CHAPTER I.
ANXIETY FELT IN ENGLAND ABOUT THE SPANISH TREATY--CHARLES I. THE FIRST MALE HEIR FOR WHOM A TREATY OF MARRIAGE HAD BEEN SET ON FOOT SINCE HENRY VIII.--QUALITIES OF THE INFANTA--CALLED THE RARE INFANTA--CHARLES’S PERSONAL EXCELLENCE AND ELEGANCE--ALLIANCE RECEIVED WITH INTEREST AS CONCERNING THE PALATINATE--QUESTION OF THE DISPENSATION--THE OBSTACLES--DIFFICULTY IN FITTING OUT A FLEET TO BRING THE PRINCE BACK--JAMES’S APPREHENSIONS--LETTER FROM LORD KENSINGTON--PREPARATIONS AT SOUTHAMPTON FOR THE RECEPTION OF THE PRINCE AND INFANTA--ATTEMPTS MADE IN SPAIN TO CONVERT CHARLES--HIS FIRMNESS, AND THAT OF THE DUKE--BUCKINGHAM’S IMPATIENCE TO RETURN TO ENGLAND--LETTERS OF ENDYMION PORTER FROM SPAIN--THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURE OF PRINCE CHARLES IN A GARDEN--HIS SHORT INTERVIEW WITH THE INFANTA, ACCOMPANIED BY ENDYMION PORTER--HOPES OF THE TREATY BEING FULFILLED--THE BETROTHAL FIXED FOR ST. JAMES’S DAY, BUT NOT ACCOMPLISHED--THE FOOL ARCHY’S SPEECH--BUCKINGHAM’S PECUNIARY DIFFICULTIES--HIS BOLDNESS--UNPOPULARITY--INSANITY OF HIS BROTHER, LORD PURBECK--AMIABLE CONDUCT OF THE DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM--GRAND ENTERTAINMENT GIVEN AT MADRID--THE FUEGO DE CANNAS--QUARRELS BETWEEN BUCKINGHAM AND OLIVARES--BRISTOL’S DESPATCHES UNFAVOURABLE TO THE PRINCE--PREPARATIONS FOR THE PRINCE’S DEPARTURE--THE INFANTA’S MARRIAGE DEFERRED--ORIGINAL LETTER FROM BRISTOL--LEAVE-TAKING AT THE ESCURIAL--THE PRINCE REACHES SEGOVIA--VALLADOLID--ST. ANDERO--PERILS IN RETURNING FROM THE FLEET TO THE SHORE--VOYAGE HOME--TOUCHES AT THE SCILLY ISLES--ARRIVES AT PORTSMOUTH--AT YORK HOUSE--AT ROYSTON--PUBLIC REJOICINGS--CHARLES TERMED "ENGLAND’S JOY."
LIFE AND TIMES OF
GEORGE VILLIERS.
CHAPTER I.
The English nation continued, during the spring and summer of the year 1623, in anxious expectation of decisive news from Spain. Nothing could exceed the universal interest which this famous treaty of marriage between Charles and the Infanta inspired; nor had any subject so completely engrossed the public mind since the time of Henry the Eighth, when the ill-omened marriage of that prince with a daughter of Spain was first concerted. For England, be it observed, had known no male unmarried heir-apparent since that period, except the youthful and estimable Edward the Sixth, whose career was closed before he could be made the subject of political alliances.
There were many who looked with sentiments which state matters did not influence upon the proposed marriage of two individuals whose rank was their least merit. According to report, the Infanta was possessed of qualities not inferior in excellence to those of Katherine of Arragon, whilst in other attributes she was infinitely more attractive than that ill-starred princess. Her beauty, her accomplishments, her piety, had acquired for her the appellation of the “Rare Infanta;” and hence she was esteemed to be a fitting consort for one whose elegance of mind, whose courtesy, and princely grace were transcended by the purity of his moral conduct, the firmness of his religious opinions, and the affectionate disposition of his heart.
In his position as a private individual, Charles was pre-eminently amiable; and, at that period, the public could only judge of him as they would of any other irresponsible youth of great expectations. The vital faults of his heart, and the real weakness of his character, soft and infirm, yet incrusted with obstinacy and prejudice, were not only not apparent, but unsuspected.
The majority of the nation, however, viewed the Spanish alliance with interest, chiefly as affecting the long agitated question of the Palatinate, which James pretended, and, perhaps, believed, it was destined to settle to the satisfaction of the people.
It was therefore with something like consternation at first, although the event was afterwards hailed with joy, that the rupture of the treaty was seen afar off, by signs which appeared at first gradually, and afterwards plainly, upon the political horizon.
The question of the dispensation was the first known impediment; and the news from Spain were inauspicious. To the surprise of everyone, almost the next letter from the Prince and Duke announced their intention to return home, even should the expected dispensation not arrive before they could sail; “wherefore,” they wrote, “it was fitting that no time nor charge should be spared” in sending out the fleet which was to convey them to England; and begged that it might “be well chosen,” because they thought that the King, Queen, and all the Court of Spain would see it.
This letter was dated on the twenty-third of March, the anniversary of King James’s coronation.
“My sweete boyes,” the King wrote, on the following day, “God bless you both, and reward you for the comfortable news I resaived from you yesterday[[1]] (quhiche was my coronation daye), in place of a tilting. My shippe is readdie to make saile, and onlie stayes for a faire winde; God send it her! But I have, for the honour of Englande, curtailed the traine that goes by sea of a number of raskalls.”[[2]]
There was, meantime, much difficulty, from the inefficient state of the navy, in furnishing even a small fleet to fetch home the heir-apparent. Not only ships, but mariners, were wanting; the sailors had gone away, and hidden themselves. In vain were two proclamations issued to call them home; for proclamations and commissions had become so frequent that no one attended to their purport. At length, on the twenty-eighth of June, a small fleet of ten or twelve ships was equipped, and appeared in the Downs, ready to depart; but the expense of supporting them, which exceeded three hundred pounds a day, was loudly complained of by those at the head of affairs.
The King, meantime, was harassed with debts, and disturbed by apprehensions. He begged “his babie” to be as sparing as possible, since his agents had great difficulty in raising the five thousand pounds required for his use. The Prince’s “tilting stuff” was to come to three thousand pounds more, and those employed to get that sum knew not how to procure it. “God knows,” wrote the King, “how my coffers are alreadie drained.” He could think of no remedy, he added, except to obtain in advance the payment of the hundred and fifty thousand pounds promised as the Infanta’s dower, which he thought “his sweete gossepe, that is now turned Spaniarde, with his golden keye,”[[3]] would be able to get, and then he should have a fine ship speedily to bring him home to his “deare dade.”
The tender father was too full of fears lest his “babie” should be hurt in tilting. He also begged of his “sweete boyes to keep themselfs in use of dawincing privatlie, though they showlde quhaffsell and sing one to another, like Gakke (Jack) and Tom, for faulte of bettir musike.”
Finally, James desired them, even should the dispensation not arrive, to press the Prince’s suit bravely, and to get him married without it, since numbers of "Catholic Romans and Protestants married in the worlde without the Pope’s dispensation," as he had been informed by the Austrian ambassador.
Meantime, the university of Oxford was vying with the metropolis in demonstrations of joy for the Prince’s safe arrival in Spain. In the beautiful church of St. Mary’s, now chiefly appropriated to deep theological discourses, a sermon was preached in honour of that event, and an oration to the same effect delivered in the schools.[[4]] Yet, even now, the feeling of the country began to appear. It was rumoured, and only too truly, that things were not going well in Spain; whilst the enormous sums of money taken out of the treasury and regalia in jewels excited general indignation. As everything familiar, as well as important, became, in those times, the theme of preachers, even from pulpits, the draining of the kingdom of money was blamed. Dr. Everard, the rector of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, was committed for “saying too much;” and another preacher was, in the midst of his unpleasant strictures on the same subject, “sung down with a psalm before he had half done his sermon.”
On the twenty-sixth of May, the Earl of Rutland, Buckingham’s father-in-law, received James’s private instructions to have the “ships sweet, and well provided with victuals, to chuse good captains, and to defer to the authority of Buckingham as Lord Admiral, should he come on board; to avoid quarrels, which the King thought very dangerous when persons were crowded together on shipboard;--in going, to make for the Groyne, in returning to land at in returning to land at Southampton,”[Southampton,”][[5]] the high-ways of which were even then being repaired for the reception and convenience of the expected bride. Yet still the fleet was unaccountably detained in port, and nothing was really done.
The Court, at this time, was gratified by a letter from Lady Kensington, commending the resistance of the Prince and Duke to proposals made by the Spanish Court, derogatory to them; and stating, after extravagant encomiums on the newly-made Duke, that Buckingham “shed tears” on account of his absence from the King.[[6]] Complaints, however, were made at home, not only of the export of so many valuables to Spain, but of the expense of supporting the table of the Spanish ambassador, who was treated here as a guest, during Charles’s sojourn in Spain. Eighty pounds a day was the charge to which the ambassador’s table at first amounted. His repasts were eventually cut down to thirty dishes--all that King James permitted himself to display on his own table--and the cost was thus reduced to twenty pounds daily.[[7]]
Reports, indeed, came to console the anxious minds at home, stating that the Prince and Duke were “royally treated,” but it was soon surmised that Charles was becoming weary of his detention. June had arrived; the Duke of Richmond, and six other noblemen, as commissioners, had already gone to Southampton to prepare a reception, with pageants, for the Prince; yet still Lord Rochford, who was expected to arrive with news of the wedding-day being fixed, did not make his appearance.
The Duke of Richmond was accompanied to Southampton by Inigo Jones and old Alleyn, the player, who were to employ their talents for the occasion; but who could, as the great news-teller writer of that period, Chamberlain, observes, “have done just as well without so many Privy Counsellors;” “but we must,” he adds, “shew our obsequiousness in all that concerns her” (the Infanta). At Gravesend, Lord Kelly, in the King’s barge, went to meet the new Spanish ambassador, the Marquis Inojosa, to whom cloths of estate, an honour never permitted to ambassadors in Queen Elizabeth’s time, were conceded, and when the haughty grandee landed at Dover, and was saluted with shot from the castle, he vouchsafed a nod from his coach, but, Spaniard-like, gave not one penny of money.[[8]]
In spite of all the journeyings to and from Spain, nothing was done, whilst the Prince, whose firmness met with the highest commendations, was written to by the Pope, and “nibbed at with orations by the English seminaries in Spain, in order to effect his conversion.” The expenses at home and abroad could now only be supported by extraordinary devices, such as knighting a thousand gentlemen at a hundred pounds a-piece; ten or twelve serjeants-at-law at five hundred pounds a-piece; but the fees arising from the elevation of these luminaries were to be given to the Lord Keeper or to Sir Francis Crane, to further his tapestry works at Mortlake, or to pay off some scores owed him by Buckingham.[[9]]
Whilst all these minor difficulties were harassing the King at home, Charles was beset with a far greater difficulty. When the Puritans were blaming him for answering in a polite and conciliatory tone the Pope’s letters, without the permission of his royal father, he was displaying the firmness which could only be the result of a careful and learned education; for faith in those times was, as in ours, feeble without sound knowledge; and it was requisite for him to repel zealous efforts to convert him at all convenient times. Between the dazzling scenes of splendid shows and diversions, made at such times and intervals of repose, Olivares was attacking the Prince with the argument best suited to the character of the romantic youth, telling him how sure a way to the Infanta’s heart his conversion would be; and by hinting that difference of creed could not but be a great obstacle to their union. And when answered that such an apostasy would raise a rebellion in Protestant England, the embarrassed but steadfast Prince was assured that if such were the case, he should have an army from Spain to quell such an insurrection. Even Lord Bristol, who was a great friend and favourite of Charles’s, “strove, with a gentle hand, to allure him that way,” by the specious argument that none but Roman Catholic monarchs had ever been great as sovereigns; whilst the Pope, encouraged by all this subtle working of a hidden machinery, wrote a letter to the Bishop of Conchen, Inquisitor-General of Spain, desiring him not to let such an opportunity of conversion slip out of his hands.[[10]]
Buckingham did not, it appears, escape the zeal of the Jesuits, but acquitted himself, in reply to the energetic attacks upon his faith, with a prompt decision; and, as far as he was concerned, the attempt seems to have ceased, although he was afterwards incessantly reproached with a leaning to Romanism.
Like others, Buckingham became, at length, weary of the subject of the Palatinate, and not only still more weary of his long residence in Spain, but anxious to leave the political management of the affairs to those who best understood those intricate matters.[[11]] To his precipitate conduct, and his impatience of delay, it was said the whole failure might be ascribed; and that, had it not been for his impetuous temper, Charles and the Infanta would have been married before the Christmas of 1623.
Whilst all went smooth, or appeared to do so, with the treaty, the diplomatists were at variance among themselves.
“When we were here in the heighth of discontents,” wrote Simon Digby,[[12]] “nothing so much spoken of as the Prince, his sudden departure, reinfectâ, all our wranglings and disputes were, when no man suspected and expected any such matter,[[13]] shut up like a comedy, and the match declared and published for concluded.”
At home, the Marquis Inojosa was making representations which he was ordered to lay before the King, through Don Carlos Colonna, complaining of the East India Company’s ships at the taking of Ormus. In the ship called the London, were, it was alleged, goods stolen from the King of Spain to the amount of five hundred thousand pounds. The very dishes used by the lowest men in that ship were of silver, taken from some of the very best families in Portugal, whom the English had plundered and slain, and had then stamped their plate with their own arms. Jewels of inestimable value had also been seized. It was therefore demanded that these ships should be put into sequestration. It is a curious proof how completely a feeling against the Spanish marriage had, by this time, possessed every class, that, upon the arrival of these vessels in port, the crews, hearing a report that the marriage with the Infanta was to be broken off, shot off their artillery, and threw their caps into the sea for joy.[[14]]
Whilst the wooer, as the Prince was still styled, was murmuring at delays and obstacles, others less lofty were sending complaints to England, coupled with assurances of conjugal fidelity, which were more suspicious than satisfactory. Amongst Buckingham’s most confidential servants was Endymion Porter, who generally acted as his interpreter. Porter, according to Arthur Wilson, "had been bred up in Spain when he was a boy, and had the language, but found no other fortune there than brought him to be Mr. Edward Villiers’s man in Fleet Street, before either his master or the Marquis was acceptable at Whitehall." “It is not intended,” adds the historian, "to vilify the persons, being men (in this world’s lottery) as capable of advancement as others; but to shew in how poor a bark the King ventured the right freight his son, having only the Marquis to steer his course."
It was, indeed, remarkable that the agents most employed in the Duke’s service were men who had raised themselves from all but menial stations. Sir Robert Graham, whose name so often occurs in the correspondence of this period, was “an underling of low degree” in Buckingham’s stable. Cottington was originally a clerk to Sir Charles’s Cornwallis’s secretary, when Cornwallis was ambassador in Spain. The letters of Endymion Porter, also raised from mediocrity, are very characteristic of the confidential servant of a great man, who, like himself, was of easy principles. Among expressions of affection and grief for absence from his wife, Olive, and allusions to their little son George, are mingled a protestation that Endymion did not kiss the innkeeper’s daughter at Boulogne. “Alas! alas! sweet Olive!” thus he writes, "why should you go about to afflict me! Know that I live like a dying man, and as one that cannot live long without you. My eyes grow weary in looking upon anything, as wanting that rest they take in thy company and sight of thee.
"We live very honest, and think of nothing but our wives. I thought to have sent you a token of some value, but find my purse and my goodwill could not agree, and considering that my letter would be welcome to you, I leave to do it only this ring, which I hope you will esteem, if it be not for love, I think for charity. The conceit is that it seems two as you turn it, and ’tis but one.
“Sweet Olive! remember what it is to be sad, and forget not home. In our poverty, we will live as richly as they that have the greatest plenty, and bread with thy company shall please me better than the greatest dainties in the world without it.”[[15]]
Olive Porter was, it seems, a humble relation of the Duchess of Buckingham, who addresses her as “Cousin,” and who appears, by Endymion’s letters, to have provided for Mistress Porter, since, in one of his singular epistles, after hoping that there may be nothing more said of any unkindness between them, Endymion sends his wife a jewel worth some hundred pounds, telling her that “she might pawn it if she had no more credit, but that Lady Buckingham had promised to supply her wants.” Certain conduct of Mrs. Porter’s prompts jealousy, and Endymion hints that, in his absence, “his wife has been merry with other young men,” a charge which not even the most scandalous could adduce against the pensive and irreproachable Duchess of Buckingham.
It was the lot of Endymion Porter to accompany Prince Charles on a very interesting occasion; in the month of July, whilst the dispensation was daily expected, Charles grew weary of the uniform Court gaieties, during which he saw nothing but the Infanta, on whom his eyes were incessantly fastened, as the inquisitive courtiers remarked.
“I have seen,” James Howell wrote from Madrid to Captain Porter, the brother of Endymion, “the Prince have his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half an hour together, in a thoughtful, speculative posture, which sure would needs be tedious, if affection did not succeed it.” Lord Bristol, not very elegantly, remarked that Charles “watched her as a cat does a mouse.” Still the royal pair were not allowed to be on the terms of lovers; and the possibility, even at this last stage, of the treaty never being concluded, kept these young persons apart. Nothing could exceed the magnificence and courtly hospitality continually shown to the “wooer;” everything was done to satisfy the Prince and his suite. Nevertheless, whilst King Philip’s own servants waited upon the royal guest at the palace, there were some among the English “who did jeer at the Spanish fare, and use other slighting speeches and demeanour,” which, of course, were reported, and occasioned ill will. Once a week comedians came to the palace where the Prince was lodged, and Charles, seated, with Don Carlos, on the right hand of the Queen, the Infanta being in the middle, between her brother and his consort, taking the chief place as Prince of England, feasted his eyes upon that fair but soon forgotten face. The youthful King Philip was then under twenty, and his brother, Don Fernando, a boy of twelve, nevertheless Archbishop of Toledo and a Cardinal, was of all this royal family the only one who had the true Spanish complexion; and seems to have been, on that account, more beloved by the people, who were often heard to sigh and say:--"Oh, when shall we have a king again of our own colour?"
Marked out thus for popularity by the true Spanish type, Don Carlos was endowed with no office, dignity, nor title; he was only the King’s “individual companion, dressed in similar garments, from top to toe,” with the King, and when the King had new robes, others were always provided for him; he was, in short, His Spanish Majesty’s shadow.[[16]]
Thus fenced round with guardians and etiquette, the Infanta could only publicly converse with Charles, and that through an interpreter, the Earl of Bristol, “Our cousin, Archy” (King James’s fool) “hath,” says the writer in Howell’s letters, “more privilege than any, for he goes with his fool’s coat where the Infanta is with her meninas and maidens of honour, and keeps a blowing and a blustering, and flirts out what he lists. One day they were discoursing what a marvellous thing it was that the Duke of Bavaria, with less than 15,000 men, after a long toylsome march, should dare to encounter the Palsgower’s army, consisting of about 25,000, and give them an utter discomfiture, and take Prague presently after; wherefore he archly answered, that he would tell them a stranger thing than that. ‘Was it not a stranger thing,’ quoth he, ‘that in the year eighty-eight, there should come a fleet of one hundred and forty sails from Spain to invade England, and that ten of these should not go back to tell what became of the rest.’”[[17]]
At last Charles was resolved to gain a private interview with her whom he supposed to be his destined wife. Understanding that the Infanta was in the habit of going early in the morning to the Caso del Campo, on the other side of the river, to gather May-dew, he rose early, and went thither, accompanied by Endymion Porter. “They were,” says Howell, “let into the house, and into the garden, but the Infanta was in the orchard, and there being a high partition wall between, and the door doubly bolted, the Prince got on the top of the wall, and sprung down a great height, and so made towards her; but she, spying him first of all the rest, gave a shriek, and ran back. The old Marquis that was then her guardian, came towards the Prince and fell on his knees, conjuring him to retire, in regard he hazarded his head if he admitted him to her company; so the door was opened, and he came out under that wall under which he had got in.”
Often did the Prince watch “a long hour together,” in a close coach in an open street, to see the Infanta, as she went abroad; and this conduct appears to have been either the curiosity felt by a young man who earnestly desires to love the individual chosen to be his wife, or a gallantry natural to the age, and then the fashion in both nations, for Charles soon either forgot the Infanta, or became indifferent to the marriage. His affections were destined to rest ultimately upon one of a very different character, as far as we can gather from the perhaps too flattering accounts given by historians of the Infanta, to that of the Spanish Princess.
Still, both the Prince and Buckingham sent encouraging accounts of the progress of the treaty, and even inspired the poor King with a hope that they should bring the Infanta over to England at Michaelmas. This was almost the last letter in which such expectations were held out: it was dated on the fifteenth of July. On that very day, the Archbishop Laud stated in his diary of a violent and destructive tempest, which many, says Camden, “took occasion to interpret as an ill-omen, but God forbid.” It was a “very fair day,” the Archbishop records, "till towards five at night; then great extremity of thunder and lightning, and much hurt done; the lanthorn at St. James’s House blasted, the vane heading the Prince’s arms beaten to pieces."
The Prince was then in Spain. It was Tuesday, and St. James’s day (N.S.)[[18]]
It appears, however, from Mr. Chamberlain’s letters,[[19]] that although “Spanish tidings” were kept “very close,” the Prince had even then written to the Duke of Richmond to procure him the King’s permission to return home, as he was anxious to leave Spain.[[20]] About the same time a letter from Endymion Porter, dated July twelfth, to his wife Olive, intimated that the Prince was to be contracted in three weeks, but the Infanta, than whom, he added, there never was a better creature, was to follow in the following March.[[21]]
Meantime the articles of agreement for the marriage were read publicly by Secretary Calvert at Court, when the King of Spain swore to observe them. The Infanta was to have an Archbishop and twenty-four priests in her suite, and a chapel for her Spanish household, but no English were to attend it. She was to be allowed the training of her children only until they were ten years old. The Prince and Infanta were to sign the contract of marriage on St. James’s day; that day which Laud had noted in his Diary as one of storms and destruction.[[22]] At the same time that a Romanist Archbishop and twenty-four priests were to be admitted into the very heart of the Court, three Jesuits were imprisoned at Dover for bringing over pictures and books; a subject of the British crown was prosecuted in the Ecclesiastical court for not standing up at the creed, or kneeling down at the Lord’s Prayer, in church; and a poor woman, passing over from Calais, was brought up before the Commissioners of Passage for having beads, which, she said, were bought to make bracelets, and Popish books in her possession,[[23]] which, she asserted, were for the use of the Spanish ambassador.
When the articles of the Spanish match were read at the English Court, then at Theobald’s, it was the Scottish lords who “stuck most” on points of religion, but they were silenced by being told that there "must be no disputing, the Prince being in the hands of the Spaniards, and the restoration of the King’s children to be effected either by them or by a war which would set all Christendom by the ears." Then the articles were sworn to. The Archbishop of Spalato’s Jesuit confessor put on his hat whilst the prayer for King James was being read. There was afterwards a “gay and plentiful banquet;” but the Court had become very “rude,” as Secretary Conway wrote to Sir George Goring, “for want of its ornaments, which are in Spain; and but for the Earl of Carlisle, wearing of ruffs and gartering of silk stockings would be forgotten.”
King James now began to be painfully eager for the fleet, which was to fetch back his son and the Duke, to sail. “No impediment in the power of man,” he decreed, should detain it. Every letter written by his Secretaries of State to Lord Middlesex was to end with, “His Majesty cries, haste away the ships, as you tender the life of himself and his son.” Good tidings still arrived from Madrid; more liberty of communication between the Prince and the Infanta was allowed; but the contract, fixed for St. James’s Day, was not fulfilled, and the ill-omen was, in the minds of the superstitious, confirmed.[[24]]
Meantime, whilst such was the state of things at the Spanish Court, their ambassadors here were in vain endeavouring to obtain indulgence for recusants. Whilst these conflicting interests were thus impeding a speedy settlement of the Spanish match, Buckingham had other reasons, besides weariness of foreign life, to induce him to wish to return home. His affairs were greatly involved, and he found it, indeed, necessary, at this time, to employ several of his friends, among whom was Sir John Suckling, to examine into them. Their answers were far from satisfactory. His revenue, they stated in reply, from land, offices, &c., was 15,213l. 6s. 8d. a year. His expenditure was 14,700l. Out of this, 3,000l. was allowed to the Duchess for housekeeping, 2,000l. was allowed to his mother, the Countess of Buckingham; the costly diversion of tilting cost 1,000l. a year, about as much as a yacht in modern times. Then his friends gave him no very pleasant intelligence about his debts; they had amounted, when the Duke went to Spain, to 24,000l., and were now increased by 29,400l.--money having been advanced to him whilst shining at the Court of Madrid. His friends had cleared off 17,300l. by selling land, and were to apply 2,500l. to be paid from his Irish revenues, and they now proposed similar means of discharging the remainder, which, they said, would otherwise ruin his estate. His income, they gravely told him, but little exceeded his expenditure; whereas, those who wish to leave a patrimony behind them do not spend more than two-thirds of their income[[25]]--an excellent rule, but not much better observed in those days than in ours. Half the nobility appear to have been deeply involved in debt, and hence their tendency to corrupt practices. Even the honest-hearted Sir Edward Coke was, we are told, “half-crazied” by his debts, which amounted to 26,000l.[[26]] In consequence, it may be presumed, of these embarrassments, the King, at this time, wrote to his “sweete Steenie,” announcing a present to him of 2,000l. from the East India Company by way of consolation.[[27]]
The Duke was also made now fully aware of the responsibility he had incurred in taking the Prince to Spain. Reports were often circulated that he had been made a prisoner there. Shortly afterwards James, being agitated with this fear, was assured that, “if there be trust on earth,” the Prince and Infanta were to be moving home on the twenty-eighth of August.
The King, meantime, wrote plaintively to his “sweete boyes.” He kept what he called the “feaste,” on the anniversary of the Gowry plot, at Salisbury, on the fifth of August, where the Spanish ambassador and all the corps diplomatique were conveyed, at the King’s expense, in coaches, which cost twenty pounds a day; and here, besides a brace of bucks and a stag every day, the provision made for these Spanish grandees was so plentiful that, not being able to use it, they were stated to have buried it under dunghills, rather than bestow it upon heretics. “And though,” says Mr. Chamberlain, referring to this report, “I took it for a scandal or slander, yet I have heard it verified more than once; and that the neighbours were forced to complain, though to little purpose, for, I know not how, the Spaniard hath got such a hand everywhere, that he carries more away, when he comes, than all other ambassadors together.”[[28]]
Buckingham, we are told, “lay at home under a million of maledictions.”[[29]] The poor King, indifferent to public opinion, and now visibly declining in health, was nevertheless constantly writing to Madrid in such terms as these:--"If ye haisten not hoame, I apprehende I shale never see you, for my longing will kill mee." To the Prince individually, he expressed himself in terms which left Charles no alternative but to return. “The necessitie of my affaires,” the King wrote, “enforced me to tell you that ye must preferre the obedience to a father to the love ye carrie to a mistresse.” Eager to do away with every possible impediment to the marriage, the King, on the seventh of August, signed, whilst at Salisbury, the “declaration, touching the pardons, suspensions, and dispensations of the Roman Catholics.”[[30]]
The Prince had, it appears, at this very time, “been packed up,” and ready to depart, leaving matters to be arranged afterwards. Yet the Spanish ambassadors at home expressed themselves contented, and ready to fulfil all promises. Sir Edward Herbert, speaking to the Marquis Inojosa, of a report in France that the Prince was detained a prisoner in Spain, received an answer that it was the Prince whose virtues had captivated the King of Spain;[[31]] and for some time compliments and assurances continued to be exchanged.
On the twenty-first of August, the King visited the ships which were to go to Spain, under the command of the Earl of Rutland, who was unfortunately absent, upon the earnest entreaty of his daughter, the Duchess of Buckingham, and of his grandchild, Lady Mary, that he would remain with them. At the end of that month, nevertheless, the fleet was still detained for fifteen days, in the vain hope of receiving news of the Prince’s marriage. The Pope’s illness, it was now said, was delaying the dispensation; but Buckingham’s conduct was, according to a letter from Sir Francis Woolley to Carleton, “much commended.” He was, nevertheless, more impatient than ever to return, and that eagerness was sure, it was thought, to hinder rather than accelerate the wished-for nuptials. In addition to his other troubles, Buckingham had now a very grievous one in the visitation which had fallen, during his absence, upon Lord Purbeck, his favourite brother, who became insane. As usual, under every circumstance, the greatest good sense was shown by the Duchess of Buckingham. She wrote to Secretary Conway to inform him that the unfortunate Viscount’s “distemper now inclined to his usual melancholy fit,” during which he was gentle, and “could be removed anywhere, but that at present he would be outrageous were it attempted;” she suggests, therefore, that Sir John Keysley, and a few other friends, had better remain with him in London.
The King, replying through his secretary, said that he admired the Duchess’s gentleness, but that Purbeck’s malady, exciting him to public acts, in public places, which dishonoured himself and his brothers, made it necessary to place him under some restraint, and to remove him into the country.[[32]] Lord Purbeck, it seems, was therefore put under restraint. Such was the end of that ambitious career which the Duke had hoped to witness, and so pave the way to which he had promoted the marriage with Sir Edward Coke’s unhappy daughter.
Whilst a degree of gloom and anxiety thus overspread his home, Buckingham was witnessing, in the festivities given to honour the expected espousals, one of the most characteristic diversions of the Spanish nation. This was the “Fuego de Caunas,”--borrowed from the Moors, and still practised by Eastern nations, under the name of El Djerid. “It is,” says Sir Walter Scott, “a sort of rehearsal of the encounter of their light horsemen, armed with darts, as the Tourney represented the charge of the feudal cavaliers with their lances. In both cases, the difference between sport and reality only consisted in the weapons being sharp or pointless.”[[33]]
This entertainment was ordered by the King of Spain, who was not contented with the festivities hitherto given in honour of the Prince of Wales, and was held at Madrid, in the Market Place, containing scaffolding for a great concourse of strangers, who were present. The Infanta appeared on this occasion in white, as an unspotted dove, “after the Majesty of England;” the manes of her coach horses were twisted with blue ribbands, in compliment to her future consort; and there accompanied the Lady Infanta, says the Spanish annalist, “Don Fernando, her brother, clothed in Romane purple, that radiant sunne of the church, even as his sister is the resplendent beames of true beauty,”[[34]] this “radiant sunne of the church;” being, as it has been before stated, a boy of twelve years of age. The Queen was carried in a chair of state, followed by her meninas (or minions) and ladies. The King, about two o’clock, arrived in a coach with the Prince of Wales, and his brothers, “brave with gravity,” says the chronicler, and “grave in bravery.” Philip was in black, Prince Charles in white, their dresses divided in fashion, half after the English, and half after the Spanish manner; Charles being placed on the right hand of the King.
Then came four and twenty movable fountains, with a supply of beverages; and next entered into the Market Place His Majesty’s four and twenty musicians, and servants in satin liveries, carnation colour, guarded with silver lace, interspersed with folds of black velvet in large cassocks, with black hats and carnation plumes, mounted on goodly horses. Next appeared the King’s equerries, leading the way, uncovered, before a noble courser on which His Majesty was to run: and, amongst the numerous retinue that followed, were four farriers with pouches of crimson velvet, in which all that was requisite for shoeing horses was contained. Sixty horses of brown bay, in white and black trappings, with muzzles of silver, and covered with crimson velvet, embroidered with the arms of Philip IV., were led by lacqueys in carnation satin, their hose and jacket decorated with black and silver lace. Next came forty “youngsters of the stables,” dressed in the Turkish fashion, and lastly, twelve mules, laden with bunches of canes, and caparisoned in similar fashion with the horses. To add to the convenience of the equestrians, steps of fine wood, inlaid with ebony, and covered with carnation taffeta, with fringes of gold, were also brought into the Market Place.
The livery of the town was of orange colour, relieved with silver; and it may easily be conceived how splendid was the effect of these gorgeous dresses, set off by the badges worked in silver, beneath a cloudless sky, with the far-famed Spanish coursers prancing under their gorgeous caparisons, and all the beauty and rank of the city ranged as beholders. Mingled with these retainers, were those of the great Spanish grandees. First came Don Duarte, the Duke of Infantado, with forty horses, in white and black caparisons, with the glorious blazon of the Ave Maria upon them; and after the last horse, came the Rider, as he was called on this occasion.
Next followed Don Pedro of Toledo, the pride of Castilian knights, with a troop of sorrel horses. Next, that of the Admiral of Castile, whose retainers wore long coats of black satin, and yellow and white plumes, and were followed by the farrier--a functionary attached to each troop. Presently, the Condé de Monterey, the Duke of Sessa and the Duke of Cea’s horse, all in liveries of various colours, made up the number of five hundred and eighty-six cavaliers; augmented by muleteers, farriers, and grooms, in number a hundred and forty-four. This unrivalled troop, glittering with silver plumes and emblazonments, took an hour to make their entrance. After “baiting but a few bulls,” says the chronicler, the running with the canes commenced.
King Philip, followed by his thaclow[thaclow], Don Carlos, then went to mask himself for the sport, at the house of the Condessa Miranda, who had been previously apprised of the intended honour. Her reception of the young monarch is characteristic of the minute, though stately, hospitality of that period. She whitened her house all over for the occasion; she hung round the courts with draperies; in the portals of the King’s apartment these were of white damask, with gold fringe. Beds were prepared for the King and Infant Carlos; and these were brought from the royal palace; the rooms were washed with sweet powder and water mingled with ambar, and were replete with fragrance. Next to the apartment of His Majesty, there was one provided for the Condé Olivares, with a bed of rich needle-work. The Condessa Miranda also provided for the King and Don Carlos each a shirt to change, which they put on; she gave each of her royal guests boxes of relics, of inestimable value: to the King, one of St. Philip the Apostle; to the Infant, one of St. Lawrence, given to the Condessa by Pope Sixtus V., when she was at Naples; and these reliques were the more valuable because the vessel in which they had been sent was sunk, but the trunk in which they came was seen in the water, and was sent to the Condé of Miranda, by the famous John Andrea Dorea, which miraculous incident proves, says the Spanish historian, “the certainty of reliques;” this gift was esteemed a “pious and discreet present, on such occasions, to such persons.” The Condessa had also gloves and handkerchiefs, for her royal guests, in cabinets of rock crystal, set in gold; sweet cake to be eaten, in crystal glasses; and crystal apples, filled with sweet waters. All these carefully arranged courtesies must have seemed indeed singular to Prince Charles and Buckingham, when they, who had come from a Court in which people had almost begun to show outward disrespect to the King, by leaving off ruffs and plumes, witnessed these refinements of hospitality.
More than all, it must have astonished them, considering the festive nature of the occasion, had they not been accustomed now to Spanish modes, that the Condessa, being most “wise and discreet,” had procured that the Holy Sacrament, in the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, should be exhibited before her window, with great solemnity of lights and ornaments. On bended knees, the two young Princes humbly and devoutly worshipped the sacred elements, previous to returning to their apartments to put on their masks. In that room they found about forty plates of silver, with all manner of conserves on them, and rose-sugar confections. The honour shown to the Condessa in thus selecting her to be the hostess, was, it was alleged, only a renewal of the favour exhibited by Philip the Second, the grandfather of the King, to that illustrious lady when she was vice-Queen of Barcelona.
After this preparation, the running commenced. The canes were distributed to each runner, and, according to ancient custom, the King chose the Condé Olivares for his own encounter, and the Infant Carlos, the Marquis of Carpio. The palm of skill and bravery was, of course, accorded to these royal brothers, and on the Duke of Cea’s delivering to the King the canes, the place rang with shouts of “Long live their Majesties,” a cry which London doubtless would re-echo as this “triumpant show,” says the annalist, “was made to honour her Prince, and in a time of such vehement heate, though now it was qualified.”[[35]]
This grand festivity was probably the cause of a serious illness to Buckingham, for, a day afterwards, Charles wrote to his father that his “dog” was not to be troubled with writing, having taken cold, which had ended in an ague. The Duke had been bled, and was recovered; the Prince concluded by warning the King that in spite of his efforts to keep his letters private, they had been seen in London, by the French ambassador’s means, by the Spanish ambassador, and that His Majesty was “betrayed in his bedchamber.”
Buckingham added in a postscript[postscript]:--"Sir, I have bine the willinger to let your sone play the secretary at this time of little neade, that you may see the extraordinary care he hath of me, for which I will not intreat you not to love him the wors--nor him that thretens you that when he once getts hould of your bed-post againe never to quitt it."
The period for Charles’s return home with the Princess was now at hand.[[36]] It was arranged with the King of Spain that, upon the arrival of the Pope’s approbation of some articles that had lately been sent to him, he should be empowered to have the Infanta married by proxy; and that, meantime, she should be styled “Princessa de Inglatierra,” and be considered in every respect as the betrothed wife of Prince Charles. “This day we take our leaves,” the Prince, on the twenty-fifth of August, wrote to his father; his letter was accompanied by one from the Earl of Bristol, stating that the King of Spain and his ministers had grown “to have so high a dislike of the Duke of Buckingham,” and considered him to be so adverse to the treaty, and to exercise so great an influence over Prince Charles, that they hoped it might not be in his power to make the Infanta’s life less happy there (in England), or to embroil the two kingdoms. “Suspicions and distastes betwixt them here and my Lord of Buckingham,” Bristol said, “could not be at a greater height.” This was the first letter that Bristol wrote prejudicial to Buckingham.
Nevertheless, at the very same moment, the Duke wrote to his master thus:--"Sir,--He bring all things with me you have desired, except the Infanta, which hath almost broken my heart, because yours, your sone’s, and the nation’s honour is touched by the miss of it; but since it’s there falt (their fault) here, and not ours, wee will bere it the better; and when I shall have the happiness to lie at your feete, you shall then knowe the truth of it, and no more."[[37]]
In another letter from Bristol, James was given to understand that the compact entered into by his son was a solemn and formal promise; but that an afterthought impelled him to make the powers with which he had entrusted Bristol contingent:
"May it please your Majesty,
"By my cosen, Simon Digby, I gave your Majesty an account of all that passed here upon the Prince his departure, and that according to what was capitulated. His Highness had left powers for the marrying of the Infanta, per verba de presenti, which powers were made unto the King and his brother, Don Carlos, but left with me to be delivered upon the arrival of the Pope’s approbation, and so declared to be His Highnesse’ pleasure before all this King’s Ministers that were present at the solemne act of passing the Prince his powers unto the King. Since His Highnesse’ departure, I have receaved commandement from His Highness not to make deliverie of the said powers untill His Highness shall be satisfied what securitie may be given him that the Infanta may not become a religious woman[[38]] after the betroathing; and that I expect his further pleasure therein, as yr Majestie will see by the coppie of His Highnesse’ letter unto me, which I presume to send your Majestie, as likewise the answer which in that point I make unto His Highnesse, to the end your Majestie may have perfect information of the whole estate of the businesse. For that I conceave the temporal articles are so farr agreed that I have to give your Majestie an account of them within a few daies, and to youre content, and the businesse, after so manie rubbs, brought to that estate that I am confident there will not be any failing in any pointe capitulated betwixt your Majesty and His Highnesse, but all will be punctuallie performed. I conceave your Majestie, continuing your desire of the match, would be loath to have the faire way it is now in to be clogged or interrupted with any new jealousie that may now be raised, for questionlesse there is no securitie in that particular, that can on His Highnesse’ part be required, that they will refuse him."[[39]]
The character of Charles, composed, as Hume remarks, “of decency, reserve, modesty, sobriety, virtues so agreeable to the manners of the Spaniards;”[[40]] the reliance he had placed on their honour, his romantic gallantry, the invariable courtesy of his demeanour to every person, whether prince, or peer, or the lowest groom of his household; a courtesy springing from a gentle nature, elevated and refined by careful culture; these attributes were strongly contrasted with the impetuous temper of Buckingham. There are moments when sincerity becomes insolence; and when Buckingham, at his last interview with Olivares, told him that his attachment to the Spanish nation, and to the King, was extreme, and that he should use every endeavour in his power to cement the friendship between England and Spain, but that, as for him, the Condé Olivares, “he need never consider him as a friend, but must ever expect from him every possible opposition and enmity,” he was well reproved by the grave and lofty answer, “that Olivares very willingly accepted what was offered him.” Thus they parted.[[41]]
There were, however, many who approved this defiant manner, and called the conduct of the Duke “brave and resolute;” and certainly there was much in the character of Olivares to extenuate the bitterness of Buckingham’s dislike. Lord Bristol, however, imputed all the mistrust and failure that ensued to Buckingham. “The Prince,” he said, "had left men’s hearts set upon him." “And the leave-taking,” adds the ambassador, “betwixt him and the King, was with as great profession of love and affection as could be, of which I was a witness, being interpreter betwixt them.”[[42]]
Every possible demonstration of honour was proffered to the Prince and Duke at their departure. To the last, the pages of the Condé Olivares attended, as they had done all along, on Buckingham--there was no apparent change of feeling, nor diminution of respect.
The farewell presents, too numerous to be fully recited, were magnificent. Among them were, given to the Prince by the King, eighteen Spanish jennets, six Barbary horses, six mares, and twenty foals. These superb animals were covered with cloths of crimson velvet, guarded with gold lace; one of them being distinguished by a saddle of fine lamb-skin, the other “furniture” being set with rich pearl; among a number of cross-bows which were given, those used by the Dukes of Medina Sidonia and Ossunia, in the wars, were peculiarly valuable to the Prince.
To Buckingham’s share, among others, were several Spanish jennets, and Barbary or Arabian horses, and a splendid diamond girdle, worth thirty thousand crowns.
Thu Queen presented the young Prince with linen, and skins of ambar and of kids, their scent and perfume amounting in value to many thousand crowns.
Twice, before his leaving for ever the Spanish capital, did Charles, in company with the King, visit the Infanta. She had retreated to the monastery of the Descallas, or bare-legged friars; and it was, perhaps, her extreme piety that inspired the Prince with the fear that she might, after her betrothal, become a nun, and in that way avoid espousing a heretic. She received him with “tears of joy,” and gave the Prince many boxes of scents, flowers, and curiosites of great value. The Prince’s gifts to the Infanta consisted of a string of two hundred and fifty great pear-shaped pearls, one of them with a diamond which could not be valued, and two pairs of pearl-shaped ear-rings, marvellous great.”[great.”] Amongst the officers and retainers of the Court, the Prince gave, in various ways, the sum of twelve thousand pounds.
At their last interview in Madrid, the King of Spain wore black, as a token of mourning at their departure; but the final parting was in a field near the Escurial, the place appointed for their adieus. Philip had been desirous of showing to the English that wonder of Europe, with its thirteen courts, its grand marble structure, its statue of St. Lawrence over the gate, with his gridiron in his hand. Here Philip, the Queen, the Infant, and his brothers pointed out, with just pride, the fine cloisters, three stories high, the libraries, sepulchres, chapels, and graves. About a hundred friars were resident at this time in the house, which it required half a day to go over. That part appropriated to royal residence was wholly unsuitable to the purpose. It is a remarkable fact that, when Charles the First was in Spain, there was only one kitchen in the Escurial; neither was there a hall, nor offices below stairs fit for a royal abode; so that, as Sir Richard Wynn remarked, "it was never intended for a king’s palace, but for the goodliest monastery in the world, which it is."[[43]]
The church, with its twenty altars, and enormous silver candlesticks, higher and heavier than a man; the wonderful chapel at the extremity, with curiously painted roofs and desks of silver; the marble fountains playing in every court; the invaluable paintings in the churches and chapels, collected in all parts of the world, were then in undisturbed freshness; the convulsions of war and revolutions, and the hand of time, have since dimmed their splendour, but the Escurial stands unscathed on the side of a mountain. Stern in cloistral gloom rather than beautiful, it had then a narrow strip of garden round two sides, with walks and “knots of flowers,” and a pond at one extremity, in which the friars were accustomed to fish. Most of them had their apartments provided with a chapel; all had mules for riding, for walking was forbidden to these monks, even to a short distance.[[44]]
In a field near this grand building, the King and Prince sat and conversed an hour; a pillar, it was afterwards decided, was to be erected on the spot where this last interview took place; “wherein,” wrote Mr. Chamberlain, “the Duke of Buckingham is quite forgotten, as if he had been none of the company.” The Queen, the Infanta, and her brothers, embraced the Prince who so soon became their foe. The English lords and gentlemen kissed the King’s hands, the Spaniards those of the Prince, “returning,” says the chronicler, “to embrace us again with wonderful demonstrations of love.” Then the Prince took his final departure, attended by the Condé de Monterey, Gondomar, Buckingham, and Lord Bristol, and pursued his journey to Segovia, which had been recommended to him, according to Sir Richard Wynn, as the only thing worth seeing after the Escurial. “It was then,” says Wynn, “a large town, but much ruinous, having a great castle, kept in very good repair, in which there be two goodly rooms, whose roofes are the richest, done with gold, and incrusting, of an old manner, but wonderful costly.” Here Charles was welcomed with a salute of artillery, and alighting, he went over the palace, extolling the memory of Philip the Second, who had rebuilt it, and expressing great pleasure at seeing his arms quartered with the Spanish scutcheons in the great hall,--Henry the Third of Spain, having married Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt, in right of whom Philip the Second pretended to derive his claim to the crown of England after the death of Mary. In this palace, Charles was magnificently entertained; and in the evening, whilst fireworks and torches threw their light upon the scene, the Alcayd of that royal house presented him with a gallant mask of thirty-two-knights, and proposed to honour him by a bull-fight on the ensuing day; but he declined the terrible amusement, being in haste to depart.
Charles--and doubtless Buckingham (although in this decline of favour in Spain, he is rarely alluded to by the chroniclers)--in stopping at Valladolid, had great delight in seeing some of the finest productions of Michael Angelo and of Raphael. Before the Prince entered the city, an individual who was the object of dread and jealousy, and who was still more hated by Olivares than even Buckingham, was withdrawn from amid those who vied in offering their homage to the Prince. This was the Cardinal Duke of Lerma, the disgraced minister and favourite of Philip, who was ordered to leave Valladolid before Charles entered it. The affront sank deep into the old man’s heart, as he had greatly wished to see the Prince. The Duke of Lerma was considered to be more favourable to the English alliance than Olivares, and he had formerly projected a union between Anne of Austria, then Infanta, and Henry, the last Prince of Wales. He lived generally at Valladolid, retiring, as was the custom with the Spaniards of rank, after sixty, to a place of quiet and devotion; officiating, and singing mass, and passing his days in charity and piety. “This,” as Howell remarks, “doth not suit well with the genius of an Englishman, who loves not to pull off his clothes till he goes to bed.” The remark shows that our countrymen were then, as now, the last in Europe to give up the intellectual or military career to which their youth had been devoted, and which, during their middle life, had been their source of pride and prosperity.
The conduct of Olivares to the Cardinal Duke seems to betray a rancorous spirit, which may somewhat extenuate the haughty bearing of Buckingham to the ruling favourite. Lerma’s fall was signal; he had been the greatest favourite, save one, ever known in the Spanish Court; and he was, as a grandee of Spain, privileged to stand covered before the King. Had it not, however, been for his ecclesiastical dignity, which protected him, the Duke of Lerma would have sunk, under the persecutions of Olivares, into utter ruin.
Meantime, whilst the Prince was thus journeying to the coast, Sir John Finet, the assistant Master of the Ceremonies to King James, being also a naval commander, had set sail in May with certain ships, now in the port of St. Andero, in Biscay. They had been three months in their voyage from England, and Finet had been ordered to apprize the Prince of the Earl of Rutland’s arrival in the same port; but that event not having taken place, he rowed ashore, and crossing several mountains in the darkness of a tempestuous night, met the Prince and Duke at about six leagues distance from the town. Charles was beside himself with joy on seeing Finet, and told him that he looked upon him “as one that had the face of an angel,” for bringing such good news. Buckingham, when he afterwards beheld him, was equally enraptured, and drawing from his finger a ring worth a hundred pounds, gave it to Finet.
Prince Charles arrived at St. Andero on St. Matthew’s day. Whilst at dinner outside of the town, he heard that the whole fleet, under the command of the Earl of Rutland, lay at anchor near the harbour. Charles hastened to the port, and hurrying through the town amid volleys of musketry and the firing of cannon in his honour, went on board that very afternoon. The Prince, a vessel which was a source of great pride to the English, contained the admiral of the fleet. In returning that night in his own barge, rowed by watermen, well accustomed to the Thames, but little fitted to cope with a swelling sea, the Prince was in imminent peril. In the hurry of the moment, neither master, pilot, nor mariner of experience were sent in his barge; the town was, at least, at the distance of a Spanish league from the ships, and before the boat could near the shore, a storm arose. The Prince’s watermen were, says the chroniclers, “strong, cunning, and courageous, but the furious waves taught their oares another manner of practice than ever they were put to on the Thames.” They soon found it impossible to reach the town. Not only did the tempest rage, but there lay at the very mouth of the harbour a barque, which was there for refuge, so that it was dangerous to approach it; neither did the dismayed boatmen dare to make for the shore; it was studded with rocks; almost equally perilous would it have been to return to the ships, for the night was dark, and, in case of missing them, the boat, with its precious freight, might be carried out into the main seas, the channel where the fleet anchored running with an impetuous and irresistible torrent.
It was a singular and critical situation. Here was the heir to a great kingdom, close, on the one hand, to a city which was ringing with acclamations at his arrival; on the other, near to a fleet which the most anxious precautions had sent for his service--and yet, scarcely would a peasant in his father’s dominions have been placed in such a plight for want of ordinary care, or, perhaps, owing to the jealousy of the boatmen and their dislike to foreign aid.
“In this full sea of horrors,” to borrow the somewhat flowery language of the narrator, the Prince resolved to turn back towards the ships, and to fall upon the first that could be fastened on, rather than to run the risk of being wrecked on one of the rocks, which threatened immediate destruction.
The storm continued to rage, and the night became darker and darker. Charles and Buckingham could, at this moment, see the lights streaming from the town, and dimly, perhaps, discern the track of the English fleet. Soon all was enveloped in the deepest gloom. At such a moment the mind can only turn to one source of help, and to that, doubtless, the young and reflective Prince, who afterwards met the sternest trials of life with a lofty resignation, did revert, whatever may have been the case with his spoiled, impetuous favourite.
“At last,” as the chronicler observes, “that Omnipotent arm, which can tear up rocks from their center, and that voyce which can call in the winds, and still them with the moving of His finger, sent a dove with an olive branch in her bill, as an assurance of comfort.”
Sir Sackwill Trevor, the commander of the Defiance, perceived at this crisis the peril of the Prince; by his order, casks and buoys, with lights fastened to them by some ropes, were thrown out, and the watermen seized hold of these, though at the risk of their lives. A light was now discerned in the ship Defiance, and the Prince was soon safely received on board, where he spent the night, by no means, as it is said, daunted by these terrors.
On the ensuing day Charles went on shore, but returned on the same evening to the fleet. On Sunday, the fourteenth of September, he entertained Gondomar and the other grandees who had been commissioned to attend him to the coast on board the Prince.
The dinner consisted, according to Phineas Pette, who was in the ship, “of no other than we brought from England with us.” Stalled oxen, fatted sheep, venison, and all manner of fowl were presented to those who would, perhaps, never see such a repast spread before them again. A long table for persons of inferior quality was set in the great cabin, and across this another was placed, where Charles and the chief personages sat. Healths were drunk; the Spaniards were delighted with the ships, but still more with the graceful and courteous manners of Charles. Never, it is said, had a stranger so won upon the affections of a people, as this young Prince had done in Spain, independently of his generosity and liberality at parting, when he ordered that the gifts and rewards of all those who had attended him in his journey, should be double in value to what he had before specified. “We have found some difficulty,” Lord Bristol wrote to Calvert, "in taking up the monies, but I shall, God willing, see it perfectly performed to his highness’s honour."[[45]]
Some days elapsed before the Prince weighed anchor. At last, on the eighteenth of September, Charles bade adieu to Spain, and with it, probably, to the sunshine of his youth. For James was now visibly declining, and his son was soon to be called upon to fulfil duties which he comprehended not in their just spirit, and to contend with bold, intelligent, indignant subjects, whom he also imperfectly understood.
As the sails were swelling with the breeze, the Prince and the other English gentlemen stood on deck taking leave, in dumb show, of the throng of Spaniards who saluted them from the shore. The wind was now prosperous, but a voyage of nine days awaited the impatient Prince before he could touch English ground.
The fleet consisted of ten ships of the line; that styled the Prince was of twelve hundred tons burthen, the others considerably less. In eight days they arrived within twelve miles of the Scilly Islands. The Council who were entrusted with the convoy of Charles debated on the propriety of his landing on this remote point, and were unanimous against it. Several pilots had come on board, but were dismissed. After supper, however, Charles suddenly ordered out the long boat and the ketch, and announced his intention of landing, accompanied by Buckingham.
About one o’clock at night they got into the long boat, and being saluted with a volley from the ship, made for St Mary’s Island, where the Prince and all his companions landed about seven in the morning. In the castle the Prince and Buckingham remained four days, and were taken again on board of the fleet on the third of October; and on the fifth of the same month, in the afternoon, arrived at Portsmouth,[[46]] having been in all seventeen days at sea. Charles proceeded at once to the house of Lord Annandale, near Guildford, and reached York House at eight the next morning; thus paying Buckingham the honour of going first to his house in London. Here he met the Privy Council, and refused an unreasonable request by the Spanish ambassador for a prior audience. [[47]]
Never was there more general or more enthusiastic joy expressed than on this occasion, and, amongst other demonstrations, a bonfire, which cost a hundred pounds, was kindled at Guildhall. It is supposed to have been composed of forfeited logwood, prohibited to the dyers, which had been seized. Shops were closed; the streets were spread with tables of provisions, and with hogsheads of wine and butts of sack; the people were mad with joy. If they met a cart full of wood, they took out the horse, and set the wood and the cart on fire. At St. Paul’s a new anthem was sung, the words being taken from the 114th psalm:--"When shall I come out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob from among the barbarous people?"
The battlements of St. Paul’s Cross displayed as many burning torches as the years of the young Prince in age; two enormous bonfires lighted up the enclosure around the cross, whilst fireworks, squibs, crackers, and rockets added to the general illumination of the city, in which, between St. Paul’s and London Bridge, no fewer than a hundred and eight bonfires were kindled. But the most interesting of all the incidents of that day was the reprieve of six men and two women, whom the Prince met on their road to Tyburn, where they were being taken for execution. At Royston, the King came down on the stairs to receive the travellers. The Prince and Duke kneeled down as they beheld the infirm monarch hastening to them; but the King fell on their necks, and they all wept together. A post was despatched to the Duchess and Countess of Buckingham, and to the Countess of Denbigh, to come to Royston.[[48]]
Whilst the public rejoicings in almost every town in the kingdom did honour to "England’s Joy," as Charles was then called, Buckingham gleaned some good from this safe return. The confidence of the people appeared to be restored to him. There was a general impression that even before Charles had quitted Spain, the match with the Infanta was virtually at an end; and this was partially confirmed when the Spanish ambassadors, having set out towards Royston, to congratulate the Prince, were met at Buntingford by Secretary Conway, to say that Royston being “a place of ill reception,” they were not to sleep there that night, but must return to Buntingford the same evening. This was by no means an agreeable intimation to the Marquis Inojosa, since it was but a week before that the French ambassador had both supped and lodged at Royston, though going unexpectedly; nevertheless, the Marquis proceeded to Royston, and had apparently a gracious reception from the King and Prince; neither did they “speak amiss” of the Duke’s manner on the awkward occasion. “Welcome home!” was for a long time the burden of the Court and country. One amongst the least meritorious of Buckingham’s dependants, Tobie Mathew, was knighted at Royston, where James and his favourite kept their intentions with regard to Spain profoundly secret. Mathew owed, indeed, his very presence at Court to Buckingham, who had interceded for him when banished on account of his conversion to Popery by the Jesuit Parsons. Mathew, when at Madrid with the Duke, had written a description of the Infanta, which he styled a picture “drawn in black and whyte,” for James’s amusement. “We pray you,” Buckingham wrote to the King, “let none laugh at it but yourselfe and honneste Kate; he thinks he hath hitt the naill on the head, but you will find it the foolishest thing you ever saw.” Amongst the many impertinences of the fool, Archy, some, directed against Tobie Mathew, were so cutting as to drive the newly-made knight from the dinner-table at Royston.[[49]]
Whilst all these matters, great and small, were discussed at Court, the poor Infanta, under the tuition of Mr. Wadsworth and Father Boniface, was studying English “apace.” Wherever she went, she was treated as Princess of England, the English ambassadors standing uncovered before her; whilst she occupied herself in having several embroidered suits of ambar-leather prepared for the Prince, and in the choice and arrangement of the attendants who were to accompany her to England. “We want,” Howell wrote, “nothing but one more dispatch from home, and then the marriage will be solemnized, and all things consummated.”[[50]]
This was the last lingering hope, which was soon to be abandoned, and fresh schemes substituted to amuse the fancy of the Prince, to gratify the caprice of his favourite, and to divert the decline of the King.