Nor is it unimportant, as bearing on the degree of credibility to be assigned to Gondomar’s despatches, when they chance to be uncorroborated,—to remark that a despatch addressed by him to the Duke of Lerma, in November, contains an express contradiction of an assertion addressed to Philip, in the preceding April. To the King, as we have just seen, he narrates Cotton’s communication of despatches written by Digby. To the Minister he writes, six months later, that ‘a traitor had given information’ against Cotton, for communicating Papers of State to the Spanish Ambassador, and that the charge is ‘false.’ |Simancas MS. 2534, 61 (Gardiner Transcripts).| Discrepancies like this (howsoever easily explained, or explainable) suffice to show that Gondomar’s testimony, when unsupported, needs to be read with caution; and of such discrepancies there are many. Consummate as he was in diplomatic ability of several kinds, this able statesman was nevertheless loose (and sometimes reckless) in assertion. He was very credulous when he listened to welcome news. It is impossible to study his correspondence without perceiving that to him, as to so many other men, the wish was often father of the thought.
On the 22nd of June, Sir Robert paid another visit to Gondomar. He told me, says the Ambassador, that the King’s hesitations had been overcome; that James was now willing to negotiate on the basis of the Spanish articles, with some slight modifications; that Somerset had taken his stand upon the match with Spain, had won the co-operation of the Duke of Lennox, and was now willing to stake his fortunes on the issue. Sir Robert Cotton, adds Gondomar, ‘assured me of his own satisfaction at the turn which things had taken, as he had no more ardent wish than to live and die an avowed Catholic, like his fathers and ancestors.[[6]] Whereupon I embraced him, and said that God would guide.’
Thus far, I have, advisedly, followed a Spanish account of English conversations. Although believing that there exists, already ample, evidence (both in our own archives and elsewhere) for bringing home to the Count of Gondomar wilful misstatements of |Sir Robert Cotton’s Account of the first interview with Count Gondomar.| fact—in the despatches which he was wont to write from London—as well as very pardonable misapprehensions of the talk which he reports, I have preferred to put before the reader the Ambassador’s own story in its Spanish integrity.
The mere fact, indeed, that an English historian[[7]], deservedly esteemed for his acute and painstaking research, as well as for his eminent abilities, has honoured Gondomar’s story by endorsing it, is warrant enough for citing these despatches as they stand. But they have now to be compared with another account of the same transaction given by authority of Sir Robert Cotton himself. It was given upon a memorable occasion. The place was the Painted Chamber in the Palace of Westminster. The hearers were the assembled Lords and Commons of the Realm.[[8]]
The Spaniard, it seems, was far, indeed, from holding—as he says that he held—his first conference with Cotton either in his own ambassadorial lodging, or upon credentials given in the name and by the command of King James. That Cotton sought him he suggests, by implication. That the visit, in which the ground was broken, was made at the King’s instance, he states circumstantially. Both the suggestion and the assertion are false.
As the reader has seen, Sir Robert’s openness in exhibiting his library and his antiquities was matter of public notoriety. |1614. February.| Profiting by that well-known facility of access, the Spanish Ambassador presented himself at Cotton House in the guise of a virtuoso. ‘Do me the favour—with your wonted benevolence to strangers—to let me see your Museum.’ With some such words as these, Gondomar volunteered his first visit; led the conversation, by and bye, to politics; found that Cotton was not amongst the fanatical and undiscriminating enemies of Spain at all price—outspoken, as he had been, from the first, in his assertion both of the wisdom and of the duty of England to protect the Netherlanders; showed him certain letters or papers (not now to be identified, it appears), and in that way produced an impression on Cotton’s mind which led him to confer with Somerset, and eventually with the King. So much is certain. Unfortunately, the speeches at the famous ‘Conference’ on the Spanish Treaty, in 1624, are reported in the most fragmentary way imaginable. The reporter gives mere hints, where the reader anxiously looks for details. Their present value lies in the conclusive reasons which notwithstanding the lacunæ—they supply for weighing, with many grains of caution, the accusations of an enemy of England against an English statesman—whensoever it chances that those accusations are uncorroborated. King James himself (it may here be added), when looking back at this mysterious transaction some years later, and in one of his Anti-Spanish moods—said to Sir Robert: ‘The Spaniard is a juggling jack. I believe he forged those letters;’ alluding, as the context suggests, to the papers—whatever they were—which Gondomar showed to Cotton at the outset of their intercourse, in order to induce him to act as an intermediary between himself and the Earl of Somerset.
At this time, the ground was already trembling beneath Somerset’s feet, though he little suspected the source of his real danger. He knew, ere long, that an attempt would be made to charge him with embezzling jewels of the Crown. In connection with this charge there was a State secret, in which Sir Robert Cotton was a participant with Somerset, and with the King himself. And a secret it has remained. Such jewels, it is plain, were in Somerset’s hands, and by him were transferred to those of Cotton. Few persons who have had occasion to look closely into the surviving documents and correspondence which bear upon the subsequent and famous trials for the murder of Overbury, will be likely to doubt that the secret was one among those ‘alien matters’ of which Somerset was so urgently and so repeatedly adjured and warned, by James’s emissaries, to avoid all mention, should he still persist (despite the royal, repeated, and almost passionate, entreaties with which he was beset) in putting himself upon his trial; instead of pleading guilty, after his wife’s example, and trusting implicitly to the royal mercy.
For the purpose of warding off the lesser, but foreseen, danger, Cotton advised the Earl to take a step of which the Crown lawyers made subsequent and very effective use, in order to preclude all chance of his escape from the unforeseen and greater danger. |1615. July.| By Sir Robert’s recommendation he obtained from the King permission to have a pardon drawn, in which, amongst other provisions, it was granted that no account whatever should be exacted from Somerset at the royal exchequer; and to that pardon the King directed the Chancellor to affix the Great Seal. The Seal, however, was withheld, and a remarkable scene ensued in the Council Chamber. There are extant two or three narratives of the occurrence, which agree pretty well in substance. Of these Gondomar’s is the most graphic. The incident took place on the 20th of August. The despatch in which it is minutely described was written on the 20th of October. There is reason to believe that the Ambassador drew his information from an eye-witness of what passed.
‘As the King was about to leave the Council Board,’ writes Gondomar, ‘Somerset made to him a speech which, as I was told, had been preconcerted between them. |The scene in the Council Chamber, respecting the Pardon drawn by Sir R. Cotton for Somerset.| He said that the malice of his enemies had forced him to ask for a pardon; adduced arguments of his innocency; and then besought the King to command the Chancellor to declare at once what he had to allege against him, or else to put the seal to the pardon. |1615. August.| The King, without permitting anything to be spoken, said a great deal in Somerset’s praise; asserted that the Earl had acted rightly in asking for a pardon, which it was a pleasure to himself to grant—although the Earl would certainly stand in no need of it in his days—on the Prince’s account, who was then present.’ Here, writes Gondomar, the King placed his hand on the Prince’s shoulder, and added—‘That he may not undo what I have done.’ Then, turning to the Chancellor, the King ended with the words: ‘And so, my Lord Chancellor, put the seal to it; for such is my will.’ The Chancellor, instead of obeying, threw himself on his knees, told the King that the pardon was so widely drawn that it made Somerset (as Lord Chamberlain) absolute master of ‘jewels, hangings, tapestry, and of all that the palace contained; seeing that no account was to be demanded of him for anything.’ And then the Chancellor added: ‘If your Majesty insists upon it, I entreat you to grant me a pardon also for passing it; otherwise I cannot do it.’ On this the King grew angry, and with the words, ‘I order you to pass it, and you must pass it,’ left the Council Chamber. His departure in a rage, before the pardon was sealed, gave Somerset’s enemies another opportunity by which they did not fail to profit. They had the Queen on their side. On that very day, too, the King set out on a progress, long before arranged. For the time the matter dropped. Before the Ambassador of Spain took up his pen to tell the story to his Court, Villiers, ‘the new favourite,’ had begun to supplant his rival; so that the same despatch which narrates the beginnings of the fall of Somerset, tells also of the first stage in the rapid rise of Buckingham.
The Second Pardon drawn by Cotton. 1615, Sept.