With Holland they had effected a league, and undertaken to send troops to resist the invasion of Spain and Austria, when the news of a frightful tragedy, perpetrated by the Dutch in the East, upon the English there, arrived in England. This was what has become so well known in history as the massacre of Amboyna.
Since the Dutch had enjoyed their long truce with Spain, they had been zealously colonising and trading to the East. Besides Batavia, they laid claim to all the Spice Islands in the Indian Archipelago, from which they had expelled the Portuguese. On one of these islands, Amboyna, the English East India Company had, in 1612, established a small settlement, to trade with the natives for cloves. The Dutch compelled them to retire, but in consequence of a treaty in 1619, the English had returned thither, and established a settlement at Cambello. In the whole population there were only about twenty English and about thirty Japanese, whilst there were two hundred Dutch soldiers besides other Dutchmen in the Civil Service. Yet on pretence of a conspiracy between the English and Japanese to surprise the garrison and expel the Dutch, in 1623 the latter seized Captain Towerson and nine other Englishmen, nine Japanese, and one Portuguese, and after torturing them into a confession, cut off their heads.
The horror with which the news of this atrocious deed was received, threatened to ruin Buckingham's plans. But the English minister made a strong complaint on the subject; the States made humble apologies and promises of ample redress, and thus it was contrived for the moment to smooth over the difficulty. It was the more readily done because the unpopular Spaniards had already laid siege to Breda; and six thousand troops were despatched from England to enable Prince Maurice of Orange to cope with the able Spanish general Spinola. Spinola carried Breda in defiance of the Dutch and English; and the Prince of Orange, hearing that Antwerp had been left without a sufficient garrison, marched thither to surprise it but with equally ill success. To obtain fresh men and money, Count Mansfeldt, the Palatine's old auxiliary general, came over to England in the autumn. He was promised twenty thousand pounds a month, and twelve thousand Englishmen were pressed into his service. With these he set sail, to reach as soon as possible his army of French and German mercenaries on the borders of the Palatinate. But the French, who had agreed to allow this force to pass through their territory, refused, on account of their disorderly character; for they were the scum of their own country, and several, on their march through it, had been hanged for their outrages. Mansfeldt conducted them to the island of Zealand, but there also the authorities were averse from their landing; and while remaining cooped up in small miserable transports, in bad weather, and on a swampy shore, they began to perish of fever. Five thousand of them had died before they reached the borders of the Palatinate, and the united force was still too feeble to accomplish anything. Maurice of Orange, meanwhile, having done nothing at Antwerp, retired into winter quarters, and soon after died at the Hague; whereupon the Earl of Southampton and other English officers returned home. Such was the miserable result of the campaign into which James had been hurried by the folly of Charles and Buckingham.
The melancholy thoughts of James were diverted from dwelling on these wretched affairs by the prospect of the marriage of Charles and Henrietta Maria, the youngest sister of the King of France.
It was a curious fact that at the time of Charles's looking out for a wife from one of the principal houses of Europe, the prospect of an English royal marriage was made gloomy by the most awful reflections to both France and Spain. The last Spanish Queen of England was Catherine of Aragon, who had found such a tyrant in the sanguinary Henry VIII., and suffered divorce and severe usage; the last French queen was Margaret of Anjou, who had been driven from the country after the most heroic endeavours to maintain her husband on the throne. Besides these sombre memories, the question presented formidable difficulties from the temper of the English people regarding Popery. Politically the alliance was attractive, and this is generally all-sufficient in regal matrimony. But it was singular that the present marriage with a French princess was followed by similar and even more fearful results than the former. Henrietta Maria married Charles only to engage in a similar contest for the retention of the throne as Margaret of Anjou, and not only to see her husband deposed but put to death.
Charles is supposed by many to have been struck by the young Princess of France at his visit to the French Court on his way to Spain, and to have gone there prepared to break off the match. It is probable, however, that the thought of Henrietta came back more strongly upon him after he found himself disappointed in Donna Maria of Spain; for independently of the other difficulties already related attending Charles's Spanish courtship, it is very likely that he was not extremely fascinated by the Infanta. On the way to Spain, Henrietta, as seen by him, was merely a girl of little more than fourteen years of age, of short stature, and visible but for a brief space. The impression which she left could not be very vivid; but the Queen of France, the elder sister of Donna Maria, was extremely beautiful and, as Charles himself said in his letters to his father at the time, had so much struck him as to inspire him "with a greater desire to see her sister." There can be little doubt that Charles was disappointed in his expectation, for he was of that romantic turn that had he been strongly fascinated by the lady, he would have broken through all difficulties for her sake. But at the Court of Spain he met with another queen, the sister of Louis of France and of Henrietta, who not only cast the Infanta into the shade by her beauty and grace, but actually suggested to Charles the more desirable union with her sister of France. The rigid etiquette of the Spanish Court prevented much intercourse between Charles and the queen; she dared not even converse with him in French without express permission, and one opportunity to do so having been obtained, she begged him never to speak to her again, for that it was the custom in Spain to poison all gentlemen who were very marked in their attentions to the queen. But she seized that one opportunity to say that "she wished he would marry her sister Henrietta, which indeed he would be able to do, because his engagement with the Infanta would be certainly broken."
THE LADIES OF THE FRENCH COURT AND THE PORTRAIT OF PRINCE CHARLES. (See p. [506.])
On the other hand, there was a decided desire in the French Court for this alliance, despite past experience. Mary de Medici, the queen-mother of France, had acquired a predominating influence in the government of her son, Louis XIII., by means of her clever and intriguing almoner Richelieu, who soon mounted into vast power in the State. She entertained a strong hope of effecting a marriage for her daughter with the heir of England, and was no doubt early informed of the probability of the failure of the Spanish courtship. It was soon conveyed to Charles by the English ambassador at Paris, that Henrietta had said, "The Prince of Wales need not have gone so far as Madrid to look for a wife." This following the suggestion of the Queen of Spain, left no doubt of the wishes of the Court of France, and the bait seems to have been soon taken. Buckingham would certainly promote the idea to spite the Spaniards; and Henry Rich, Lord Kensington, appeared in Paris before the Spanish match was formally broken off, to open the subject to the queen-mother.
