With some of this man’s contemporaries it was quite otherwise. Some English statesmen whose names we have all learnt to venerate, looked upon the murder of Overbury as a revengeful deed instigated by Lady Somerset, wholly without her husband’s complicity; and they looked at Somerset’s conviction of complicity in the crime as simply the issue of a skilfully-managed court intrigue, for a court object. They knew that Somerset’s enemies had been wont to say amongst themselves, ‘A nail is best driven out by driving in another nail,’ and had, very effectually, put the proverb into action. They knew, too, that to the rising favourite the King had committed—most characteristically—the pleasing task of communicating, on his behalf, with the Crown lawyers, as their own task of compiling the depositions against the falling favourite went on from stage to stage.
Sir Robert Cotton believed not only that Somerset was guiltless of the murder of Overbury, and that the Earl’s political extinction was resolved upon, as the readiest means of making room for a new favourite, but he also believed that Somerset’s loss of power involved the loss by England—for a long time to come—of some useful domestic reforms, as well as its subjection to several new abuses. This belief was a favourite subject of conversation with him to his dying day. He was in the habit of imparting it to the famous men who, in the early years of the next reign, joined with him in fighting the battles of parliamentary freedom against royal prerogative. There may well have been an element of truth in Cotton’s view of the matter, though, in these days, it seems but a barren pursuit to have discussed the preferability to England of the rule of a Robert Carr rather than that of a George Villiers.
Cotton and the projected Spanish Match.
What is now chiefly important in the close political connection which was formed between Cotton and Somerset is the fact that it eventually thrust Sir Robert’s fortune and entire future into great peril, even if it did not actually hazard his life itself, as well as his fair fame with posterity. The life that was preserved to him was also to be redeemed by future and brilliant public service. |1615.| His fortune sustained no great damage, and much of it was afterwards spent upon public objects. His reputation as a statesman, however, suffered, and must suffer, some degree of loss. Somerset led him to become an agent in urging on the treaty for the marriage of Prince Charles with the Infanta of Spain. As it seems, his agency was—for a very brief period—even active and zealous. Neither Somerset nor Cotton, however, set that intercourse with Gondomar afoot which presently brought Sir Robert within the toils. It was pleasantly originated by the wily Spaniard himself, in the character of a lover of antiquities, deeply anxious to study Sir Robert’s Museum, in its owner’s company.
It is unfortunate for a truthful estimate of the degree of discredit attachable to Cotton for this agency in promoting a scheme pregnant with dishonour to England, that little evidence of the share he took in it is now to be derived from any English source. His own extant correspondence yields very little, though it suffices to establish the fact of the agency, apart from that testimony of Gondomar, which will be cited presently.
Under Cotton’s own hand we have the fact that in a conversation with himself the Ambassador of Spain on one occasion held out (by way, it seems, more immediately, of inducement to the English Government to shape certain pending negotiations on other matters into greater conformity with Spanish counsels) |Cotton to Somerset; (undated) Harleian MS. 7002, fol. 378. (B. M.)| the threat that, if such a course were not taken, ‘turbulent spirits—of which Spain wanteth not—might add some hurt to the ill affairs of Ireland, or hindrance to the near affecting of the great work now in hand;’ a threat which Cotton transmits to Somerset without rebuke or comment.
Early in 1615, Cotton had an interview with Gondomar in relation to the progress of the marriage negotiation in Spain. Of what passed at this interview we have no detailed account other than that which was sent to the King of Spain by his Ambassador. The way in which Cotton’s name is introduced, and the singular misstatement that he had the custody of ‘all the King’s archives,’ seem to imply that Gondomar had still but little knowledge of the messenger now employed by James and by Somerset to confer with him. Throughout, the reader will have to bear in mind that the narrative is Gondomar’s, and that all the material points of it rest upon his sole authority.
1615. April 18.
‘The King and the Earl of Somerset,’ writes the Ambassador, ‘have sent in great secrecy by Sir Robert Cotton—who is a gentleman greatly esteemed here, and with whom the King has deposited all his archives—to tell me what Sir John Digby has written about the marriage of the Infanta with this Prince. Cotton informed me that he was greatly pleased that the negotiation had been so well received in Spain, because he desired its conclusion and success. He enlarged upon the conveniencies of the marriage, but said that the King considered Digby not to be a good negotiator, because he was a great friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of the Earl of Pembroke, who were of the Puritan faction, and was in correspondence with them.’... ‘In order to make a beginning,’ continued Cotton, as Gondomar reports his conversation, ‘the King must beg your Majesty to answer three questions: (1.) “Does your Majesty believe that with a safe conscience you can negotiate this marriage?” (2.) “Is your Majesty sincerely desirous to conclude it, upon conditions suitable to both parties?” (3.) “Will your Majesty abstain from asking anything, in matters of Religion, which would compel him to do that which he cannot do without risking his life and his kingdom; contenting yourself with trusting that he will be able to settle matters quietly?” |Gardiner Transcripts of Simancas MSS.| When an answer is given to these questions he will consider the matter as settled, and will immediately give a commission to the Earl of Somerset to arrange the points with me. |See also S. R. Gardiner, in Letters of Gondomar, giving an Account of the affair of the Earl of Somerset; (Archæologia, vol. xli.)| This Sir Robert Cotton is held here, by many, to be a Puritan, but he told me that he was a Catholic, and gave me many reasons why no man of sense could be anything else.’ He afterwards adds: ‘Sir Robert Cotton, who has treated with me in this business, tells me that after the marriage is agreed upon, [and] before the Infanta arrives in England, matters of Religion will be in a much improved condition.’ The writer of this remarkable despatch, it may be well to mention, had asserted with equal roundness, but a few months before, that James himself had said, at the dinner-table: ‘I have no doubt that the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church.’
Simancas MSS. 2590, 10 (Gardiner Transcripts).