James had got his baby Charles and his dog Steenie home again, but he soon found that they had involved him in troubles and debts, which very much abated the pleasure of their company. They had brought home neither wife nor her much desired money; on the contrary, they had spent his last shilling, increased his debts, thrown away the greater part of his jewels, had left the cause of his daughter and son-in-law in a worse position than before, and now were vehement to engage him in a war with Spain. Under the gloomy oppression of these embarrassments, he lost even his appetite for hunting and hawking, shut himself up alone at Newmarket, and wrote to the Palatine, recommending him to make his submission to the Emperor; to offer his eldest son, who was to be educated in England, to him for his daughter; to accept the administration of his hereditary territory, and to allow the Duke of Bavaria the title of Elector for life. Under the advice of Charles and Buckingham the Palsgrave positively declined any such arrangement.
The only resource now was to call a Parliament, but this was a step which had rarely brought him satisfaction. Before doing this he took the opinion of the Privy Council during the Christmas holidays on these points:—Whether the King of Spain had acted sincerely in the negotiations for the marriage? and whether he had given sufficient provocation to call for war? The Council unanimously supported the idea of the King of Spain's sincere dealing, and a majority declared that there was no just cause for war.
This result, so hostile to the wishes of Buckingham, filled him with chagrin, and his wrath fell with especial weight on Williams the Lord Keeper, and Cranfield the Treasurer. These men had been his most servile creatures; they were, in fact, altogether his creatures; but during his absence they had seen such evidence of displeasure in the king towards him, that they imagined his power was about at an end and they were emboldened to oppose him. But his fierce displeasure and the symptoms of even growing popularity which showed themselves round him, terrified them and they made the most humble submission.
On the 2nd of February, 1624, Williams wrote a most abject letter to Buckingham, begging him to forgive his past conduct, "to receive his soul in gage and pawn:" they were reconciled. People who before hated Buckingham now looked upon him as a patriot, for having broken off the Papist match, and for seeking to punish Spain by war. The heads of the Opposition in the House of Commons, the Earl of Southampton, the Lord Say and Sele, and others came over to him; and through Preston, a Puritan minister and chaplain to the prince, he was brought in favour with many other members of the country party. Buckingham and Charles assured James that the demand of war with Spain was the only cry for him, as nothing would so readily draw money from the Commons. Accordingly, though trembling and reluctant, James summoned Parliament, which met on the 19th of February.
THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID. (From a photograph by Frith, Reigate.)
He opened it in much humbler tones than ever before. He expressed a great desire to manifest his love for his people. He then informed them that he had long been engaged in treaties with different countries for the public good, and had actually sent his son and the man whom he most trusted to Spain, and all that had passed there should be laid before them; and he asked them to judge him charitably, and to give him their advice on the whole matter. One thing he begged to assure them of, that in everything, public and private, he had always made a reservation for the cause of religion; and though he had occasionally relaxed the penal statutes against Catholics a little, yet as to suspending or altering any of them, "I never," he exclaimed, "promised or yielded; I never thought it with my heart or spoke it with my mouth!" And this notwithstanding that on the 20th of July previous, he had sworn in the Spanish treaty to procure the abolition of all those laws from Parliament; a fact notorious not only to Charles, Buckingham, and Bristol, but to all the Lords of the Council, and the Spanish ambassadors still in London. He concluded by begging them to remember that time was precious, and to avoid all impertinent and irritating inquiries.
On the 24th of February, a conference of both Houses was held at Whitehall, at which Buckingham went into the detail of the journey of the prince and himself to Spain. Bristol was prohibited from attending Parliament, and the duke gave his own version of the affair. According to him—for he produced only such despatches as had been in a private conference with the Lord Keeper Williams deemed safe; "his highness wishing," says Williams, "to draw on a breach with Spain without ripping up of private despatches"—the Spaniards behaved in a most treacherous manner. He asserted that after long years of negotiation the king could bring the court of Spain to nothing; that the Earl of Bristol had merely got from them professions and declarations; that though the prince had gone himself to test their sincerity, he had met with nothing but falsehood and deceit; and that as to the restitution of the Palatinate, he had found it hopeless from that quarter.
Perhaps no minister bronzed in impudence by years of crooked dealing ever presented such a tissue of base and arrant fictions to the Commons of England. The despatches, had they been produced, would have covered the king, the prince, and the favourite, with confusion. Bristol could have proved, had he been allowed, that he had actually completed the treaty when the prince and Buckingham came and put an end to it. So indignant were the Spanish ambassadors at this shameful misrepresentation of the real facts, that they protested vehemently against the whole of the statement, and declared that had any nobleman in Spain spoken thus of the King of England, he should have paid with his head for the slander.
Buckingham was not only defended but applauded. The prince during the whole time stood at his elbow, and aided his memory or his ingenuity. Coke declared that Buckingham was the saviour of his country; and out of doors the people kindled bonfires in his honour, sung songs to his glory, and insulted the Spanish ambassadors. The two Houses, in an address to the Throne, declared that neither the treaty with Spain for the marriage, nor that for the restitution of the Palatinate, could be continued with honour or safety.