Had James succeeded in obtaining the Spanish Infanta for Henry, he would have effectually neutralised this popularity. But though Henry did not stubbornly oppose his father's plans, he is said to have declared amongst his own friends that he had made up his mind never to marry a Popish princess, and the Puritans had the firmest faith that he never would.
It was regarded as a good sign that the young prince was extremely averse from his father's favourites, and especially from Carr, who was rapidly rising, and had now been created Viscount Rochester. The queen, who shared this aversion, strengthened him in it with all her influence. But he was not destined to wear the crown of England: he was now attacked with symptoms of premature decay. It was supposed that he had grown too fast for his strength, having reached the stature of six feet at seventeen, and his chivalrous exercises had been too violent and imprudent for such rapid growth. He was accustomed to take his exercises in the greatest heat of summer, to expose himself to all sorts of weather, and to bathe for a long time together after supper. While James was planning marriages for him, the prince was fast hastening out of the world. The Spanish match still lingering, after years of negotiation, James listened to a proposal of Mary de Medici, the widow of Henry IV., and now Queen-Regent of France, for a wedding between Prince Henry and the Princess Christine, the second daughter of France, on the understanding that she should be educated as a Protestant. About the same time James agreed to a marriage between his daughter Elizabeth and the Protestant Elector Palatine. These marriages had been in accordance with the policy of Cecil, who wished to make them the basis of a Protestant alliance against the Catholic Powers. But the first of them was never to take place. In the spring of 1612 the health of Prince Henry began to fail. In the October of that year the Elector Palatine arrived in England to complete his marriage with Elizabeth, who was still only sixteen. Henry roused himself to receive his proposed brother-in-law; he rode to town from Richmond, and most imprudently, in his infirm state of health, engaged in the sports and pastimes of the occasion. On the 24th of October he played a great match at tennis with the Count Henry of Nassau in his shirt. He had been suffering from typhus already, and this brought it to a crisis. He was seized in the night with a violent pain in his head, and an oppressive languor; yet the next day, being Sunday, he would rise and attend two services, one in his own chapel at St. James's, and another at the king's in Whitehall. The text of the preacher at St. James's was remarkable:—"Man, that is born of a woman, is of short continuance and full of trouble." In the afternoon, after dinner, he was compelled to yield to the complaint, and hastened home to bed. By the 29th he was so ill that there was great dismay amongst the people, and this was immensely aggravated by a lunar rainbow, which appeared to span that part of the Palace of St. James's where the sick prince lay. The most fatal auguries were drawn from this phenomenon.
The fever now assumed a putrid form, and was declared by the medical men highly infectious; and his parents and sister were debarred from entering his room. He grew daily worse, was highly delirious, calling for his clothes and his arms, and saying he must be gone. On the 5th of November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, James was informed that all hope was extinct. Unable to bear his feelings so near the scene of sorrow, the king hastened away to Theobalds; but the queen would only retire to Somerset House, whence she sent continual messengers to inquire after her son's symptoms. The prince had entertained a romantic admiration of Sir Walter Raleigh, declaring that no prince but his father would keep such a bird in a cage, and he had joined with his mother in entreating for his liberty. To Sir Walter the life or death of the prince was life or death to himself. The agonised mother was now seized with a desperate desire to obtain from Raleigh a nostrum which he possessed, and which she had herself formerly taken in a fit of ague. Sir Walter sent it, with the assurance that it would cure any mortal malady except poison. After taking Raleigh's nostrum he seemed to revive for a time, but again became worse, and expired at eight o'clock on Friday night, the 6th of November.
Perhaps a more extraordinary 5th of November was never passed than the one preceding Henry's death. The people were assembled in dense crowds around the palace, eagerly listening for news of the prince's condition, while all around them were the noises—the firing, and the bonfires—of the celebration of the Gunpowder Plot. They were still remaining there the following day, and when the cry of the prince's servants was heard in the palace on beholding him dead, the people groaned and wept in agony. The Catholics, on their part, regarded the death of the first-born of the royal house as a manifest judgment for the persecution of their Church.
CHAPTER XVIII.
JAMES I. (concluded).
Reign of Favourites—Robert Carr—His Marriage—Death of Overbury—Venality at Court—The Addled Parliament—George Villiers—Fall of Somerset—Disgrace of Coke—Bacon becomes Lord Chancellor—Position of England Abroad—The Scottish Church—Introduction of Episcopacy—Andrew Melville—Visit of James to Scotland—The Book of Sports—Persecution of the Irish Catholics—Examination into Titles—Rebellion of the Chiefs—Plantation of Ulster—Fresh Confiscations—Quarrel between Bacon and Coke—Prosperity of Buckingham—Raleigh's Last Voyage—His Execution—Beginnings of the Thirty Years' War—Indecision of James—Despatch of Troops to the Palatinate—Parliament of 1621—Impeachment of Bacon—His Fall—Floyd's Case—James's Proceedings during the Recess—Dissolution of Parliament—Reasons for the Spanish Match—Charles and Buckingham go to Spain—The Match is Broken Off—Punishment of Bristol—Popularity of Buckingham—Change of Foreign Policy—Marriage of Charles and Henrietta Maria—Death of James.
From the death of Cecil we may date the reign of favourites, which continued as long as the king lived. That cautious and able minister was too fond of power himself to allow it to pass into the hands of much weaker men. James, while Cecil lived, had indeed no lack of favourites on whom he lavished affluence and honours; but his cunning minister had the address to prevent him from giving them places of real power and responsibility. James therefore, so long as Cecil remained, was content to make his favourites his companions and left Cecil to conduct public affairs; but no sooner was Salisbury in his grave, than James became the slave of his favourites, who ruled both him and the kingdom.