CHAPTER VII.
UNFORTUNATE RESULT OF THE PRINCIPLES EARLY INSTILLED INTO CHARLES I. BY HIS FATHER--THE AFFAIR OF THE PALATINATE--ITS CONNECTION WITH THE SPANISH MARRIAGE--MAD DESIRE OF CHARLES AND BUCKINGHAM FOR A WAR WITH SPAIN--LETTER FROM THE EARL OF BRISTOL--THE FIRST UNFORTUNATE EXPEDITION TO CADIZ--RESENTMENT OF THE PEOPLE--CHARLES ASSEMBLES A PARLIAMENT--THE SUPPLIES REFUSED--IMPEACHMENT OF BRISTOL--IMPEACHMENT OF BUCKINGHAM--HIS THIRTEEN ANSWERS--RASH CONDUCT OF THE KING--HIS EXPRESSION OF CONTEMPT FOR THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--SIR JOHN ELIOT AND SIR DUDLEY DIGGES SENT TO THE TOWER--THE INTOLERANT SPIRIT OF THE DAY--INFLUENCE OF LAUD--SERMON OF THE VICAR OF BRACKLEY--"TUNING THE PULPITS."
CHAPTER VII.
The next mission entrusted to Buckingham was one which, accompanied by the Earl of Holland, he undertook to the States-General, who had bound themselves to restore by force of arms the Palatinate to the King’s only sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia, “whose dowry,” Sir Henry Wotton observes, “had been ravished by the German eagle mixed with Spanish feathers.” “A princess,” he adds, “resplendent in darkness, and whose virtues were born within the chance, but without the power, of fortune.”
This mission occupied a month. The Duke and Lord Holland embarked at Harwich, and after a dangerous passage, in the course of which three ships were foundered, they arrived on the fifth day at Harwich. It was during the absence of Buckingham that the unfortunate expedition to Cadiz failed, and the public expressions of disappointment at that misfortune were the first news to greet him on his return.
It was at this period that the seeds of many of the erroneous and unjustifiable principles of action which were originally implanted in the mind of Charles I. by his father, and which had been fostered by Buckingham, were seen to produce their first effects; and that the long course of mistakes and oppressions which preceded the great Rebellion was commenced.
In order to comprehend the manner in which the complicated questions of foreign policy in those days affected the line of conduct adopted by England, it will be necessary to refer briefly to the question which was the grand theme of the day--the loss of the Palatinate.
The misfortunes of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, her rare qualities, and her romantic story, are well known by every one conversant with English history. The affairs connected with the Palatinate afford the first instance in which Great Britain was involved in the politics of Germany, and with the various religious parties into which that country was divided.
In 1612, a league had been cemented between this country and the German Protestants, by the marriage of Elizabeth Stuart with Frederic, the Elector Palatine. Bohemia, persecuted by the Emperor Mathias of Austria, had invited the Elector Palatine to accept the crown, which was elective, under a conviction that Frederic, being supported by an alliance with England, would support them in their struggles with the intolerant Catholic Council who governed the kingdom of Bohemia.
A fearful conflict ensued. The German States, entrusting the management of their affairs to thirty directors, composed wholly of Protestant Princes, were opposed by the Catholic League, formed with a view of upholding the Jesuits in opposition to the Hussites, or Protestants, or, as they were sometimes styled, the Evangelical party, by whose preponderance the Elector Palatine had been called to the throne.
Relying upon the cordial sympathy of the English nation, an expectation in which he was not disappointed, the Prince Palatine, believing himself equally sure of the co-operation of King James, accepted the tempting offer of royalty without waiting for the approval of his father-in-law. But he looked to him for support in vain. It was one of King James’s most cherished notions, that monarchs should support monarchs in case of disturbance, how just soever the cause, how unanimous soever the voice of the people by whom a sovereign was deposed. His natural timidity, also, operated in inducing a line of conduct towards his son-in-law and his daughter as pusillanimous as was every other trait of his character and action of his life--and, above all, his project of accomplishing a union between his son Charles and a daughter of Spain militated against a real and effective interference in the affairs of the Palatinate, except, indeed, to confuse and ruin them. He was contented, therefore, with sending ambassadors to Germany, not only to mediate between contending parties, but to induce the new King of Bohemia to relinquish a throne which James pretended to assert that his son-in-law had no right to retain.[[289]]
The King of Poland, the Elector of Saxony, and the Duke of Bavaria, who was at the head of the Catholic League, sided with Ferdinand, Emperor after the death of Mathias, and the result was the reduction of Bohemia, the loss of the Palatinate, and the flight of the Elector Palatine, or, as he was called, the King of Bohemia, to Holland. The King of Spain, also, sent an army under Spinola into the field, and it was that circumstance which rendered the scheme of marrying Prince Charles to the Infanta so unpopular in England, and which brought so much odium on Buckingham.
The treaty for that match had been originally carried on through the agency of the Earl of Bristol, and hence the jealousy which had already broken out on various occasions between the Duke of Buckingham and that able and experienced ambassador; whilst the failure of the negotiations, which were undertaken with the pretext of gaining the restoration of the Palatinate, was the origin of the rash war with Spain, which Charles, without the usual form of a proclamation, resolved on commencing.
The English, however, delighted as they had been at the rupture of the treaty, were indignant at this informality, as well as averse to a war which seemed to be the result of private passions rather than the well-considered act of a monarch anxious for the dignity of his subjects.
But a worthy representative of James’s style of policy remained in his unhappy son. Supplies for the war with Spain were refused in the first Parliament that Charles called; a compulsory loan was exacted. Whilst the country was burning with resentment at this unequally imposed burden, a fleet of eighty sail, English, and twenty sail supplied from Holland, carrying ten thousand men, was sent to the coast of Spain. This grand armament, raised by the energy of the Lord High Admiral, was an object of pride to the nation, who had never before beheld so glorious a fleet; yet it was entrusted, not to Sir Robert Mansel, a distinguished commander, but to Cecil, Viscount Wimbleton, a favourite of Buckingham’s, and a man neither of talent nor experience. Thus, the fatal vice which has obtained the popular name of jobbery was exhibited at this most critical period.
A signal failure was the result; the fleet reached Cape St. Vincent, and landed the troops; a fort was taken, but there was neither discipline nor decision to restrain the troops, who rushed into a store of wine, and soon abandoned themselves to the most disgraceful excesses. Sickness was the consequence, and the expedition returned ingloriously to England, with the additional discredit of its being known that a stay of two days longer would have sufficed to take all the shipping collected into the bay of Cadiz, and thus to have struck a grand blow, at the very commencement of the war, against the power of Spain.
The blame of this unfortunate attempt rested chiefly on the head of Buckingham, as the undertaking was known to have originated in his advice. Lord Clarendon well observes, in his life of himself, speaking of the Stuart family, that it was their “unhappy fate and constitution” to trust to the “judgments of those who were as much inferior to themselves in understanding as they were in quality, before their own, which was very good, and suffered even their natures, which disposed them to virtue and justice, to be prevailed upon, and altered and corrupted by those who knew how to make use of some one infirmity that they discovered in them, and by complying with that, and cherishing and serving it, they, by degrees, wrought upon the mass, and sacrificed all the other good inclinations to that single vice.”
Parliament was accordingly summoned, and at Candlemas, in 1625, the coronation was celebrated. This ceremonial, which might have assisted in re-establishing good feeling, proved, unhappily, the source of bitter dissension and cavilling. The coronations of Edward VI. and of Queen Elizabeth had been performed according to the rites of the Romish Church. That of James I. was done in haste; and “wanted,” says the biographer of Laud, “many things which might have been considered in a time of leisure.”[[290]] Amongst the alterations suggested by the prelates who were appointed as commissioners to settle the form, it was decreed that anointing was to be performed in the form of a cross, a point established, which was at that time as fertile a source of invective as the use of that most holy and touching symbol in our churches has since been in these days, even amongst well-intentioned and pious Christians.
Even the ritual of the coronation, therefore, performed as it was, almost for the first time, according to the mode which it has since retained, contributed indirectly to the unpopularity of Buckingham. To Laud, that prelate to whose memory so much injustice has been done, in imputing to him designs and motives of which no proof exists, and yet whose errors bring pain to every thinking mind, was allotted the performance of the great ceremonial.
Formerly it had been the office of the Abbot of Westminster to celebrate the rite; then, for a century, the Dean had held the guardianship of the regalia used by Edward the Confessor, and had kept them in a secret part of Westminster Abbey. These valuables were now disinterred from their hiding-place by Laud, who, finding also the old crucifix, set it up on the altar, as in former times. Everything relating to this coronation wore an ominous appearance; in the first place, it was fixed for the day of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, and the King, whether from compliment to the faith of his wife, or from taste, or, from the supposed influence of Laud, it does not transpire, was dressed in white, instead of purple, used always by his predecessors. “Not,” says Heylyn, with quaint simplicity, “for want of purple velvet enough to make him a suit (for he had many yards of it in his outer garment), but from choice, to declare that virgin purity with which he came to be espoused unto his kingdom.” His laying aside the purple was, however, looked upon as an “ill omen.”[[291]]
Nor was this the only presage of coming mishaps. Charles was afterwards accused, during the Long Parliament, of having altered the coronation oath; the very sermon, also, preached by the eloquent Penhouse, Bishop of Carlisle, formerly his tutor, seemed to invite fate to do her worst; he chose a text, according to Heylyn, more proper for a funeral than a coronation--"I will give to thee a crown of life"--and engrafted on it a discourse which those who heard it judged might, with great propriety, have been uttered when his Majesty was dead, but not just at the moment when he was about to undertake the government of his people.
The ceremonial being concluded, the King walked in his robes from Westminster Abbey to the Hall, and delivered to Laud, who represented the Dean of Westminster, the crown, sceptre, and the sword called cortena. Laud, after receiving the regalia, returned to the Abbey, and, placing them on the altar, offered them up in his Majesty’s name; after which they were again locked up, never to see the light until after the stirring season of the Rebellion, and the more placid years of the Commonwealth. They were again displayed at the Restoration.[[292]]
All these forms were regarded as next to impious by the Puritan party; and, since there was now a cordial alliance between Laud and Buckingham, the popular hatred was divided between them both. Two years had now passed since Buckingham, in the miseries of an ague, had sent for Laud to console and advise him. Laud was, in truth, one of the most agreeable of companions, and carried with him to his grave an apprehension quick and sudden--"a sociable wit and pleasant humour."[[293]] So that, even in the crisis of a malady, then of a far more severe character than in the present day, Buckingham forgot his sufferings, or bore them with a patience unwonted to his irritable nature; and, “by that patience, did so break their heats and violences, that at last they left him.”
After this period, Laud became, Heylyn tells us, “not only a confessor, but a councillor to the Duke;” and to his advice it was owing that the endowments of the Charter-house were not appropriated by the Duke to the maintenance of the war, a plan which had been contemplated by the Duke, but applied to those of education. Laud, we must in gratitude recall, opposed all alienations of that nature; and to his firmness, as well as to that of the honest-hearted Sir Edward Coke, who, as trustee to the estates called Sutton’s Lands, resisted the attempts of the Crown to seize them, we owe the preservation of many colleges and hospitals.
During his intimacy with Buckingham, Laud succeeded in imbuing him with those opinions which he himself advocated during his life, and died to support. These were opposed to what was then called “Doctrinal Puritanism,” a term which Buckingham expressed a wish to comprehend, and which Laud undertook to expound. These doctrinal points related to the observance of the Lord’s Day; to the “indiscrimination,” says Heylyn, “of bishops and presbyters, the power of sovereigns in ecclesiastical matters, the doctrine of confession and of sacerdotal absolution, and the five points which had, for the last twenty years, been agitating the churches of Holland.”[[294]] Those points, which have unhappily raised so many bitter resentments, were now beginning to inflame the public mind in England with that fever of intolerance which is so contagious, and so inimical to true religion. These controversies, in the time of Buckingham, were carried on between the party called Arminians and the Calvinists. “A swarm of books,” as Heylyn calls them, came over from Holland, and awoke out of “that dead sleep,” as he terms the then state of the Church, the learned divines of Oxford. Laud had been one of the first, on the publication of these works, to espouse and to advocate what was then styled Arminianism, so called from a famous professor of Leyden, Von Armene. Whatever was the standard of Laud’s opinions, and whatsoever merit may be attached to their sincerity, or what blame soever to their virulence, it is, at all events, satisfactory to believe that the attention of Buckingham was, during the latter years of his life, directed to subjects of mightier import than the sublunary interests which had hitherto solely engrossed his attention.
Laud had, indeed, those qualities which form the man of piety into the missionary of social life--a mission much required in all ages. The rigid, uncompromising priest, who gives no latitude to opinion, no indulgence to error, generally does far more harm than good. The lax man of the world, with weak purpose, and flickering notions of right and wrong, is a scandal to the faith he professes, and lends a hand to indifference, if not to infidelity. But Laud, an enthusiast, perhaps a zealot, was the most agreeable of bigots. Born at Reading, the son of a clothier, he had been reproached, like Buckingham, with the meanness of his origin. Like most men, he felt the imputation; and even in his garden at Lambeth, when in the height of his greatness, he is stated by his biographer, Doctor Heylyn, to have shewn no ordinary degree of vexation on his countenance, after reading a libel in which he was reproached with his parentage, “as if,” he said, “he had been raked out of a dung-hill.” He owned that he had not the good fortune “to be born a gentleman,” but he had the happiness to be descended from honest parents. The beautiful, old-fashioned College of St. John’s, at Oxford, had received him as a commoner, and he entered there at a period when Calvinism influenced, strange to say, the tone and spirit of that university. All that had once been held sacred was decaying or disused; and the Reformed Church of England had become eclipsed by the doctrines and writings of Zuinglius, introduced by Dr. Humphrey, the then Vice-Chancellor, who had received his impressions, when deprived of his fellowship by Queen Mary, at Zurich, the very hot-bed of Calvinism.
The use of the surplice, the custom of bowing at the name of Jesus, commanded by Queen Elizabeth in 1559, and the distinctive dress of the priests, had been laid aside, when Laud, in 1604, performed his exercise for Bachelor of Divinity, into which treatise he introduced those tenets which were soon conceived, or misconceived, to be tainted with Romanism.
Nevertheless, from the time when he was president of his own college, St. John’s, to the moment of his promotion to the see of Canterbury, there was little real obstruction to Laud’s elevation, notwithstanding that the whole of his career was one of controversy and contention, until he rose to the highest pinnacle of ecclesiastical greatness, and fell, subsequently, into the very depths of adversity.
This slight sketch is necessary to show how naturally Laud might be expected to succeed in gaining an influence over Buckingham, since he had been always engaged in winning over those of opposite opinions, and in the great battle of controversy. Cheerful, not too severe, nor even sufficiently strict, in his notions of morality, as appears from his conduct relative to Mountjoy, Earl of Devonshire--a short, stout man, with a plump and merry visage, the very opposite of a Puritan or Calvinist minister--no man knew better than Laud how to lay aside the gravity which was unseasonable; accessible in his manners, staunch as a churchman to the interests of his order, but perfectly indifferent, personally, to the gifts of fortune, Laud delighted the great Duke, weary of fame, and perhaps of life, by the sweetness of manner and vivacity of temper which become so well men of high attainments. They were henceforth friends, until the thread of Buckingham’s existence was cut short by the assassin’s blow.
It is impossible to estimate too highly the effects of this intimacy upon the character of the Duke. He seems to have yielded readily to the remonstrances of Laud against the misappropriation of church revenues; and indeed, according to another authority, his own disposition accelerated the effect produced by these impressions. Buckingham was not the rapacious oppressor described by the contemporary slanderers of his time. “Oppression and avarice,” observes Nichols, in his history of Leicestershire, “he knew not.”
Williams, Lord Keeper, the early friend of Buckingham, was now wholly discarded from the Duke’s friendship, and from his presence, as appears from a letter addressed by Williams to Sir George Goring, and written from Foxley. The mixture of servility with religious professions; the evident desire to retain the favour of the Duke, and his own place, of course, and yet to make his case good;--and the dexterity with which all this is managed, lessen the regret that would otherwise be felt that Buckingham had lost in Williams an acute adviser, whose counsels were safer, at that juncture, than those of the earnest and fearless, but intemperate and prejudiced, Laud.
No benefit to the disgraced courtier and prelate resulted from this appeal, and the new parliament was opened in the month of February, 1626, not by Williams, but by Sir Thomas Coventry, as Lord Keeper, in a strain of fulsome adulation to the King.
But this address, followed as it was by an oration from Sir Heneage Finch, the Speaker, in terms still more exaggerated, was little regarded by the Commons, who immediately formed themselves into a committee of grievances, in which the evil resulting from bad counsellors about the King, the misappropriation of the revenue, the failure of the expedition against Cadiz, and the expenditure of the subsidy granted to the late King, formed the main points of consideration.
In vain did Charles, confirming but too closely the observations recently quoted by Lord Clarendon, resolve to defend his favourite. He addressed a letter to the Speaker, bidding him hasten the supplies. Forty ships, he stated, were ready for a second voyage, and, without an immediate grant of money, the object of that armament must be abandoned, and the navy disbanded. The Commons were adverse to any scheme founded by him whom they regarded as the very source of all the evils of which the country now complained. Buckingham was the object at whom every expression of discontent was aimed. Clement Coke, one of Sir Edward’s numerous family, observed that it would be better to die from an enemy abroad than to be destroyed at home. Dr. Turner, a physician whom Sir Henry Wotton styles “a travelled doctor of physick, of bold spirit and able elocution,” asked ministers whether it were not true that the loss of the King’s dominions over the narrow seas were not owing to the Duke’s mismanagement? Whether the enormous gifts of land and money to the Duke had not impoverished the Crown? Whether the multiplicity of offices which he held, and those whom he patronized, were not the cause of the bad government in the kingdom? Whether he did not connive at recusants, the Duke’s mother and father-in-law being both papists? Whether the sale of offices, honours, places of judicature, with ecclesiastical livings and preferments, were not owing to the Duke?
Such was the dread of court influence in that day, that courage to put these questions implied in Dr. Turner a perfect independence of action and character very unusual at that period. Clement Coke was severely reproved by his father for his boldness, and the old lawyer refused to see his son for some time; but Dr. Turner, one of the very few of his profession who have sat in the House of Commons, not only escaped censure, but gained credit by his boldness, upon which the subsequent impeachment of the Duke was grounded.
The committee to redress grievances was followed by another, which was to inquire into religious matters, more especially into the number of indulgences granted by his Majesty to recusants; for the bitterness of bigotry was not confined to the party who owned Laud as their spiritual chief; and this blow was aimed at Buckingham, whose alleged partiality to the Romish Church was one of the false and factious allegations of the day. At that time, it must be remembered, a penalty of twenty pounds a month, by law, could be levied upon every person who frequented not divine worship.[[295]] The King, unhappily, ill judging, ill-advised, and therefore ill-fated, and finding himself opposed for the first time, summoned the Lords and Commons to Whitehall, and, addressing them, said, that whilst he was sensible of the grievances of his people, he was much more sensible of his own. He issued his express command that henceforth the two houses would desist from such unparliamentary proceedings, and leave the reformation of what was amiss to his "Majesty’s care, wisdom, and justice."[[296]] This harangue produced no effect on the two houses, and the King and Buckingham, feeling that they had lost ground, adopted another course, and rushed into perils, from the effect of which the Duke was saved by an untimely death, but which were felt in after years with terrible force by Charles.
So long as James I. lived, the Earl of Bristol, confiding in his favour, had borne the blame of that failure in the Spanish treaty which had so greatly incensed the nation. For some time after the accession of Charles, he waited, hoping to regain his footing at the court. But when, upon the meeting of parliament, he received no writ to serve as a member, in his place, he appealed to the Lords. The writ was then sent, but the Earl was ordered on no account to appear in his place. Moreover, during the vacation, in the month of March, the Duke, certain that Bristol would impeach him, prepared articles of impeachment against the Earl, in order to be the first in the field, and to anticipate the accusations which he expected would shortly be levelled at himself. The impeachment did indeed anticipate, literally, that soon framed and delivered against the Duke.[[297]] The feeling of the times rendered nothing so odious to the nation as any wish or attempt to subvert the religion of the country. One of the charges against Bristol was that he assisted to introduce Popery into England; that he was the cause of the Prince’s journey into Spain, and had there wished him to change his religion; that he advised that the son of the Elector Palatine should be brought up in the court of Spain--a project which, from a letter of Bristol’s, appears to have been stated, but not suggested by Bristol. Bristol replied that these charges were merely intended to defeat those which he now formally preferred against the Duke, which seemed almost like duplicates of the impeachment which the Duke had preferred against him. First, that he had conspired with Gondomar to take the Prince into Spain, there to convert him to the Romish faith; that, whilst in Spain, the Duke had flattered the King of Spain with the hopes of this conversion; that he had absented himself from Divine service at the embassy, and had attended the Romish rites, adoring their sacraments--a course which induced the Spanish court to ask greater concessions from King James.[[298]] These articles, with others of less import, were followed by an impeachment from the House of Commons, who were fearful that Bristol might not be able to substantiate the charge of treason, of which they clearly saw the weakness, from the absence of motives and of proofs.[[299]] On the eighth of May, therefore, “a large impeachment” was drawn up against him; it was framed by six of the ablest lawyers in the house;[[300]] and related to the Duke’s engrossing of offices--his holding at the same time the posts of Lord Admiral and of Warden of the Cinque Ports--his not guarding the narrow seas--his lending a ship called the “Vanguard” to the French King--his selling offices and honours--his waste of the Crown revenues--and, finally, his giving physic to King James at the time of his sickness,[[301]] applying a plaster to his chest; and that both the potion and the plaster were of a nature unknown “to surgeons, apothecaries, and physicians, and had been followed by dangerous consequences.”
Of these charges, which were styled by Hume “either frivolous, or false, or both,” only one or two articles can, with any certainty, be refuted. To commence with that made by the Earl of Bristol, relating to the conversion of Charles whilst in Spain, it appears from a letter addressed by Sir George Calvert to Secretary Conway, that the Marquis Inojosa, the Spanish Ambassador, was directed by the Countess Olivarez, in the Infanta’s name, to obtain all possible indulgences for Catholics. But no other more formal application on the subject, nor any trace of information confirming the alleged designs of Buckingham to convert Charles, have been found amongst the correspondence of that period; nor has any substantial proof of this charge been adduced by historians.[[302]] With regard to the charge of engrossing offices, the importance, if not the absolute necessity, of rescuing all maritime affairs from the ruin and neglect in which they had been suffered to remain by a former High Admiral, was so obvious at the very moment when it became necessary to assert the honour of England, that it is a matter of wonder that it should have been attempted to allege against Buckingham that which constituted his greatest merit. That the Duke had fearlessly applied himself to the restoration of the navy, has been shown by a reference to documents which have fully and completely exonerated him from that censure. It would have been of little avail for Buckingham to restore our navy, without securing the ports; in taking upon himself that office, he did not accept it as a mere dignity, to be performed by deputy, but he discharged its duties with an energy and a fidelity that very soon effected the desired end.
In the answer which he afterwards addressed to Parliament, the Duke denied having lent the ship called the “Vanguard,” and six others, to the King of France--knowing that they were intended to be employed against Rochelle; he stated that he had been overreached, as the French King had pretended that he wished to make an attack on Genoa; that, so soon as he was aware of the deception, he did all he could to save Rochelle from destruction.[[303]] It appeared, also, that a promise had been made by James I. to lend a ship to Louis XIII., for the reduction of Genoa. The charge of neglecting his duty as Admiral, and of having suffered the coast to be infested with pirates, has been met by those statements in a former chapter, drawn from original sources, which plainly show that the energy of this ill-fated Minister was untiring, his efforts meritorious, and that, whatever had been his former errors, they had been retrieved in his management of naval affairs. So active were his habits, that he took a personal share in every affair.[[304]] From the accusation of corruption, it would be as difficult to defend the Duke, as it was to exculpate, in this grave point, many public men in office at that period. The House of Commons was still writhing under the remembrance of the affair of Lord Middlesex, Lord Treasurer in the time of James I., who had taken two bribes, of five hundred pounds each, from the farmers of customs, without which douceur he refused to sign their warrants.[[305]] For that offence, Middlesex had been punished with fine and imprisonment; but King James, whilst he was eager to sell the offending Earl’s lands for the payment of the fine, had said that he would “review the sentence of the Parliament, and confirm it as he saw cause;” he even made a speech in behalf of the dishonest treasurer, stating that, “in such cases, the nether house was but as informers, the Lords as the jury, and himself the judge;” giving them likewise to understand “that he took it not well, nor would endure it hereafter, that they should meddle with his servants, from the highest place down to the lowest skull in the kitchen; but if they had ought against any, they should complain to him, and he would see it redressed according to right.”[[306]]
It was not, therefore, a matter of surprise that the Commons should, in a case considered still more flagrant, lose their moderation, knowing from experience how little justice their well-grounded complaints might receive at the hands of a monarch who had imbibed from his cradle such sentiments as those expressed by James I.
It was publicly known that offices, both about the person of the King and in the state, were sold. In the last reign, the mastership of the jewels had been bought by Sir Henry Caire for 2,000l. or 3,000l., from Sir Henry Mildmay, who was “thought too young a man, and of too mean a state” to be safely entrusted with the King’s jewels.[[307]] Buckingham, however, seems to have had no direct interest in this transaction. Other instances were also adduced; and proofs of corruption somewhere were open to every mind. Lord Middlesex, when Sir Lionel Cranfield, was stated to have given the Duke 6,000l. for his place as keeper of the wardrobe;[[308]] but it seems that he purchased that post from Lord Hay, and not from Buckingham, as the following extract from the State Papers, of the year 1618, implies:--
“Sir Lionel Cranfield is not yet master of the wardrobe, nor likely to be, unless he give a viaticum to the Lord Hay, who, they say, stands upon 9,000l.”[[309]] It does not, therefore, appear certain that Buckingham received either of the bribes; although it is not improbable that, since nothing could take place without his concurrence, he might have accepted some part of the spoil. Of the other two allegations--namely, that he received from Lord Roberts 10,000l. for his title, and that he sold the office of treasurer to Lord Manchester for 20,000l., there seems no certainty; but no letters are to be found in the very minute daily correspondence of that period, between the members of the Duke’s household and the Court, which either take the burden of the charge from him, or remove it to any other person.
The Duke was also stated, in the impeachment, to have purchased the offices of Lord High Admiral, and of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Such was the colour given to a transaction which is generally recognized as a matter of compensation. “To the Earl of Nottingham, the old and incompetent admiral, the pension of 3,000l. yearly was allotted, together with a good round sum of ready money;” to Margaret, Countess of Nottingham, according to one account, a pension of 1,000l., to commence at the death of the Earl, and 500l. to his eldest son by her.[[310]] According to another statement, the pension to the Countess was not to exceed 600l.; to her son, Charles Howard, 500l. a year; and to her daughter, Anne Howard, 200l. a year--after the death of their father.[[311]]
Lord Zouch, meantime, the former Warden of the Cinque Ports, was perfectly satisfied with the compensation of 500l. a year, secured on lands, and 1,000l. ready money, in lieu of his office.[[312]] Surely, if arrangements like these, completed without secrecy, and known to every gossip of the Court, be deemed corrupt and illegal, every minister of modern times might be liable to a similar imputation.
Another charge was that Buckingham had procured titles of honours for his allies, and pensions to support them; had embezzled the King’s money, and obtained grants of Crown lands to an enormous value.[[313]] A list of his titles and offices proves, indeed, the blind and almost insane partiality which had placed the favourite on the pinnacle of power.
The statement of his possessions is equally amazing, more especially when we consider his origin and his early difficulties. Crown lands, to the value of 284,895l., had been allotted to the Duke, "besides the Forest of Layfield--the profit made out of the strangers’ goods--and the moiety of the customs in Ireland." And yet the Duke avowed before Parliament that his debts amounted to 100,000l.,[[314]] and we find, as a sad confirmation of the charge, among the documents in the State Paper Office, a warrant of payment of 2,500l. to Sir William Russell, for interest of 30,000l. advanced to the Duke of Buckingham by his Majesty’s orders.[[315]] Even the money given him, it was justly alleged, was a small sum compared with that which the Duke had derived from other sources. “How then,” asked Mr. Sherland, one of the managers of the impeachment, “can we hope to satisfy his prodigality, if this be true? If false, how can we hope to satisfy his covetousness? And, therefore, your lordships need not wonder if the Commons desire, and that earnestly, to be delivered from such a grievance.”
Finally, the Duke was charged with having either intentionally, or unintentionally, accelerated the death of King James.
The imprudent interference of Buckingham, under the influence of his mother, with the medical treatment of the King, was adduced as a proof of guilt. The absurdity of this charge, which was afterwards taken up with much bitterness by both parties in that time of violent discussion, seems to throw a doubt upon the whole impeachment.
The same members who had before recited the enormous gifts and lavish generosity of King James to his favourite, now taxed the very man who had only to ask, to obtain, with the murder of one who was loading him with benefits. The disease of King James, Heylyn reports, “was no other than an ague, which, though it fell on him in the spring, crossed the proverb, and proved, not medicinal, but mortal.”[[316]] The King was old, not indeed in years, but in constitution; the wonder was not that he died before the full span of age was complete, but that he lived so long. The appearance of the body after death has been insisted upon by Whitelocke as a proof of poison; but it is well known that in many diseases this appearance occurs, especially in affections of the heart, a class of complaint but little understood in those times, but a malady that is not unfrequently the result of rheumatic affections, to which James seems to have been liable.
Wandesford, one of the chief speakers on this occasion, declares that the “poor and loyal Commons of England were troubled at hearing that great distempers followed the drink and plaisters which Buckingham had pressed on the King--droughts, raving, faintness, and intermitting pulse;” these are, however, the usual concomitants of that passage through the valley of the shadow of death which precedes a final dissolution; the plaister was declared to have driven the complaint inwards; both the administration of the drink or posset, and the application of the plaister, were avowed by Buckingham, who protested that neither of these intended remedies had been used without the permission of the physicians; on hearing a rumour that he had done so, Buckingham affirmed that he went to the dying king, “who[“who] exclaimed, ‘They are worse than devils who say so.’”[[317]]
On the whole, this part of the impeachment seems to have fallen to the ground; and we are disposed to credit Clarendon, who states that though “investigated in a time of great licence, ‘no criminality was discovered.’” King Charles also became afterwards the subject of aspersions on this point--one of those slanderous and impossible accusations that weaken all the previous charges, and taint them with the hue of malice.
It is remarkable, as Hume observes, that the most vulnerable point in Lord Bristol’s attack was altogether ignored by the Commons in this “large impeachment.” The most blamable circumstance in Buckingham’s whole life, as the same historian observes, was the Duke’s conduct in breaking the Spanish treaty, and in hurrying the nation into a war in order to gratify his private passions. But there was a general conviction of the insincerity of Spain; and the unjustifiable conduct of the Duke, in the affairs relative to that country, was suffered to escape unnoticed, whilst charges, almost untenable, were got up in the hope of ruining him with the King.
Charles was, however, infatuated. His youth and inexperience, the pernicious example set him by his father, plead for him, but nothing can extenuate the want of manly boldness in Buckingham, in not facing his foes and demanding a trial. His answers to the impeachment, thirteen in number, were, it is true, to borrow the words of Sir Henry Wotton, “very diligently and civilly couched,” and “savoured of an humble spirit, though his heart was big.” One consideration swayed with the public, which was, that in the “bolting and sifting of near fourteen years of such power and favour, all that came out could not be expected to be pure and white, and fine metal; but must needs have withal among it a certain mixture of padars and bran in this lower range of humane fragility.”[[318]]
The Duke’s answers were very clear and satisfactory,[[319]] and his address to the Lords appears to have been ingenuous and courteous. He reminded them how full of danger and prejudice it was to give too ready an ear, too easy a belief, to reports and testimony not upon oath; upon such allegations none ought, he argued, to be condemned. Then, with a grace that was natural to him, he acknowledged, with humility, “how easy a thing it was for him in his younger years, when inexperienced, to fall into thousands of errors in these two years wherein he had the honour to serve so great and so open-hearted a master.”[[320]] He concluded with professions of attachment to the Church of England, hoping that for the future “he might watch over all his actions, public and private, so as not to give cause of just offence to any one.” And such was probably his sincere determination; and Buckingham, had he lived, might have proved an excellent and, as times went, an honest minister.
The answer of Buckingham, as well as the speech of the King to his Commons, on the 29th of March, was ascribed to the pen of Laud; but Heylyn disavows that statement. Yet there is little doubt that Laud prompted the Duke’s cautious and submissive reply on the one hand, and encouraged, if he did not prompt, the King’s arbitrary and unconstitutional conduct to the Commons.
The tempest, violent as it seemed, “did,” as Sir Henry Wotton remarks, “only shake and not rent” the Duke’s sails. Charles, taking as a plea that many of the accusations were not within the compass of his own reign, and also that nothing had been proved against Buckingham on oath, resolved to brave the storm in such a manner as to bring down its force upon himself.
He lost, therefore, no opportunity of showing his contempt for the House of Commons. “No one,” Hume observes, “was at that time sufficiently sensible of the great weight which the Commons bore in the balance of the Constitution.” Nothing but “fatal experience could induce the English princes to pay a due regard to the inclinations of that formidable assembly.”[[321]]
“This was indeed,” Lord Campbell remarks, “the great crisis of the English Constitution. Had our distinguished patriots then quailed, Parliaments would thenceforth have been merely the subject of antiquarian research, or perhaps occasionally summoned to register the edicts of the Crown”[Crown”][[322]] “The state,” as Sir Edward Coke declared in Parliament, “was in a consumption, yet not incurable.” It was his courage and honesty that helped to effect a cure.
Charles, considering that he was himself aimed at in the allegations against the Duke, commanded the House expressly not to interfere with his servant Buckingham, and ordered it to conclude the bill for the subsidies which they had begun, intimating that if that were not done it should sit no longer. Instead of referring the case to the Lords, and insisting on the affair being brought to a trial before that body, he went himself to the House of Lords, and declared his intention of clearing the Duke by his own testimony. The Commons had, on that very day, moved that the Duke should be committed to the Tower until the issue of his trial should be known. That motion was rejected; in vain did Buckingham attempt to explain and soften down this conduct in a speech to the Lords. Sir Dudley Digges and Sir John Eliot were thrown into prison, and although they were soon liberated, the Commons immediately declared that they would not proceed with any business whatsoever until satisfaction should be given for this breach of privilege.
Unhappily, all these discords were aggravated nearly to frenzy by the bitterest of all passions--religious intolerance. Whilst we must applaud, with all gratitude, the lofty and honest spirit which opposed acts of despotism--a spirit to which we owe our present pre-eminence as a free and powerful nation--we must deprecate the remorseless oppressions which the friends of liberty scrupled not to inflict on those who thought on religious matters differently from themselves.
It was an expensive matter in those days to have a conscience. Although the penalty of twenty pounds per month, enacted during the reign of Elizabeth, had been mitigated according to the circumstances of families, or suffered in some instances to run on for years, it was occasionally levied all at once, to the ruin of the unhappy Romanist families who conscientiously refused to attend the worship of the Established Church. James I. had mercifully relaxed the severity of these penalties; but his successor was now called upon by the Puritan party in the House of Commons to restore them to their original force. The Church was at this epoch far more induced to grant indulgence than the laity, who, it is strange to say, were the most intolerant among the persecutors of the depressed body of Roman Catholics. Disappointed in their impeachment of Buckingham, the Commons now presented to the King a list of recusants who had been entrusted with offices in the State.
This petition was aimed, of course, at Buckingham, whose mother was a Catholic, and whose wife had been long suspected of holding the tenets of the Romish Church. It was thought sufficient in those times to have a near relation a Romanist, to be disqualified for office.[[323]]
Queen Elizabeth, as we have before observed, when she had any point to gain with her people, used “to tune the pulpits,” as she termed it. It was her practice to have a reserve of preachers ready to extol her designs in or near London, to influential congregations, whenever she required the help of their eloquence.[[324]] This plan was now adopted by Charles, and Laud was employed to call the attention of the public to the cause of the King of Denmark, who had been driven to the last extremity by Count Tilly. The King of Denmark being a Protestant, it was hoped that this scheme would propitiate the party who so vehemently endeavoured to compass the downfall of Buckingham, and who were, for the most part, Puritans.
Unhappily the plan did more harm than good; its motives and signification were suspected, nay, even proclaimed by some of the simple clergy; and Sibthorpe, the Vicar of Brackley, in Northamptonshire--at an assize sermon--gave out plainly that the burden of those instructions which had been distributed among the priesthood was "to show the lawfulness of the general loan which the King now contemplated raising, in lieu of the supplies; to prove the King’s right to impose taxes without the consent of Parliament; and to insist that the people ought cheerfully to submit to such loans and taxes."
The publication of this sermon was forbidden by Archbishop Abbot,[[325]] for it was then illegal to print any book without a permission from the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, or the Vice-chancellor of one of the Universities, or some person appointed by them;[[326]] and two fearful Courts of Star-chamber and High Commission threatened any delinquent who attempted to do then what now requires merely the consent of a publisher. Although Abbot had so wisely prohibited Sibthorpe’s discourse, he could not save the King whom Buckingham and Laud counselled. The audacious sermon was published during the following year, under the almost impious title of “Apostolic Obedience.”
END OF VOL. II.
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THE COUNTESS OF BONNEVAL: HER LIFE AND LETTERS. By LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON. 2 vols. 21s.
“The whole work forms one of those touching stories which create a lasting impression.”--Athenæum.
“The life of the Count de Bonneval is a page in history, but it reads like a romance: that of the Countess, removed from war and politics, never oversteps the domestic sphere, yet is equally romantic and singular. An accomplished writer has taken up the threads of this modest life, and brought out her true character in a very interesting and animated memoir. The story of the Countess of Bonneval is related with the happy art and grace which so characterize the author.”--U. S. Magazine.
THE LIFE OF MARIE DE MEDICIS, QUEEN OF FRANCE, Consort of Henry IV., and Regent under Louis XIII. By MISS PARDOE. Second Edition. 3 vols. 8vo. Portraits.
MEMOIRS OF THE BARONESS D’OBERKIRCH, Illustrative of the Secret History of the Courts of France, Russia, and Germany. Written by HERSELF, and Edited by Her Grandson, the COUNT DE MONTBRISON. 3 vols. post 8vo. 15s.
"The Baroness d’Oberkirch being the intimate friend of the Empress of Russia, wife of Paul I., and the confidential companion of the Duchess of Bourbon, her facilities for obtaining information respecting the most private affairs of the principal Courts of Europe, render her Memoirs unrivalled as a book of interesting anecdotes of the royal, noble and other celebrated individuals who flourished on the continent during the latter part of the last century. The volumes form a valuable addition to the personal history of an important period. They deserve general popularity."--Daily News.
MEMOIRS OF RACHEL. 2 vols. with Portrait. 21s.
“A book sure to attract public attention, and well meriting it.”--Globe.
SCOTTISH HEROES IN THE DAYS OF WALLACE AND BRUCE. By the Rev. A. LOW, A.M. 2 vols. post 8vo.
MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF MAJOR GENERAL SIR W. NOTT, G.C.B., Commander of the Army of Candahar, and Envoy at the Court of Lucknow. 2 vols. 8vo. with Portrait. 16s. bound.
RULE AND MISRULE OF THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA. By the Author of “SAM SLICK.” 2 vols. post 8vo.
“We conceive this work to be by far the most valuable and important Judge Haliburton has ever written. While teeming with interest, moral and historical, to the general reader, it equally constitutes a philosophical study for the politician and statesman. It will be found to let in a flood of light upon the actual origin, formation, and progress of the republic of the United States.”--Naval and Military Gazette.
RECOLLECTIONS OF WEST END LIFE; WITH SKETCHES OF SOCIETY IN PARIS, INDIA, &c. By MAJOR CHAMBRE late 17th Lancers. 2 vols. with Portrait of George IV.
"We find in Major Chambre’s lively sketches a mass of amusing anecdotes relating to persons eminent in their day for their position, wit, and political reputation. All that relates to George IV. will be read with attention and interest."--Messenger.
THE UPPER and LOWER AMOOR; A NARRATIVE OF TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE. By T. W. ATKINSON. Author of “ORIENTAL and WESTERN SIBERIA.” With Map and numerous Illustrations. (In the Press.)
SIXTEEN YEARS OF AN ARTIST’S LIFE IN MOROCCO, SPAIN, AND THE CANARY ISLANDS. By MRS. ELIZABETH MURRAY. 2 vols. 8vo. with Coloured Illustrations.
“Mrs. Murray, wife, we believe, of the English Consul at Teneriffe, is one of the first of female English Water Colour Artists. She draws well, and her colour is bright, pure, transparent, and sparkling. Her book is like her painting, luminous, rich and fresh. We welcome it (as the public will also do) with sincere pleasure. It is a hearty book, written by a clever, quick-sighted, and thoughtful woman, who, slipping a steel pen on the end of her brush, thus doubly armed, uses one end as well as the other, being with both a bright colourer, and accurate describer of colours, outlines, sensations, landscapes and things. In a word, Mrs. Murray is a clever artist, who writes forcibly and agreeably.”--Athenæum.
“Mrs. Elizabeth Murray is known to the artistic world as the principal star of the Female Exhibition of Paintings. She left England as she tells us, at eighteen, with all the hopes and aspirations of an artist before her. At Morocco she becomes the wife of a gentleman who is successively Consul at Tangiers and Teneriffe. She has, in consequence, peculiar advantages for the observation of Moorish and Spanish society, and as she possesses great observation and wields the pen as cleverly as the pencil, she has produced a book not only of interest, but of importance. In every way, whether descriptive or anecdotal, the work claims to be placed amongst the very best works of travel in the English Language.”--Chronicle.
REVELATIONS OF PRISON LIFE; WITH AN ENQUIRY into Prison Discipline and Secondary Punishments. By GEORGE LAVAL CHESTERTON, 25 Years Governor of the House of Correction at Cold-Bath Fields. Third Edition, Revised. 1 vol.
“Mr. Chesterton has had a rare experience of human frailty. He has lived with the felon, the forger, the lorette, the vagabond, the murderer; has looked into the darkest sepulchres of the heart, without finding reason to despair of mankind. In his belief the worst of men have still some of the angel left. Such a testimony from such a quarter is full of novelty as it is of interest. As a curious bit of human history these volumes are remarkable. They are very real, very simple; dramatic without exaggeration, philosophic without being dull.”--Athenæum.
THE OLD COURT SUBURB; OR, MEMORIALS OF KENSINGTON; Regal, Critical, and Anecdotical. By LEIGH HUNT. Second Edition. 2 vols. post 8vo.
“A delightful book. It will be welcome to all readers, and most welcome to those who have a love for the best kinds of reading.”--Examiner.
MY EXILE. BY ALEXANDER HERZEN. 2 vols.
"Mr. Herzen’s narrative, ably and unaffectedly written, and undoubtedly authentic, is indeed superior in interest to nine-tenths of the existing works on Russia."--Athenæum.
A PRACTICAL GUIDE IN OBTAINING PROBATES, ADMINISTRATIONS, &c., in Her Majesty’s Court of Probate; with numerous Precedents. By EDWARD WEATHERLY, of Doctor’s Commons. Dedicated, by permission, to the Right Hon. Sir Cresswell Cresswell, Judge of the New Court of Probate. Cheaper Edition. 12s.
“A most valuable book. Its contents are very diversified--meeting almost every use.”--Solicitor’s Journal.
ORIENTAL AND WESTERN SIBERIA; A NARRATIVE of Seven Years’ Explorations and Adventures in Siberia, Mongolia, the Kirghis Steppes, Chinese Tartary, and Central Asia. By THOMAS WITLAM ATKINSON. In one large volume, royal 8vo., Price £2. 2s., elegantly bound. Embellished with upwards of 50 Illustrations, including numerous beautifully coloured plates, from drawings by the Author, and a map.
"By virtue alike of its text and its pictures, we place this book of travel in the first rank among those illustrated gift-books now so much sought by the public. Mr. Atkinson’s book is most readable. The geographer finds in it notice of ground heretofore left undescribed, the ethnologist, geologist, and botanist, find notes and pictures, too, of which they know the value, the sportman’s taste is gratified by chronicles of sport, the lover of adventure will find a number of perils and escapes to hang over, and the lover of a frank good-humoured way of speech will find the book a pleasant one in every page. Seven years of wandering, thirty-nine thousand five hundred miles of moving to and fro in a wild and almost unknown country, should yield a book worth reading, and they do."--Examiner.
“A book of travels which in value and sterling interest must take rank as a landmark in geographical literature. Its coloured illustrations and wood engravings are of a high order, and add a great charm to the narrative. Mr. Atkinson has travelled where it is believed no European has been before. He has seen nature in the wildest, sublimest, and also the most beautiful aspects the old world can present. These he has depicted by pen and pencil. He has done both well. Many a fireside will rejoice in the determination which converted the artist into an author. Mr. Atkinson is a thorough Englishman, brave and accomplished, a lover of adventure and sport of every kind. He knows enough of mineralogy, geology, and botany to impart a scientific interest to his descriptions and drawings; possessing a keen sense of humour, he tells many a racy story. The sportsman and the lover of adventure, whether by flood or field, will find ample stores in the stirring tales of his interesting travels.”--Daily News.
"An animated and intelligent narrative, appreciably enriching the literature of English travel. Mr. Atkinson’s sketches were made by express permission of the late Emperor of Russia. Perhaps no English artist was ever before admitted into this enchanted land of history, or provided with the talisman and amulet of a general passport; and well has Mr. Atkinson availed himself of the privilege. Our extracts will have served to illustrate the originality and variety of Mr. Atkinson’s observations and adventures during his protracted wanderings of nearly forty thousand miles. Mr. Atkinson’s pencil was never idle, and he has certainly brought home with him the forms, and colours, and other characteristics of a most extraordinary diversity of groups and scenes. As a sportsman Mr. Atkinson enjoyed a plenitude of excitement. His narrative is well stored with incidents of adventure. His ascent of the Bielouka is a chapter of the most vivid romance of travel, yet it is less attractive than his relations of wanderings across the Desert of Gobi and up the Tangnou Chain."--Athenæum.
"We predict that Mr. Atkinson’s ‘Siberia’ will very often assume the shape of a Christmas Present or New Year’s Gift, as it possesses, in an eminent degree, four very precious and suitable qualities for that purpose,--namely, usefulness, elegance, instruction and novelty. It is a work of great value, not merely on account of its splendid illustrations, but for the amount it contains of authentic and highly interesting intelligence concerning regions which, in all probability, has never, previous to Mr. Atkinson’s explorations, been visited by an European. Mr. Atkinson’s adventures are told in a manly style. The valuable and interesting information the book contains, gathered at a vast expense, is lucidly arranged, and altogether the work is one that the author-artist may well be proud of, and with which those who study it cannot fail to be delighted."--John Bull.
“To the geographer, the geologist, the ethnographer, the sportsman, and to those who read only for amusement, this will be an acceptable volume. Mr. Atkinson is not only an adventurous traveller, but a correct and amusing writer.”--Literary Gazette.
TRAVELS IN EASTERN AFRICA, WITH THE NARRATIVE OF A RESIDENCE IN MOZAMBIQUE: 1856 to 1859. By LYONS McLEOD, Esq. F.R.G.S., &c. Late British Consul in Mozambique. 2 vols. With Map and Illustrations.
A JOURNEY ON A PLANK FROM KIEV TO EAUX-BONNES. By LADY CHARLOTTE PEPYS. 2 vols, with Illustrations. 21s. (Just Ready).
LAKE NGAMI; OR EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES during Four Years’ Wanderings in the Wilds of South-Western Africa. By CHARLES JOHN ANDERSSON. 1 vol. royal 8vo., with Map and upwards of 50 Illustrations, representing Sporting Adventures, Subjects of Natural History, &c. Second Edition.
“This narrative of African explorations and discoveries is one of the most important geographical works that have lately appeared. It contains the account of two journeys made between the years 1850 and 1854, in the first of which the countries of the Damaras and the Ovambo, previously scarcely known in Europe, were explored; and in the second the newly-discovered Lake Ngami was reached by a route that had been deemed impracticable, but which proves to be the shortest and the best. The work contains much scientific and accurate information as to the geology, the scenery, products, and resources of the regions explored, with notices of the religion, manners, and customs of the native tribes. The continual sporting adventures, and other remarkable occurrences, intermingled with the narrative of travel, make the book as interesting to read as a romance, as, Indeed, a good book of travels ought always to be. The illustrations by Wolf are admirably designed, and most of them represent scenes as striking as any witnessed by Jules Gérard or Gordon Cumming.”--Literary Gazette.
THE OXONIAN IN THELEMARKEN; OR, NOTES of Travel in South-Western Norway, with Glances at the Legendary Lore of that District. By the Rev. F. METCALFE M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College. 2 vols. with illustrations.
“This new book is as lively as its predecessor. Its matter is as good, or better. The intermixture of legends and traditions with the notes of travel adds to the real value of the work, and strengthens its claim on a public that desires to be amused.”--Examiner.
THE OXONIAN IN NORWAY; OR, NOTES OF Excursions in that Country. By the Rev. F. METCALFE, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. New and Cheaper Edition, revised, 1 vol. post 8vo., with Map and additional Illustrations.
"Mr. Metcalfe’s book is as full of facts and interesting information as it can hold, and is interlarded with racy anecdotes. Some of these are highly original and entertaining. More than this, it is a truly valuable work, containing a fund of information on the statistics, politics, and religion of the countries visited."--Blackwood’s Magazine.
SIX YEARS IN RUSSIA. BY AN ENGLISH LADY. 2 vols. post 8vo. with Illustrations. 21s. bound.
A SUMMER AND WINTER IN THE TWO SICILIES. By JULIA KAVANAGH, Author of “Nathalie,” “Adèle,” &c. 2 vols. post 8vo. with illustrations, 21s. bound.
“Miss Kavanagh is a woman of genius and imagination. She has a graceful and brilliant pen, much observation of character, and a keen eye for the aspects of nature. Her volumes contain much that is new. They are among the pleasantest volumes of travel we have lately met with, and we can cordially recommend them. Readers will find in these volumes the glow and colour of Italian skies, the rich and passionate beauty of Italian scenery, and the fresh simplicity of Southern life touched by the hand of an artist, and described by the perceptions of a warm-hearted and sympathising woman.”--The Press.
THE JEWS IN THE EAST. By the Rev. P. BEATON, M.A. From the German of Dr. Frankl. 2 vols. 21s.
“Those persons who are curious in matters connected with Jerusalem and its inhabitants, are strongly recommended to read this work, which contains more information than is to be found in a dozen of the usual books of travel.”--Times.
“This book will richly reward perusal. We cordially recommend the narrative for solid information given from an unusual point of view, for power of description, for incident, and for details of manners, domestic habits, traditions, &c.,”--Globe.
“A very interesting work, one of the most original books of modern travel, that we have encountered for a long time.”--John Bull.
CHOW-CHOW; BEING SELECTIONS FROM A JOURNAL, KEPT IN INDIA, &c. By the VISCOUNTESS FALKLAND. New and Revised Edition, 2 vols. 8vo., with Illustrations. 21s.
"Lady Falkland’s work may be read with interest and pleasure, and the reader will rise from the perusal instructed as well as amused."--Athenæum.
A PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE with Numerous Incidents of Travel and Adventure during nearly Five Years’ Continuous Service in the Arctic Regions while in Search of the Expedition under Sir John Franklin. By ALEX. ARMSTRONG, M.D., R.N., late Surgeon and Naturalist of H.M.S ‘Investigator.’ 1 vol. With Map and Plate, 16s.
“This book is sure to take a prominent position in every library in which works of discovery and adventure are to be met with.”--Daily News.
THE WANDERER IN ARABIA. BY G. T. LOWTH, Esq. 2 vols. post 8vo. with Illustrations. 12s.
“Mr. Lowth has shown himself in these volumes to be an intelligent traveller, a keen observer of nature, and an accomplished artist.”--Post.
SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE NEW WORLD; OR, DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOOSE HUNTING IN THE PINE FORESTS OF ACADIA. By CAMPBELL HARDY, Royal Artillery. 2 vols. post 8vo. with illustrations. 12s.
“A spirited record of sporting adventures, very entertaining and well worthy the attention of all sportsmen who desire some fresher field than Europe can afford them.”--Press.
A PILGRIMAGE INTO DAUPHINE; With a Visit to the Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, and Anecdotes, Incidents, and Sketches from Twenty Departments of France. By the REV. G. M. MUSGRAVE, A.M. 2 vols. with Illustrations.
FAMILY ROMANCE; OR, DOMESTIC ANNALS OF THE ARISTOCRACY. By SIR BERNARD BURKE, Ulster King Of Arms. 2 vols. post 8vo. 21s.
Among the many other interesting legends and romantic family histories comprised in these volumes, will be found the following:--The wonderful narrative of Maria Stella, Lady Newborough, who claimed on such strong evidence to be a Princess of the House of Orleans, and disputed the identity of Louis Philippe--The story of the humble marriage of the beautiful Countess of Strathmore, and the sufferings and fate of her only child--The Leaders of Fashion, from Gramont to D’Orsay--The rise of the celebrated Baron Ward, now Prime Minister at Parma--The curious claim to the Earldom of Crawford--The Strange Vicissitudes of our Great Families, replete with the most romantic details--The story of the Kirkpatricks of Closeburn (the ancestors of the French Empress), and the remarkable tradition associated with them--The Legend of the Lambtons--The verification in our own time of the famous prediction as to the Earls of Mar--Lady Ogilvy’s escape--The Beresford and Wynyard ghost stories, &c.
"It were impossible to praise too highly as a work of amusement these two most interesting volumes, whether we should have regard to its excellent plan or its not less excellent execution. The volumes are just what ought to be found on every drawing-room table. Here you have nearly fifty captivating romances with the pith of all their interest preserved in undiminished poignancy, and any one may be read in half an hour. It is not the least of their merits that the romances are founded on fact--or what, at least, has been handed down for truth by long tradition--and the romance of reality far exceeds the romance of fiction. Each story is told in the clear, unaffected style with which the author’s former works have made the public familiar."--Standard.
THE ROMANCE OF THE FORUM; OR, NARRATIVES, SCENES, AND ANECDOTES FROM COURTS OF JUSTICE. SECOND SERIES. By PETER BURKE, Esq., of the Inner Temple Barrister-at-Law. 2 vols. post 8vo. 12s.
PRINCIPAL CONTENTS:--Lord Crichton’s Revenge--The Great Douglas Cause--Lord and Lady Kinnaird--Marie Delorme and Her Husband--The Spectral Treasure--Murders in Inns of Court--Matthieson the Forger--Trials that established the Illegality of Slavery--The Lover Highwayman--The Accusing Spirit--The Attorney-General of the Reign of Terror--Eccentric Occurrences in the Law--Adventuresses of Pretended Rank--The Courier of Lyons--General Sarrazin’s Bigamy--The Elstree Murder--Count Bocarmé and his wife--Professor Webster, &c.
“The favour with which the first series of this publication was received, has induced Mr. Burke to extend his researches, which he has done with great judgment. The incidents forming the subject of the second series are as extraordinary in every respect, as those which obtained so high a meed of celebrity for the first.”--Messenger.
THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE. By WILLIAM HOWITT. 3 vols. post 8vo. (Just Ready).
SONGS OF THE CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS, JACOBITE BALLADS, &c. By G. W. THORNBURY. 1 vol. with numerous Illustrations by H. S. Marks. Elegantly bound. 6s.
"Mr. Thornbury has produced a volume of songs and ballads worthy to rank with Macaulay’s or Aytoun’s Lays."--Chronicle. “Those who love picture, life, and costume in song will here find what they love.”--Athenæum.
POEMS. BY THE AUTHOR OF “JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN,” "A WOMAN’S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN," &c. 1 vol. with Illustrations by Birket Foster. 10s. 6d. bound.
"A volume of poems which will assuredly take its place with those of Goldsmith, Gray, and Cowper, on the favourite shelf of every Englishman’s library. We discover in these poems all the firmness, vigour, and delicacy of touch which characterise the author’s prose works, and in addition, an ineffable tenderness and grace, such as we find in few poetical compositions besides those of Tennyson."--Illustrated News of the World.
“We are well pleased with these poems by our popular novelist. They are the expression of genuine thoughts, feelings, and aspirations, and the expression is almost always graceful, musical and well-coloured. A high, pure tone of morality pervades each set of verses, and each strikes the reader as inspired by some real event, or condition of mind, and not by some idle fancy or fleeting sentiment”--Spectator.
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. By the Author of “John Halifax Gentleman,” &c.
"In ‘A Life for a Life’ the author is fortunate in a good subject, and she has produced a work of strong effect. The reader, having read the book through for the story, will be apt (if he be of our persuasion) to return and read again many pages and passages with greater pleasure than on a first perusal. The whole book is replete with a graceful, tender delicacy; and, in addition to its other merits, it is written in good, careful English."--Athenæum.
"This book is signally the best its author has yet produced. The interest is intense, and is everywhere admirably sustained. Incident abounds, and both dialogue and style are natural and flowing. Great delicacy in the development of character, and a subtle power of self-analysis are conspicuous in ‘A Life for a Life,‘ while the purity of its religious views, and the elevation--the grandeur, indeed--of its dominating sentiments, render its influences in every sense healthy and invigorating."--The Press.
"‘A Life for a Life’ is one of the best of the author’s works. We like it better than ‘John Halifax.’ It is a book we should like every member of every family in England to read."--Herald.
REALITIES OF PARIS LIFE. By the Author of “FLEMISH INTERIORS,” &c. 3 vols. with Illustrations. 31s. 6d.
"‘Realities of Paris Life’ Is a good addition to Paris books, and important as affording true and sober pictures of the Paris poor."--Athenæum.
“There is much new matter pleasantly put together in these volumes. Their merit will commend itself to all readers.”--Examiner.
NOVELS AND NOVELISTS, FROM ELIZABETH TO VICTORIA. By J. C. JEAFFRESON, Esq. 2 vols. with Portraits. 21s.
THE RIDES AND REVERIES OF MR. ÆSOP SMITH. By MARTIN F. TUPPER, D.C.L., F.R.S., Author of “Proverbial Philosophy,” “Stephen Langton,” &c., 1 vol. post 8vo.
"This work will do good service to Mr. Tupper’s literary reputation. It combines with lucidity and acuteness of judgment, freshness of fancy and elegance of sentiment. In its cheerful and instructive pages sound moral principles are forcibly inculcated, and everyday truths acquire an air of novelty, and are rendered peculiarly attractive by being expressed in that epigrammatic language which so largely contributed to the popularity of the author’s former work, entitled ‘Proverbial Philosophy.’"--Morning Post.
A MOTHER’S TRIAL. By the Author of “The Discipline of Life,” “The Two Brothers,” &c. 1 vol. with Illustrations, by Birket Foster. 7s. 6d. bound.
"‘A Mother’s Trial,’ by Lady Emily Ponsonby, is a work we can recommend. It breathes purity and refinement in every page.“--Leader.
SEVEN YEARS.
By Julia Kavanagh.
Author of ”Nathalie," 3 vols.
"Nothing can be better of its kind than Miss Kavanagh’s ‘Seven Years.’ The story never flags in interest, so life-like are the characters that move in it, so natural the incidents, and so genuine the emotions they excite in persons who have taken fast hold on our sympathy.“--Spectator.
LUCY CROFTON.
By the Author of ”Margaret Maitland."
1 vol.
“This is a charming novel. The characters are excellent; the plot is well defined and new; and the interest is kept up with an intensity which is seldom met with in these days. The author deserves our thanks for one of the most pleasant books of the season”--Herald.
THE WOOD-RANGERS.
By Captain Mayne Reid.
From the French of Louis de Bellemare.
3 vols., with illustrations.
THE LITTLE BEAUTY.
By Mrs. Grey,
Author of "The Gambler’s Wife.“ 3 v.
MR. AND MRS. ASHETON.
By the Author of ”Margaret and her
Bridesmaids." 3 vols.
THE WAY OF THE WORLD.
By Alison Reed. 3 vols.
“There is a spell and fascination upon one from the first page to the last.”--John Bull.
ALMOST A HEROINE.
By the Author of “Charles Auchester,”
&c. 3 vols.
"This novel is the author’s best."--Herald.
WAIT AND HOPE.
By John Edmund Reade. 3 vols.
"‘Wait and Hope’ reminds us of the style of Godwin."--Athenæum.
RAISED TO THE PEERAGE.
By Mrs. Octavius Owen. 3 vols.
"‘Raised to the Peerage’ possesses very many of the requisites of a really good novel."--Examiner.
FEMALE INFLUENCE.
By Lady Charlotte Pepys, 2 vols.
LETHELIER.
by E. Heneage Dering, Esq.
2 vols.
THE QUEEN Of HEARTS.
By Wilkie Collins. 3 vols.
"‘The Queen of Hearts’ is such a fascinating creature that we cannot choose but follow her through the pages with something of a lover’s tenderness. As for the three old men, they are as good in their way as the Brothers Cheeryble of immortal memory.“--Literary Gazette.
STEPHAN LANGTON.
By Martin F. Tuffer. D.C.L. F.R.S.
Author of ”Proverbial Philosophy,"
&c., 2 vols. with fine engravings.
“These volumes are pre-eminently qualified to attract attention both from their peculiar style and their great ability. The author has long been celebrated for his attainments in literary creation, but the present work is incomparably superior to anything he has hitherto produced.”--Sun.
CREEDS.
By the Author of “The Morals of
May Fair.” 3 vols.
“This is a novel of strong dramatic situation, powerful plot, alluring and continuous interest, admirably defined characters, and much excellent remark upon human motives and social positions.”--Literary Gazette.
THE LEES OF BLENDON HALL.
By the Author of “Alice Wentworth.”
“A powerful and well-sustained story of strong interest.”--Athenæum.
NEWTON DOGVANE.
A Story of English Life.
By Francis Francis.
With Illustrations by Leech. 3 vols.
“A capital sporting novel.”--Chronicle.
HELEN LINDSAY;
Or, The Trial of Faith.
By A Clergyman’s Daughter. 2 vols.
WOODLEIGH.
By the Author of “Wildflower,”
“One and Twenty,” &c. 3 vols.
BENTLEY PRIORY.
By Mrs. Hastings Parker. 3 vols.
“An acquisition to novel-readers from its brilliant descriptions, sparkling style, and interesting story.”--Sun.
NOW IN COURSE OF PUBLICATION.
HURST AND BLACKETT’S STANDARD LIBRARY
OF CHEAP EDITIONS OF
POPULAR MODERN WORKS.
Each in a single volume, elegantly printed, bound, and illustrated, price 5s.
A volume to appear every two months. The following are now ready.
VOL. I.--SAM SLICK’S NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE.
ILLUSTRATED BY LEECH.
"The first volume of Messrs. Hurst and Blackett’s Standard Library of Cheap Editions of Popular Modern Works forms a very good beginning to what will doubtless be a very successful undertaking. ‘Nature and Human Nature’ is one of the best of Sam Slick’s witty and humorous productions, and well entitled to the large circulation which it cannot fail to obtain in its present convenient and cheap shape. The volume combines with the great recommendations of a clear, bold type, and good paper, the lesser, but still attractive merits, of being well illustrated and elegantly bound"--Morning Post.
"This new and cheap edition of Sam Slick’s popular work will be an acquisition to all lovers of wit and humour. Mr. Justice Haliburton’s writings are so well known to the English public that no commendation is needed. The volume is very handsomely bound and illustrated, and the paper and type are excellent. It is in every way suited for a library edition, and as the names of Messrs. Hurst and Blackett, warrant the character of the works to be produced in their Standard Library, we have no doubt the project will be eminently successful."--Sun.
VOL. II.--JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.
“This is a very good and a very interesting work. It is designed to trace the career from boyhood to age of a perfect man--a Christian gentleman, and it abounds in incident both well and highly wrought. Throughout it is conceived in a high spirit, and written with great ability, better than any former work, we think, of its deservedly successful author. This cheap and handsome new edition is worthy to pass freely from hand to hand, as a gift book in many households.”--Examiner.
"The new and cheaper edition of this interesting work will doubtless meet with great success. John Halifax, the hero of this most beautiful story, is no ordinary hero, and this, his history, is no ordinary book. It is a full-length portrait of a true gentleman, one of nature’s own nobility. It is also the history of a home and a thoroughly English one. The work abounds in incident, and many of the scenes are full of graphic power and true pathos. It is a book that few will read without becoming wiser and better."--Scotsman.
VOL. III.--THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
BY ELIOT WARBURTON.
“Independent of its value as an original narrative, and its useful and interesting information, this work is remarkable for the colouring power and play of fancy with which its descriptions are enlivened. Among its greatest and most lasting charms is its reverent and serious spirit.”--Quarterly Review.
"A book calculated to prove more practically useful was never penned than ‘The Crescent and the Cross’--a work which surpasses all others in its homage for the sublime and its love for the beautiful in those famous regions consecrated to everlasting immortality in the annals of the prophets, and which no other writer has ever depicted with a pencil at once so reverent and so picturesque."--Sun.
VOL. IV.--NATHALIE. BY MISS KAVANAGH.
"‘Nathalie’, is Miss Kavanagh’s best imaginative effort. Its manner is gracious and attractive. Its matter is good. A sentiment, a tenderness, are commanded by her which are as individual as they are elegant. We should not soon come to an end were we to specify all the delicate touches and attractive pictures which place ‘Nathalie’ high among books of its class."--Athenæum.
“A tale of untiring interest, full of deep touches of human nature. We have no hesitation in predicting for this delightful tale a lasting popularity, and a place in the foremost ranks of that most instructive kind of fiction--the moral novel.”--John Bull.
"A more judicious selection than ‘Nathalie’ could not have been made for Messrs. Hurst and Blackett’s Standard Library. The series as it advances realises our first impression, that it will be one of lasting celebrity."--Literary Gazette.
VOL. V.--A WOMAN’S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.”
“A book of sound counsel. It is one of the most sensible works of its kind, well-written, true-hearted, and altogether practical. Whoever wishes to give advice to a young lady may thank the author for means of doing so.”--Examiner.
"The author of ‘John Halifax’ will retain and extend her hold upon the reading and reasonable public by the merits of her present work, which bears the stamp of good sense and genial feeling."--Guardian.
“These thoughts are good and humane. They are thoughts we would wish women to think”--Athenæum.
"This really valuable volume ought to be in every young woman’s hand. It will teach her how to think and how to act. We are glad to see it in this Standard Library."--Literary Gazette.
VOL. VI.--ADAM GRAEME, OF MOSSGRAY.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “MRS. MARGARET MAITLAND.”
“‘Adam Graeme’ is a story awakening genuine emotions of interest and delight by its admirable pictures of Scottish life and scenery. The plot is cleverly complicated, and there is great vitality in the dialogue, and remarkable brilliancy in the descriptive passages, as who that has read ‘Margaret Maitland’ would not be prepared to expect? But the story has a ‘mightier magnet still,’ in the healthy tone which pervades it, in its feminine delicacy of thought and diction, and in the truly womanly tenderness of its sentiments. The eloquent author sets before us the essential attributes of Christian virtue, their deep and silent workings in the heart, and their beautiful manifestations in the life, with a delicacy, a power, and a truth which can hardly be surpassed."--Morning Post.
“‘Adam Graeme’ is full of eloquent writing and description. It is an uncommon work, not only in the power of the style, in the interest of the narrative, and in the delineation of character, but in the lessons it teaches."--Sun.
VOL. VII.--SAM SLICK’S WISE SAWS
AND MODERN INSTANCES.
"The best of all Judge Haliburton’s admirable works. It is one of the pleasantest books we ever read, and we earnestly recommend it."--Standard.
"The humour of Sam Slick is inexhaustible. He is ever and everywhere a welcome visitor; smiles greet his approach, and wit and wisdom hang upon his tongue. The present production is remarkable alike for its racy humour, its sound philosophy, the felicity of its illustrations, and the delicacy of its satire. We promise our readers a great treat from the perusal of these ‘Wise Saws and Modern Instances,’ which contain a world of practical wisdom, and a treasury of the richest fun."--Post.
VOL. VIII.--CARDINAL WISEMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
OF THE LAST FOUR POPES.
“There is no dynasty of European sovereigns about which we English entertain so much vague curiosity, or have so little information, as about the successors to the Popedom. Cardinal Wiseman is just the author to meet this curiosity. His book is the lively record of what he has himself seen, and what none but himself, perhaps, has had so good an opportunity of thoroughly estimating. There is a gossipping, all-telling style about the book which is certain to make it popular with English readers.”--John Bull.
“A picturesque book on Rome and its ecclesiastical sovereigns, by an eloquent Roman Catholic. Cardinal Wiseman has here treated a special subject with so much generality and geniality, that his recollections will excite no ill-feeling in those who are most conscientiously opposed to every idea of human infallibility represented in Papal domination.”--Athenæum.
“In the description of the scenes, the ceremonies, the ecclesiastical society, the manners and habits of Sacerdotal Rome, this work is unrivalled. It is full of anecdotes. We could fill columns with amusing extracts.”--Chronicle.
Footnotes
[1]. Referring to a former letter, dated the 10th of March.
[2]. Nichols, vol. iv., p. 839.
[3]. Referring to the key presented to the Duke by the King of Spain.
[4]. State Papers, vol. cxi., No. 13.
[5]. State Papers, vol. cxlvi., No. 23.
[6]. Ibid, No. 39.
[7]. Ibid, No. 49.
[8]. State Papers, vol. cxlvii., No. 40.
[9]. State Papers, vol. cxlvii., No. 80.
[10]. Kennet’s History of England, vol. ii., p. 765.
[11]. Letter from Madrid, August, 1623.
[12]. A cousin of the Earl of Bristol’s.
[13]. Letter from Simon Digby. State Papers for 1623, July 25.
[14]. Letter from Madrid, State Papers, August 21, 1623.
[15]. State Papers, May 28, 1623.
[16]. Epistolæ Hoelianæ.
[17]. Epistolæ Hoelianæ.
[18]. Nichols, vol. iii., p. 227.
[19]. Dated July 12.
[20]. State Papers, vol. cxlviii., No. 12.
[21]. Ibid, No. 125.
[22]. Ibid, vol. clix., No. 80.
[23]. State Papers, vol. xlix., Nos. 20 and 22.
[24]. State Papers, vol. xlix., No. 69.
[25]. State Papers, vol. cxlix., No. 91.
[26]. Nichols, p. 887.
[27]. Ibid, p. 887; from Birch’s MSS., Brit. Museum, 4174.
[28]. It seems that this expensive allowance to the ambassadors was suffered to go on till after the 14th of August, when Secretary Conway wrote to Secretary Calvert to complain that it had not then been discontinued, and that the delay in doing so put the King out of all patience, fearing that the letters written on the subject were lost. The post, Conway remarks, travels slowly, taking ten hours from London to Staines. He recommends reformation therein.--State Papers, vol. cl., No. 98.
[29]. Sir H. Wotton, p. 218.
[30]. Nichols, p. 888.
[31]. State Papers, cxlix., No. 107.
[32]. State Papers, vol. cli., Nos. 86, 87.
[33]. Somers’s Tracts, vol. ii., p. 352.
[34]. A Relation of the Royal Festivities and Fuego Canad. By Don Antonio de la Penna, from a translation in the British Museum.--Nichols, p. 889.
[35]. Nichols, 901.
[36]. Nichols, 903.
[37]. Nichols, 905.
[38]. A professed nun.
[39]. State Papers, 1623. Foreign.
[40]. Confirmed by State Papers, vol. cliii., No. 44.
[41]. Hume, from Rushworth’s Collection’s, vol i., p. 103.
[42]. Nichols, p. 913. From Haddwicke State Papers, vol. i, p. 476.
[43]. Narrative of the journey of the Prince’s servants into Spain; printed at the end of the Life of Richard II., by Hearne.
[44]. It was improved before the time of the Commonwealth, when Lady Fanshawe describes it as approached by a double row of elms, and having a large park well stored with wood and water; she speaks of seventeen courts, with gardens in each, and of a very fine palace; the walls of the building were of marble, so polished that Titian had painted them “all over.” She says also that the palace is “royally furnished.”--See Miss Costello’s Life of Lady Fanshawe, p. 389.
[45]. Nichols, p. 923, from Haddwicke Papers, vol. i., p. 475.
[46]. Nichols, p. 926, from the Diary of Phineas Pette. There were four narratives of persons who had their voyage to Spain printed--Lord Carey of Leppington, Sir Richard Wynn, Sir John Finet and Phineas Pette.
[47]. State Papers, Calendar, vol. cliii., p. 44.
[48]. State Papers, vol. cliii., No. 44.
[49]. Tobie died at Ghent, in 1665, having become a Jesuit. Lord Orford has, according to Nichols, placed Tobie Mathew erroneously on the list of painters, and misled Grainger and others, owing to the reference to the Infanta’s picture above stated.--Nichols p. 931, note.
[50]. Epistolæ Hoelianæ.
[51]. State Papers. Domestic. March 30, 1622, vol. cxxviii., No. 96.
[52]. Birches’s MSS., 4174.
[53]. State Papers, vol. cxxix., No. 92.
[54]. Nichols, p. 843; from papers in the Advocate’s Library, Edinburgh.
[55]. Harleian, vol. 6987.
[56]. Nichols, 850.
[57]. Nichols, from Harleian MSS., 6987.
[58]. State Papers, vol. cxi., No. 13.
[59]. Laud’s Diary.
[60]. Harleian MSS., 389.--See Nichols, 1113, note.
[61]. Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, 219.
[62]. State Papers, Domestic, vol. cxxxvii., p. 5.
[63]. State Papers, vol. cxxxix., No. 91.
[64]. Ibid, vol. cxxxviii., No. 9; Dudley Carleton to Sir Dudley Carleton.
[65]. Ibid, vol. cxxxii., No. 64.
[66]. State Papers, vol. cxxxix., No. 71.
[67]. Ibid, vol. cxxii., No. 88.
[68]. State Papers, vol. cxxix., No. 50. Domestic.
[69]. State Papers, vol. cxx., No. 71.
[70]. Nichols, 945.
[71]. Ibid, 960.
[72]. Life of Keeper Williams, 138.
[73]. Hacket’s Life, p. 229.
[74]. Williams wrote, for the Countess’s especial conversion, “A Manual of the Elements of the Orthodox Religion, by an Old Prebend of Westminster,” of which twenty copies only were printed, and all presented to the Marquis.--Nichols, vol. iii., p. 257.
[75]. Hacket’s Life of Williams, pp. 172, 173.
[76]. Hacket’s Life of Williams, p. 147.
[77]. Ibid.
[78]. Hacket, 148.
[79]. See Hacket’s Life of Williams. Also Mr. Chamberlain’s Letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, quoted in Nichols, 961, from Birch’s MSS., Brit. Mus., 417. These separate accounts are here connected; and Mr. Chamberlain’s date and statement of the place to which the King went, adopted upon the ground given by Nichols.
[80]. Hacket, 164.
[81]. Ibid, 167.
[82]. Hacket, 161. From Sanderson, p. 552; taken from the Spanish reports of their conference.
[83]. Howell’s Letters.
[84]. Life of Lord Keeper Williams, p. 164.
[85]. Nichols, p. 943.
[86]. Hacket, p. 157.
[87]. Nichols, p. 964.
[88]. Hacket, 168.
[89]. Hacket, p. 69.
[90]. Heylyn’s Life of Laud, p. 113.
[91]. Hacket, p. 169.
[92]. State Papers, cxxix., No. 62.
[93]. Ibid, cxix., No. 68.
[94]. State Papers, vol. cxix., No. 55.
[95]. Ibid, No. 70.
[96]. State Papers.
[97]. Ibid, Nos. 93, 94.--Locke to Carleton.
[98]. State Papers, clx., Nos. 8 and 10.
[99]. Ibid, Nos. 1 and 33.
[100]. State Papers, vol. clix., No. 83.
[101]. State Papers, No. 92.
[102]. Ibid, No. 85.
[103]. Latter from Secretary Conway to Carleton.
[104]. State Papers, vol. clxiii., No. 59.--April 10, 1623.
[105]. Ibid, vol. clxiii., No. 2.
[106]. State Papers, vol. cxliv., No. 13.
[107]. Lord Middlesex to Secretary Conway.--State Papers, vol. cxliii., No. 20.
[108]. Lord Middlesex to Secretary Conway.--State Papers, vol. cxliii., No. 60.
[109]. Nichols, p. 962.
[110]. Nichols, p. 970.
[111]. Ibid, p. 849.
[112]. State Papers.
[113]. Ibid, pp. 972, 975.
[114]. Hacket, from Cabala, p. 223.
[115]. State Papers.
[116]. Ellis’s Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 245-46. There are nineteen volumes in the Sloane MSS., British Museum, consisting of notes in Latin, in the handwriting of Mayerne, forming a journal of the cases which he attended from 1611 to 1649. “These,” says Sir Henry Ellis, “may be styled, for the period they embrace, ‘Medical Annals of the Court of England.’”
[117]. State Papers. Letter from Edward Herbert to James I., p. 168.
[118]. State Papers, vol. cliv., No. 2.
[119]. Ibid, No. 17.
[120]. Letter from Chamberlain to Carleton.
[121]. State Papers, vol. clxiv., No. 17.
[122]. Coke’s Detections, p. 224.
[123]. Lord Middlesex.
[124]. State Papers, vol. clxiv., No. 53.
[125]. Nichols, 970.
[126]. State Papers, vol. clix., Nos. 45, 46.
[127]. Nichols, 790.
[128]. State Papers, vol. clx., No. 63.
[129]. Ibid, No. 68.
[130]. State Papers, No. 27.
[131]. State Papers, vol. clxiv., No. 10.--Locke to Carleton.
[132]. State Papers, vol. clxiv., No. 12.
[133]. Ibid, No. 44.
[134]. Note in Nichols, 937, from Finett’s Philoxenis.
[135]. Letter from Chamberlain to Carleton, Nov. 21.
[136]. State Papers, vol. clxvi., No. 62.
[137]. State Papers, vol. clxv., No. 29.
[138]. Ibid, vol. clxix., No. 14.
[139]. Light open baskets for flowers, and still so called by gardeners.--Gifford’s Ben Jonson.
[140]. State Papers, vol. clxii, No. 13.
[141]. State Papers, clxii., No. 45.[No. 45.]
[142]. State Papers, clxiv., No. 12.
[143]. May 5th, 1624.--State Papers.
[144]. State Papers, clxiv., No. 86.
[145]. Parl. History, 1411, 1471.--See Lord Campbell, Article Coke.
[146]. State Papers.
[147]. State Papers, vol cxlii., Nos. 44, 54.
[148]. State Papers, vol. clxxxv., No. 48.
[149]. Probably typhoid, which is characterized by some spots. State Papers, vol. clxxxv., No. 99.
[150]. Hardwicke, State Papers, 562, 564.
[151]. Dated March 16, from Theobald’s.
[152]. Ibid, 563.
[153]. Letter of Conway to Lord Carlisle; dated March 16, from Theobald’s, 566.
[154]. Macaulay, vol.i., p.441.
[155]. Weldon, in James’s time, which, in a writer wholly without principle, is not surprising, attaches guilt to Buckingham in this case; but that Brodie should credit the slanderous statement against Charles and the Duke, seems to modern readers wonderful.
[156]. Coke’s Detection, vol. i., p. 126.
[157]. Ibid, 177.
[158]. Fuller’s Church History, b. x. p., 113.
[159]. Nichols.--From Harleian MSS., 389.
[160]. Ibid.
[161]. Weldon, p. 39.
[162]. Brodie’s Con.[Con.] Hist., vol. ii., p. 128, note.
[163]. Brodie’s Con.[Con.] Hist., vol. ii., p. 128, note.
[164]. Ibid, 119.
[165]. Letter from Andrew Herriott to Nicholas, State Papers. Calendar, by Mr. Bruce, vol. xliv., No. 27, dated May 27, 1627.
[166]. Oldmixon, 70.
[167]. Harleian MSS., 405. It was revived by the disaffected in 1642, with some alteration of language.--Nichols, 41033.
[168]. Oldmixon, 70.--From Wilson and Weldon.
[169]. Nichols, 1032.
[170]. Nichols, 1054.
[171]. See Inedited State Papers. Foreign, for 1625.
[172]. Rushworth, vol. i., p. 167.
[173]. Coke’s Detection, vol i., p. 182.
[174]. Lives of the Queens of England, vol. viii., p. 13.
[175]. His mother, the Countess of Warwick, lived for some time with, and afterwards married, the Earl of Devonshire.
[176]. On the 24th of September, 1624.--Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 61.
[177]. Brydges’s Peers of James I., p. 385. Also Clarendon, vol. i., p. 62.
[178]. Life of Lord Keeper Williams, 209.
[179]. Ibid.
[180]. Cabala.--Letter from Lord Kensington to the Duke of Buckingham, vol. i., p. 286.
[181]. Henrietta Maria.
[182]. Cabala.--Letter from Lord Kensington to the Prince p. 287.
[183]. Mr. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton. State Paper Office. Dated 24th October, 1624.
[184]. State Paper Office. Dated Nov. 1, 1624.
[185]. Cabala, vol. i., p. 288.
[186]. Memoires de Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 21.
[187]. Cabala, 291.
[188]. Ibid.
[189]. Cabala, 286.
[190]. Ellis’s Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 199.
[191]. Letter from Lord Kensington to the Duke of Buckingham.--Ellis’s Original Letters, 3rd series, vol. iii., p. 169; also, Cabala, p. 294.
[192]. Cabala, p. 1287. This letter is dated Feb. 26, 1624.
[193]. Rushworth’s Collection, p. 169.
[194]. Ibid.
[195]. According to one account, the Duke of Anjou, the brother of Henrietta, was proxy for the King of England.--See Mr. Mead’s Letter to Sir Martin Stuteville, April 30; Ellis’s Letters, 1st series, p. 190. 1625.
[196]. Ellis’s Letters, vol. iii., p. 187.
[197]. Ibid.
[198]. Ellis’s Letters, vol. iii., p. 187.
[199]. The 31st of March.
[200]. Decoration at this time was carried to such an extent in France, that Lord Kensington describes some of the masquers at a court fête as having almost all their clothes embroidered with diamonds; embroidery of gold and silver being at that time forbidden.--Cabala, 290.
[201]. See Ellis’s Original Letters, 1st series, vol. i., p. 189.
[202]. Ellis’s Letters.
[203]. Rushworth, p. 170.
[204]. Louis XIV. was not born on the 5th of September, 1538.--See Memoir of Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 71.
[205]. Memoir of Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 428.
[206]. Ibid, 199, said by Henry III. of France.
[207]. Ibid, 11.
[208]. Madame de Motteville, pp. 29, 30.
[209]. Madame de Motteville, p. 20.
[210]. Madame de Motteville, p. 33.
[211]. Biographie Universelle.
[212]. Petilot, Notice sur Richelieu, ii., p. 112.
[213]. Petilot, x., 126.
[214]. Memoirs of the Court of King James, by Bishop Goodman, edited by the Rev. T. B. Brewer, vol. ii., p. 344. Taken from the original Hol. Tan., lxxiii., 392. Translated from the French.
[215]. Memoires de Madame de Motteville, vol. i, p. 14.
[216]. Memoires de Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 16.
[217]. Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, 221.
[218]. Miss Aikin’s Memoirs of Charles I., vol. i.
[219]. Bishop Goodman, vol. i., p. 290. Letter from Balthazar Gerbier of the Duke of Buckingham. Also State Papers, vol. iii., No. 7.
[220]. Punctilio was then at its height. The point of etiquette, whether the Earl of Carlisle was to wait upon the Cardinal first, or the Cardinal upon the Earl, was settled by Richelieu’s feigning sickness and continuing in bed.--Miss Aikin’s Court of Charles I., p. 24.
[221]. Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 15.
[222]. Court and Times of James I., by Bishop Goodman, vol. ii., p. 265.
[223]. Ibid, p. 311.
[224]. Rushworth, p. 170.
[225]. Inedited Letter in the State Paper Office. (Not in the Calendar.)
[226]. State Papers, vol. iii., No. 25.
[227]. Rushworth, p. 171.
[228]. Kennet’s Complete History of England, vol. ii., p. 4.
[229]. Ibid.
[230]. Inedited Letter in the State Paper Office.
[231]. Life of Lord Keeper Williams, p. 10.
[232]. Court of King Charles, Secret History of the Court of James I., p. 23.
[233]. Ibid.
[234]. Lilly’s True History of James I. and Charles I.
[235]. State Papers, vol. clxxxiii., No. 41.
[236]. State Papers, vol. clxxxiv., No. 7.
[237]. State Papers.--Letter dated Feb. 19th.
[238]. Letter from Sir R. Heath and Sir T. Coventry to the Duke of Buckingham.--See Bishop Goodman’s Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 376.
[239]. State Papers, vol. clxxiv., No. 47. Inedited Papers, Domestic, 1625.
[240]. State Papers, vol. clxxiv., No. 47.--Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, Feb. 26th, 1625. Inedited State Papers.
[241]. Inedited Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, State Paper Office.
[242]. State Papers, vol. cxxxv., No. 12.
[243]. Campbell’s Life of Sir E. Coke, p. 335, note.
[244]. Lloyd’s State Worthies.
[245]. State Papers, vol. cliv., No. 85.
[246]. Goodman’s Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 313.
[247]. Ibid, p. 264.
[248]. Dated April 1st, 1623; Harl. MSS., 1581, p. 129.
[249]. One of the Duke’s attendants.
[250]. Harl. MSS., 1581, p. 279.
[251]. Inedited Documents in the State Paper Office, July 13th, 1624.
[252]. State Papers.
[253]. To the Earl of Carlisle, 22,000 crowns. To the Earl of Holland, 20,000 crowns. Sir G. Young had a diamond from the King worth 2,000 francs; from the queen-mother one of 300l., and curious plate to the value of 12,000l.--State Papers, 1624.
[254]. Parallel. Reliquiæ Wotton., p. 172.
[255]. Ibid, 174.
[256]. Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton. In edited State Papers, June 13th, 1624.
[257]. In the State Paper Office there are several letters from Endymion Porter to his wife, written in the inflated style of love letters of that period, which the curious in such matters will find in the Domestic Papers, 1624, 1625.
[258]. On the 22nd of June, 1625. I have not found this account in any of our historians.--State Papers, inedited.
[259]. Sturgeon, as well as whales, were excepted from the other great fishes, sea dogs, called royal fishes, to which the Lord High Admiral laid claim, when they came near the shore by right.--See Chamberlayne’s State of England, p. 81.
[260]. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, June 25.--State Papers inedited.
[261]. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, June 25.--State Papers inedited.
[262]. State Papers, for 1625.
[263]. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, Jan. 1, 1619-20.
[264]. Hume.
[265]. Those in the State Paper Office, to which Mr. Lechmere the Keeper, and Mr. Lemon the Deputy Keeper, first directed my attention; and to those gentlemen I am, therefore, wholly indebted for any new view of Buckingham’s character which these remarks, and those which are to follow, may afford. The Domestic Papers have been within the last few years completely arranged, and an accurate calendar made of them, by which the historical reader may derive the greatest possible assistance.
[266]. Anderson’s History of Commerce, vol. ii., p. 140.
[267]. The largest of Queen Elizabeth’s ships, at her death, was of 1,000 tons, carrying 340 mariners and 40 cannon; the smallest, of 600 tons, carrying 150 mariners and 30 cannon; besides the hired vessels.--Macpherson’s History of Commerce.[Commerce.]
[268]. Hist. World, lib. 5, cap. 1, sect. 6.
[269]. Bishop Goodman’s Life of King James I.
[270]. See the Domestic Papers for 1619-20, State Paper Office.
[271]. Domestic State Papers, inedited. The agreement is dated July 17, 1624.
[272]. Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, dated London, Nov. 12, 1619.
[273]. A note of the charge of the fleet, among the undated papers in the State Paper Office, probably 1625, computes it at 65,656l. Our Navy Force had then been considerably augmented. Some of the items are as follow:--"For bringing of the King’s shippes into full equipage, for clothes for the men, for impress for surgeons."
[274]. Macpherson’s History of Commerce.
[275]. Domestic Papers. Letters from J. Burgh, dated Plymouth January 8, 1628.
[276]. Macpherson, 339.
[277]. Macpherson, iv., 4, 377.
[278]. Ibid.
[279]. Inedited Letter from Sir J. Hippesley, Jan. 19, 1625. Calendar, vol. cxxxix., No. 18.
[280]. Domestic State Papers, inedited, dated April 14, 1625.
[281]. Remarks on History, vol. ii., p. 220, Letter XX.
[282]. Coke’s Delection, vol. ii., p. 188.
[283]. Inedited State Papers, dated April 1, 1624.
[284]. Inedited State Papers, Domestic, 1623.
[285]. Letter from Sir J. Killigrew to Sir D. Carleton, December 12th, 1619, and February, 1619-20. Inedited State Papers. By the same letter it appears that it cost ten shillings a night to supply the light.
[286]. Pepys’s Diary, 3rd edition, vol. ii., p. 31.
[287]. Macpherson’s History of Commerce, vol. iv., p. 317.
[288]. Bishop Goodman’s Memoirs, vol i., p. 55.
[289]. Brodie’s Constitutional History of the British Empire, vol. ii. p. 8.
[290]. Heylyn’s Life of Laud, p. 145.
[291]. Heylyn’s Life of Laud, p. 145.
[292]. Heylyn.
[293]. Ibid, p. 118, and passim.
[294]. Heylyn, p. 119.
[295]. Hume--Appendix to the Reign of James I., p.38.
[296]. Heylyn, p. 142.
[297]. Brodie, ii. p.89.
[298]. Brodie.
[299]. Heylyn, 143.
[300]. Heylyn, in his life of Laud, recites these names--Glandville, Herbert, Sheldon, Pym, Wansford, and Sherland; the prologue made by Sir Dudley Digges, and the epilogue by Sir John Eliot.--Heylyn, 143.
[301]. Inedited letter in the State Paper Office, 1623, vol. 28.
[302]. A full statement of the charges may be seen in Brodie’s Constitutional History, vol. ii., p. 113, from Rushworth.
[303]. Brodie, from Rushworth, vol. ii., p.121.
[304]. Inedited State Papers, 1624.
[305]. Inedited State Papers; date, October 11th, 1624.
[306]. Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton. Inedited State Papers, June 5th, 1624.
[307]. Inedited State Papers. January, 1617-18.
[308]. Brodie, vol. i., p.113.
[309]. Dated August 20th, 1618.
[310]. Inedited State Papers, 1625. This sum was eventually reduced to 5,000l.
[311]. Letter from Secretary Nameton.--State Paper Office, Oct. 18, 1618.
[312]. Inedited State Papers.
[313]. Brodie, vol. ii., p. 113.
[314]. Ibid, 123.
[315]. Date, March 6, 1625.
[316]. Life of Archbishop Laud.
[317]. Brodie, vol. ii., p. 125.
[318]. Sir Henry Wotton, p. 225.
[319]. Hume.
[320]. Heylyn, p. 144.
[321]. Hume, vol. vi., p. 179.
[322]. Lives of the Chancellors, vol. i., p. 325.
[323]. Hume, from Franklyn, p. 195.
[324]. Heylyn, p. 153.
[325]. Heylyn, p. 159.
[326]. Hume, p. 129.
Transcriber’s Note
The text ends with 16 pages of advertising by the publisher. The pagination begins again from page 1 in that section. The letter ‘a’ has been added for uniqueness.
There are several anomolies in the footnoting. In the original, there is a single footnote 1 in the Preface, and the numbering begins again at the opening of the first chapter. The sequence continues to 99, and then restarts with 1. This is repeated several times. There are also several notes which are denoted only with a traditional asterisk. On occasion, footnotes appear out of order. There is no apparent reason for the dual system, and it seems most likely that the non-numeric references were added later, after the numbering had been completed, and were used to avoid the need to re-sequence work already done.
For this text, all footnotes have been re-sequenced numerically across the whole volume, to assure uniqueness. They will appear in the correct order.
There was a unaccountable gap in the numbering between note 14 (now 317) on p. 304 and note 27 on the following page. That gap has been closed.
The footnote number ‘59’ (now 159) on p. 150 was missing, and was restored here. The same problem occurred on p. 188. Note 8 (now 206) has been restored.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here.
Given the frequent quotations, it was inevitable that opening and closing quotation marks would sometimes be lost or misplaced. A sampling of these problematic passages reveals that the author has a tendency to paraphrase and otherwise misquote. They are placed here where the context or voice makes their position obvious, or where an inspection of the original sources was possible and allowed for the proper placement.
Where, in resolving these discrepancies, it was found that the reference to sources were themselves incorrect, the correction has been made. Since there is no bibliography specifying the edition of the author’s sources, these corrections were made only where the error was obvious. For instance, in a passage on pp. 136-137, footnote 140, referring to State Paper, cxlii., No 13, was can be validated, however the matter referred to in the following note, incorrectly identifies the paragraph as No. 15, rather than No. 45, where the paraphrased quotation can be found. Again, no attempt was made to validate the accuracy of these attributions except where the problematic printings of quotations were being resolved.
The references below are to the page and line in the original. Where three numbers are referenced, the second refers to a note on that page, and the third to the line therein.
| [9.4] | in returning to land at Southampton,[”] | Added. |
| [34.3] | King Philip, followed by his [thaclow], Don Carlos | Sic: ? |
| [37.8] | Buckingham added in a post | Added. |
| [43.11] | two pairs of pearl-shaped ear-rings, marvellous great.[”] | sic no “ |
| [70.15] | now that he was going to the House of Rinmon.[”] | Added. |
| [80.15] | [“]pious endeavours would fill the King | Added. |
| [80.28] | guided by wor[l]dly wisdom | Added. |
| [105.8] | and others, [“]to bargain for them, | Removed. |
| [137.4] | leaving his minister to his fate.[”] | Removed. |
| [137.141.1] | State Papers, clxii., No. [15/45] | Replaced. |
| [154.152.1] | Brodie’s Co[r/n]. Hist., vol. ii., p. 128, note. | Replaced. |
| [155.163.1] | Brodie’s Co[r/n]. Hist., vol. ii., p. 128, note. | Replaced. |
| [168.25] | The Earl of Holland had had,[”] says Bishop Hacket, | Removed. |
| [183.16] | [“]a feather made with great diamonds | Added. |
| [182.18] | all studded with diamonds,[”] | Added. |
| [184.2] | all [‘]things suitable.[’/”] [“]His other suits,” adds the narrator | Removed/Replaced/Added. |
| [184.24] | were provided with three rich suits a[ ]piece | Removed. |
| [232.3] | [“]a disease which all the drugs of Asia | Added. Pro |
| [237.21] | that would give him no rest.[”] | Added. |
| [238.19] | it is dated, “Burghley, 18th July, 1625.[”]> | Added. |
| [247.267.5] | Macpherson’s History of Commerce[./,] | Replaced. |
| [305.8] | [“]who exclaimed, ‘They are worse than devils who say so.’” | Added. |
| [308.22] | to register the edicts of the Crown[”] | Added. Probable. |