CHAPTER II.

INDISPOSITION OF THE DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM--THE KING’S REGARD FOR

HER AND HER CHILD--ARCHBISHOP LAUD’S ENCOMIUM ON HER

CHARACTER--QUEEN ANNE’S CHAIN PRESENTED TO THE DUCHESS OF

LENNOX--EFFRONTERY OF THE COUNTESS OF BUCKINGHAM--THE DUKE’S

DEPORTMENT ON HIS RETURN FROM SPAIN--MORE DIGNITIES CONFERRED

UPON HIM--KING JAMES AND THE CLERGY--THE ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR

THE PERFORMANCE OF DIVINE SERVICE IN SPAIN--PUBLIC PREJUDICE

AGAINST THE SPANISH MATCH--THE WALLINGFORD HOUSE CABAL PRONOUNCE

IN FAVOUR OF A FRENCH ALLIANCE--POPULAR INDIGNATION AGAINST THE

SPANISH AMBASSADOR--COMPETITION FOR PRECEDENCE BETWEEN THE

AMBASSADORS OF FRANCE AND SPAIN--CHARACTER OF THE LORD KEEPER

WILLIAMS--HIS OPPOSITION TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF BUCKINGHAM--THE

COUNTESS OF BUCKINGHAM EMBRACES THE CATHOLIC FAITH--CONTROVERSY

BETWEEN THE DEAN OF CARLISLE AND THE JESUIT FISHER--BREACH

BETWEEN BUCKINGHAM AND WILLIAMS--THE KING MANIFESTS HIS

DISPLEASURE WITH BUCKINGHAM--THE SPANISH COURT AND THE ENGLISH

ALLIANCE--CONDUCT OF THE INFANTA AFTER THE DEPARTURE OF

CHARLES--PREPARATIONS FOR THE MARRIAGE--A COMMISSION APPOINTED

TO INQUIRE INTO THE CONDITIONS OF THE SPANISH TREATY--THE LORD

KEEPER IN FAVOUR WITH THE KING--PARLIAMENT COUNSELS JAMES TO

BREAK THE TREATY WITH SPAIN--POPULAR REJOICINGS, AND

DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE CATHOLIC PARTY--THE ILLNESS OF

BUCKINGHAM--PAINFUL ILLUSTRATION OF THE BIGOTED SPIRIT OF THE

AGE--INOJOSA ACCUSES BUCKINGHAM OF TREACHERY AGAINST THE

KING--THE PROPHECY OF GAMALIEL GRUYS--GENERAL DESIRE FOR WAR

WITH SPAIN--PROPOSED ALLIANCE OF PRINCE CHARLES WITH HENRIETTA

MARIA OF FRANCE--RESTORATION OF BUCKINGHAM TO THE KING’S FAVOUR.

=CHAPTER II.=

Buckingham had now returned to a house where more sources of real

happiness awaited him than fall usually to the lot of the busy courtier

and statesman. One drawback to his felicity, one stimulant to his

return, had been the serious indisposition of the Duchess of Buckingham.

Her uneasiness during her husband’s absence, her vexation at the rumours

which prevailed to his disadvantage, and, above all, the doubts of his

fidelity which embittered their separation, had produced that condition

which the physicians of the day generalized under the name of

“melancholy.”

Under these circumstances, the kindness of heart which formed part of

King James’s character, unaccompanied as it was with dignity or

judgment, was manifested, and, at the same time, he evinced his lively

and unabated regard for Buckingham. An affection cannot be deemed wholly

selfish which shows itself to those who are beloved by its object.

James’s compassion for the Duchess, the fatherly interest he took in

her, and his continual acts of favour to her child, elevate the

character of his preference for Buckingham. It has been the practice of

historians to ridicule as a weakness the good-nature of this monarch;

but those who felt its effect forgot, probably, the absurdity of its

mode of manifestation in the benevolent impulses of the royal heart.

The “poor fool Kate,” as the King entitled the Duchess of Buckingham,

met with incessant consideration on small and great points from His

Majesty. During the year previous to the journey into Spain, the Duchess

(then Marchioness) had given birth to another daughter; the King stood

sponsor to the infant, and gave her the name of Jacobina. During the

young mother’s illness, James testified the greatest anxiety, and

“prayed heartily” for her; calling at Wallingford House, where she was,

several times a day to inquire after her health.[51] The child

eventually died; and James was the more confirmed in his parental

fondness for the Lady Mary Villiers, whom he usually denominated his

grandchild, on the principle that her father was to him as a son. And

now “my sweete Steenie” was the chief object of the King’s interest and

gossip; he wrote from Whitehall to the Duke, in Spain:--"I must give

thee a short account of many things. First, Kate and thy sister (the

Countess of Denbigh) supped with me on Saturday last, and yesterday

bothe dined and supped with me, and so shall do still, with God’s grace,

as long as I am here; and my little grandchild, with her four teeth, is,

God be thanked, well weaned, and they are all very merry." [52]

Footnote 51:

State Papers. Domestic. March 30, 1622, vol. cxxviii., No. 96.

Footnote 52:

Birches’s MSS., 4174.

The Marchioness dined, during her convalescence, in the bed-chamber of

the King, who gave a diamond chain, worth 3,500_l._, with his picture,

to the Duchess of Lennox, for having “made broths and caudles” for the

Marchioness during her illness.[53]

Footnote 53:

State Papers, vol. cxxix., No. 92.

The Duchess had, it appeared, informed His Majesty of a domestic

arrangement, all important to the mother and infant, but not usually

deemed an affair such as royalty might condescend to take account of, or

be a matter for an elderly pedant, like King James, to decide. “I hope

my Lord Arran,” she wrote to the King, “has told your Majesty that I

mean to wean Moll very shortly. I would not by any means do it till I

had made your Majesty acquainted with it; so I intend to make trial this

very night how she will endure it.”[54] “Little Moll,” who afterwards

married successively three times, is mentioned frequently in the

domestic correspondence of the day.[55]

Footnote 54:

Nichols, p. 843; from papers in the Advocate’s Library, Edinburgh.

Footnote 55:

Harleian, vol. 6987.

James’s regard for the Duchess was also shown in another way. When the

Duke applied to His Majesty for jewels, his young wife, scarcely twenty

years of age, was eager to part with baubles which were so precious in

the eyes of others, in order to advance Buckingham’s interest, and

enhance his splendour at the Spanish Court. The King could hardly bear

that his favourite should accept her generosity. “And now,” he wrote,

"my sweet Steenie gossip, that the poor fool Kate hath also sent thee

her pearl chain, which, by chance, I saw in a box in Frank Steward’s

hand, I hope I need not to conjure thee not to give any of her jewels

away there, for thou knowest what necessary use she will have of them at

your return here, besides that it is not lucky to give away anything

that I have given her."[56] In his correspondence, James never forgot

the Duchess. “This,” he says, addressing Buckingham, “is the sixt time I

have written to you two, five to Kate, two to Su (the Countess of

Denbigh), and one to thy mother, Steenie, all with my own hands.”[57] In

presents of provisions he was considerate of her comfort, and so lavish

that the Duke was wont to call his Majesty his “man-purveyor.”

Footnote 56:

Nichols, 850.

Footnote 57:

Nichols, from Harleian MSS., 6987.

Like a good wife, the Duchess appears to have occupied herself, during

the absence of her husband, in maintaining and improving Newhall and

Burleigh, places in which the Duke felt a lively interest, and his

mother participated in these exertions without any of that petty

jealousy of interference being exhibited, which a less amiable mind than

that of the Duchess might have disturbed.

“For Burley,” she writes word, “I hear the wall is not very forward yet,

and my lady” (the Countess) “bid me send you word that she is gone down

to look how things are there. She says she is about making a littel

river to run through the park. It will be about sixteen feet broad; but

she says she wants money.”[58]

Footnote 58:

State Papers, vol. cxi., No. 13.

In all her letters to the Duke, the warmest affection is expressed by

his wife; and she seems to have justified the encomiums of Archbishop

Laud, who enters her name in his diary, as “that excellent lady, who is

goodness itself.”[59]

Footnote 59:

Laud’s Diary.

In the concerns of his mother, the Duke found much dissatisfaction. In

June, 1622, the Countess of Buckingham received a hint to stay away from

Court on account of the Progress, but really on account of her

professing the Roman Catholic faith, or rather, perhaps, as a punishment

for a little Court intrigue, relative to the Duchess of Lennox. When the

ambassador from the Emperor of Austria took leave, it was thought

necessary to bestow some jewel upon him as a mark of royal favour. James

commanded one to be brought to him; it proved to be a chain which had

belonged to Queen Anne, and which was worth three thousand pounds. James

thought it too valuable for the ambassador, and refused to give it,

saying, “wherein hath he deserved so much at my hands?” Prince Charles,

hearing this, suggested that the chain should be bestowed on the Duchess

of Lennox, who had received no present since her marriage. An assent was

given; and the Prince undertook to carry the gift to her Grace. He put

it round his own neck, and, taking it thence, presented it to the

Duchess. This was regarded as so unusual an act of respect, that the

Countess of Buckingham could not hear of it unmoved. Relying upon the

unbounded favour of the King to her son, she took upon herself to send

for the jewel back again the next day, saying it was required for a

particular purpose, and that it should be requited with a gift equally

costly. The Duchess of Lennox, astonished, questioned the messenger, who

confessed that the Countess had sent him. The truth was then disclosed;

of course, the Duchess was highly indignant; she sent back the messenger

with this answer, that since the Prince had brought it to her, it should

be taken back by no hand but her own; accordingly, on the following day,

she went with the chain in her hand to the King, desiring to know how

she had offended His Majesty. The King, when he comprehended the matter,

swore that he was abused, and the Prince burst into a passion of anger,

and declared that if the Countess of Buckingham stayed in the Court he

would leave it. This story has been in some particulars, however,

discredited, for several good reasons; but it may be regarded as

characteristic of those to whom it refers; and as exemplifying the

unbounded effrontery attributed to the mother of the Favourite.[60]

Footnote 60:

Harleian MSS., 389.--See Nichols, 1113, note.

A change was observed to have taken place in the deportment of

Buckingham almost immediately on his return from Spain. He became

affable, and, therefore, “suddenly and strangely gracious among the

multitude,” so that, as Sir Henry Wotton expresses it, “he did seem for

a time to have overcome that natural incompatibility which, in the

experience of all ages, hath ever been noted between the vulgar and the

sovereign favour. But this was no more than a meer bubble or blast, and

like an ephemeral bit of applause, as eftsoon will appear in the sequel

and train of his life.”[61]

Footnote 61:

Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, 219.

Shortly after his return from Spain, fresh honours were added to those

with which Buckingham had been so richly endowed. The King, it was

observed, had now grown into “an habitual and confirmed custom” of

loading his favourite with benefits; and the Duke was, accordingly, made

Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Steward of the Manor of Hampton

Court; “dignities and offices,” says Sir Henry Wotton, “still growing

out of trust and profit.”

But this apparent prosperity was alloyed by many difficulties, and

shaken by cabals, some stimulated by direst foes, others induced by

hollow allies; and the career of the Favourite, like that of all the

fortunate, began to be embittered and precarious.

There required, indeed, much condescension and courtesy to soften the

exasperated feeling of the people against the promoter of the Spanish

match. The pulpits, far from being “tuned” to its praise, were

continually clamouring against the alliance.

There were strange signs of the times when, notwithstanding the almost

absolute dominion of the Crown, it was found necessary to issue orders

that the sanctity of the royal presence, and the dignity of the Privy

Council should not be lowered by persons coming in booted and

spurred--forbidding them also to go into chapel in that guise, and

ordering them to remain uncovered during the services.[62] In former

days, James, as well as Elizabeth, had demanded an almost degrading

respect; but the habits of the monarch had long since brought even

royalty into contempt.

Footnote 62:

State Papers, Domestic, vol. cxxxvii., p. 5.

Accordingly, his influence over the pulpits had also decreased. James

could not now control his impatience and petulance; even when listening

to a sermon on Christmas-day, from the Bishop of London, the King,

displeased at its length, talked so loud that the prelate was obliged to

end abruptly. Urgent measures were taken to curb the taste for

controversial sermons; and none below bachelors of divinity were

henceforth to be allowed to preach them; for the Spanish match, and

favour to recusants, were the great themes, especially when the King, on

the plea that Protestants might find more freedom abroad, if there were

more toleration here, released all Jesuits, priests, and persons

refusing the oath of supremacy, who happened then to be in prison.[63]

“Wise men,” wrote one courtier to another, his kinsman, “are troubled,

and betake themselves to prayers, rather than inquiry.”[64] The clergy,

meantime, had been ordered to pray for the Prince’s prosperous journey

and safe return; but one stiff-necked preacher prayed “that God would be

merciful to him now that he was going to the House of Rinmon.”[65]

Footnote 63:

State Papers, vol. cxxxix., No. 91.

Footnote 64:

Ibid, vol. cxxxviii., No. 9; Dudley Carleton to Sir Dudley Carleton.

Footnote 65:

Ibid, vol. cxxxii., No. 64.

The King had, however, before Charles’s departure, given sensible and

stringent instructions to the two chaplains who were to attend on the

Prince, with regard to the reverential performance of divine service

whilst in Spain. They were to preach “Christ crucified, and the

doctrines of the English Church,” but not to indulge in polemical

discourses or in controversy. They might take with them Prayer-books,

articles of religion, and the King’s works.[66] At a later period,

however, this was altered, and the Prince’s “servants and chaplains”

were ordered to follow him with chapel furniture and Prayer-books in

Latin; the service was to be in Latin, and the communion celebrated with

wafer-cakes and wine and water; “but it will be to no purpose,” adds the

writer of this news, “as the Spaniards will not go near them.” Dr.

Hakluyt, the Prince’s former chaplain, had written a work against the

Spanish match, calling the Spaniards idolaters, and had presented it to

the Princes,[67] so that he was, it may be concluded, not among the

“servants and chaplains,” who were thus, according to the spirit of the

day, coupled together as forming a part of the Prince’s household.

Footnote 66:

State Papers, vol. cxxxix., No. 71.

Footnote 67:

Ibid, vol. cxxii., No. 88.

The prejudice against the Infanta, as a future Queen of England,

continued to increase, nor was it confined to uneducated or bigoted

persons. It was supposed that, whilst Buckingham was in Spain, he

received secret advices, which convinced him that to steer his course in

safety, it would be necessary to break off a treaty which the

Puritanical party regarded as a compact with Popery. “There were those

who,” says Bishop Hacket, “sent instructions into Spain, to adjure the

Duke to do his best to prevent the espousals.” The reasons assigned were

"God’s glory, and his own safety." "For God’s sake, keep our orthodox

religion from the admixture of that superstition which threatened

against the soundness of it. And no corrosive so good to eat out the

corruption of Romish rottenness creeping on, as to give the Spaniard the

dodge, and leave the daughter of Spain behind." Such were the counsels

despatched by friends to the Duke.

Consultations of his adherents were now held at Wallingford House, to

consider what would be the best way of promoting, not the interests of

the nation, but his own personal advancement. James had, of late, become

partial to parliaments, and was resolved to close the next very

graciously. “Therefore,” observes Hacket, "the cabinet men at

Wallingford House set upon it to consider by what exploit their lord

should commence to be the ‘Darling of the Commons,’ and, as it were, to

republicate his lordship, and to be precious to those who had the vogue

to be lovers of their country." It was, therefore, determined to abandon

the Spanish marriage, and to direct the attention of the country, and

more especially the regard of the Prince, towards a daughter of France;

and it was agreed that it would be for Buckingham’s interests that he

should have the full credit of the newly projected alliance. From these

considerations was the Spanish alliance thrown aside, with, it must be

confessed, little regard to honour. Whether the evident disgust of the

nation to the marriage formed sufficient plea for the crooked and

complicated means which were taken to do away with a contract which had

been so nearly brought to a conclusion, it remains for posterity to

decide; contemporaries were divided by faction, not reason.

It was in vain, by the arbitrary acts employed, to suppress public

opinion. The Earl of Oxford had been committed to the Tower for saying

that he hoped the time would come when justice would be free, and not

come only through Buckingham’s hands. This committal was an instance of

the resolution at Court to crush all discussion. Gondomar, smooth to the

great, was a perfect fury towards the small. The people had been

indignant with him for having, before his return to Spain, struck a

Scotsman with his fists, for saying that he had been ill-treated in

Spain. The Scotsman, though he took the insult patiently, had been sent

to prison.[68] These were but scanty specimens of the petty oppressions

by which the voice of an aroused people was to be stopped. It was

therefore time, Buckingham thought, to save himself, at all events, from

the storm. Public hatred had been already shown when Don Diego, as

Gondomar was called, passed through the city. The mob insulted him, and

even threatened violence, “but none was used.” Three apprentices were,

nevertheless, whipped at the cart’s tail for this slight to the Spanish

ambassador, whilst the people looked, pitying, on; and those who

executed the sentence incurred much popular abuse. James, who was at

that time angry with all who differed from him, came from Theobald’s to

London in a rage to reprove such disorders. He was pacified by the

Recorder, and contented himself with private admonition to the Aldermen

to punish such offenders. Another man was then whipped, and those who

murmured at the sentence arrested.[69]

Footnote 68:

State Papers, vol. cxxix., No. 50. Domestic.

Footnote 69:

State Papers, vol. cxx., No. 71.

Steps were immediately taken to mark a difference between the conduct to

be pursued to the Spanish and the French ambassadors; and Charles,

having first proposed an audience to the Marquis of Inojosa, granted it,

under circumstances not very flattering. The Spanish ambassadors, having

repaired to Theobald’s, returned not so well “satisfied as they ought”

to be. They endeavoured, but in vain, to procure an audience of the King

without the presence of the Duke; but finding that impossible, they

became disposed to arraign his conduct in the marriage before his

face.[70]

Footnote 70:

Nichols, 945.

The public, meantime, could not fail to interpret the real temper of the

King’s Council by circumstances apparently trivial. In the course of the

winter, there arrived from France a nobleman skilled in falconry, with a

present of fifteen or sixteen cast-off hawks, some ten or twelve horses,

and the same number of setters. He was accompanied by a numerous train,

splendidly accoutred, and made his entry into London by torchlight. He

was to remain until he had instructed the people in the kind of falconry

in which he excelled, he and his troop costing the King from twenty-five

to thirty pounds daily. Under this guise, probably, some political

mission was couched; for James, although now fast declining, braved the

advice of his physicians, and travelled to Newmarket on purpose to see

these foreign hawks fly. He had put off the masque on Twelfth Night, on

account, as he had assigned, of his indisposition; but actually because

of the competition about precedence between the French and Spanish

ambassadors, who could not be accommodated in his presence.[71]

Footnote 71:

Ibid, 960.

Thus did every variation in Buckingham’s plans appear to prosper. That

he could so work upon James’s mind as to obliterate from it the

cherished scheme of years, seems, indeed, a marvellous effect of his

influence. For his ingratitude in this matter to the King, who had

entrusted to him, as the object next his heart, the completion of the

Spanish treaty, the Duke has justly been blamed. Could he, as Bishop

Hacket asks, be deemed “execrable in point of honour and conscience? Did

he do it the best for the King? Did he think the Spanish alliance would

be fruitful in nothing but miseries, and that it would be a thankful

office to lurch the King in his expectation of it? Evil befall such

double diligence!” “Or did this great lord do it for the best for

himself? I believe it. If the hope of the match died away, he lookt to

get the love of the most in England; but if it were made up, he lookt

for many enemies, for he had lost the love of the best in Spain. Let the

Duke have his deserved praise in other things, great and many, but let

fidelity, loyalty, and thankfulness hide their face, and not look upon

this action.”[72]

Footnote 72:

Life of Keeper Williams, 138.

The blame of this conduct was attributable, according to the same

writer, more to those who worked upon the flexible temper of Buckingham

than to his own wishes. But no one has a right to throw off his own

shoulders, or to place on those of another, the deliberate violation of

solemn engagements. “For it is,” as the Bishop remarks, “not man, God

that made the law: he that kindled the fire, let him make retribution.”

It was not long before James began to suspect that he had been abused by

the favourite whose fidelity ought to have been secured by gratitude.

Among the friends of the Duke, there was one who looked disapprovingly

on his conduct. This was the Lord Keeper Williams; a man of “as deep and

large wisdom,” says Bishop Hacket, “as I did ever speak with.”

Confessing the greatest obligations to Buckingham, Williams had the

courage to oppose him, when conscience dictated a remonstrance.

“His enemies,” says his biographer, “liked nothing worse in him than his

courage, and he pleased himself in nothing more.” Of a stately presence,

and possessing abilities to maintain that lofty demeanour which is

absurd when not supported by real superiority of intellect, Williams

could cope with the haughty Buckingham, whose headstrong will had become

such that none of the King’s ministers could move it. Williams, too, was

of temper somewhat irritable. “Choler and a high stomach were his

faults, the only defects in him.”[73] His manners were, at times, even

supercilious. He was not likely to be daunted by one whose capacity was,

therefore, to his own, as that of the infant to the man, and over whom

he exercised an ascendancy through a very noted channel; namely, the

influence which the Lord Keeper possessed over the Countess of

Buckingham. “Those dangerous and busy flies,” writes Bishop Hacket,

“which the Roman seminaries send abroad, had buzzed about the Countess

of Buckingham, had blown upon her, and infected her. She was mother to

the great favourite, but in religion became a step-mother.” Her

conversion had taken place about a twelvemonth previously. The Countess

doted on her son; but her conversion was certain to be highly injurious

to him, especially at that juncture, just before the Spanish journey.

Complaints were uttered, importing that the mother, who was thought

almost to govern her son, must indirectly sway the monarch who was now

little other than that son’s slave. The part which Laud had taken to

remedy the evil has been already detailed. The Lord Keeper also had

foreseen and endeavoured to prevent the mischief which might arise from

these rumours. “Safety,” he considered, “is easiest purchased by

precaution.” “An instrument that is swung may be used upon a little

warning.” Anxious for the welfare of the Duke, Williams addressed him to

the following effect. “Your mother,”[74] he observed, “is departed from

the bosom of the Church of England, in whose confession of faith she was

baptized;--a strange delusion in any to go astray from that society of

Christians among whom they cannot demonstrate but salvation may be had.

I would we could bring her home so soon that it might not be seen she

had ever wandered.” His concern, he intimates, was, however, not so much

for the Countess’s eternal welfare, as for her son’s temporal security.

It was, he thought, time to inform the Favourite “that clamours were

opened,” “that now the recusants have a potent advocate to plead for

their immunity, and when this should be handed in high and popular court

by tribunitial orators, what a dust it would make!”

Footnote 73:

Hacket’s Life, p. 229.

Footnote 74:

Williams wrote, for the Countess’s especial conversion, “A Manual of

the Elements of the Orthodox Religion, by an Old Prebend of

Westminster,” of which twenty copies only were printed, and all

presented to the Marquis.--Nichols, vol. iii., p. 257.

“But,” pursued the Lord Keeper, “though I have touched a sore with my

finger, I am furnished with an emplaister to lay upon it, which, I

presume, will lenifie. Only measure not the _size_ of good counsel by

the _last_ of success.” After this address, Williams had proposed that

controversies between learned men, in which that age so much delighted,

should be held for the Countess of Buckingham’s edification; that the

King should be present at this; and the “conflux of great persons, as

thick as the place would permit.” Then should Buckingham’s industry and

zeal be manifested to “catch at every twig or advantage,” to give weight

to every solid reason, to bring his mother into a sound mind again. If

successful, the Duke would “save a soul very precious to him;” if

unsuccessful, then the favourite’s “pious endeavours would fill the King

with a good report,” and impart a “sweet savour” to all.

The result had justified the Lord Keeper’s anticipations; the Jesuit

father, Fisher, was the champion in whom the Countess most relied; the

King was the superintendent of the controversy. Dr. Francis White, then

Dean of Carlisle, had gone first into the lists with Fisher, and given

him “foil for foil,” according to the testimony of the Protestant party.

But the lady was still unconvinced. The Lord Keeper engaged, therefore,

in the combat. He managed the disputation with infinite skill, guided by

worldly wisdom, mixed up with Christian charity. He had observed in the

former conflict, that if some of the Jesuit’s arguments were admitted,

“the Church of England, repurging itself from the super-injected errors

of Rome, would stand inculpable.” He laboured, therefore, to show that

if “unnecessary strifes were discreetly waved, little was wanting to a

conclusive unity.” The King greatly commended this conciliatory mode of

disputation, which surprised and baffled Fisher, yet which still failed

to bring back the wanderers to their former path. The third who had

contended for the palm of victory, to bring, as Hacket calls it,

“eye-salve to the dim-sighted lady, was Bishop Laud, who was declared to

have galled Fisher with great acuteness.” But all his labour was vain,

as far as the Countess was concerned; she continued in her new belief.

The conference had, however, effected what was desired for her son. He

had appeared as an antagonist in the field against one whom he honoured,

and whom he had treated with the deepest respect. He was "blazed abroad

as the Red Cross Knight that was Una’s champion against Archinago."[75]

And this scheme, which produced results afterwards, as well as at the

time they were effected, of the utmost importance to Buckingham, had

been accomplished from the suggestions and by the skill of the Lord

Keeper Williams.

Footnote 75:

Hacket’s Life of Williams, pp. 172, 173.

It may therefore be supposed that Buckingham would listen with reverence

to his representations, when the Lord Keeper ventured to warn him from

the course he was pursuing. So far, however, from such being the case,

the Duke never forgave him for a letter addressed to him whilst in

Spain, advising a reconciliation with the Earl of Bristol, whose

knowledge of Spanish affairs, and repeated success in negotiations,

would, it was thought, secure the completion of the marriage treaty.[76]

Even whilst writing the letter, which seemed to alienate Williams from

Buckingham for a time, the Lord Keeper was aware that he had already

incurred the favourite’s displeasure. “What I wrote formerly,” he says,

“may be ill-placed, and offend your grace, but all proceeded from as

true and sincere a heart as you left behind you in all this

kingdom.”[77] The Earl of Bristol, on hearing of this act of mediation,

argued truly when he anticipated that it would produce a quarrel. He

wrote to Williams to the following effect, “that the friendship of the

Duke was a thing he did infinitely desire, that he did infinitely esteem

the good offices that the Lord Keeper had done therein, but that he

conceived that any motion he had made in that kind had been despised

rather than received with thankfulness.”[78]

Footnote 76:

Hacket’s Life of Williams, p. 147.

Footnote 77:

Ibid.

Footnote 78:

Hacket, 148.

Buckingham had formerly been compared to Alcibiades, the Lord Keeper to

Socrates; but all obligations to that supposed Socrates were henceforth

annulled. The interference of Williams, creditable to himself, and due

to the King, was so misinterpreted that Buckingham withdrew from him his

friendship, forgetting not only the axiom of Solon, “never to choose a

friend suddenly, nor to lose him suddenly,” but the still stronger

argument of services which could not be denied. During the Duke’s

absence in Spain, Williams had watched over his welfare with the utmost

care; he had ventured boldly to speak the truth to him; a benefit

scarcely less important; yet Buckingham could not be appeased.

He instantly avowed his determination, expressed with such effrontery

and openness that it was soon conveyed to Williams, that he "would pluck

down the highest roof of the Lord Keeper’s dignity." Williams, however,

remained undaunted. He knew the favourite well. He allowed him to be a

“generous and incorrupt patron, a great exacter of duty from those whom

he served, and a bitter enemy.” But he confided in his own powers of

rhetoric, and in the pliable temper of his former friend. The Earl of

Rutland, Buckingham’s father-in-law, was employed to mediate between

them; and to him the Duke said, referring to Williams, “Whenever I

disagree with him, he will prove himself to be in the right; and though

I could never convict him of being dishonest, I am afraid of his wit.”

Before Buckingham returned, Williams sent another letter, warning him of

the risk he ran, and offering excellent advice on the subject of the

Spanish treaty, and upon the Duke’s demeanour. The Spaniards had

remarked with resentment that when Charles attempted to speak in

Buckingham’s presence, the Duke took the words out of his mouth, or

checked, with an abrupt contradiction, what he had to say; the more

gently Charles endured this presumption, the greater was the general

admiration expressed towards him, and disgust towards his favourite. The

Spaniards, who never address their kings first, were indignant with his

freedom, which constituted one of those points against which Williams

had warned the Duke. It was in vain that the Lord Keeper strove to

conciliate Buckingham, in vain that he praised the Duke’s skill and

energy in the marriage treaty to King James; a breach was made, which

was never entirely repaired, and which is as discreditable to the Duke

of Buckingham as any of those violations of good faith and propriety by

which his career was sullied.

On Tuesday, the thirteenth of January, whilst Buckingham’s disfavour

with the King was suspected, a singular scene took place. The King,

being much disturbed by his affairs, resolved to go to Theobald’s for

change of scene. His health was now completely broken, and the vexatious

and arbitrary conduct of his favourite added greatly to his sufferings.

The morning before he left Whitehall, he received the various foreign

ambassadors--the Venetian was first admitted, the French second, the

Spanish last. They were introduced privately; and, after a full hour’s

audience, the Prince and Buckingham were called in; what passed remained

a secret, but the Prince and Duke were observed to come out looking very

much dejected.

The Duke’s carriage stood at the door, ready to follow that of the King

to London; and the favourite was prepared, as usual, to accompany his

royal master in his own coach. The King and his son were in the coach,

when the Duke received an intimation from His Majesty that he was not to

go. Buckingham, it is related, with tears in his eyes, entreated “his

Master” to inform him how he had offended his gracious sovereign. “I

vow,” he added sternly, “to purge, or confess it.” James, also, shed

tears, and exclaiming that he was the unhappiest man alive, to be

forsaken by those who were dearest to him, ordered his coach to drive

on, and the Duke was left standing, dismayed, and probably indignant.

Charles, who witnessed this scene, behaved with his usual weakness, his

tears, also, expressing his concern and contrition.

Buckingham retired to Wallingford House, where, sometime afterwards, the

Lord Keeper Williams went to him, having with difficulty been admitted.

“He found him,” says Bishop Hacket, “lying on a couch, in that unmovable

posture that he would neither rise up nor speak, though invited twice or

thrice with courteous questions.” But Williams generously consoled him,

admonishing that he believed "God’s directing hand was in it, to stir up

his grace;" he assured him that he came on purpose to bring him out of

his sorrow with the light of the King’s favour. He besought the Duke to

set off instantly for Windsor; not however to show himself to His

Majesty before supper was over, and then to deport himself with all

“amiable addresses;” not “to quit the King night or day, for the danger

was that some would thrust themselves in to push his Majesty on to break

utterly with the Parliament; and the next degree of theirs to be was,

upon that dissolution, to see his grace convicted to the Tower, and God

knows what would follow.”[79]

Footnote 79:

See Hacket’s Life of Williams. Also Mr. Chamberlain’s Letter to Sir

Dudley Carleton, quoted in Nichols, 961, from Birch’s MSS., Brit.

Mus., 417. These separate accounts are here connected; and Mr.

Chamberlain’s date and statement of the place to which the King went,

adopted upon the ground given by Nichols.

The Duke, as if awakening from a dream, aroused himself, and set off, on

the following day, to Theobald’s, where he arrived before he was

expected.

Thus, to Williams’ mediation, did Buckingham owe the avoidance of any

open displeasure on the part of his sovereign; unhappily this obligation

did not cancel in the Duke’s mind that avowal of a difference in

opinion, and that condemnation of the policy pursued towards Spain which

Williams esteemed it his duty to express.

Opinions differed as to the actual obligations of the Prince to complete

the contract with the Infanta.

The Earl of Bristol declared that the King and the Prince stood as much

engaged to it as princes could be; but Charles is said to have styled

himself, as he knelt down before the King, at Royston, to have been “an

absolute free man, but with one limitation--the restitution of the

Palatinate.”[80]

Footnote 80:

Hacket, 164.

These matters, painful and disgraceful as they were, were not concluded

until the end of the year 1624, when the “golden cord,” as Bishop Hacket

terms it, was broken. “Nothing,” adds the same authority, "is more sure

than that the Prince’s heart was removed from the desire of that

marriage after the Duke had brought him away from the object of that

delightful and ravishing beauty."[81] If the report of other historians

be credited, a far greater degree of constancy was shown by the young

Princess whose affections were thus cruelly gained, and then sacrificed.

After an acquaintance of many months, during which every possible

exertion had been made by Charles to win her regard, these young

persons, affianced as they doubtless were, had separated on terms of the

closest affection. “The rare Infanta,” as she was styled, “seemed to

deliver up her own heart at parting in as high expression as that

language, and her learning could, with her honour, set out.” And when

Charles had assured her that “_his_ heart would never be out of anxiety

till she had passed the intended voyage, and were safe on British land,”

she answered with a blush, “that should she happen to be in danger upon

the ocean, or discomposed in health with the rolling, brackish waters,

she would cheer up herself, and remember to whom she was going.”[82]

After his departure the Princess began to study English “a-pace,”[83]

two Englishmen, the one a Mr. Wadsworth, and the other Father Boniface,

being appointed to teach her. The English ambassador, and all the

ambassadors in Madrid from other countries, gave her the title and style

of an English Princess, the Earl of Bristol and Sir Walter Aston

remaining uncovered in her presence. In order to pass the period of

absence, the Infanta employed herself in working “divers suits of rich

cloths” for Charles, of perfumed ambar leather, some embroidered with

pearls, others with gold and silver. Her household was on the eve of

being settled, and nothing but one more despatch from home was expected,

and then the solemnization of the nuptials would take place. In the

midst of these preparations, one circumstance puzzled observers. “There

is,” says Howell, "one Mr. Clerk (with the lame arm), that came hither

from the seaside as soon as the Prince was gone; he is one of the Duke

of Buckingham’s creatures, yet he is at the Earl of Bristol’s house,

which we wonder at, considering the darkness that hapned ’twixt the Duke

and the Earl. We fear that this Clerk hath brought about something that

may puzzle the business."

Footnote 81:

Ibid, 167.

Footnote 82:

Hacket, 161. From Sanderson, p. 552; taken from the Spanish reports of

their conference.

Footnote 83:

Howell’s Letters.

Nevertheless, the preparations for the espousals proceeded; the first

check given to them being a letter from Prince Charles, desiring Lord

Bristol not to deliver up his proxy to the marriage to the King of Spain

until further notice from England. On receiving this intimation, Lord

Bristol observed “that he and Sir Walter Aston had a commission under

the Broad Seal of England to conclude the match, and that there could

not be a better favour for the surrender of the Palatinate than the

Infanta, who would never rest until she had merited the love of the

British nation.” He did not, therefore, relax his preparations; and

provided rich liveries of watered velvet, with silver lace up to the

very capes of the cloaks for his servants; and, in a fortnight

afterwards, the ratification arrived, the marriage-day was fixed, and a

terrace, covered with tapestry, was raised from the King’s Palace to the

next church, a distance about the same as that between Whitehall and

Westminster Abbey. But when she stood thus on the very threshold of her

happiness,as she deemed it, the Infanta was doomed to be rejected and

disappointed. “She had studied,” writes Bishop Hacket, “our language,

our habit, our behaviour, everything but our religion, to make her

English. Her conversation turned continually upon the Prince, and on her

projected voyage to England in the spring. On the other hand, she was

led to suppose that Charles admired her for her beauty; that his

attachment was equal to her own; and that he was worthy of the affection

which she undoubtedly bore him.”[84]

Footnote 84:

Life of Lord Keeper Williams, p. 164.

The young King of Spain, her brother, participated in the sentiments of

personal attachment which Charles appears to have inspired in those who

beheld him, in the prime of his youth, at the Court of Madrid. Philip

was now anxious to conclude the marriage, which he meant to do on the

day on which his infant daughter was christened. Invitations were

actually sent to the principal nobility to attend the espousals by

proxy; ordinance was ordered to be fired off in the port-towns; and all

Spain was prohibited from speaking disadvantageously of the alliance;

when a new commission to Lord Bristol arrived. By this he was forbidden

to deliver up the Prince’s proxy until a full and absolute satisfaction

for the surrender of the Palatinate was given under the hand and seal of

the King of Spain.

This pretext--for the plea of the Palatinate could not in justice be

adduced at this stage of the treaty--was met by the insulted Philip IV.

with spirit. He replied that the “Palatinate was not his to give;” that

he held only a few towns there; but that if the King of Great Britain

would set a treaty on foot, he would send his own ambassador to join in

it.[85] But the final blow was given to the Spanish treaty. Lord Bristol

was prohibited from delivering any more letters to the Infanta, and her

title of Princess of England and Wales was prohibited.

The King, on his return to Whitehall, commissioned a select junto to

inquire, whether, in the treaty with the King of Spain, that monarch had

been sincere to the last in his desire to satisfy the Prince and the

Duke; and whether, in the treaty for the restitution of the Palatinate,

he had violated the league between the two kingdoms, so as to deserve a

war to be proclaimed against him.[86]

Footnote 85:

Nichols, p. 943.

Footnote 86:

Hacket, p. 157.

Some of the proceedings of this junto having been bruited abroad, it was

found that they were divided into three parties, five of their number

being for the Spanish marriage--among whom was the Lord Keeper

Williams--four neutral, and three directly against the alliance. These

were the Duke of Buckingham, who sent his vote, the Earl of Carlisle,

and Secretary Conway. The evident distaste which Charles now showed for

the match had a great influence in the deliberations of the junto. The

Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain, who was at first neutral, “nobly

spoke out, declaring it as his opinion that, if the Spaniards performed

the conditions, he saw not how the thing could in honour draw back.” It

was supposed that this candid declaration was owing to some pique

between him and Buckingham. Much heart-burning, indeed, existed on the

part of several of the junto towards the favourite, who engrossed, as it

was plainly seen, the regards both of the King and of his son, and

contrived to cut off all access to those whom it was his aim wholly to

govern.[87]

Footnote 87:

Nichols, p. 964.

But the chief object of Buckingham’s wrath was Williams. “The

proceedings in this affair were,” says Bishop Hacket, "so far against

the Lord Keeper’s mind, that he wished, before a friend or two in

private, that a fever in his sick-bed might excuse him." Buckingham was

now become incapable of that generous candour which permits a friend to

differ in opinion. He “was now mortally anti-Spanish,” as Bishop Hacket

observes, “and his anger was headed with steel. He assayed the Lord

Keeper to hale him to his judgment, as an eddy does a small boat,” and

would have persuaded him to influence the King against Spain; but he

found him as “inflexible as a dried bough.” When pressed by the

favourite to advance his views, he declared that, as God was his

protector, he would suffer all the obloquy in the world, rather than be

ungrateful to the Duke. But when the King asked his judgment--he must be

true and faithful--Buckingham, to his discredit be it spoken, had not

the generosity to appreciate Williams. The Duke had been apprized that

James, addressing the Earl of Carlisle, had remarked, "that had he sent

Williams into Spain, he would have kept both heart’s ease and honour,

both of which he lacked at that time." And one day, when Prince Charles

was present, James, looking at Williams, said, “This is the man that

makes us keep merry Christmas.” The Prince, not seeming to understand

his father, the King explained himself. “It is he,” he said, “that

laboured more dexterously than all my servants to bring you safe back

home this Christmas, and I hope you are sensible of it.” A finishing

stroke was put to Buckingham’s mortification when the King announced his

intention of promoting the Lord Keeper to the Archbishopric of York when

next it should be vacant.[88]

Footnote 88:

Hacket, 168.

The decision of the junto exonerated Philip IV. from any hollowness in

his share of the treaty. They blamed the Earl of Bristol for not

revoking the proxy, which was left in his hands sooner, and thus

stopping those preparations for the nuptials which had rendered the King

of Spain ridiculous. But when they voted that that Monarch should be

defied with open war, till amends were made to the Prince Palatine for

the wrongs he had suffered, the majority of the conference hesitated,

and refused to say more than that the “girths of peace were slack, but

not broken.” Buckingham had now become wholly impatient of opposition;

scarcely any of the council had voted to his satisfaction. Sometimes

strange scenes were witnessed in the conference; the fiery Duke would

arise, and “chafe against” those who opposed him from room to room, “as

a hen who has lost her brood, and clucks up and down when there is none

to follow her.” Upon meeting Lord Belfast, one of the party adverse to

his wishes, he asked him contemptuously, “Are you turned too? and flung

from him; upon which Lord Belfast, in a manly and candid letter,

announced his resolution to conform in all things to the pleasure of his

royal master.” But the greatest anger was displayed by Buckingham

against the Lord Keeper, who seldom spoke, but who, when he gave his

opinion, swayed that of the majority.[89]

Footnote 89:

Hacket, p. 69.

Buckingham was not of a character to dissemble his feelings; and his

displeasure was shown, not only in his countenance, but expressed in

angry expostulations. He told Bishop Laud that the Lord Keeper had so

strangely forgotten himself to him that he seemed to be “dead in his

affections.” Laud, who was devotedly attached to the favourite and his

family, meeting Williams in the withdrawing-chamber at Whitehall, “fell

into very hot words with him,” which were reported to the Duke.

Eventually, however, these differences were healed, and, in February,

1624, a reconciliation was effected through the mediation of Laud. From

henceforth, nothing but an appearance of friendship subsisted between

Buckingham and Williams. “The wound,” says Dr. Heylyn, “was only

stunned, not healed, and festered the more dangerously, because the

secret rancour of it could not be discerned.”[90]

Footnote 90:

Heylyn’s Life of Laud, p. 113.

The issue of all this was that the Duke insisted on a parliament, by way

of appeal;[91] and during the heat of these Court cabals, that body was

assembled at Westminster in February.

Footnote 91:

Hacket, p. 169.

Meantime, public aversion to the match was from time to time forcibly

expressed. The pulpits were still profaned by political allusions; a

clergyman named Knight was committed for preaching that tyrannical kings

might be brought to order by their subjects; a doctrine which appeared

so monstrous to James, that he talked of having the sermon burned by the

hangman.[92] This arrest took place at Oxford; the King highly approved

the proceedings, and directions were forthwith sent to the heads of the

colleges, to desire the students to apply themselves to the Scriptures,

to general councils, and the ancient fathers and schoolmen, excluding

the heretical doctrines of both Jesuits and Puritans. The document which

contains these directions is still extant, and is endorsed by Laud.

Sedition seems not to have been the only rank weed that then sprang up

in the universities.[93]

Footnote 92:

State Papers, cxxix., No. 62.

Footnote 93:

Ibid, cxix., No. 68.

The King, in addressing the Parliament, declared that he had called them

together to correct previous misunderstandings; that he would cherish

his people as a husband does his wife; he wished for their advice in

matters of the greatest moment; he had long been engaged in treaties,

hoping to settle the peace of Christendom, but had found treaties

fallacious. With regard to Spain, he referred the houses to the

secretaries, the Prince, and to Buckingham; on their good advice he

conceived the felicity of the kingdom depended. He had never, he said,

neglected religion, nor intended anything but a temporary indulgence to

recusants. He concluded this original and eccentric harangue (rather

different from a modern royal speech) by saying that he knew that never

was there a king more beloved than himself, and that he wished the two

houses to be the mirrors of the people.[94]

Footnote 94:

State Papers, vol. cxix., No. 55.

The Speaker was then elected; and Sir Thomas Crewe, sergeant-at-law, in

his reply, recalled the benefits of the good parliament in the

thirty-second year of Henry VIII., and the thirty-ninth of Elizabeth.

Soon afterwards, More, an attorney, was sentenced to lose both his ears

“for speaking disrespectfully of those two deceased monarchs.” Such was

English liberty. The culprit laughed whilst the sentence was being put

into execution in Cheapside. A proclamation was issued, ordering priests

and Jesuits to leave Ireland within forty days;[95] so instant was the

change from toleration to persecution. James was not more free from

troubles about Ireland than his successors have been. On visiting the

State Paper Office, and seeing a large mass of documents relating to

that island there, he had once remarked that there was “more ado about

Ireland than about any of his dominions.”[96]

Footnote 95:

Ibid, No. 70.

Footnote 96:

State Papers.

The Duke had now so completely regained the love of the people, by his

abandoning the Spanish marriage, that it was proposed in the Lower House

to confirm all his lands and honours to him by act of parliament; but

the reply was that this was no time to commend men, though deserving

well.[97] A few days afterwards, the Prince told the Upper House that

they need not fear “advising a breach, for if we did not begin the war,

Spain would.”

Footnote 97:

Ibid, Nos. 93, 94.--Locke to Carleton.

In the House of Commons, Sir Benjamin Rudyard declared that the King of

Spain had verified the proverb that kings’ daughters are so many ways to

deceive their neighbours; and that since the match was first thought of,

much Papistry had sprung up amongst the people; that Protestantism was

disunited as in Germany; suppressed as in France; threatened as in

Holland. All the speakers on this memorable occasion praised the Prince.

Rudyard declared that he had shown both courage and wisdom in his

journey, which “had matured his excellent parts.” The Lord Keeper

Williams related how the Prince had sent a message to the council, to

say that though he stole to Spain for love, he would not steal back

again for fear; how he had told Grimes, one of his servants, to tell his

father, in case he should hear that he was detained, to think of him no

more as a son, for he would be lost, but to place all his affections on

his sister.[98] On the second of March, Sir Edward Coke was instructed

by the Commons to advise the Lords of their unanimous resolution to

counsel the King to break the treaties with Spain; and was instructed to

request the Lords to join in a petition to make a declaration to that

effect, which should comfort his people and encourage his allies

abroad.[99] Sir Edward answered, that he never knew a petition of both

houses refused; he could not say anything more “for weeping;” and Sir

Thomas Edmondes, treasurer of the household, taking up the pecuniary

part of the question, said that the “mysteries of delusion in the

treaties were now discovered, and that the Spanish, having enticed us

from the match with France, now offered, instead of a dowry of

600,000_l._, only 20,000_l._ yearly with the Infanta, and some jewels;

whilst France would give a wedding portion of 240,000_l._” This,

perhaps, considering the King’s debts, and the almost bankrupt state of

the treasury, was probably a stronger argument with James than the

restitution of the Palatinate, or the security of Protestantism, on

which points his conscience seems to have been conveniently callous.

Footnote 98:

State Papers, clx., Nos. 8 and 10.

Footnote 99:

Ibid, Nos. 1 and 33.

On the twenty-sixth of February, Buckingham, assisted by the Prince,

addressed the houses, beginning from the first negotiation at Brussels,

which had raised doubts of the Spanish King’s sincerity, and induced the

Prince to go himself to Spain; and had disclosed the fact that neither

the marriage, nor the restitution of the Palatinate, was intended. Many

letters were read to and from the chief parties concerned in the treaty,

and the houses were asked whether the King should act on the assurances

given, or “stand on his own feet.” It was soon resolved that the King

should not accept their answer. The houses applauded the Duke’s conduct,

and requested the King to break off the treaties.[100]

Footnote 100:

State Papers, vol. clix., No. 83.

Upon this resolution, the spirits of the anti-Catholics were so much

excited that a request was sent James to order a fast for the happy

deliverance of the Prince; and no member of parliament was henceforth to

be allowed to retain recusant servants.[101] Soon afterwards the Lower

House informed the Upper that the Spanish ambassadors declared that

Buckingham deserved to lose his head for wronging the King of Spain, but

that the Commons had acquitted him, and the Upper House appointed a

committee, who did the same.[102] On the same day, the Duke made a

motion in the House of Peers to “thwart the King of Spain in the

Indies,” by way of a commencement of hostilities. The Upper House,

indeed, cried out loudly for hostilities, more especially the bishops;

and the Bishop of Durham was so excited that he declared he would lay

down his rochet, and gird on a sword if the King would take that course.

This excitement was heightened by the following anecdote. Buckingham,

having been present when the Spanish ambassador told the King that his

master had deprived a bishop for speaking disrespectfully of James, had

answered, “It was true; and he had admired the justice of his Spanish

Majesty therein, but still more his mercy, for in a few days he gave the

man a bishopric worth thrice of his former prelacy.” These particulars

were stated by some members in the debates.[103]

Footnote 101:

State Papers, No. 92.

Footnote 102:

Ibid, No. 85.

Footnote 103:

Latter from Secretary Conway to Carleton.

It is not improbable that the exaggerated fears of the people, on the

one hand, and the expectations of the Catholics, on the other, may have

alarmed Charles, who was firmly attached to the Church of England. Upon

an application being made to Pope Gregory the XV. to grant a

dispensation for the marriage, that Pontiff had replied in a Latin

letter, expressing, first, his regret at the altered state of

Britain;[104] next, his hopes that, as under his predecessor, Gregory

the Great, Apostolical authority had been there established, he might be

permitted to see it reestablished by the conversion of the Prince, “the

flower of the Christian world,” who had proved, by seeking a Catholic

Princess, that he did not hate the see of Rome. He then set before the

Prince the example of his Highness’s ancestors, and concluded with

hoping that Charles would become “the infranshiser of Brittayne.”

Footnote 104:

State Papers, vol. clxiii., No. 59.--April 10, 1623.

Several Catholics who had worn a mask of Protestantism now threw it off,

and in hopes of toleration, avowed themselves Romanists; amongst these

were Sir John Wentworth and Lord Vaughan. “Everyone,” Lady Hatton wrote

to Carleton, “was on the wing for Spain;” but, “in spite of her walks

and talks with Gondomar,” she would ever, she said, oppose his

country.[105]

Footnote 105:

Ibid, vol. clxiii., No. 2.

Nor were the Catholics without reason in their dreams of enjoying a

degree of security and toleration long most unjustly and cruelly

withheld. Even after James had begun to listen to the changed tone

adopted by Buckingham, preparations had been going on, both for the

reception and maintenance of the Infanta, which might well afford hopes

of religious liberty. It was reported that the marriage conditions were

to be, the liberation of the Catholics and the abandonment of the

Hollanders. The Spanish ambassador surveyed Denmark House and St.

James’s, where “lodgings,” as they were styled, were prepared for the

Infanta. At each place, he ordered a new chapel, and Inigo Jones was to

prepare each with great costliness. The Spanish ambassador laid the

stone of a new chapel for the Infanta at St. James’s, whilst the Savoy

chapel was to be given up to the Infanta’s suite.

“After the London bonfires,” adds Mr. Chamberlain, who tells in the same

tone good and bad tidings, “Oxford lit fires and rung bells, and wrote

verses in honour of the match.”[106] It appears, indeed, from a letter

of Lord Treasurer Middlesex to Secretary Conway, that it was even in

contemplation to decorate the chapel with jewels; "Sir Peter Lore’s

jewels, and others of the Countess of Suffolk, now in pawn, should,"

wrote the Lord Treasurer, immediately after referring to his preparing

the chapel, "be submitted to His Majesty’s inspection, though he hoped

the King would not declare which he preferred, as advantage would be

taken of his preference, but leave the Chancellor himself, and others,

to bargain for them, as there was great necessity for frugality."[107]

Footnote 106:

State Papers, vol. cxliv., No. 13.

Footnote 107:

Lord Middlesex to Secretary Conway.--State Papers, vol. cxliii., No.

20.

The King, indeed, up to the very moment of his son’s return, had been

sanguine of the marriage, and delighted to talk over the adventures of

the journey, during which Buckingham had had seven falls, Sir Francis

Cottington twelve, and the Prince not one; but his tone was now

beginning to alter, which seemed strange to those who knew the King’s

circumstances, and who considered how splendid a dower was expected with

the Infanta. Lord Middlesex, who was afterwards discovered to have

embezzled public money, had declared himself “sick at heart” with the

idea of all these extraordinary charges, when the King was so ill able

to meet even his ordinary expenses. Like all servants who rob their

masters, his zeal was laudable; he could not, he wrote, “hold out,

unless some extraordinary reply be thought of, or some large sums come

in from Spain with the fleet; but would pawn his whole estate for the

present.”[108]

Footnote 108:

Lord Middlesex to Secretary Conway.--State Papers, vol. cxliii., No.

60.

It was a gift from a lady that brought first the altered sentiments of

Prince Charles to light. In the course of March, 1624, the Countess of

Olivares had sent him a large present of provisions, comprising gammons

of bacon, vessels of olives, special figs, sweet lemons, capers and

caperons, suchets, and sweet meats; he vouchsafed not even to see them.

They were conveyed into the riding place at St. James’s, and left to the

disposal of Mr. Francis Cottington.[109] On the twenty-third of March,

James informed his Privy Council that he was about to send a messenger

to Spain, to signify to the King that his Parliament had advised him to

break off the treaty, and that he intended proceeding to recover the

Palatinate as he might. “Bonfires were made in the city,” says

Archbishop Laud, “for joy that we should break with Spain.” Prince

Charles gave great satisfaction to the Parliament, where he was a

constant attendant, by declaring that should he choose any one of a

different religion from his own, it would be with a caution that his

consort, and her foreign servants, alone should be permitted the

exercise of their faith.[110] It was not, however, until the tenth of

December in the same year, that a ship was sent to Spain to fetch back

the jewels that had been bestowed on the Infanta and the royal family

there; when, by the proposal of the Spaniards themselves, they were

returned. They were placed under the care of James Howell, whose

familiar letters are so well known, and the news of their arrival was

conveyed by him to the King.[111] The Infanta, as an account from Spain

testified, was greatly distressed by these proceedings. The termination

of this treaty was, as Bishop Hacket remarks, “flat and unfortunate. Not

an inch of the Palatinate better for it, and we the worse from wars in

all countries.” The same writer justly observes that the Spanish as a

nation are preferable to the French; that the Spanish ladies, who have

been united to English princes, have been “virtuous, mild, thrifty, and

beloved of all.”

Footnote 109:

Nichols, p. 962.

Footnote 110:

Nichols, p. 970.

Footnote 111:

Ibid, p. 849.

The conduct of Charles in this affair gave a presage of that vacillating

and insincere policy which, in his after life, stamped a character full

of beautiful indications and gentle qualities, with duplicity. "But to

his life’s end," remarks Hacket, “he had a quality, I will not call it

humility, it is something like, but it is not it, to be easily persuaded

out of his own knowledge and judgment by some whom he permitted to have

power over him, who had not the half of his intellectuals.” The public,

however, remarked that the “brave prince,” as they called him, was

“bettered in his judgment after his return from Spain.”[112]

Footnote 112:

State Papers.

Buckingham’s conduct drew forth still more severe censures. It was

observed that in advising the Prince to break off the treaty, he had

only counselled what he had often done himself; for he was said to have

given promises of marriage to many within the Court, and to have

withdrawn from the fulfilment.[113] Harassed by the censures cast upon

him, Buckingham’s health and spirits sank under the alternate excitement

of his too dazzling career, and the depression of blame and opposition.

“A fever, the jaundice, and I know not what else,” are described, in a

letter from Mr. Chamberlain, as his disease. For this he was “let blood

thrice;” “yet the world,” adds the same writer, “thinks he is more sick

in mind than body, and that he declines apace.” The King in vain

endeavoured to reconcile him to the Earl of Bristol, who had returned

from Spain some time previously. That nobleman was ordered not to leave

his house, although many gracious messages were sent to him from the

King.[114] Buckingham, however, passed much of his time with the King,

“with as much freedom and love as ever.”[115]

Footnote 113:

Ibid, pp. 972, 975.

Footnote 114:

Hacket, from Cabala, p. 223.

Footnote 115:

State Papers.

The Duke of Buckingham was attended in his illness by Sir Theodore

Mayerne, the favourite court physician. From an entry in a journal of

cases kept by that eminent man, and styled by him his “Ephemerides

Anglicæ,” it appears that Buckingham was not unfrequently the subject of

his care and skill. In 1617 he had been troubled with a tumour in the

right ear, owing to riding bareheaded in the winter, when hunting with

the King; and the mode of life pursued in James’s society, the habits of

intemperance prevalent in those days, and the absence of any strict

moral principle, were, as Mayerne’s details are said to prove, highly

injurious to the general health of the Favourite,[116] who is specified,

in Sir Theodore’s voluminous collection, under the name of Palamedes.

Every one remarked that Buckingham had, since his return, become

pensive. “The Prince,” writes Mr. Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, “hath

got a beard, and is cheerful; the Marquis (some conceive) not so.” The

expenses of the Spanish journey were very considerable; and in the

impoverished state of James’s treasury, they might naturally provoke

difficulties far from agreeable to the main projectors of that

enterprize. They amounted, according to a release given by Prince

Charles to Sir Francis Cottington, to 50,027_l._ Prince Charles, before

he left Spain, had given presents to the amount of 12,000_l._

Footnote 116:

Ellis’s Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 245-46. There are

nineteen volumes in the Sloane MSS., British Museum, consisting of

notes in Latin, in the handwriting of Mayerne, forming a journal of

the cases which he attended from 1611 to 1649. “These,” says Sir Henry

Ellis, “may be styled, for the period they embrace, ‘Medical Annals of

the Court of England.’”

But it appears that the nation, pleased that the heir-apparent of Great

Britain should have an opportunity of seeing two great kingdoms, and

proud of his discretion and princely demeanour, were far from regretting

that the journey had taken place, but rejoiced that he had returned in

health, and without any change in his religious opinions.[117]

Footnote 117:

State Papers. Letter from Edward Herbert to James I., p. 168.

The Prince, it was now said, disliked a Dutch match, and refused a

Spanish one, until full restoration of the Palatinate and Electorals. “A

lady,” Dudley Carleton remarked, “wise in these matters, declared she

saw no symptom of his being in love.”[118] The talk of the Spanish match

became daily cooler, and another was said to be under consideration at

Vienna; whilst the Princes’s safe return was, as many thought, a “marvel

to all;” and a great man told him that he might thank God and his sister

for it.[119]

Footnote 118:

State Papers, vol. cliv., No. 2.

Footnote 119:

Ibid, No. 17.

In the course of these discussions an accident occurred, which too

plainly showed the temper of the times. A house had been hired by the

Roman Catholics, next to that of the French ambassador, in order to

celebrate mass, and to hear Father Drury, a famous Jesuit preacher. The

day chosen for the opening of the tenement was the fifth of November.

That day the roof fell in, whilst these worshippers were assembled, and

ninety-five people, Drury among the number, were killed. It seems

difficult, in the present state of public feeling, to believe that, as

the crashing ruins entombed the victims beneath them, the barbarous

multitude, who might term themselves Protestants, but were not to be

called Christians, “rather railed and taunted the sufferers, than helped

them.” Nor did the bitterness of persecution end there, for the Bishop

of London refused to allow these unfortunate people to be interred in

any churchyard in the City; the dead were therefore buried in two pits

behind the houses which had fallen in, and black crosses were placed

above their graves. This event made a deep impression. It was the first

solemn meeting of recusants for sixty years; the Puritans styled it a

judgment; the Romanists declared that it could not be such, for that

those dying in that way escape purgatory. The preachers in the churches,

however, treated the question “charitably and temperately.”[120] Masses

for the sufferers were said at Ely House, in the presence of all the

Spanish Legation, Sir Tobie Mathew appearing as chief mourner.[121]

Footnote 120:

Letter from Chamberlain to Carleton.

Footnote 121:

State Papers, vol. clxiv., No. 17.

People began to fear Buckingham more than even Prince Charles himself;

he was styled the “dictator, not only of England, Ireland, and of

Scotland, but of the King himself,”[122] and he henceforth courted

popularity, inviting himself to the houses of the influential citizens,

which seemed nevertheless to imply that he dreaded lest some impending

storm should be lowering over his destiny.

Footnote 122:

Coke’s Detections, p. 224.

During the whole of this year, however, Buckingham’s security was being

undermined; and, had it not been for the unfathomable indulgence of

James, he would probably have shared the fate of that great minister,

Wolsey, to whom he has been sometimes compared. During the progress of

the Spanish treaty, as we have already seen, the Marquis of Inojosa had

been sent to England as ambassador. He was a man of truly Spanish

gravity and severity, and a great promoter of the Popish interests in

England. His peculiar distinctions as an ambassador were, however, his

disagreeable, discourteous manners, which marked him as one of the most

unamiable foreigners that had visited the English Court.

This nobleman, in a private audience with James, had, in the spring of

1624, accused Buckingham of conspiring with certain accomplices how to

break off the match with the Infanta, and of having determined, in case

that their plot should not succeed, to send the King to one of his

country houses, and to put all public matters in the hands of the

Prince, whose virtue and discretion were so much worthier of confidence.

Hints were even thrown out by Inojosa that Buckingham plotted treason

against the King, who, until assured by several peers and councillors

that there was no intention of deposing him, was greatly disquieted.

Precedents were now sought to punish Buckingham; and there was an idea

started of calling him before the upper house to answer for his conduct.

But when the council talked to the King of precedents, he said that

"such precedents were found to cut off his mother’s head." Inojosa did

his best, meantime, to obtain a private hearing from the King, and went

to him, whilst Charles was in the House of Lords, at Theobald’s; but the

Prince, hearing of this visit, hurriedly rose, and arrived at the Palace

before the ambassador.

The King, harassed and vacillating, sent for the Lords to Whitehall, and

harangued them, when a strange scene ensued; he told them that he came

to sing a psalm of mercy and justice about the Lord Treasurer,[123]

whose misdeeds had lately come to light--who had done him, he said, some

good, in restraining grants which his own facile disposition led him to

consent to; that a recent imposition on wines was for his service and

profit, and therefore they might as well arraign him as the Lord

Treasurer. Prince Charles, deputed by the lords, said Lord Middlesex was

not questioned for that; but the King “_told him he lied_,” and bade the

house proceed, but give a good account of what they did.[124]

Footnote 123:

Lord Middlesex.

Footnote 124:

State Papers, vol. clxiv., No. 53.

James next did what every open nature is likely to suggest; he sent for

the creature whom he had raised from the dust, and reproached him with

his conduct. “Ah, Steenie, Steenie,” cried the monarch, “wilt thou kill

me?” Steenie, however, found means to justify himself to the King’s

satisfaction, and the Marquis of Inojosa was henceforth prohibited from

any more private interviews with the King. He resolved, however, to

overreach those who were set as spies to prevent his seeing James; and,

whilst Don Carlos de Coloma held the Prince and the Duke in close

conversation, he managed to slip into the King’s hands, with a wink, a

paper which he wished him to see, and made a sign that His Majesty

should thrust it into his pocket, which was quietly effected by the poor

frightened monarch. James had, indeed, for some time perceived that he

was maltreated by the haughty Buckingham. The Prince, though averse to

the alliance with Spain, was gentle and tractable; but, in the Duke, the

King declared that he had noted a turbulent spirit of late, and knew not

how to quell it. It was by the altered expression of James’s

countenance, and by his frequent silence and musings, that the Duke and

the Prince discovered these proceedings, and when they heard that

Inojosa and the Jesuit Maestro had been with the King, their alarm was

considerable. In consequence of this discovery, Buckingham wrote to his

royal master the following ungrateful and unpardonable letter:--

"DEAR DAD AND GOSSIP,

"Notwithstanding this unfavourable interpretation I find made

of a thoughtful and loyal heart, in calling my words ‘cruel Catonic

words,’ in obedience to your commands, I will tell the House of

Parliament that you, having been upon the fields this afternoon, have

taken such a fierce rheum and cough, as, not knowing how you will be

this night, you are not able yet to appoint them a day of hearing; but I

will forbear to tell them that notwithstanding of your cold, you were

able to speak with the King of Spain’s instruments, though not with your

own subjects. All I can say is, you march slowly towards your own safety

(here the words ‘_and happiness_’ are erased), and those that depend of

you. I pray God at last you may attain wit, otherwise I shall take

little comfort in wife or child, though now I am suspected to look more

to the rising son than to my maker. Sir, hitherto, I have tied myself to

a punctuall answer of yours. If I should give myself leave to speak my

own thoughts, they are so many, that though the quality of them should

not grieve you, coming from one you wilfully and unjustly suspect, yet

the number of them are so many, that I should not give over till I had

troubled you. Therefore I shall only tie myself to that which shall be

my last and speedy refuge--to pray, the Almighty to increase your joys

and qualify the sorrows of your Majesty."

Notwithstanding this remonstrance, James continued to give audience to

the Spanish ambassadors, though sometimes disputes ran high, and loud

expostulations were addressed even to his Majesty by Inojosa; at other

times, the Pope’s envoy, the Jesuit Maestro, was admitted whilst

Buckingham was at Newhall, and jealousies were thus fomented.[125] The

Duke was about this time ill of fever and jaundice; and reports were

spread of his having had something given to him in Spain that was

undermining his health; he was, in short, harassed by debts, harassed by

the Spanish treaty, and doubted by the King. Superstitious fears never

seemed to have had much hold on him; yet in James’s time, wiser men than

Buckingham (not to specify the King himself) were agitated by omens and

prophecies. In the spring of this eventful year, one Gamaliel Gruys had

prophesied that two great cedars would fall in England; these were, he

said, the Duke of Buckingham and the Lord Keeper. An hour after this

prophecy was spoken, news arrived of the death of the Duke of Lennox.

The augury, therefore, might be thought to refer to him. This idle

speech was deemed worthy of investigation;[126] and the prognostic was

judged by many to have had special reference to the events which time

too surely disclosed. Nevertheless, in proportion as the favour of the

Monarch declined, that of the people seemed to be restored to the Duke.

Footnote 125:

Nichols, 970.

Footnote 126:

State Papers, vol. clix., Nos. 45, 46.

The King, at this epoch, must have had some difficulties in arranging

his different audiences. The ambassadors from the States, and those from

Spain, were obliged to be conducted by different ways to the presence

chamber, that they might not meet, and the very chamber and bed which

had been prepared for the reception of the Infanta at St. James’s, were

allotted to Count Mansfeld, the ambassador from the Protestant party in

Germany, who, notwithstanding a protest from the Spanish ambassador, was

graciously received, and royally entertained by the King.[127] James

found it impossible long to resist the influence of his favourite, and

accordingly the Duke soon perceived that he was again welcome at court;

and a complete triumph was gained. Thus dishonourably and discourteously

ended the famous treaty with Spain, for the accomplishment of which

James had risked the best interests in Europe, and of his own family,

and upon which so much time, trouble, and money had been expended. The

voice of the people certainly called for the result.

Footnote 127:

Nichols, 790.

The expected rupture of the treaties with Spain was, however, most

acceptable to the nation; and Parliament resolved to assist His Majesty

in maintaining the honour of the nation by proclaiming war. Sir Edward

Coke encouraged the resolution, by saying in the house that “we never

thrived so well as in a war with Spain; and that if the navy was ready,

Ireland secured, and the low countries divided, we need fear neither

Turk, Pope, devil, nor the King of Spain himself, and that the very idea

of the war made him seven years younger.”[128] Sir Thomas Edwards was

authorized to declare also that the Prince “was sensible to the

dishonours put on himself, and condescended to urge speed in the

resolution for avenging them.” “Who,” cried the well-paid courtier, “can

resist such an invitation, the first made by him? He shall have an

answer of thanks, and assurance of tender concern for his

interests.”[129]

Footnote 128:

State Papers, vol. clx., No. 63.

Footnote 129:

Ibid, No. 68.

The King still temporized, nevertheless; and his conduct at this

juncture shows more plainly than at any other his native apathy, and the

indecision of his weak character, faced, as it was, with strong

pretensions. He was truly the “Clerk of Arms,” and said lofty things

whilst the sword was still in the sheath. Prince Charles endeavoured to

keep up appearances, by saying, “The King hath a long sword, and when it

is out it will not easily go in again.” But James confessed, in his

reply to the declaration, that he was old and oppressed with debts, and

had not yet expressed his opinion with regard to the war; “for, where

Jupiter speaks,” he added, “he should have his thunder; and a king

should not speak unless he could act.”[130] In this great business he

must satisfy his conscience, and his honour and he were already _almost_

resolved. The fact was, that he wanted larger subsidies than, he

expected, without this coquetting with his Parliament, would be voted.

Footnote 130:

State Papers, No. 27.

Never had the courtiers been so much at a loss in which way to turn

their customary homage; whether to the failing interest of the Spanish

ambassador, or to the rising but precarious favour of the French, for

James still vacillated.

At this juncture, the unfortunate Charles I. became for a time the

darling of the anti-catholic party, by far the most powerful at all

times in this country. His gentleness, his urbanity, his filial respect,

on the one hand, his endeavours to procure the King’s assent to the

wishes of his people, on the other, were the theme of praise. Still

Parliament was “fitful, and did lettle,” though the Prince and Duke

endeavoured to get it into a better understanding with His Majesty. The

Prince so “bravely and judiciously” exhorted the Houses, that they

resolved to offer life and fortune to His Majesty, if he would declare

the treaties broken. Secretary Calvert knowingly suggested that the

offer should be restricted “to be in a Parliamentary way;” the Treasurer

and Lord Arundel suggested that a general offer of aid from Parliament

would be of no avail; the Archbishop of Canterbury presented the

declaration; the King replied by thanks for their “large offer, which,

he said, was too general to be accepted;” they mistook him “in supposing

that he said Spain had dealt falsely with him; but if they would give

him five subsidies and ten fifteens for the war only, and one subsidy

and two fifteens yearly for himself, till his debts were paid, he would

issue a declaration to make this Parliament a session, and call another

for Michaelmas, and another for Lady-day.” This answer so annoyed the

House that there was not one “God save the King” heard as they went

away. When the Houses met again, the Prince and Duke endeavoured to

disperse these clouds: they said His Majesty was misunderstood; he only

wanted six subsidies and twelve fifteenths for the war. But this did not

convince those who heard him. Many members of Parliament were now again

"so cast down, that they would give the King’s men all for the war, even

to their shirts;" others harped on the poverty of the country, and would

not consent to give at all. At last the house voted three subsidies and

three fifteenths, to be paid within a year after the declaration that

the treaties were broken, and the King “lovingly” accepted their offer,

saying he would not touch a penny of the money himself, but devote it

all to the Palatinate. The general joy was expressed in bonfires; and

one nobleman, Lord Verulam, ran into debt to give four dozen fagots and

twelve gallons of wine. Stones and firebrands were now thrown at the

Spanish ambassador’s house; but the Commons refused to protect him. The

ambassador complained of some expressions used by Buckingham, reflecting

on the King of Spain, but the Houses immediately praised his conduct in

Spain, and the King said the Duke “had set an ill example to

ambassadors, for he had spent 40,000_l._ in his journey, and had asked

no repayment.” Never, adds Sir Edward Conway, whose letter to Carleton

contains these curious details, “was man so beloved of King, Prince, and

people” as Buckingham.

All seemed now to be settled according to the popular wish; but those

who deemed the rupture with Spain secure knew but little of King James.

The motives for his perpetual vacillations seem inexplicable, unless we

could believe that a sincere desire to preserve peace, and a dread of

being involved in continental wars, may have influenced the now feeble

and broken monarch. But sincerity was not one of this King’s attributes;

and his professions with regard to the Palatinate were utterly hollow

and worthless.

Shortly after this apparent understanding with his Parliament, he

“stormed” at a bill reviewing all the acts against Papists; and even

scolded Buckingham for consenting to it. At length, however, matters

seemed to draw to a conclusion.

The Earl of Bristol was recalled; Buckingham was empowered to read to

the Houses a dispatch from the King of Spain, declaring that the

treaties were dissolved. The King, in reply to an address from the

Houses, protested that his heart bled at the increase of Popery; and

that he had desired to hinder it, not by persecution, for that would be

useless; nevertheless, he granted their desire for the banishment of

priests and Jesuits; and promised to advise with council about the

probability of seizing subjects coming out from mass in the ambassador’s

chapel; no priests were in fact allowed to leave the kingdom without

first taking the oaths of allegiance.

So far, all looked well for the Protestant party; but not long

afterwards, the pertinacious Inojosa again seemed on the ascendant. He

resolved to raise, through Padre Maestro, a discord between the King and

Parliament, and, therefore, hinted to the King that there was a design

to confine him in Theobald’s, and to give the Crown to the Prince.[131]

The King was a good deal agitated, and told the Prince and the Duke of

this suspicion. They were resolved to find out who had put this idea

into the Spaniard’s head--some Englishmen they believed had done it, and

they suspected Lord Middlesex. James had heard of this design in the

morning, but had kept it to himself until after dinner, when, with

weeping eyes, in St. James’s Park, he imparted it to Buckingham, who, in

his reply, asked how it was possible he could ever do such a thing

without the Prince’s knowledge, whose filial feeling would rise against

it; and without his knowledge it were sottish to plan it, for the

affection of the people for His Majesty was such that they would tear

anyone to pieces who attempted such baseness. To which the King replied,

that had he believed it, he should never have mentioned it.[132]

Eventually, Inojosa pretended that the accusation was a misunderstanding

on the part of the King, and declared the Prince to be the most dutiful

son, and the Duke to be the most faithful servant, that ever monarch

had.[133]

Footnote 131:

State Papers, vol. clxiv., No. 10.--Locke to Carleton.

Footnote 132:

State Papers, vol. clxiv., No. 12.

Footnote 133:

Ibid, No. 44.

Meantime, the Earl of Bristol arrived in London, bringing with him the

jewels that had been given to the Infanta. He was confined, by the

King’s order, to his house in St. Giles’s Fields, but James sent him

kind messages. “It is thought,” writes Carleton, “that he will not be

much questioned, lest he should reveal too much.”

All hopes of now marrying the Prince to a lady of his own religion were

at an end, for James would not consent to his son’s espousing an

inferior, and there seemed to be no other alternative than to make

proposals to a French Princess. The Earl of Holland was therefore

dispatched into France, to treat with the queen-mother and her ministers

concerning this alliance, Charles, in the casual view which he had

obtained of Henrietta Maria, the posthumous daughter of Henry the Great,

having been struck by her beauty. First it prospered, and the French

ministers seemed disposed not to stand upon any conditions; but when

they found that the breach with Spain and that his inclinations favoured

the negotiation; that the breach with Spain was irreparable, and that a

war was in preparation, they resolved to abate none of the terms which

had been granted to the Spaniards, relative to the exercise of the

Catholic religion, and to these terms James and his son consented. Such

was the infatuation, and such, perhaps, the ignorance of the people,

that, having in November, 1623, celebrated the dissolution of the

Spanish treaty with bells and bonfires, they now, in February,

signalized their joy at the conclusion of a treaty precisely similar.

The conduct of Buckingham to the Earl of Bristol was justly and

generally unpopular. That nobleman had prayed that he might make his

answer in Parliament against any charge that might be preferred against

him; but had been committed to the Tower, in order, it was thought, to

prevent disclosures, and was only released upon his making submission,

and retiring into the country; nevertheless, articles were prepared to

impeach him.

In the course of the autumn, Don Hurtado de Mendoza, as ambassador

extraordinary from the Court of Spain, arrived in England. This nobleman

insisted on his right of precedence, according to the English custom,

which always grants it to the ambassador last arrived. This right was

resisted by Inojosa, as being of higher rank in his own country, and he

was eventually supported by the King of Spain, who ordered Mendoza back

again, and commanded him to remain in his own house as a prisoner when

he arrived in Spain.[134]

Footnote 134:

Note in Nichols, 937, from Finett’s Philoxenis.

During Mendoza’s sojourn in London, Buckingham had given a great feast

in his honour, and in that of Don Diego de Mexia, the Austrian

ambassador. On this occasion, Inojosa, although of course expected,

declined, not choosing, before the point of precedence was arranged, to

walk after Mendoza. On the following evening, Buckingham sent the absent

Inojosa, by Endymion Porter, a “regale of three large flaskets,” full of

the provisions of which the feast had been composed; one of cold meats

for the _custe pasto_, “another filled with uncooked fowl, fat and ready

for the spit;” a third containing the best and rarest sweetmeats; and

with all these, this message,--"that the Duke kissed his hand, and would

have esteemed it an honour and happiness to have had his company; but

since he had not had it, begged him to taste of what he had provided for

him; and on tasting this supper, entreated that the Marquis would be

pleased to drink the health of the King of England, and he would, at the

same time, drink that of the King of Spain."

Inojosa’s immediate answer to this compliment was, “that if my Lord Duke

had wished for his company, he might have had it, if it had pleased him

to command it; adding that it was easy to conceive what the feast must

have been, when a taste of it was so rare and plentiful.” It was,

indeed, one of those ruinous entertainments which were contributing to

impoverish Buckingham. It cost three hundred pounds--a large sum in

those days--and such was the taste and profusion of the times, that

twelve pheasants were piled in a dish, and there were on the table forty

dozen partridges, and all else in proportion.[135]

Footnote 135:

Letter from Chamberlain to Carleton, Nov. 21.

These compliments had passed, of course, before the accusation which

Inojosa had preferred against Buckingham had been insinuated into the

mind of the King by secret and artful proceedings.

“And no wonder it was,” Bishop Hacket remarks, “that His Majesty was

abused awhile, and dim-sighted with the character of jealousie, for the

Parliament was about to land him in a new world, to begin and maintain a

war, who thought that scarce any mischief was so great as was worth a

war to mend it; wherein the Prince did deviate from him, as likewise in

affection to the Spanish alliance: but otherwise promised nothing but

sweetness and obedience.”

On the twenty-second of May, Buckingham came to Court, and was very

welcome and well entertained, the King having previously shown him his

continued favour by his determination to get York House, which

Buckingham had hitherto borrowed, or rented, from Tobias Mathew,

Archbishop of York, transferred to the Duke; and scarcely six weeks had

elapsed, after the quarrel between James and his favourite, before we

find that prelate writing a letter to the King, declaring that he will

submit to His Majesty’s wishes, and give up York House and other

tenements; craving, however, that satisfaction to the see for so large a

property should be cared for; Mathews adding that he “blessed God for a

King who did not require anything from the church without making

abundant recompense.”[136] An act was subsequently passed, giving lands

in Yorkshire to the Archbishop in lieu of York House, which Buckingham

was altering at great expense. On giving his assent to the bill for the

transfer of York House, the King vindicated himself, in his speech to

the Lower House, from any design of allowing the Archbishop of York to

be a loser, and praised the care of the clergy taken by Buckingham, who

was adding to the lands given in exchange a house fit for the

bishop.[137] In another account it is said that the King spoke “very

affectionately of Buckingham;” and on the fourteenth of June the Monarch

granted to the Duke York House, and other messuages in the parish of St.

Martin’s-in-the-Fields, formerly belonging to the Archbishop of York,

but assigned to the King by act of Parliament. On the same day an

annuity of a thousand a year from the Court of Wards was conferred also

on the Duke, and a thousand pounds, arrears from the Court of Wards, in

lieu of a like grant from the Exchequer, surrendered.[138] Thus it

appears that Buckingham’s plan of managing his royal master, sometimes

by flattery, sometimes by insolence, reaped an undeserved success. That

the reconciliation was complete appears from the visit which James paid

during the summer to Burleigh-on-the-Hill, still in an unfinished

condition. Here the King witnessed the masque, by Jonson, entitled

"Pan’s Anniversary, or the Shepherd’s Holiday," containing those

beautiful lines, beginning:--

“Well done, my pretty ones, rain roses still,

Until the last be dropt, then hence, and fill

Your fragrant prickles;[139] for a second shower

Bring corn-flags, tulips, and Adonis flower,” &c.

Footnote 136:

State Papers, vol. clxvi., No. 62.

Footnote 137:

State Papers, vol. clxv., No. 29.

Footnote 138:

Ibid, vol. clxix., No. 14.

Footnote 139:

Light open baskets for flowers, and still so called by

gardeners.--Gifford’s Ben Jonson.

Buckingham, however, did not accompany his royal master in this his last

progress; but, although his separations from the King and Court were

more frequent than formerly, many letters from James to the Favourite,

preserved among the Harleian manuscripts, sufficiently attest the

unchanged character of the King’s devotion, not only to his favourite,

but to his whole family.