at Madrid, under the guise of very homely personages. Buckingham
took a name which has since served to cover a fugitive king of the
French--that of (Thomas) Smith, and therewith he entered Bristol’s
mansion, “’twixt the gloaming and the murk,” with a portmanteau under
his arm, while Charles waited on the other side of the street, not
as the Prince of Wales, but as Thomas Smith’s brother, John. Lord
Bristol did not allow the son of his monarch to remain long in such a
situation. Charles was conducted to the house, and on being ushered
into a bedchamber, he immediately asked for writing materials, and
despatched a messenger to his father, announcing his safe arrival in
the Spanish capital. Cottington and Porter arrived the next day; and
even so soon as this, a report was spreading through the city that
James himself was in Madrid. On the evening of Saturday, Buckingham
went privately to court, in his own person, and told the tale of the
adventures of the knight to whom he had acted as squire. The delight of
all parties was intense. Olivarez accompanied Buckingham on his return
to the prince, to express how immeasurably glad his Catholic majesty
was at his coming. This proud minister, who was the contemporary, and
perhaps the equal, of Richelieu, knelt and kissed the prince’s hand,
and “hugged his thighs,” says Mr. Howell, like a slave as he was.
Gondomar, too, hastened to offer his respects and congratulations to
the young prince. At ten that night, too, came the most distinguished
as he was the most desired visiter: Philip himself appeared in generous
haste to welcome the person and thank the noble confidence of his
almost brother-in-law. The meeting of the parties appears to have been
unaffected and cordial. After the salutations and divers embraces which
passed in the first interview, _they parted late_. The stern severity
of Spanish etiquette would not permit of Charles’s introduction to
the Infanta, and it was accordingly arranged that the princess should
appear in public on Sunday, and the prince meet her on the Prado, just
as the knight Guzman sees Inez, in the ancient ballad. In the afternoon
of the eventful day, the whole court, neglecting for the occasion all
sumptuary laws, appeared in all its bravery. Philip, his queen, two
brothers, and the Infanta, were together in one carriage, and the
princess, the cynosure of attraction, scarcely needed the blue riband
which encircled her arm, as a sign by which Charles might distinguish
her. The knightly lover, who had experienced some difficulty in making
his way through the exulting multitude, who threw up their caps and
cried “God bless him,” was in waiting, with his diminutive court and
Count Gondomar, to view the defiling of the procession. The royal
carriage approached, and as the eyes of the princess first rested on
her destined lord, she blushed deeply, “which,” adds the calculating
Mr. Howell, “we hold to be an impression of love and affection, for
the face is oftentimes a true index of the heart.” The Infanta, at
this period, was only sixteen and tall for her age--“a very comely
lady,” says the agent, “rather of a Flemish complexion than Spanish,
fair-haired, and carried a most pure mixture of red and white in her
face: she is full and big-lipped, which is held as beauty rather than a
blemish.”
Charles was now honored with a complete court establishment and
apartments in the palace; there was revelry in camp and city; and the
gallantry of the journey so touched this high-minded people, that
they declared the beautiful bride ought to have been made Charles’s
immediate reward. Gayety was at every heart and poesy, in the person
of Lope de Vega, celebrated “the Stuart,” and “Marie, his star.”
In all the festivals and carousals at court, Charles was not once
permitted to approach “his star.” The royal family sat together under
a canopy, but there was ever some unwelcome intervener between the
lovers, and the prince was compelled to satisfy his ardent soul with
gazing. The worthy English agent records that he has seen him “have
his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half-an-hour together, in a
thoughtful, speculative posture, which,” he sagaciously adds, “would
needs be tedious unless affection did sweeten it.” It was on one of
these occasions that Olivarez, with less poetic truth than energy of
expression, said that Charles watched her _as a cat does a mouse_.
Whatever outward respect Charles may have voluntarily offered to the
prejudices and observances of Spanish ceremony, he, and perhaps the
blushing Infanta, thought it very cumbersome love-work for young
hearts. Words had passed between them, it is true, but only through the
medium of an interpreter, and always in the presence of the king, for
Philip “sat hard by, to overhear all,” and understand if he could, the
interpretations made by Lord Bristol.
Weary of this restraint, the prince soon found means, or rather an
opportunity, to break through the pompous obstacles which opposed
the good old plan of love-making, and he, with Endymion Porter to
attend him, did not fail to profit by the occasion. Near the city, but
across the river, the king had a summer-house, called Casa di Campo.
Charles discovered that the Infanta was accustomed to go very often
of a morning to gather May-dew. The knight and esquire, accordingly,
donning a silken suit for a spring morning, went out betimes, and
arrived without let or hindrance at the Casa di Campo. Their quality
was a sure passport, and doors, immovably closed to all others, opened
to _them_. They passed through the house into the garden, but to their
wonder and disappointment, the “light of love” was not visible. The
Infanta had not arrived, or had fled, and disappointment seemed likely
to be the probable reward of their labor. The garden was divided from
an adjoining orchard by a high wall; the prince heard voices on the
other side, perhaps heard _the_ voice, and hastened to a door which
formed the only communication of the two divisions. To try this outlet
was the work of a moment; to find it most vexatiously locked, was the
conviction of the next. The lover was at bay, and Endymion’s confused
brain had no resource to suggest. They looked at the wall. It was
high, undoubtedly; but was ever such a barrier too high for a king’s
son--a knight and a gallant, when it stood between him and such a
“star” as the muse of De Vega made of the Infanta? Charles was on the
summit of the wall almost as soon as the thought of climbing it had
first struck him; with the same eagerness he sprang lightly down on
the other side, and hastily made toward the object of his temerity.
Unfortunately there was an old “duenna” of a marquis with her in
quality of guardian, and the Infanta, who perchance expected to see
the intruder, was constrained, for the sake of appearances, to scream
with well-dissembled terror. “She gave a shriek and ran back.” Charles
followed, but the grim marquis interfered his unwelcome person between
the lovers. “Turning to the prince, he fell on his knees, conjuring
his highness to retire;” he swore by his head, that if he admitted the
prince to the company of the Infanta, he, the grisly guardian of the
dove, might pay for it with his head. As the lady, meanwhile, had fled,
and did not return, Charles was not obdurate. Maria, though she had
escaped (because seen) could not but be pleased with the proof he had
given of his devotion, and as the old marquis continued to talk of his
head, the prince, whose business lay more with the heart, turned round
and walked slowly away. He advanced toward the door, the portal was
thrown open, and thus, as Mr. Howell pithily says, “he came out under
that wall over which he had got in.” Endymion was waiting for him, and
perhaps for his story, but the knight was sad, and his squire solemn.
Charles looked an embodying of the idea of gloom, and Master Porter,
with some ill-will, was compelled to observe a respectful silence.
The Infanta and her governor hurried back to the palace, while her
suitor and his followers were left to rail in their thoughts against
the caprice of the ladies, and the reserve of royal masters; and so
ends a pretty story of “how a princess went to gather May-dew.”
This solitary and unsuccessful love-passage was the last effort which
Charles made to engage the good-will of Maria. He, at once, retired to
his apartments in the palace; whence he seldom went abroad, except for
the purpose of attending a bull-fight. Buckingham was sick a-bed, his
offended nobility lay ill-disposed at court, and the palace residence
was gradually becoming irksome to all parties. Charles could only have
bedchamber prayers, and not possessing a room where he might have
attended the service of his own church, the sacred plate and vestments
he had brought over were never used. Moreover, the Knights of the
Garter, Lords Carlisle and Denbigh, had well nigh set the palace on
fire, through leaving their lighted pipes in a summer-house. The
threatened mischief, however, was prevented by the activity of Master
Davies, my Lord of Carlisle’s barber, who “leapt down a great height
and quenched it.” Perhaps a more unfortunate accident than this, in the
eyes of a Catholic population, was a brawl within the royal precinct
between Ballard, an English priest, and an English knight, Sir Edmund
Varney. The prince had a page named Washington, lying mortally ill; to
save his soul the anxious priest hastened to the death-bed of the page;
here, however, he met Sir Edmund, an unflinching pillar of the English
church. An unseemly scene ensued; and while knight and priest passed
from words to blows, the poor suffering page silently died, and soon
after was consigned to the earth under a fig-tree in Lord Bristol’s
Garden.
In the meantime, the Princess Infanta was publicly addressed as
Princess of Wales, and as an acquaintance with the English language
was a possession much to be desired by the bearer of so proud a
title, the Lady Maria began “_her accidence_,” and turned her mind
to harsh declensions and barbarous conjugations. Though enthusiasm
had somewhat cooled, the business continued to proceed; the most
serious interruption was occasioned by the death of the Pontiff, as it
entailed many of the ensuing obstacles which at once began to rise.
The unfinished work of Gregory was thought to require a _da capo_
movement from his successor Urban, and the new Hierarch commenced a
string of objections and proposals, which were of no other effect than
to produce mistrust and delay. Buckingham too, recovering from his
sickness, longed to return to England, where it was now understood that
the Pope’s tardiness was founded on hopes of the prince’s conversion.
The people of England were alarmed and clamorous. Charles and the duke
discontented and impatient. The latter urged a return, and the prince,
in expressing his wishes to Philip, stated as his reasons, his father’s
age and infirmities, the murmurs of his people, and the fact that a
fleet was at sea to meet him. He added, a most close argument, that the
articles which had been signed in England bore, as a proviso, that if
he did not return by a specified month, they should be of no validity.
It honorably belied the suspicions against the Spanish Cabinet, that
not the slightest opposition was made to the return; proxies were
named, and on the termination of affairs with the Pope, Maria was to
follow Charles to England. The lady is said to have remarked, that if
she was not worth waiting for she was not worth having. Charles must
have felt the remark, but the duke was paramount, and the wind, which
favored their departure, as speedily blew away the popularity of a
prince whose knightly bearing, modest gallantry, and high virtues, so
particularly formed him for the favorite of a romantic nation. The
treaty for the Spanish match was broken.
The secret history of the French match possesses an equal interest
with that of the Spanish; but Charles only wrote to his bride on this
occasion, and met her, on her way to him, at Canterbury.
As a further instance of the chivalrous gallantry of Charles I., it
deserves to be recorded, that he it was who suggested a revival of
the custom of inviting the ladies to participate in the honors of
the Garter. I have elsewhere said, that at one time, the ladies were
regularly admitted, but nothing is known as to when this gallant custom
was first introduced. Dr. Barrington, in his excellent “Lectures on
Heraldry,” says, that “in the earliest notice of the habit of the order
having been issued to the ladies, immediately after the accession of
Richard II.,” they are said to have been “newly received into the
Society of the Garter,” and were afterward called “Ladies of the
Fraternity of St. George.” Who were admitted to this distinguished
order, or how long the practice continued, does not appear, though
it is probable it had fallen into disuse in the time of Henry VIII.
Charles remained content with merely suggesting the revival of the
custom, and “nothing,” says Dr. Barrington, “seems to have been done
to carry this suggestion into effect. If any one period,”--adds the
doctor, most appropriately--“if any one period were more fit than
another for doing it, it must surely be the present, when a _lady_ is
the sovereign of the order.”
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS.
FROM STUART TO BRUNSWICK.
Charles II. loved the paraphernalia of courts and chivalry. He even
designed to create two new orders of knighthood--namely “the Knights
of the Sea,” a naval order for the encouragement of the sea-service;
and “the Knights of the Royal Oak,” in memory of his deliverance, and
for the reward of civil merit. He never went much farther than the
intention. He adopted the first idea at another’s suggestion, and
straightway thought no more of it. The second originated with himself,
and a list of persons was made out, on which figured the names of the
intended knights. The matter never went further.
At Charles’s coronation, the knights of the Bath were peculiarly
distinguished for their splendor. They were almost too gorgeously
attired to serve as waiters, and carry up, as they did the first course
to the king’s own table, at the coronation banquet, after a knight of
the Garter had been to the kitchen and had eaten a bit of the first
dish that was to be placed before his Sacred Majesty.
If the king was fond of show, some at least of his knights, shared in
the same feeling of vanity. The robes in recent times were worn only
on occasions of ceremony and service. The king revived a fashion which
his knights followed, and which sober people (who were not knights)
called a ridiculous humor. They were “so proud of their coats,” as
the expression went, that they not only wore them at home, but went
about in them, and even rode about the park with them on. Mr. Pepys is
particularly indignant on this matter especially so, when told that the
Duke of Monmouth and Lord Oxford were seen, “in a hackney-coach, with
two footmen in the park with their robes on; which,” adds the censor,
“is a most scandalous thing, so as all gravity may be said to be lost,
among us.” There was more danger of what Pepys calls “gravity” being
lost, when the Order, at command of the Sovereign head, elected such
men as the Elector of Saxony, who had no other distinction but that of
being a good drinker.
I do not know what the rule now may be in St. George’s Chapel, but in
the reign of Charles II., a singular regulation is noticed by Pepys.
He went in good company to the royal chapel, where he was placed,
by Dr. Childe, the organist, “among the knights’ stalls, and pretty
the observation,” he adds, “that no man, but a woman, may sit in a
knight’s place, where any brass plates are set.” What follows is also,
in some degree, germane to our purpose. “Hither come cushions to us,
and a young singing boy to bring us a copy of the anthem to be sung.
And here, for our sakes, had this anthem and the great service sung
extraordinary, only to entertain us. Great bowing by all the people,
the poor knights particularly, toward the altar.”
Charles II. was the first monarch who allowed the Knights of the Garter
to wear, as at present, the star of the order on the breast of the
coat. Our present queen has renewed in her gracious person, the custom
that was once observed, if we may believe Ashmole, by the ladies, that
is, the wives of Knights of the Garter--namely, of wearing the symbol
of the order as a jewelled badge, or a bracelet, on the arm. This is
in better taste than the mode adopted by Lady Castlereagh, at the gay
doings attendant upon the sitting of the Congress of Vienna; where the
noble lady in question appeared at court with her husband’s jewelled
garter, as a bandeau, round her forehead!
James II. has had not merely his apologists but his defenders. He had
far more of the knightly character than is commonly supposed. For a
long time he labored under the disadvantage of being represented, in
England, by historians only of the Orange faction. Poor Richard the
Third has suffered by a similar misfortune. He was wicked enough, but
he was not the monster described by the Tudor historians and dramatists.
James, in his youth, had as daring and as crafty a spirit as ever
distinguished the most audacious of pages. The tact by the employment
of which he successfully made his escape from the republican guards who
kept him imprisoned at St. James’s, would alone be sufficient proof of
this. When Duke of York, he had the compliment paid to him by Condé,
that if ever there was a man without fear it was he. Under Turenne he
earned a reputation of which any knight might be proud; and in the
service of Spain, he won praise for courage, from leaders whose bravery
was a theme for eulogy in every mouth.
Partisans, not of his own faction, have censured his going publicly
to mass soon after his accession; but it must be remembered that the
Knights of the Garter, in the collar of their order, complacently
accompanied him, and that the Duke of Norfolk was the only knight who
left him at the door of the chapel.
He had little of the knight in him in his method of love, if one may
so speak. He cared little for beauty; so little, that his brother
Charles remarked that he believed James selected his mistresses by way
of penance. He was coarsely minded, and neither practised fidelity nor
expected it in others. Whatever he may have been in battle, there was
little of the refinement of chivalry about him in the bower. It was
said of Louis XIV. and his successor, that if they were outrageously
unfaithful to their consorts, they never failed to treat them with
the greatest politeness. James lacked even this little remnant of
chivalrous feeling; and he was barely courteous to his consort till
adversity taught him the worth of Mary of Modena.
He was arrogant in prosperity, but the slightest check dreadfully
depressed him, and it is hardly necessary to say that he who is easily
elated or easily depressed, has little in him of the hero. His conduct
when his throne was menaced was that of a poor craven. It had not about
it the dignity of even a decent submission. He rose again, however,
to the heroic when he attempted to recover his kingdom, and took the
field for that purpose. This conduct has been alluded to by a zealous
and impartial writer in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” for November, 1855.
“After the battle of the Boyne,” he says, “the Orange party circulated
the story that James had acted in the most cowardly manner, and fled
from the field before the issue was decided. Not only was this, in a
very short time believed, but even sensible historians adopted it, and
it came down to us as an historical fact. Now in the secret archives
of France there are several letters which passed between Queen Mary
and the Earl of Tyrconnel, and these together with some of the secret
papers, dispose at once of the whole story. It has now been placed
beyond a doubt, that the king was forced from the field. Even when
the day was lost and the Dutch veterans had routed the half-armed and
undisciplined Irish, James rallied a part of the French troops, and was
leading them on, when Tyrconnel and Lauzun interposed, pointed out the
madness of the attempt, and seizing the reins of his horse, compelled
him to retreat.”
This is perhaps proving a little too much, for if the day was lost, it
was not bravery, but rashness, that sought to regain it; and it is the
first merit of a knight, the great merit of a general, to discern when
blood may be spilled to advantage. As for the archives in France, one
would like to know upon what authority the papers preserved there make
their assertions. Documents are exceedingly valuable to historians, but
they are not always trustworthy. The archives of France may contain
Canrobert’s letter explaining how he was compelled to put constraint
upon the bravery of Prince Napoleon, and send him home, in consequence
of severe indisposition. And yet the popular voice has since applied a
very uncomplimentary surname to the Prince--quite as severe, but not so
unsavory, as that which the people of Drogheda still apply to James. In
either case there is considerable uncertainty. I am inclined to believe
the best of both of these illustrious personages, but seeing that the
uncertainty is great, I am not sure that Scarron was wrong when he said
that the best way of writing history was by writing epigrams, pointed
so as to prick everybody.
Cottington (Stafford’s Letters) tells us of a domestic trouble in which
James was concerned with one of his knights. The king’s perplexities
about religion began early. “The nurse is a Roman Catholic, to whom
Sir John Tunston offered the oath of allegiance, and she refused it;
whereupon there grew a great noise both in the town and court; and
the queen afflicted herself with extreme passion upon knowledge of a
resolution to change the woman. Yet after much tampering with the nurse
to convert her, she was let alone, to quiet the queen.” The dissension
is said to have so troubled the nurse, as also to have injured the
child, and never had knight or king more difficult task than James, in
his desire to please all parties.
It was one of the characteristics of a knight to bear adversity without
repining; and if Dodd may be believed, James II. was distinguished
for this great moral courage in his adversity. The passage in Dodd’s
Church History is worth extracting, though somewhat long: “James was
never once heard to repine at his misfortune. He willingly heard read
the scurrilous pamphlets that were daily published in England against
him. If at any time he showed himself touched, it was to hear of the
misfortunes of those gentlemen who suffered on his account. He would
often entertain those about him with the disorders of his youth, but
it was with a public detestation of them, and an admonition to others
not to follow his example. The very newspapers were to him a lesson of
morality; and the daily occurrences, both in the field and the cabinet,
were looked upon by him, not as the result of second causes, but as
providential measures to chastise both nations and private persons,
according to their deserts. He would sometimes say that the exalted
state of a king was attended with this great misfortune, that he lived
out of the reach of reproof, and mentioned himself as an example. He
read daily a chapter in the Bible, and another in that excellent book,
‘The Following of Christ.’ In his last illness he publicly forgave all
his enemies, and several of them by name, especially the Prince of
Orange, whom he acknowledged to be his greatest friend, as being the
person whom Providence had made use of to scourge him and humble him in
the manner he had done, in order to save his soul.” As something very
nearly approaching to reality, this is more pleasing than the details
of dying knights in romance, who after hacking at one another for an
hour, mutually compliment each other’s courage, and die in the happiest
frame of mind possible. Some one speaking of this king, and of Innocent
II., made an apt remark, worth the quoting; namely, that “he wished
for the peace of mankind that the pope had turned papist, and the king
of England, protestant!” How far the latter was from this desired
consummation is wittily expressed in the epitaph on James, made by one
of the poet-chevaliers, or, as some say, by one of the abbés who used
to lounge about the terrace of St. Germains.
“C’est ici que Jacques Second,
Sans ministres et sans maitresses,
Le matin allait à la messe,
Et le soir allait au sermon.”