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]]
The Marchioness dined, during her convalescence, in the bed-chamber of the King, who gave a diamond chain, worth 3,500l., with his picture, to the Duchess of Lennox, for having “made broths and caudles” for the Marchioness during her illness.[[53]]
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]]
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.”
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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.
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.”[Rinmon.”][[65]]
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.
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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!”
“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[“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[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.
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]]
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]]
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]]
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."
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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.
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]]
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]]
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]]
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.”
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 600,000l., only 20,000l. yearly with the Infanta, and some jewels; whilst France would give a wedding portion of 240,000l.” 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.
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]]
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]]
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.”
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]]
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[to bargain] for them, as there was great necessity for frugality."[[107]]
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]]
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.”
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]]
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]]
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 50,027l. Prince Charles, before he left Spain, had given presents to the amount of 12,000l.
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]]
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]]
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]]
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.
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]]
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.
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.
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]]
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.
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 40,000l. 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]]
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]]
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]]
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.
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.