Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

Thus far had proceeded this tedious affair of state; the nation was beginning to consider its accomplishment with diminished aversion, and a few months would have brought a Spanish Princess of Wales to England, when all this goodly and fair-wrought edifice was destroyed by the temerity of the man who was the evil spirit of the age. Charles’s youth and inexperience readily lent a willing ear to the glowing description which Buckingham recounted of the celebrated journey. His young melancholy was excited into cheerfulness, when he dwelt on the hoped-for and surprised rapture with which his destined bride would receive a prince whose unusual gallantry spurned at the laws of political interest, and whose chivalric feeling had broken through state negotiation, and, despising to woo by treaty, had brought him to her feet to win her by his merits. His blood warmed at the popularity he would acquire by such a step, from a nation famed for its knightly devotion to the fair, and whose watch-word, according to one of its poets, has ever been, “love and the ladyes.” Charles would have been a dull lover, indeed, had he only, like other princes, thought his bride not worth the fetching. He would have been doubly dull and undeserving had he paused to consider the bearings, the risks, or the probable absurdity of the act. There was a certain political danger; but Charles, young, and a lover, refused to see it; he was tearing the bonds which might bind more ignoble princes, but were too weak to confine him; he rent the shackles which proxies force on their principals, and stood in his own princely strength to win a prize which has often lost the world.

The only step subsequent to the prince’s acquiescence, was to obtain the king’s permission, a matter of little difficulty. They attacked the good-natured and simple James at a moment when his jovial humor would not have denied a greater boon. He had sense, however, to see something of the impropriety of the absence of Charles and Buckingham from England; but his obtusity of intellect was overpowered by the craft of his favorite, and the petitioners at length obtained his unadvised sanction to the wild enterprise, less by the strength of their arguments, than the persisting urgency of its expression. The prince and his companion further obtained a promise of secrecy; and they saw nothing more wanting than the ordinary preparations for their departure. Left to his own reflections, however, the poor king reproached his own weakness; he saw with terror that his subjects would not readily forgive him for committing so invaluable a pledge into the hands of a Catholic sovereign, who might detain Charles in order to enforce new exactions or demands; and with equal terror he saw that even success could not possibly justify the means; for there was no advantage to be obtained, and no unprejudiced censurer would consider the freak otherwise than as one played for the gratification of the will of the duke, and of an enthusiastic prince, whose abstract idea of chivalrous love had overcome his character for prudence.

There ensued, on the return of Charles and Buckingham to the royal presence for despatches, a melancholy scene. There were the objurgations and schoolboy blubbering of the monarch, the insolent imperiousness of the favorite, and the silent tears and submission of the prince. The audacious threats of the duke wrung from James the assent which Buckingham required—a second permission for their journey. A knight, Sir Francis Cottington, the prince’s secretary, and Endymion Porter, a gentleman of the bedchamber, were selected as the attendants of the Prince. The duke was, however, also to be accompanied by his master of the horse, a man of knight’s degree, Sir Richard Graham. There was a recapitulation of the crying scene when the two former gentlemen were appointed, for Sir Francis boldly pointed out the danger of the proceeding. Charles’s countenance showed his displeasure; but Buckingham was completely carried away by his overwhelming passion. James cried, the duke swore, and the king had nothing left to do, but to wish them God speed on their amorous and knight-errant mission.

There is a work, known to many and read by few, the “Epistolæ Howelianæ,” consisting of a collection of familiar letters on many subjects, by a certain James Howell. The author was a cadet of a noble family, several members of which had been on the roll of knighthood. He pushed his fortunes with all the vigor of an aspiring younger brother. His letters exhibit him as agent to a glass factory at Vienna—a tutor—a companion—a clerk—secretary to an embassy—agent again, and finally an attaché to the privy council. Master Howell, in these epistles, continually rings the changes on the importance of attending to the main chance; bewails the stagnation which non-employment throws round his fortunes; or congratulates himself on the progress they are making, through his industry. At the period of Charles’s visit to Madrid, he was agent there for the recovery of a vessel taken by unlawful seizure, and he contemplates the prince’s arrival with delight, viewing him as a powerful adjunct to his cause. He complains bitterly of the prince as showing more condescension to the needy Spanish poor, than politeness to the accredited agent of an English company. The agent’s honor or ruin depended on the success of his mission, hence good Master Howell is occasionally and ill at ease. The success of his mission, too, hung upon the happy termination of the match; a marriage he considers as the avant-courier of his appointments, but should some unlucky reverse prevent the end he hopes for, why then, to use one of the worshipful agent’s most favorite figures of speech—then “my cake is dough.” His letters are the chief authority for what follows.

It is quite consistent with the whole character of this drama, that the journey should be prosecuted through France. Charles and his suite travelled incognito it is true, but Buckingham was rash enough to introduce the prince at a court-ball in Paris, where he perhaps saw and admired the lovely Henrietta Maria. From the gay court of France the errant company speedily decamped, hurried rapidly toward the south, and crossed the frontier just in time to escape the strong arm of the governor of Bayonne, stretched out to arrest their progress.

On Friday the 7th of March, 1623, Charles and his attendants arrived at Madrid, under the guise of very homely personages. Buckingham took a name which has since served to cover a fugitive king of the French—that of (Thomas) Smith, and therewith he entered Bristol’s mansion, “’twixt the gloaming and the murk,” with a portmanteau under his arm, while Charles waited on the other side of the street, not as the Prince of Wales, but as Thomas Smith’s brother, John. Lord Bristol did not allow the son of his monarch to remain long in such a situation. Charles was conducted to the house, and on being ushered into a bedchamber, he immediately asked for writing materials, and despatched a messenger to his father, announcing his safe arrival in the Spanish capital. Cottington and Porter arrived the next day; and even so soon as this, a report was spreading through the city that James himself was in Madrid. On the evening of Saturday, Buckingham went privately to court, in his own person, and told the tale of the adventures of the knight to whom he had acted as squire. The delight of all parties was intense. Olivarez accompanied Buckingham on his return to the prince, to express how immeasurably glad his Catholic majesty was at his coming. This proud minister, who was the contemporary, and perhaps the equal, of Richelieu, knelt and kissed the prince’s hand, and “hugged his thighs,” says Mr. Howell, like a slave as he was. Gondomar, too, hastened to offer his respects and congratulations to the young prince. At ten that night, too, came the most distinguished as he was the most desired visiter: Philip himself appeared in generous haste to welcome the person and thank the noble confidence of his almost brother-in-law. The meeting of the parties appears to have been unaffected and cordial. After the salutations and divers embraces which passed in the first interview, they parted late. The stern severity of Spanish etiquette would not permit of Charles’s introduction to the Infanta, and it was accordingly arranged that the princess should appear in public on Sunday, and the prince meet her on the Prado, just as the knight Guzman sees Inez, in the ancient ballad. In the afternoon of the eventful day, the whole court, neglecting for the occasion all sumptuary laws, appeared in all its bravery. Philip, his queen, two brothers, and the Infanta, were together in one carriage, and the princess, the cynosure of attraction, scarcely needed the blue riband which encircled her arm, as a sign by which Charles might distinguish her. The knightly lover, who had experienced some difficulty in making his way through the exulting multitude, who threw up their caps and cried “God bless him,” was in waiting, with his diminutive court and Count Gondomar, to view the defiling of the procession. The royal carriage approached, and as the eyes of the princess first rested on her destined lord, she blushed deeply, “which,” adds the calculating Mr. Howell, “we hold to be an impression of love and affection, for the face is oftentimes a true index of the heart.” The Infanta, at this period, was only sixteen and tall for her age—“a very comely lady,” says the agent, “rather of a Flemish complexion than Spanish, fair-haired, and carried a most pure mixture of red and white in her face: she is full and big-lipped, which is held as beauty rather than a blemish.”

Charles was now honored with a complete court establishment and apartments in the palace; there was revelry in camp and city; and the gallantry of the journey so touched this high-minded people, that they declared the beautiful bride ought to have been made Charles’s immediate reward. Gayety was at every heart and poesy, in the person of Lope de Vega, celebrated “the Stuart,” and “Marie, his star.” In all the festivals and carousals at court, Charles was not once permitted to approach “his star.” The royal family sat together under a canopy, but there was ever some unwelcome intervener between the lovers, and the prince was compelled to satisfy his ardent soul with gazing. The worthy English agent records that he has seen him “have his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half-an-hour together, in a thoughtful, speculative posture, which,” he sagaciously adds, “would needs be tedious unless affection did sweeten it.” It was on one of these occasions that Olivarez, with less poetic truth than energy of expression, said that Charles watched her as a cat does a mouse.

Whatever outward respect Charles may have voluntarily offered to the prejudices and observances of Spanish ceremony, he, and perhaps the blushing Infanta, thought it very cumbersome love-work for young hearts. Words had passed between them, it is true, but only through the medium of an interpreter, and always in the presence of the king, for Philip “sat hard by, to overhear all,” and understand if he could, the interpretations made by Lord Bristol.

Weary of this restraint, the prince soon found means, or rather an opportunity, to break through the pompous obstacles which opposed the good old plan of love-making, and he, with Endymion Porter to attend him, did not fail to profit by the occasion. Near the city, but across the river, the king had a summer-house, called Casa di Campo. Charles discovered that the Infanta was accustomed to go very often of a morning to gather May-dew. The knight and esquire, accordingly, donning a silken suit for a spring morning, went out betimes, and arrived without let or hindrance at the Casa di Campo. Their quality was a sure passport, and doors, immovably closed to all others, opened to them. They passed through the house into the garden, but to their wonder and disappointment, the “light of love” was not visible. The Infanta had not arrived, or had fled, and disappointment seemed likely to be the probable reward of their labor. The garden was divided from an adjoining orchard by a high wall; the prince heard voices on the other side, perhaps heard the voice, and hastened to a door which formed the only communication of the two divisions. To try this outlet was the work of a moment; to find it most vexatiously locked, was the conviction of the next. The lover was at bay, and Endymion’s confused brain had no resource to suggest. They looked at the wall. It was high, undoubtedly; but was ever such a barrier too high for a king’s son—a knight and a gallant, when it stood between him and such a “star” as the muse of De Vega made of the Infanta? Charles was on the summit of the wall almost as soon as the thought of climbing it had first struck him; with the same eagerness he sprang lightly down on the other side, and hastily made toward the object of his temerity. Unfortunately there was an old “duenna” of a marquis with her in quality of guardian, and the Infanta, who perchance expected to see the intruder, was constrained, for the sake of appearances, to scream with well-dissembled terror. “She gave a shriek and ran back.” Charles followed, but the grim marquis interfered his unwelcome person between the lovers. “Turning to the prince, he fell on his knees, conjuring his highness to retire;” he swore by his head, that if he admitted the prince to the company of the Infanta, he, the grisly guardian of the dove, might pay for it with his head. As the lady, meanwhile, had fled, and did not return, Charles was not obdurate. Maria, though she had escaped (because seen) could not but be pleased with the proof he had given of his devotion, and as the old marquis continued to talk of his head, the prince, whose business lay more with the heart, turned round and walked slowly away. He advanced toward the door, the portal was thrown open, and thus, as Mr. Howell pithily says, “he came out under that wall over which he had got in.” Endymion was waiting for him, and perhaps for his story, but the knight was sad, and his squire solemn. Charles looked an embodying of the idea of gloom, and Master Porter, with some ill-will, was compelled to observe a respectful silence.

The Infanta and her governor hurried back to the palace, while her suitor and his followers were left to rail in their thoughts against the caprice of the ladies, and the reserve of royal masters; and so ends a pretty story of “how a princess went to gather May-dew.”