acquired the means of retarding

at pleasure, or of forwarding the marriage, and at the same time of

concealing entirely his artifices from the court of England.

In order to remove all obstacles, James despatched Digby, soon after

created earl of Bristol, as his ambassador to Philip IV., who had lately

succeeded his father in the crown of Spain. He secretly employed Gage as

his agent at Rome, and finding that the difference of religion was the

principal, if not the sole difficulty, which retarded the marriage, he

resolved to soften that objection as much as possible. He issued public

orders for discharging all Popish recusants who were imprisoned; and

it was daily apprehended that he would forbid, for the future, the

execution of the penal laws enacted against them. For this step, so

opposite to the rigid spirit of his subjects, he took care to apologize;

and he even endeavored to ascribe it to his great zeal for the reformed

religion. He had been making applications, he said, to all foreign

princes, for some indulgence to the distressed Protestants; and he was

still answered by objections derived from the severity of the English

laws against Catholics.[*] It might indeed occur to him, that if the

extremity of religious zeal were ever to abate among Christian sects,

one of them must begin; and nothing would be more honorable for England,

than to have led the way in sentiments so wise and moderate.

* Franklyn p. 69. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 63.

Not only the religious Puritans murmured at this tolerating measure of

the king; the lovers of civil liberty were alarmed at so important

an exertion of prerogative. But, among other dangerous articles of

authority, the kings of England were at that time possessed of the

dispensing power; at least, were at the constant practice of exercising

it. Besides, though the royal prerogative in civil matters was then

extensive, the princes, during some late reigns, had been accustomed

to assume a still greater in ecclesiastical. And the king failed not

to represent the toleration of Catholics as a measure entirely of that

nature.

By James’s concession in favor of the Catholics, he attained his end.

The same religious motives which had hitherto rendered the court of

Madrid insincere in all the steps taken with regard to the marriage,

were now the chief cause of promoting it. By its means, it was there

hoped the English Catholics would for the future enjoy ease and

indulgence; and the infanta would be the happy instrument of procuring

to the church some tranquillity, after the many severe persecutions

which it had hitherto undergone. The earl of Bristol, a minister of

vigilance and penetration, and who had formerly opposed all alliance

with Catholics,[*] was now fully convinced of the sincerity of Spain;

and he was ready to congratulate the king on the entire completion of

his views and projects.[**] A daughter of Spain, whom he represents

as extremely accomplished, would soon, he said, arrive in England, and

bring with her an immense fortune of two millions of pieces of eight,

or six hundred thousand pounds sterling; a sum four times greater than

Spain had ever before given with any princess, and almost equal to all

the money which the parliament, during the whole course of this reign,

had hitherto granted to the king. But what was of more importance

to James’s honor and happiness, Bristol considered this match as an

infallible prognostic of the palatine’s restoration; nor would Philip,

he thought, ever have bestowed his sister and so large a fortune, under

the prospect of entering next day into a war with England. So exact was

his intelligence, that the most secret counsels of the Spaniards, he

boasts, had never escaped him;[***] and he found that they had all

along considered the marriage of the infanta and the restitution of

the Palatinate as measures closely connected, or altogether

inseparable.[****]

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 292.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 69.

*** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 272.

**** We find, by private letters between Philip IV. and the

Condé Oliarez, shown by the latter to Buckingham, that the

marriage and the restitution of the Palatinate were always

considered by the court of Spain as inseparable. See

Franklyn, p. 71, 72. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 71, 280, 299,

300. Parl. Hist. vol. vi. p. 66.

However little calculated James’s character to extort so vast a

concession; however improper the measures which he had pursued for

attaining that end; the ambassador could not withstand the plain

evidence of facts, by which Philip now demonstrated his sincerity.

Perhaps, too, like a wise man, he considered, that reasons of state,

which are supposed solely to influence the councils of monarchs, are

not always the motives which there predominate; that the milder views

of gratitude, honor, friendship, generosity, are frequently able, among

princes as well as private persons, to counterbalance these selfish

considerations; that the justice and moderation of James had been

so conspicuous in all these transactions, his reliance on Spain, his

confidence in her friendship, that he had at last obtained the cordial

alliance of that nation, so celebrated for honor and fidelity. Or,

if politics must still be supposed the ruling motive of all public

measures, the maritime power of England was so considerable, and the

Spanish dominions so divided, as might well induce the council of Philip

to think, that a sincere friendship with the masters of the sea could

not be purchased by too great concessions.[*] And as James, during so

many years, had been allured and seduced by hopes and protestations, his

people enraged by delays and disappointments, it would probably occur,

that there was now no medium left between the most inveterate hatred and

the most intimate alliance between the nations. Not to mention that, as

a new spirit began about this time to animate the councils of France,

the friendship of England became every day more necessary to the

greatness and security of the Spanish monarch.

All measures being, therefore, agreed on between the parties, nought was

wanting but the dispensation from Rome, which might be considered as a

mere formality.[**] The king, justified by success, now exulted in his

pacific counsels, and boasted of his superior sagacity and penetration;

when all these flattering prospects were blasted by the temerity of a

man whom he had fondly exalted from a private condition, to be the bane

of himself, of his family, and of his people.

* Franklyn, p. 72.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 66.

Ever since the fall of Somerset, Buckingham had governed, with an

uncontrolled sway, both the court and nation; and could James’s eyes

have been opened, he had now full opportunity of observing how unfit

his favorite was for the high station to which he was raised. Some

accomplishments of a courtier he possessed: of every talent of a

minister he was utterly destitute. Headlong in his passions, and

incapable equally of prudence and of dissimulation; sincere from

violence rather than candor; expensive from profusion more than

generosity; a warm friend, a furious enemy, but without any choice or

discernment in either; with these qualities he had early and quickly

mounted to the highest rank; and partook at once of the insolence which

attends a fortune newly acquired, and the impetuosity which belongs to

persons born in high stations and unacquainted with opposition.

{1623.} Among those who had experienced the arrogance of this overgrown

favorite, the prince of Wales himself had not been entirely spared; and

a great coldness, if not an enmity, had, for that reason, taken place

between them. Buckingham, desirous of an opportunity which might connect

him with the prince, and overcome his aversion, and, at the same

time envious of the great credit acquired by Bristol in the Spanish

negotiation, bethought himself of an expedient by which he might at once

gratify both these inclinations. He represented to Charles, that persons

of his exalted station were peculiarly unfortunate in their marriage,

the chief circumstance of life; and commonly received into their arms

a bride unknown to them, to whom they were unknown; not endeared

by sympathy, not obliged by service; wooed by treaties alone, by

negotiations, by political interests: that however accomplished the

infanta, she must still consider herself as a melancholy victim of

state, and could not but think with aversion of that day when she was to

enter the bed of a stranger; and, passing into a foreign country and a

new family, bid adieu forever to her father’s house and to her native

land: that it was in the prince’s power to soften all these rigors and

lay such an obligation on her, as would attach the most indifferent

temper, as would warm the coldest affections: that his journey to Madrid

would be an unexpected gallantry, which would equal all the fictions of

Spanish romance, and, suiting the amorous and enterprising character of

that nation, must immediately introduce him to the princess under the

agreeable character of a devoted lover and daring adventurer: that

the negotiations with regard to the Palatinate, which had hitherto

languished in the hands of ministers, would quickly he terminated by so

illustrious an agent, seconded by the mediation and entreaties of the

grateful infanta: that Spanish generosity, moved by that unexampled

trust and confidence, would make concessions beyond what could be

expected from political views and considerations: and that he would

quickly return to the king with the glory of having reëstablished

the unhappy palatine, by the same enterprise which procured him the

affections and the person of the Spanish princess.[*]

The mind of the young prince, replete with candor, was inflamed by these

generous and romantic ideas suggested by Buckingham. He agreed to make

application to the king for his approbation. They chose the moment of

his kindest and most jovial humor; and, more by the earnestness which

they expressed, than by the force of their reasons, they obtained a

hasty and unguarded consent to their undertaking. And having engaged his

promise to keep their purpose secret, they left him, in order to make

preparations for the journey.

No sooner was the king alone, than his temper, more cautious than

sanguine, suggested very different views of the matter, and represented

every difficulty and danger which could occur. He reflected that however

the world might pardon this sally of youth in the prince, they would

never forgive himself, who, at his years, and after his experience,

could intrust his only son, the heir of his crown, the prop of his age,

to the discretion of foreigners, without so much as providing the frail

security of a safe-conduct in his favor: that if the Spanish monarch

were sincere in his professions, a few months must finish the treaty of

marriage, and bring the infanta into England; if he were not sincere,

the folly was still more egregious of committing the prince into his

hands: that Philip, when possessed of so invaluable a pledge, might well

rise in his demands, and impose harder conditions of treaty: and that

the temerity of the enterprise was so apparent, that the event, how

prosperous soever, could not justify it; and if disastrous, it

would render himself infamous to his people, and ridiculous to all

posterity.[**]

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 11, 12.

** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 14.

Tormented with these reflections, as soon as the prince and Buckingham

returned for their despatches, he informed them of all the reasons

which had determined him to change his resolution; and he begged them

to desist from so foolish an adventure. The prince received the

disappointment with sorrowful submission and silent tears: Buckingham

presumed to speak in an imperious tone, which he had ever experienced to

be prevalent over his too easy master. He told the king, that nobody for

the future would believe any thing he said, When he retracted so soon

the promise so solemnly given; that he plainly discerned this change of

resolution to proceed from another breach of his word, in communicating

the matter to some rascal, who had furnished him with those pitiful

reasons which he had alleged, and he doubted not but he should hereafter

know who his counsellor had been; and that if he receded from what he

had promised, it would be such a dis-obligation to the prince, who had

now set his heart upon the journey, after his majesty’s approbation,

that he could never forget it, nor forgive any man who had been the

cause of it[*]

* Clarendon vol. i. p. 16.

The king, with great earnestness, fortified by many oaths, made his

apology, by denying that he had communicated the matter to any; and

finding himself assailed, as well by the boisterous importunities of

Buckingham, as by the warm entreaties of his son, whose applications had

hitherto, on other occasions, been always dutiful, never earnest, he had

again the weakness to assent to their purposed journey. It was agreed

that Sir Francis Cottington alone, the prince’s secretary, and Endymion

Porter, gentleman of his bed-chamber, should accompany them; and the

former being at that time in the antechamber, he was immediately called

in by the king’s orders.

James told Cottington, that he had always been an honest man,

and therefore he was now to trust him in an affair of the highest

importance, which he was not, upon his life, to disclose to any man

whatever. “Cottington,” added he, “here is baby Charles and Stenny,”

(these ridiculous appellations he usually gave to the prince and

Buckingham,) “who have a great mind to go post into Spain, and fetch

home the infanta: they will have but two more in their company, and have

chosen you for one. What think you of the journey?” Sir Francis, who was

a prudent man, and had resided some years in Spain as the king’s agent,

was struck with all the obvious objections to such an enterprise, and

scrupled not to declare them. The king threw himself upon his bed, and

cried, “I told you this before;” and fell into a new passion and new

lamentations, complaining that he was undone, and should lose baby

Charles.

The prince showed by his countenance, that he was extremely dissatisfied

with Cottington’s discourse; but Buckingham broke into an open passion

against him. The king, he told him, asked him only of the journey,

and of the manner of travelling; particulars of which he might be a

competent judge, having gone the road so often by post; but that he,

without being called to it, had the presumption to give his advice upon

matters of state, and against his master, which he should repent as long

as he lived. A thousand other reproaches he added, which put the poor

king into a new agony in behalf of a servant, who, he foresaw, would

suffer for answering him honestly. Upon which he said, with some

emotion, “Nay, by God, Stenny, you are much to blame for using him so:

he answered me directly to the question which I asked him, and very

honestly and wisely; and yet, you know, he said no more than I told you

before he was called in.” However, after all this passion on both sides,

James renewed his consent; and proper directions were given for the

journey. Nor was he now at any loss to discover, that the whole intrigue

was originally contrived by Buckingham, as well as pursued violently by

his spirit and impetuosity.

These circumstances, which so well characterize the persons, seem to

have been related by Cottington to Lord Clarendon, from whom they are

here transcribed; and though minute, are not undeserving of a place in

history.

The prince and Buckingham, with their two attendants, and Sir Richard

Graham, master of horse to Buckingham, passed disguised and undiscovered

through France; and they even ventured into a court ball at Paris, where

Charles saw the princess Henrietta, whom he afterwards espoused, and who

was at that time in the bloom of youth and beauty. In eleven days after

their departure from London, they arrived at Madrid; and surprised

every body by a step so unusual among great princes. The Spanish monarch

immediately paid Charles a visit, expressed the utmost gratitude for

the confidence reposed in him, and made warm protestations of a

correspondent confidence and friendship. By the most studied civilities,

he showed the respect which he bore to his royal guest. He gave him

a golden key, which opened all his apartments, that the prince might;

without any introduction, have access to him at all hours: he took the

left hand of him on every occasion, except in the apartments assigned

to Charles; for there, he said, the prince was at home: Charles was

introduced into the palace with the same pomp and ceremony that attends

the kings of Spain on their coronation: the council received public

orders to obey him as the king himself.

Olivarez too, though a grandee of Spain, who has the right of being

covered before his own king, would not put on his hat in the prince’s

presence:[*] all the prisons of Spain were thrown open, and all the

prisoners received their freedom, as if the event the most honorable and

most fortunate had happened to the monarchy:[**] and every sumptuary

law with regard to apparel was suspended during Charles’s residence in

Spain. The infanta, however, was only shown to her lover in public; the

Spanish ideas of decency being so strict, as not to allow of any further

intercourse, till the arrival of the dispensation.[***]

The point of honor was carried so far by that generous people, that no

attempt was made, on account of the advantage which they had acquired,

of imposing any harder conditions of treaty: their pious zeal only

prompted them, on one occasion, to desire more concessions in the

religious articles; but, upon the opposition of Bristol, accompanied

with some reproaches, they immediately desisted. The pope, however,

hearing of the prince’s arrival in Madrid, tacked some new clauses to

the dispensation;[****] and it became necessary to transmit the articles

to London, that the king might ratify them. This treaty, which was made

public, consisted of several articles, chiefly regarding the exercise

of the Catholic religion by the infanta and her household. Nothing could

reasonably be found fault with, except one article, in which the king

promised, that the children should be educated by the princess, till ten

years of age. This condition could not be insisted on, but with a view

of seasoning their minds with Catholic principles; and though so tender

an age seemed a sufficient security against theological prejudices, yet

the same reason which made the pope insert that article, should have

induced the king to reject it.

Besides the public treaty, there were separate articles, privately sworn

to by the king; in which he promised to suspend the penal laws enacted

against Catholics, to procure a repeal of them in parliament, and to

grant a toleration for the exercise of the Catholic religion in private

houses.[v]

* Franklyn, p. 73.

** Franklyn, p. 74.

*** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 77.

**** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 84.

v Franklyn, p. 80. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 89. Kennet, p.

769.

Great murmurs, we may believe, would have arisen against these articles,

had they been made known to the public; since we find it to have been

imputed as an enormous crime to the prince that, having received, about

this time, a very civil letter from the pope, he was induced to return a

very civil answer.[*]

Meanwhile Gregory XV., who granted the dispensation, died; and Urban

VIII. was chosen in his place. Upon this event, the nuncio refused to

deliver the dispensation, till it should be renewed by Urban; and that

crafty pontiff delayed sending a new dispensation, in hopes that, during

the prince’s residence in Spain, some expedient might be fallen upon

to effect his conversion. The king of England, as well as the prince,

became impatient. On the first hint, Charles obtained permission to

return; and Philip graced his departure with all the circumstances of

elaborate civility and respect which had attended his reception. He even

erected a pillar on the spot where they took leave of each other, as

a monument of mutual friendship; and the prince, having sworn to the

observance of all the articles, entered on his journey, and embarked on

board the English fleet at St. Andero.

The character of Charles, composed of decency, reserve, modesty,

sobriety, virtues so agreeable to the manners of the Spaniards; the

unparalleled confidence which he had reposed in their nation; the

romantic gallantry which he had practised towards the princess; all

these circumstances, joined to his youth and advantageous figure, had

endeared him to the whole court of Madrid, and had impressed the most

favorable ideas of him.[**] But, in the same proportion that the

prince was beloved and esteemed, was Buckingham despised and hated.

His behavior, composed of English familiarity and French vivacity; his

sallies of passion, his indecent freedoms with the prince, his dissolute

pleasures, his arrogant, impetuous temper, which he neither could nor

cared to disguise; qualities like these could, most of them, be

esteemed nowhere, but to the Spaniards were the objects of peculiar

aversion.[***] They could not conceal their surprise, that such a

youth could intrude into a negotiation, now conducted to a period by so

accomplished a minister as Bristol, and could assume to himself all the

merit of it. They lamented the infanta’s fate, who must be approached by

a man whose temerity seemed to respect no laws, divine or human.[****]

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 82. Franklyn, p. 77.

** Franklyn, p. 80. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 103.

*** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 101.

**** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 36.

And when they observed, that he had the imprudence to insult the Condé

duke of Olivarez, their prime minister, every one who was ambitious of

paying court to the Spanish became desirous of showing a contempt for

the English favorite.

The duke of Buckingham told Olivarez, that his own attachment to the

Spanish nation and to the king of Spain was extreme; that he would

contribute to every measure which could cement the friendship between

England and them; and that his peculiar ambition would be to facilitate

the prince’s marriage with the infanta. But he added, with a sincerity

equally insolent and indiscreet, “With regard to you, sir, in

particular, you must not consider me as your friend, but must ever

expect from me all possible enmity and opposition.” The Condé duke

replied, with a becoming dignity, that he very willingly accepted of

what was proffered him: and on these terms the favorites parted.[*]

Buckingham, sensible how odious he was become to the Spaniards, and

dreading the influence which that nation would naturally acquire after

the arrival of the infanta, resolved to employ all his credit in order

to prevent the marriage, By what arguments he could engage the prince

to offer such an insult to the Spanish nation, from whom he had met

with such generous treatment; by what colors he could disguise the

ingratitude and imprudence of such a measure; these are totally unknown

to us. We may only conjecture, that the many unavoidable causes of

delay which had so long prevented the arrival of the dispensation, had

afforded to Buckingham a pretence for throwing on the Spaniards the

imputation of insincerity in the whole treaty. It also appears, that

his impetuous and domineering character had acquired, what it ever

after maintained, a total ascendant over the gentle and modest temper

of Charles; and, when the prince left Madrid, he was firmly determined,

notwithstanding all his professions, to break off the treaty with Spain.

It is not likely that Buckingham prevailed so easily with James to

abandon a project which, during so many years, had been the object of

all his wishes, and which he had now unexpectedly conducted to a happy

period.[**]

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 103. Clarendon, vol. i. p. 37.

** Hacket’s Life of Williams.

A rupture with Spain, the loss of two millions, were prospects little

agreeable to this pacific and indigent monarch. But, finding his only

son bent against a match which had always been opposed by his people and

his parliament, he yielded to difficulties which he had not courage

or strength of mind sufficient to overcome. The prince, therefore, and

Buckingham, on their arrival at London, assumed entirely the direction

of the negotiation; and it was their business to seek for pretences by

which they could give a color to their intended breach of treaty.

Though the restitution of the Palatinate had ever been considered by

James as a natural or necessary consequence of the Spanish alliance,

he had always forbidden his ministers to insist on it as a preliminary

article to the conclusion of the marriage treaty. He considered, that

this principality was now in the hands of the emperor and the duke of

Bavaria and that it was no longer in the king of Spain’s power, by

a single stroke of his pen, to restore it to its ancient master. The

strict alliance of Spain with these princes would engage Philip, he

thought, to soften so disagreeable a demand by every art of negotiation;

and many articles must of necessity be adjusted, before such an

important point could be effected. It was sufficient, in James’s

opinion, if the sincerity of the Spanish court could, for the present,

be ascertained; and, dreading further delays of the marriage, so long

wished for, he was resolved to trust the palatine’s full restoration to

the event of future counsels and deliberations.[*]

This whole system of negotiation Buckingham now reversed; and he

overturned every supposition upon which the treaty had hitherto been

conducted. After many fruitless artifices were employed to delay or

prevent the espousals, Bristol received positive orders not to deliver

the proxy, which had been left in his hands, or to finish the marriage,

till security were given for the full restitution of the Palatinate.[**]

* Parl. Hist. vol. vi. p. 57.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 105. Rennet, p. 776.

Philip understood this language. He had been acquainted with the disgust

received by Buckingham; and deeming him a man capable of sacrificing to

his own ungovernable passions the greatest interests of his master and

of his country, his had expected, that the unbounded credit of that

favorite would be employed to embroil the two nations. Determined,

however to throw the blame of the rupture entirely on the English,

he delivered into Bristol’s hand a written promise, by which he

bound himself to procure the restoration of the Palatinate either by

persuasion, or by every other possible means; and when he found that

this concession gave no satisfaction, he ordered the infanta to lay

aside the title of princess of Wales which she bore after the arrival

of the dispensation from Rome, and to drop the study of the English

language.[*] Any thinking that such rash counsels as now governed the

court of England, would not stop at the breach of the marriage treaty,

he ordered preparations for war immediately to be made throughout all

his dominions.[**]

Thus James, having, by means inexplicable from the ordinary rules of

politics, conducted, so near an honorable period, the marriage of

his son and the restoration of his son-in-law, failed at last of his

purpose, by means equally unaccountable.

But though the expedients already used by Buckingham were sufficiently

inglorious, both for himself and for the nation, it was necessary for

him, ere he could fully effect his purpose, to employ artifices still

more dishonorable.

{1624.} The king, having broken with Spain, was obliged to concert new

measures; and, without the assistance of parliament, no effectual step

of any kind could be taken. The benevolence which, during the interval,

had been rigorously exacted for recovering the Palatinate, though levied

for no popular an end, had procured to the king less money than ill will

from his subjects.[***] Whatever discouragements, therefore, he might

receive from his ill agreement with former parliaments, there was a

necessity of summoning once more this assembly: and it might be hoped,

that the Spanish alliance which gave such umbrage, being abandoned, the

commons would now be better satisfied with the king’s administration.

In his speech to the houses, James dropped some hints of his cause

of complaint against Spain; and he graciously condescended to ask the

advice of parliament, which he had ever before rejected, with regard to

the conduct of so important so affair as his son’s marriage.[****]

* Franklyn, p. 80. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 112.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 114.

*** To show by what violent measures benevolences were

usually raised, Johnstone tells us, in his Rerum

Britanniearum Historia, that Barnes, a citizen of London,

was the first who refused to contribute any thing upon which

the treasurer sent him word, that he must immediately

prepare himself to carry by post a despatch into Ireland,

The citizen was glad to make his peace by paying a hundred

pounds. And no one durst afterwards refuse the benevolence

required. See further, Coke, p. 80.

**** Franklyn, p. 79. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 115. Kennet, p.

778.

Buckingham delivered to a committee of lords and commons a long

narrative, which he pretended to be true and complete, of every step

taken in the negotiations with Philip: but, partly by the suppression of

some facts, partly by the false coloring laid on others, this narrative

was calculated entirely to mislead the parliament, and to throw on the

court of Spain the reproach of artifice and insincerity. He said, that,

after many years’ negotiation, the king found not himself any nearer his

purpose; and that Bristol had never brought the treaty beyond general

professions and declarations; that the prince, doubting the good

intentions of Spain, resolved at last to take a journey to Madrid, and

put the matter to the utmost trial; that he there found such artificial

dealing as made him conclude all the steps taken towards the marriage

to be false and deceitful: that the restitution of the Palatinate, which

had ever been regarded by the king as an essential preliminary, was not

seriously intended by Spain; and that, after enduring much bad usage,

the prince was obliged to return to England, without any hopes, either

of obtaining the infanta, or of restoring the elector palatine.[*]

This narrative, which, considering the importance of the occasion, and

the solemnity of that assembly to which it was delivered, deserves

great blame, was yet vouched for truth by the prince of Wales, who was

present; and the king himself lent it, indirectly, his authority, by

telling the parliament, that it was by his orders Buckingham laid the

whole affair before them. The conduct of these princes it is difficult

fully to excuse. It is in vain to plead the youth and inexperience of

Charles; unless his inexperience and youth, as is probable,[**] [57] if

not certain, really led him into error, and made him swallow all the

falsities of Buckingham. And though the king was here hurried from his

own measures by the impetuosity of others, nothing should have induced

him to prostitute his character, and seem to vouch the impostures, at

least false colorings, of his favorite, of which he had so good reason

to entertain a suspicion.[***]

* Franklyn, p.89, 90, 91, etc. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 119,

120, etc. Parl. Hist. vol. vi. p. 20, 21, etc.

** See note EEE, at the end of the volume.

*** It must, however, be confessed, that the king afterwards

warned the house not to take Buckingham’s narrative for his,

though it was said before them by his order. Parl. Hist.

vol. vi. p. 104. James was probably ashamed to have been

carried so far by his favorite.

Buckingham’s narrative, however artfully disguised, contained so many

contradictory circumstances, as were sufficient to open the eyes of

all reasonable men; but it concurred so well with the passions and

prejudices of the parliament, that no scruple was made of immediately

adopting it.[*] Charmed with having obtained at length the opportunity,

so long wished for, of going to war with Papists, they little thought of

future consequences; but immediately advised the king to break off both

treaties with Spain, as well that which regarded the marriage, as that

for the restitution of the Palatinate.[**] The people, ever greedy of

war till they suffer by it, displayed their triumph at these violent

measures by public bonfires and rejoicings, and by insults on the

Spanish ministers. Buckingham was now the favorite of the public and of

the parliament. Sir Edward Coke, in the house of commons, called him the

savior of the nation.[***] Every place resounded with his praises. And

he himself, intoxicated by a popularity which he enjoyed so little time,

and which he so ill deserved, violated all duty to his indulgent master,

and entered into cabals with the Puritanical members, who had ever

opposed the royal authority. He even encouraged schemes for abolishing

the order of bishops, and selling the dean and chapter lands, in order

to defray the expenses of a Spanish war. And the king, though he still

entertained projects for temporizing, and for forming an accommodation

with Spain, was so borne down by the torrent of popular prejudices,

conducted and increased by Buckingham, that he was at last obliged, in

a speech to parliament, to declare in favor of hostile measures, if they

would engage to support him.[****] Doubts of their sincerity in this

respect, doubts which the event showed not to be ill grounded, had

probably been one cause of his former pacific and dilatory measures.

* Parl. Hist. vol. vi. p. 75.

** Franklyn, p. 98. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 128. Parl. Hist.

vol. vi. p. 103.

*** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 6.

**** Franklyn, p. 94, 95. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 129, 130.

In his speech on this occasion, the king began with lamenting his own

unhappiness, that, having so long valued himself on the epithet of the

pacific monarch, he should now, in his old age, be obliged to exchange

the blessings of peace for the inevitable calamities of war. He

represented to them the immense and continued expense requisite for

military armaments; and, besides supplies from time to time, as they

should become necessary, he demanded a vote of six subsidies and twelve

fifteenths, as a proper stock before the commencement of hostilities.

He told them of his intolerable debts, chiefly contracted by the sums

remitted to the palatine;[*] [58] but he added, that he did not insist

on any supply for his own relief, and that it was sufficient for him if

the honor and security of the public were provided for. To remove all

suspicion, he, who had ever strenuously maintained his prerogative, and

who had even extended it into some points esteemed doubtful, now made an

imprudent concession, of which the consequences might have proved fatal

to royal authority; he voluntarily offered, that the money voted should

be paid to a committee of parliament, and should be issued by them,

without being intrusted to his management.[**] The commons willingly

accepted of this concession, so unusual in an English monarch: they

voted him only three subsidies and three fifteenths:[***] and they

took no notice of the complaints which he made of his own wants and

necessities.

Advantage was also taken of the present good agreement between the king

and parliament, in order to pass the bill against monopolies, which

had formerly been encouraged by the king, but which had failed by

the rupture between him and the last house of commons. This bill was

conceived in such terms as to render it merely declaratory; and all

monopolies were condemned, as contrary to law and to the known liberties

of the people. It was there supposed, that every subject of England had

entire power to dispose of his own actions, provided he did no injury

to any of his fellow subjects; and that no prerogative of the king, no

power of any magistrate, nothing but the authority alone of laws, could

restrain that unlimited freedom. The full prosecution of this noble

principle into all its natural consequences, has at last, through many

contests, produced that singular and happy government which we enjoy at

present.[****] [59]

* See note FFF, at the end of the volume.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 137.

*** Less than three hundred thousand pounds.

**** See note GGG, at the end of the volume.

The house of commons also corroborated, by a new precedent, the

important power of impeachment, which, two years before, they had

exercised in the case of Chancellor Bacon, and which had lain dormant

for near two centuries, except when they served as instruments of

royal vengeance. The earl of Middlesex had been raised, by Buckingham’s

interest, from the rank of a London merchant, to be treasurer of

England; and, by his activity and address, seemed not unworthy of

that preferment. But, as he incurred the displeasure of his patron,

by scrupling or refusing some demands of money during the prince’s

residence in Spain, that favorite vowed revenge, and employed all his

credit among the commons to procure an impeachment of the treasurer. The

king was extremely dissatisfied with this measure, and prophesied to

the prince and duke, that they would live to have their fill of

parliamentary prosecutions.[*] In a speech to the parliament, he

endeavored to apologize for Middlesex, and to soften the accusation

against him.[**] The charge, however, was still maintained by the

commons; and the treasurer was found guilty by the peers, though the

misdemeanors proved against him were neither numerous nor important. The

accepting of two presents of five hundred pounds apiece, for passing

two patents, was the article of greatest weight. His sentence was, to

be fined fifty thousand pounds for the king’s-use, and to suffer all the

other penalties formerly inflicted upon Bacon. The fine was afterwards

remitted by the prince, when he mounted the throne.

This session, an address was also made, very disagreeable to the king,

craving the severe execution of the laws against Catholics. His

answer was gracious and condescending;[***] though he declared against

persecution, as being an improper measure for the suppression of any

religion, according to the received maxim, “That the blood of the

martyrs was the seed of the church.” He also condemned an entire

indulgence of the Catholics; and seemed to represent a middle course as

the most humane and most politic. He went so far as even to affirm

with an oath, that he never had entertained any thoughts of granting a

toleration to these religionists.[****] The liberty of exercising

their worship in private houses, which he had secretly agreed to in the

Spanish treaty, did not appear to him deserving that name; and it was

probably by means of this explication, he thought that he had saved his

honor. And as Buckingham, in his narrative,[v] confessed that the king

had agreed to a temporary suspension of the penal laws against the

Catholics, which he distinguished from a toleration, (a term at that

time extremely odious,) James naturally deemed his meaning to be

sufficiently explained, and feared not any reproach of falsehood or

duplicity, on account of this asseveration.

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 23.

** Parl. Hist. vol. vi. p. 19.

*** Franklyn, p. 101, 102.

**** See, further, Franklyn, p. 87.

v Parl. Hist. vol. vi. p. 37.

After all these transactions, the parliament was prorogued by the king,

who let fall some hints, though in gentle terms, of the sense which he

entertained of their unkindness in not supplying his necessities.[*]

* Franklyn, p. 103.

James, unable to resist so strong a combination as that of his people,

his parliament, his son, and his favorite, had been compelled to

embrace measures for which, from temper as well as judgment, he had

ever entertained a most settled aversion. Though he dissembled his

resentment, he began to estrange himself from Buckingham, to whom he

ascribed all those violent counsels, and whom he considered as the

author, both of the prince’s journey to Spain, and of the breach of the

marriage treaty. The arrival of Bristol he impatiently longed for; and

it was by the assistance of that minister, whose wisdom he respected,

and whose views he approved, that he hoped in time to extricate himself

from his present difficulties.

During the prince’s abode in Spain, that able negotiator had ever

opposed, though unsuccessfully, to the impetuous measures suggested by

Buckingham, his own wise and well-tempered counsels. After Charles’s

departure, he still, upon the first appearance of a change of

resolution, interposed his advice, and strenuously insisted on the

sincerity of the Spaniards in the conduct of the treaty, as well as the

advantages which England must reap from the completion of it. Enraged

to find that his successful labors should be rendered abortive by the

levities and caprices of an insolent minion, he would understand no

hints; and nothing but express orders from his master could engage him

to make that demand which, he was sensible, must put a final period to

the treaty. He was not, therefore, surprised to hear that Buckingham had

declared himself his open enemy, and, on all occasions, had thrown out

many violent reflections against him.

Nothing could be of greater consequence to Buckingham than to keep

Bristol at a distance both from the king and the parliament; lest the

power of truth, enforced by so well-informed a speaker, should open

scenes which were but suspected by the former, and of which the latter

had as yet entertained no manner of jealousy. He applied therefore to

James, whose weakness, disguised to himself under the appearance of

finesse and dissimulation, was now become absolutely incurable. A

warrant for sending Bristol to the Tower was issued immediately upon his

arrival in England;[*] and though he was soon released from confinement,

yet orders were carried him from the king, to retire to his country

seat, and to abstain from all attendance in parliament He obeyed; but

loudly demanded an opportunity of justifying himself, and of laying

his whole conduct before his master. On all occasions, he protested

his innocence, and threw on his enemy the blame of every miscarriage.

Buckingham, and, at his instigation, the prince, declared that they

would be reconciled to Bristol, if he would but acknowledge his errors

and ill conduct: but the spirited nobleman, jealous of his honor,

refused to buy favor at so high a price. James had the equity to say,

that the insisting on that condition was a strain of unexampled tyranny:

but Buckingham scrupled not to assert, with his usual presumption, that

neither the king, the prince, nor himself, were as yet satisfied of

Bristol’s innocence.[**]

While the attachment of the prince to Buckingham, while the timidity

of James or the shame of changing his favorite, kept the whole court

in awe, the Spanish ambassador, Inoiosa, endeavored to open the king’s

eyes, and to cure his fears by instilling greater fears into him. He

privately slipped into his hand a paper, and gave him a signal to read

it alone. He there told him, that he was as much a prisoner at London

as ever Francis I. was at Madrid; that the prince and Buckingham had

conspired together, and had the whole court at their devotion; that

cabals among the popular leaders in parliament were carrying on, to the

extreme prejudice of his authority; that the project was to confine him

to some of his hunting seats, and to commit the whole administration to

Charles; and that it was necessary for him, by one vigorous effort, to

vindicate his authority, and to punish those who had so long and so much

abused his friendship and beneficence.[***]

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 145.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 259.

*** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 144. Hacket’s Life of Williams.

Coke p. 107.

What credit James gave to this representation does not appear. He

only discovered some faint symptoms, which he instantly retracted, of

dissatisfaction with Buckingham. All his public measures, and all the

alliances into which he entered, were founded on the system of enmity to

the Austrian family, and of war to be carried on for the recovery of the

Palatinate.

The states of the United Provinces were at this time governed by

Maurice; and that aspiring prince, sensible that his credit would

languish during peace, had, on the expiration of the twelve years’

truce, renewed the war with the Spanish monarchy. His great capacity in

the military art would have compensated the inferiority of his forces,

had not the Spanish armies been commanded by Spinola, a general equally

renowned for conduct, and more celebrated for enterprise and activity.

In such a situation, nothing could, be more welcome to the republic than

the prospect of a rupture between James and the Catholic king; and

they flattered themselves, as well from the natural union of interests

between them and England, as from the influence of the present

conjuncture, that powerful succors would soon march to their relief.

Accordingly an army of six thousand men was levied in England, and

sent over to Holland, commanded by four young noblemen, Essex, Oxford,

Southampton, and Willoughby, who were ambitious of distinguishing

themselves in so popular a cause, and of acquiring military experience

under so renowned a captain as Maurice.

It might reasonably have been expected, that, as religious zeal had made

the recovery of the Palatinate appear a point of such vast importance in

England, the same effect must have been produced in France, by the force

merely of political views and considerations. While that principality

remained in the hands of the house of Austria, the French dominions were

surrounded on all sides by the possessions of that ambitious family, and

might be invaded by superior forces from every quarter. It concerned the

king of France, therefore, to prevent the peaceable establishment of

the emperor in his new conquests; and both by the situation and greater

power of his state, he was much better enabled than James to give succor

to the distressed palatine.[*]

* See Collection of State Papers by the earl of Clarendon,

p. 302.

But though these views escaped not Louis,

nor Cardinal Richelieu, who now began to acquire an ascendant in the

French court, that minister was determined to pave the way for his

enterprises by first subduing the Hugonots, and thence to proceed, by

mature counsels, to humble the house of Austria. The prospect, however,

of a conjunction with England was presently embraced, and all imaginable

encouragement was given to every proposal for conciliating a marriage

between Charles and the princess Henrietta.

Notwithstanding the sensible experience which James might have acquired

of the unsurmountable antipathy entertained by his subjects against an

alliance with Catholics, he still persevered in the opinion, that his

son would be degraded by receiving into his bed a princess of less than

royal extraction. After the rupture, therefore, with Spain, nothing

remained but an alliance with France; and to that court he immediately

applied himself.[*] The same allurements had not here place, which had

so long entangled him in the Spanish negotiation: the portion promised

was much inferior; and the peaceable restoration of the palatine could

not thence be expected. But James was afraid lest his son should be

altogether disappointed of a bride; and therefore, as soon as the French

king demanded, for the honor of his crown, the same terms which had

been granted to the Spanish, he was prevailed with to comply. And as the

prince, during his abode in Spain, had given a verbal promise to allow

the infanta the education of her children till the age of thirteen,

this article was here inserted in the treaty; and to that imprudence is

generally imputed the present distressed condition of his posterity. The

court of England, however, it must be confessed, always pretended, even

in their memorials to the French court that all the favorable conditions

granted to the Catholics, were inserted in the marriage treaty merely

to please the pope, and that their strict execution was, by an agreement

with France, secretly dispensed with.[**] [60]

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 152.

** See note HHH, at the end of the volume.

As much as the conclusion of the marriage treaty was acceptable to the

king, as much were all the military enterprises disagreeable, both from

the extreme difficulty of the undertaking in which he was engaged, and

from his own incapacity for such a scene of action.

During the Spanish negotiation, Heidelberg and Manheim had been taken by

the imperial forces; and Frankendale, though the garrison was entirely

English, was closely besieged by them. After reiterated remonstrances

from James, Spain interposed, and procured a suspension of arms during

eighteen months. But as Frankendale was the only place of Frederic’s

ancient dominions which was still in his hands, Ferdinand, desirous of

withdrawing his forces from the Palatinate, and of leaving that state in

security was unwilling that so important a fortress should remain in the

possession of the enemy. To compromise all differences, it was agreed to

sequestrate it into the hands of the infanta as a neutral person;

upon condition that, after the expiration of the truce, it should

be delivered to Frederic; though peace should not, at that time, be

concluded between him and Ferdinand.[*] After the unexpected rupture

with Spain, the infanta, when James demanded the execution of the

treaty, offered him peaceable possession of Frankendale, and

even promised a safe-conduct for the garrison through the Spanish

Netherlands: but there was some territory of the empire interposed

between her state and the Palatinate; and for passage over that

territory, no terms were stipulated.[**] By this chicane, which

certainly had not been employed if amity with Spain had been preserved,

the palatine was totally dispossessed of his patrimonial dominions.

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 74.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 151.

The English nation, however, and James’s warlike council, were not

discouraged. It was still determined to reconquer the Palatinate; a

state lying in the midst of Germany, possessed entirely by the emperor

and duke of Bavaria, surrounded by potent enemies, and cut off from all

communication with England. Count Mansfeldt was taken into pay; and an

English army of twelve thousand foot and two hundred horse was levied

by a general press throughout the kingdom. During the negotiation with

France, vast promises had been made, though in general terms, by the

French ministry; not only that a free passage should be granted to the

English troops, but that powerful succors should also join them in their

march towards the Palatinate. In England, all these professions were

hastily interpreted to be positive engagements. The troops under

Mansfeldt’s command were embarked at Dover; but, upon sailing over to

Calais, found no orders yet arrived for their admission. After waiting

in vain during some time, they were obliged to sail towards Zealand,

where it had also been neglected to concert proper measures for their

disembarkation; and some scruples arose among the states on account of

the scarcity of provisions. Meanwhile a pestilential distemper crept in

among the English forces, so long cooped up in narrow vessels. Half

the army died while on board; and the other half, weakened by sickness,

appeared too small a body to march into the Palatinate.[*]

{1625.} And thus ended this ill-concerted and fruitless expedition;

the only disaster which happened to England during the prosperous and

pacific reign of James.

That reign was now drawing towards a conclusion. With peace, so

successfully cultivated, and so passionately loved by this monarch, his

life also terminated. This spring, he was seized with a tertian ague;

and, when encouraged by his courtiers with the common proverb, that such

a distemper, during that season, was health for a king, he replied, that

the proverb was meant of a young king. After some fits, he found himself

extremely weakened, and sent for the prince, whom he exhorted to bear a

tender affection for his wife, but to preserve a constancy in religion;

to protect the church of England; and to extend his care towards

the unhappy family of the palatine.[**] With decency and courage, he

prepared himself for his end; and he expired on the twenty-seventh of

March, after a reign over England of twenty-two years and some days, and

in the fifty-ninth year of his age. His reign over Scotland was almost

of equal duration with his life. In all history, it would be difficult

to find a reign less illustrious, yet more unspotted and unblemished,

than that of James in both kingdoms.

* Franklyn, p. 104. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 154. Dugdale, p.

24.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 155.

No prince, so little enterprising and so inoffensive, was ever so much

exposed to the opposite extremes of calumny and flattery, of satire

and panegyric. And the factions which began in his time, being still

continued, have made his character be as much disputed to this day, as

is commonly that of princes who are our contemporaries. Many virtues,

however, it must be owned, he was possessed of, but scarce any of

them pure, or free from the contagion of the neighboring vices. His

generosity bordered on profusion, his learning on pedantry, his pacific

disposition on pusillanimity, his wisdom on cunning, his friendship

on light fancy and boyish fondness. While he imagined that he was only

maintaining his own authority, he may, perhaps, be suspected, in a few

of his actions, and still more of his pretensions, to have somewhat

encroached on the liberties of his people: while he endeavored, by an

exact neutrality, to acquire the good will of all his neighbors, he was

able to preserve fully the esteem and regard of none. His capacity was

considerable; but fitter to discourse on general maxims, than to conduct

any intricate business: his intentions were just; but more adapted to

the conduct of private life than to the government of kingdoms. Awkward

in his person, and ungainly in his manners, he was ill qualified to

command respect; partial and undiscerning in his affections, he was

little fitted to acquire general love. Of a feeble temper, more than of

a frail judgment; exposed to our ridicule from his vanity; but exempt

from our hatred by his freedom from pride and arrogance. And, upon the

whole, it may be pronounced of his character, that all his qualities

were sullied with weakness and embellished by humanity. Of political

courage he certainly was destitute; and thence, chiefly, is derived

the strong prejudice which prevails against his personal bravery; an

inference, however, which must be owned, from general experience, to be

extremely fallacious.

He was only once married, to Anne of Denmark, who died on the third of

March, 1619, in the forty-fifth year of her age; a woman eminent neither

for her vices nor her virtues. She loved shows and expensive amusements,

but possessed little taste in her pleasures. A great comet appeared

about the time of her death; and the vulgar esteemed it the prognostic

of that event: so considerable in their eyes are even the most

insignificant princes.

He left only one son, Charles, then in the twenty-fifth year of his age;

and one daughter, Elizabeth, married to the elector palatine. She was

aged twenty-nine years. Those alone remained of six legitimate children

born to him. He never had any illegitimate; and he never discovered any

tendency, even the smallest, towards a passion for any mistress.

The archbishops of Canterbury during this reign were Whitgift, who

died in 1604; Bancroft, in 1610; Abbot, who survived the king. The

chancellors, Lord Ellesmore, who resigned in 1617; Bacon was first lord

keeper till 1619; then was created chancellor, and was displaced in

1621: Williams, bishop of Lincoln, was created lord keeper in his place.

The high treasurers were the earl of Dorset, who died in 1609, the earl

of Salisbury, in 1612; the earl of Suffolk, fined and displaced

for bribery in 1618. Lord Mandeville resigned in 1621, the earl of

Middlesex, displaced in 1624; the earl of Marlborough succeeded. The

lord admirals were, the earl of Nottingham, who resigned in 1618; the

earl, afterwards duke of Buckingham. The secretaries of state were, the

earl of Salisbury, Sir Ralph Winwood, Nanton, Calvert, Lord Conway, Sir

Albertus Moreton.

The numbers of the house of lords, in the first parliament of this

reign, were seventy-eight temporal peers. The numbers in the first

parliament of Charles were ninety-seven. Consequently James, during that

period, created nineteen new peerages above those that expired.

The house of commons, in the first parliament of this reign, consisted

of four hundred and sixty-seven members. It appears that four boroughs

revived their charters, which they had formerly neglected. And as the

first parliament of Charles consisted of four hundred and ninety-four

members, we may infer that James created ten new boroughs.

APPENDIX TO THE REIGN OF JAMES I.[*]

* This history of the house of Stuart was written and

published by the author before the history of the house of

Tudor. Hence it happens that some passages, particularly in

the present Appendix, may seem to be repetitions of what was

formerly delivered in the reign of Elizabeth. The author, in

order to obviate this objection, has cancelled some few

passages in the foregoing chapters.

It may not be improper, at this period, to make a pause, and to take a

survey of the state of the kingdom with regard to government, manners,

finances, arms, trade, learning. Where a just notion is not formed of

these particulars, history can be little instructive, and often will not

be intelligible.

We may safely pronounce that the English government, at the accession

of the Scottish line, was much more arbitrary than it is at present; the

prerogative less limited, the liberties of the subject less accurately

defined and secured. Without mentioning other particulars, the courts

alone of high commission and star chamber were sufficient to lay the

whole kingdom at the mercy of the prince.

The court of high commission had been erected by Elizabeth, in

consequence of an act of parliament passed in the beginning of her

reign: by this act it was thought proper during the great revolution of

religion, to arm the sovereign with full powers, in order to discourage

and suppress opposition. All appeals from the inferior ecclesiastical

courts were carried before the high commission; and, of consequence, the

whole life and doctrine of the clergy lay directly under its inspection.

Every breach of the act of uniformity, every refusal of the ceremonies,

was cognizable in this court; and, during the reign of Elizabeth, had

been punished by deprivation, by fine, confiscation, and imprisonment.

James contented himself with the gentler penalty of deprivation; nor

was that punishment inflicted with rigor on every offender. Archbishop

Spotswood tells us, that fee was informed by Bancroft, the primate,

several years after the king’s accession, that not above forty-five

clergymen had then been deprived. All the Catholics, too, were liable to

be punished by this court, if they exercised any act of their religion,

or sent abroad their children or other relations to receive that

education which they could not procure them in their own country. Popish

priests were thrown into prison, and might be delivered over to the law,

which punished them with death; though that severity had been sparingly

exercised by Elizabeth, and never almost by James. In a word, that

liberty of conscience, which we so highly and so justly value at

present, was totally suppressed; and no exercise of any religion but the

established, was permitted throughout the kingdom. Any word or writing

which tended towards heresy or schism, was punishable by the high

commissioners, or any three of them: they alone were judges what

expressions had that tendency: they proceeded not by information,

but upon rumor, suspicion, or according to their discretion: they

administered an oath, by which the party cited before them was bound to

answer any question which should be propounded to him: whoever refused

this oath, though he pleaded ever so justly, that he might thereby

be brought to accuse himself or his dearest friend, was punishable by

Imprisonment: and in short, an inquisitorial tribunal, with all its

terrors and iniquities, was erected in the kingdom. Full discretionary

powers were bestowed with regard to the inquiry, trial, sentence,

and penalty inflicted; excepting only that corporal punishments were

restrained by that patent of the prince which erected the court, not by

the act of parliament which empowered him. By reason of the uncertain

limits which separate ecclesiastical from civil causes, all accusations

of adultery and incest were tried by the court of high commission; and

every complaint of wives against their husbands was there examined and

discussed.[*]

* Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 200.

On like pretences, every cause which regarded conscience, that is, every

cause, could have been brought under their jurisdiction. But there was

a sufficient reason why the king would not be solicitous to stretch

the jurisdiction of this court: the star chamber possessed the same

authority in civil matters; and its methods of proceeding were equally

arbitrary and unlimited, The origin of this court was derived from the

most remote antiquity[*] though it is pretended, that its power had

first been carried to the greatest height by Henry VII. In all times,

however, it is confessed, it enjoyed authority; and at no time was its

authority circumscribed, or method of proceeding directed by any law or

statute.

We have had already, or shall have sufficient occasion, dur-* ing the

course of this history, to mention the dispensing power, the power of

imprisonment, of exacting loans[**] and benevolences, of pressing and

quartering soldiers, of altering the customs, of erecting monopolies.

These branches of power, if not directly opposite to the principles

of all free government, must, at least, be acknowledged dangerous to

freedom in a monarchical constitution, where an eternal jealousy must be

preserved against the sovereign, and no discretionary powers must ever

be intrusted to him, by which the property or personal liberty of any

subject can be affected. The kings of England, however, had almost

constantly exercised these powers; and if, on any occasion, the prince

had been obliged to submit to laws enacted against them, he had ever,

in practice, eluded these laws, and returned to the same arbitrary

administration. During almost three centuries before the accession of

James, the regal authority, in all these particulars, had never once

been called in question.

* Bushworth, vol. ii. p. 473. In Chambers’s case, it was the

unanimous opinion of the court of king’s bench, that the

court of star Chamber was not derived from the statute of

Henry VII., but was a court many years before, and one of

the most high and honorable courts of justice. See Coke’s

Rep. term. Mich. 5 Car. I. See, further, Camden’s Brit. vol.

i. Intro, p. 254, edit. of Gibson.

** During several centuries, no reign had passed without

some forced loans from the subject.

We may also observe, that the principles in general which prevailed

during that age, were so favorable to monarchy, that they bestowed on it

an authority almost absolute and unlimited, sacred and indefeasible.

The meetings of parliament were so precarious, their sessions so short,

compared to the vacations, that, when men’s eyes were turned upwards in

search of sovereign power, the prince alone was apt to strike them

as the only permanent magistrate, invested with the whole majesty and

authority of the state. The great complaisance too of parliaments,

during so long a period, had extremely degraded and obscured those

assemblies; and as all instances of opposition to prerogative must have

been drawn from a remote age, they were unknown to a great many, and had

the less authority even with those who were acquainted with them. These

examples, besides, of liberty had commonly, in ancient times, been

accompanied with such circumstances of violence, convulsion, civil

war, and disorder, that they presented but a disagreeable idea to the

inquisitive part of the people, and afforded small inducement to renew

such dismal scenes. By a great many, therefore, monarchy, simple and

unmixed, was conceived to be the government of England; and those

popular assemblies were supposed to form only the ornament of the

fabric, without being in any degree essential to its being and

existence.[*] [61] The prerogative of the crown was represented by

lawyers as something real and durable; like those eternal essences

of the schools, which no time or force could alter. The sanction of

religion was by divines called in aid; and the Monarch of heaven was

supposed to be interested in supporting the authority of his earthly

vicegerent. And though it is pretended that these doctrines were more

openly inculcated and more strenuously insisted on during the reign of

the Stuarts, they were not then invented; and were only found by the

court to be more necessary at that period, by reason of the opposite

doctrines, which began to be promulgated by the Puritanical party.[**]

[62]

* See note III, at the end of the volume.

** See note KKK, at the end of the volume.

In consequence of these exalted ideas of kingly authority, the

prerogative, besides the articles of jurisdiction founded on precedent,

was by many supposed to possess an inexhaustible fund of latent powers,

which might be exerted on any emergence. In every government, necessity,

when real, supersedes all laws, and levels all limitations; but in the

English government, convenience alone was conceived to authorize any

extraordinary act of regal power, and to render it obligatory on the

people. Hence the strict obedience required to proclamations during

all periods of the English history; and if James has incurred blame on

account of his edicts, it is only because he too frequently issued them

at a time when they began to be less regarded, not because he first

assumed or extended to an unusual degree that exercise of authority.

Of his maxims in a parallel case, the following is a pretty remark able

instance.

Queen Elizabeth had appointed commissioners for the inspection of

prisons, and had bestowed on them full discretionary powers to adjust

all differences between prisoners and their creditors, to compound

debts, and to give liberty to such debtors as they found honest and

insolvent. From the uncertain and undefined nature of the English

constitution, doubts sprang up in many, that this commission was

contrary to law; and it was represented in that light to James. He

forbore, therefore, renewing the commission, till the fifteenth of his

reign; when complaints rose so high with regard to the abuses practised

in prisons, that he thought himself obliged to overcome his scruples,

and to appoint new commissioners, invested with the same discretionary

powers which Elizabeth had formerly conferred.[*]

* Rymer, tom. xviii. p. 117, 594.

Upon the whole, we must conceive that monarchy, on the accession of

the house of Stuart, was possessed of a very extensive authority: an

authority, in the judgment of all, not exactly limited; in the judgment

of some, not limitable. But, at the same time, this authority was

founded merely on the opinion of the people, influenced by ancient

precedent and example. It was not supported either by money or by force

of arms. And, for this reason, we need not wonder that the princes

of that line were so extremely jealous of their prerogative; being

sensible, that when these claims were ravished from them, they possessed

no influence by which they could maintain their dignity, or support the

laws. By the changes which have since been introduced, the liberty and

independence of individuals has been rendered much more full, entire and

secure; that of the public more uncertain and precarious. And it seems a

necessary, though perhaps a melancholy truth, that in every government,

the magistrate must either possess a large revenue and a military force,

or enjoy some discretionary powers, in order to execute the laws and

support his own authority.

We have had occasion to remark, in so many instances, the bigotry which

prevailed in that age, that we can look for no toleration among the

different sects. Two Arians, under the title of heretics, were punished

by fire during this period; and no other reign, since the reformation,

had been free from the like barbarities. Stowe says, that these Arians

were offered their pardon at the stake, if they would merit it by a

recantation. A madman, who called himself the Holy Ghost, was without

any indulgence for his frenzy, condemned to the same punishment. Twenty

pounds a month could, by law, be levied on every one who frequented not

the established worship. This rigorous law, however, had one indulgent

clause, that the lines exacted should not exceed two thirds of the

yearly income of the person. It had been usual for Elizabeth to allow

those penalties to run on for several years; and to levy them all

at once, to the utter ruin of such Catholics as had incurred her

displeasure. James was more humane in this, as in every other respect.

The Puritans formed a sect which secretly lurked in the church, but

pretended not to any separate worship or discipline. An attempt of

that kind would have been universally regarded as the most unpardonable

enormity. And had the king been disposed to grant the Puritans a full

toleration for a separate exercise of their religion, it is certain,

from the spirit of the times, that this sect itself would have despised

and hated him for it, and would have reproached him with luke-warmness

and indifference in the cause of religion. They maintained, that

they themselves were the only pure church; that their principles and

practices ought to be established by law; and that no others ought to be

tolerated. It may be questioned, therefore, whether the administration

at this time could with propriety deserve the appellation of persecutors

with regard to the Puritans. Such of the clergy, indeed, as refused to

comply with the legal ceremonies, were deprived of their livings, and

sometimes, in Elizabeth’s reign, were otherwise punished: and ought any

man to accept of an office or benefice in an establishment, while

he declines compliance with the fixed and known rules of that

establishment? But Puritans were never punished for frequenting separate

congregations; because there were none such in the kingdom; and no

Protestant ever assumed or pretended to the right of erecting them. The

greatest well-wishers of the Puritanical sect would have condemned

a practice, which in that age was universally, by statesmen and

ecclesiastics-philosophers and zealots, regarded as subversive of civil

society. Even so great a reasoner as Lord Bacon thought that uniformity

in religion was absolutely necessary to the support of government, and

that no toleration could with safety be given to sectaries.[*]

* See his essay De Unitate Ecclesiae.

Nothing but the imputation of idolatry, which was thrown on the Catholic

religion, could justify, in the eyes of the Puritans themselves, the

schism made by the Hugonots and other Protestants who lived in Popish

countries.

In all former ages, not wholly excepting even those of Greece and Rome,

religious sects, and heresies, and schisms had been esteemed dangerous,

if not pernicious, to civil government, and were regarded as the source

of faction, and private combination, and opposition to the laws.[*]

The magistrate, therefore, applied himself directly to the cure of

this evil, as of every other; and very naturally attempted, by penal

statutes, to suppress those separate communities, and punish the

obstinate innovators. But it was found by fatal experience, and after

spilling an ocean of blood in those theological quarrels, that the evil

was of a peculiar nature, and was both inflamed by violent remedies, and

diffused itself more rapidly throughout the whole society. Hence,

though late, arose the paradoxical principle and salutary practice of

toleration.

The liberty of the press was incompatible with such maxims and such

principles of government as then prevailed, and was therefore quite

unknown in that age. Besides employing the two terrible courts of

star chamber and high commission, whose powers were unlimited, Queen

Elizabeth exerted her authority by restraints upon the press. She passed

a decree in her court of star chamber, that is, by her own will and

pleasure, forbidding any book to be printed in any place but in London,

Oxford, and Cambridge:[**] and another, in which she prohibited, under

severe penalties, the publishing of any book or pamphlet “against the

form or meaning of any restraint or ordinance, contained, or to be

contained, in any statute or laws of this realm, or in any injunction

made or set forth by her majesty or her privy council, or against the

true sense or meaning of any letters patent, commissions or prohibitions

under the great seal of England.”[***] James extended the same penalties

to the importing of such books from abroad.[****]

* See Cicero de Legibus.

** 28th of Elizabeth. See State Trials Sir Robert Knightly,

vol vii. 1st edit.

*** Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 522.

**** Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 522.

And to render these edicts more effectual, he afterwards inhibited

the printing of any book without a license from the archbishop of

Canterbury, the archbishop of York, the bishop of London, or the

vice-chancellor of one of the universities, or of some person appointed

by them.[*]

In tracing the coherence among the systems of modern theology, we may

observe, that the doctrine of absolute decrees has ever been intimately

connected with the enthusiastic spirit, as that doctrine affords the

highest subject of joy, triumph, and security to the supposed elect, and

exalts them by infinite degrees above the rest of mankind. All the first

reformers adopted these principles; and the Jansenists too, a fanatical

sect in France, not to mention the Mahometans in Asia, have ever

embraced them. As the Lutheran establishments were subjected to

Episcopal jurisdiction, their enthusiastic genius gradually decayed; and

men had leisure to perceive the absurdity of supposing God to punish

by infinite torments what he himself from all eternity had unchangeably

decreed. The king, though at this time his Calvinistic education had

rivetted him in the doctrine of absolute decrees, yet, being a zealous

partisan of Episcopacy, was insensibly engaged, towards the end of his

reign, to favor the milder theology of Arminius. Even in so great

a doctor, the genius of the religion prevailed over its speculative

tenets; and with him, the whole clergy gradually dropped the more rigid

principles of absolute reprobation and unconditional decrees. Some noise

was at first made about these innovations; but being drowned in the fury

of factions and civil wars which ensued, the scholastic arguments made

an insignificant figure amidst those violent disputes about civil and

ecclesiastical power with which the nation was agitated. And at the

restoration, the church, though she still retained her old subscriptions

and articles of faith, was found to have totally changed her speculative

doctrines, and to have embraced tenets more suitable to the genius of

her discipline and worship, without its being possible to assign the

precise period in which the alteration was produced.

It may be worth observing, that James, from his great desire to

promote controversial divinity, erected a college at Chelsea for the

entertainment of twenty persons, who should be entirely employed in

refuting the Papists and Puritans.[**]

* Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 616.

** Kennel, p. 685. Caraden’s Brit vol. i. p. 370. Gibson’s

edit.

All the efforts of the great Bacon could not procure an establishment

for the cultivation of natural philosophy: even to this day, no society

has been instituted for the polishing and fixing of our language. The

only encouragement which the sovereign in England has ever given to

any thing that has the appearance of science, was this short-lived

establishment of James; an institution quite superfluous, considering

the unhappy propension which at that time so universally possessed the

nation for polemical theology.

The manners of the nation were agreeable to the monarchical government

which prevailed, and contained not that strange mixture which at present

distinguishes England from all other countries. Such violent extremes

were then unknown, of industry and debauchery, frugality and profusion,

civility and rusticity, fanaticism and scepticism. Candor, sincerity,

modesty, are the only qualities which the English of that age possessed

in common with the present.

High pride of family then prevailed; and it was by a dignity and

stateliness of behavior, that the gentry and nobility distinguished

themselves from the common people. Great riches acquired by commerce

were more rare, and had not as yet been able to confound all ranks of

men, and render money the chief foundation of distinction. Much ceremony

took place in the common intercourse of life, and little familiarity was

indulged by the great. The advantages which result from opulence are so

solid and real, that those who are possessed of them need not dread the

near approaches of their inferiors. The distinctions of birth and title,

being more empty and imaginary, soon vanish upon familiar access and

acquaintance.

The expenses of the great consisted in pomp, and show, and a numerous

retinue, rather than in convenience and true pleasure. The earl of

Nottingham, in his embassy to Spain, was attended by five hundred

persons: the earl of Hertford, in that to Brussels, carried three

hundred gentlemen along with him. Lord Bacon has remarked, that the

English nobility, in his time, maintained a larger retinue of

servants than the nobility of any other nation, except, perhaps, the

Polanders.[*]

Civil honors, which now hold the first place, were at that time

subordinate to the military. The young gentry and nobility were fond

of distinguishing themselves by arms. The fury of duels, too, prevailed

more than at anytime before or since.[**] This was the turn that the

romantic chivalry, for which the nation was formerly so renowned, had

lately taken.

* Essays De profer, fin. imp.

** Franklyn, p. 5 See also Lord Herbert’s Memoirs.

Liberty of commerce between the sexes was indulged, but without any

licentiousness of manners. The court was very little an exception to

this observation. James had rather entertained an aversion and contempt

for the females; nor were those young courtiers, of whom he was so fond,

able to break through the established manners of the nation.

The first sedan chair seen in England was in this reign, and was used

by the duke of Buckingham; to the great indignation of the people, who

exclaimed, that he was employing his fellow-creatures to do the service

of beasts.

The country life prevails at present in England beyond any cultivated

nation of Europe; but it was then much more generally embraced by all

the gentry. The increase of arts, pleasures, and social commerce,

was just beginning to produce an inclination for the softer and more

civilized life of the city. James discouraged, as much as possible, this

alteration of manners. “He was wont to be very earnest,” as Lord Bacon

tells us, “with the country gentlemen to go from London to their country

seats. And sometimes he would say thus to them: ‘Gentlemen, at London

you are like ships in a sea, which show like nothing; but in your

country villages you are like ships in a river, which look like great

things.’”[*]

He was not content with reproof and exhortation. As Queen Elizabeth had

perceived with regret the increase of London, and had restrained all new

buildings by proclamation, James, who found that these edicts were not

exactly obeyed, frequently renewed them; though a strict execution seems

still to have been wanting. He also issued reiterated proclamations,

in imitation of his predecessor; containing severe menaces against the

gentry who lived in town.[**]

* Apophthegms.

** Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 632.

This policy is contrary to that which has ever been practised by all

princes who studied the increase of their authority. To allure the

nobility to court; to engage them in expensive pleasures or employments

which dissipate their fortune; to increase their subjection to ministers

by attendance; to weaken their authority in the provinces by absence:

these have been the common arts of arbitrary government. But James,

besides that he had certainly laid no plan for extending his power, had

no money to support a splendid court, or bestow on a numerous retinue of

gentry and nobility. He thought too, that by their living together, they

became more sensible of their own strength, and were apt to indulge too

curious researches into matters of government. To remedy the present

evil, he was desirous of dispersing them into their country seats;

where, he hoped, they would bear a more submissive reverence to his

authority, and receive less support from each other. But the contrary

effect soon followed. The riches amassed during their residence at home

rendered them independent. The influence acquired by hospitality made

them formidable. They would not be led by the court: they could not be

driven: and thus the system of the English government received a total

and a sudden alteration in the course of less than forty years.

The first rise of commerce and the arts had contributed, in preceding

reigns, to scatter those immense fortunes of the barons which rendered

them so formidable both to king and people. The further progress of

these advantages began, during this reign, to ruin the small proprietors

of land;[*] and, by both events, the gentry, or that rank which composed

the house of commons, enlarged their power and authority. The early

improvements in luxury were seized by the greater nobles, whose

fortunes, placing them above frugality, or even calculation, were soon

dissipated in expensive pleasures. These improvements reached at last

all men of property; and those of slender fortunes, who at that time

were often men of family, imitating those of a rank immediately above

them, reduced themselves to poverty. Their lands, coming to sale,

swelled the estates of those who possessed itches sufficient for the

fashionable expenses, but who were not exempted from some care and

attention to their domestic economy.

The gentry also of that age were engaged in no expense, except that of

country hospitality. No taxes were levied, no wars waged, no attendance

at court expected, no bribery or profusion required at elections.[**]

Could human nature ever reach happiness, the condition of the English

gentry, under so mild and benign a prince, might merit that appellation.

The amount of the king’s revenue, as it stood in 1617, is thus

stated.[***]

* Cabala, p. 224, 1st edit.

** Men seem then to have been ambitious of representing the

counties, but careless on the boroughs. A seat in the house

was, in itself, of small importance: but the former became a

point of honor among the gentlemen. Journ. 10th Feb. 1620.

Towns which had formerly neglected their right of sending

members, now began to claim it. Journ. 26th Feb. 1623.

*** An Abstract, or brief Declaration of his Majesty’s

Revenue, with the Assignations and Defalcations upon the

same.