Under this undaunted leader, the pulpits now resounded with the most flaming advocacy of divine right. A pamphlet was discovered by the Reformers, which had been written for King James, and was now printed, urging the king to do as Louis XI. of France had done—dispense with Parliaments altogether, and secure his predominance by a standing army. The queen's advice was precisely of this character: often crying up the infinite superiority of the kings of her own country and family, whom she styled real kings, while the English were only sham ones. But though Charles was greatly soothed by these doctrines, and strengthened in his resolve to trouble himself no more with Parliaments, he was careful to strengthen his Government by inducing as many of the ablest men of the Opposition as he could to join him. The first with whom he succeeded were Wentworth and Sir John Savile. They were both from Yorkshire, and both men of considerable property. Savile had been persuaded by Cottington the Lord Chancellor, to desert his patriotic friends and professions at the close of the second Parliament for a place in the Privy Council and the office of Comptroller of the Household.
Sir Thomas Wentworth was a much more considerable man. He claimed to be descended from the royal line of the Plantagenets, and had no superior in ability in the House. The position which he had assumed in the Parliamentary resistance to the royal encroachments had been uncompromising and most effective. So much were his eloquence and influence dreaded, that he had been, amongst others, appointed sheriff to keep him out of the House. For his continual opposition he was deprived of the office of Custos Rotulorum and thrown into prison. Yet, when tempted by the offer of rank and power, he fell suddenly, utterly, and hopelessly, and became one of the most unflinching advocates and actors of absolutism that ever lived. On the 21st of July, 1628, Savile was created a baron, and on the morrow Wentworth was raised to the same dignity, as Baron Wentworth; and before the end of the year he was made a viscount and Lord President of the Council of the North. From the moment that Wentworth put his hand to the plough of despotism he never looked back. He became as prominent and as resolute in the destruction of liberty and the prosecution of his former colleagues as he had been for its advancement and for their friendship.
The contagion of this conversion spread. Sir Dudley Digges had taken a conspicuous part in the contests which we have described, and had distinguished himself by his abilities in debate, sufficient to render him worth purchasing. His colleagues had long felt, notwithstanding his zeal, that he would not be proof to temptation. He was offered the post of Master of the Rolls, and he at once accepted it. Noye and Littleton, both lawyers, were as ready to advocate despotism as liberty, and the offer of the Attorney-Generalship to Noye, and the Solicitor-Generalship to Littleton, convinced them instantly that the Court was right, and their old cause and companions were wrong. They testified their capacity for seeing both sides of an argument, by persecuting their old opinions and associates with the red hot zeal of proselytes.
The rest of Charles's ministers were the Lord Keeper Coventry, who, though he appeared on several occasions as the instrument of Charles's arbitrary measures, was thought not to approve very much of them, and who therefore kept himself as much as possible from mixing in political matters. The Earls of Holland and Carlisle, the pusillanimous Earl of Montgomery, his brother the Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl of Dorset were rather men of pleasure than of business, and attended the Council without caring for office. The Earl of Arundel was Earl Marshal, a proud and empty man, whom Clarendon the historian describes as living much abroad, because the manners of foreign nations suited him better than his own, and who "resorted sometimes to Court, because there only was a greater man than himself, and went thither the seldomer because there was a greater man than himself." He was careless of pleasing favourites, and was therefore almost always in disgrace. Lord Weston, already mentioned, was Lord Treasurer, and the Earl of Manchester Privy Seal. Weston was an able lawyer, who succeeded Coke as Lord Chief Justice, and then purchased the office of Lord Treasurer for twenty thousand pounds, only to have it wrested from him again by Buckingham in about twelve months; but he was courtier enough to suppress his resentment, and had now again ascended to his present office, in which he was a very pliant servant of the king. Besides these, Sir John Coke or Cooke, and Sir Dudley Carleton, were Secretaries of State. Carleton had spent too much time in foreign embassies to understand well the state of parties at home, but he understood the will of the king, and took good care to obey and promote it. Coke was "of narrow education, and narrower nature," says Clarendon, who adds that "his cardinal perfection was industry, his most eminent infirmity covetousness." He knew as little of foreign relations as Carleton did of domestic ones; but their office was one of far less rank and importance than such office is now, their real business being to enter the minutes and write the despatches of the Council, not to participate in its discussions. Such were the instruments by which Charles trusted to render Parliaments superfluous. By their aid, but far more so by that of Laud and Wentworth, he soon raised the nation to a state of exasperation, which was only appeased by the blood of all three.
During the violent transactions with his Parliament at home, Charles had made peace with France. In fact, neither France nor Spain had shown a disposition to prosecute the disputes which the King of England had entered into with them. Louis sent home the prisoners he had taken in the La Rochelle expedition, under the name of a present to his sister, and Philip also released those who had been captured at Cadiz. Buckingham had been at the bottom of both wars, and now that he was gone all differences were soon arranged. Louis of France made a demand for the restoration of a man-of-war, the St. Esprit, which had been illegally captured by Sir Sackville Trevor; but he gave up the claim, and Charles was not very importunate in his demands of protection for the French Protestants. Richelieu, however, treated them far better than Charles treated the Puritans in England. He took measures to prevent the possibility of another coalition, by destroying the castles of the nobles and the fortifications of the towns, prohibited the convention of deputies from the churches, and abolished the military organisation of the Huguenots in the South of France; but he left them the exercise of their worship, and attached no disability to a profession of it. This peace was concluded in the spring of 1629, and in the following year that with Spain was also accomplished. The Queen Henrietta was violently opposed to this peace with Spain, because France was still at war with that country and the kindred House of Austria. When she found that she could not prevail on Charles, she is said to have shed tears of vexation.
It is curious that the first overtures to this peace were made through two Flemish painters; the celebrated Sir Peter Paul Rubens, and Gerbier, a native of Antwerp, who had been Master of the Horse to Buckingham. Cottington was despatched to Spain, in spite of the strenuous endeavours of the queen and the French ambassador; and in November, 1630, Coloma arrived as ambassador from Madrid. Philip accepted the same terms as were proposed in 1604, pledging himself to restore such parts of the Palsgrave's territory as were occupied by the troops of Spain—no very important extent—and never to cease his endeavours to procure from the Emperor the restitution of the whole. In consideration of this, Charles once more agreed to that mysterious treaty against Holland which had been in negotiation during the visit of Charles and Buckingham to Spain. This was no other than to assist Philip to regain possession of the seven United States of the Netherlands, which had cost Elizabeth so much to aid in the establishment of their independence, and which had always been, as Protestant States, so much regarded by the English public; with which a great trade was, moreover, carried on. The knowledge of such a piece of treachery on the part of Charles would have excited a terrible commotion amongst the people. For his share of the booty he was to receive a certain portion of the provinces, including the Island of Zealand. Luckily for the king, his treason to Protestantism remained a profound secret, and at length himself perceiving the difficulties and dilemmas in which it would involve him, after Olivarez and Cottington had signed the treaty he withheld his ratification. By this prudent act, however, he forfeited all right to demand from Philip aid in regaining the patrimony of the Prince Palatine.
SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS: THE SPEAKER COERCED. (See p. [541].)
Whether prudence, a rare virtue in Charles, or other more congenial motives, determined him in withdrawing from the compact with Spain regarding Holland is doubtful, for in the very next year he was found busily engaged with the Catholic States of Flanders and Brabant in a project to drive thence his new ally Philip of Spain. France and Holland were equally eager to assist in this design; but the people of Flanders were suspicious of them, dreading to find in such powerful allies only fresh masters. They therefore applied to the King of England, and a correspondence took place in which Secretary Coke was at great pains to show how much more to the advantage of the people of Flanders and Brabant would be the alliance of England, than that of the ambitious French, or of the Calvinistic farmers of Holland. In religion Coke was zealous to prove that the Catholic and Anglican Churches were almost identical; but his efforts ended, not in offering support in the coming struggle, but in promising to protect them against everyone except the King of Spain. Charles having recently made peace with the Spanish sovereign, "it would be against honour and conscience to debauch his subjects from their allegiance." But if what Coke proposed were not that very fact of tampering with them, it would be difficult to imagine what could be; and, moreover, it was just the King of Spain against whom they required protection. Coke advised them to declare their independence, and then the King of England, he told them, could help them as an independent State; and Philip would not then have cause of offence from Charles, but ought rather to be obliged to him for endeavouring to prevent the States from falling into the hands of France, or some other of his powerful enemies. This duplicity, however, was not by any means encouraging to revolt, and in the meantime Philip, learning what was going on, settled the question by sending into the Provinces an overwhelming force of soldiers.
But the war which ought to have excited the deepest interest in Charles as a Protestant prince, and as the brother-in-law of the Protestant Prince Palatine, was the great war—since called the Thirty Years' War—which was raging in Germany. It was a war expressly of Catholicism for the utter extirpation of Protestantism. The resistance had begun in Bohemia: the Protestants had invited Frederick of the Palatinate to become their king and defend them against the power of Austria and the exterminating Catholic emperor. We have seen that Frederick had, without weighing the hazards of the enterprise sufficiently, accepted the crown, lost it immediately, together with his hereditary dominions; and that all the efforts of England, Denmark, and of an allied host in Germany, had failed to make head against Austria, Spain, and Bavaria. Germany was overrun with the victorious troops of Austria, led on by the ruthless and victorious Generals Wallenstein, Piccolomini, Tilly, and Pappenheim. Horrible desolation had followed the march of their armies all over Germany; the most important of its cities were sacked or plundered; its fields were laid waste; its cultivation was stopped; its people were destroyed or starving; and, with the exception of Saxony and Bavaria, the power of the princes was prostrated, and they were thoroughly divided amongst themselves, and therefore the more readily trodden upon by their oppressors.