They quickly pursued their journey through France to go to Spain, and when Charles and Buckingham first got there everything seemed very pleasant. The Infanta was handsome, but very different from Henrietta Maria, for she was very grave and steady, and seemed as if she would be a fit wife for the prince, who was naturally grave and steady too.
But the Duke of Buckingham quarrelled with some of the great men of the court, and was so much affronted at not being treated rather like a king than only a plain English nobleman, that he made the prince believe that the King of Spain meant to offend him, and did not really intend his daughter to marry him; and, in short, he contrived to make Charles so angry, that he left Spain in a rage, and afterwards married that very French princess, Henrietta Maria, whom he had seen at Paris.
The bad education King James gave his son Charles, though it was the most mischievous of all his bad acts, was not the only one.
The King of Spain had taken a dislike to Sir Walter Raleigh, who had been so great a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, because Raleigh had beaten his sailors at sea, and his soldiers ashore. But Sir Walter’s men happened to kill some Spaniards when they were looking for a gold mine in South America; so the King of Spain demanded that James should put Raleigh to death, and James shamefully yielded to Spain, and ordered that great and wise man’s head to be cut off.
As to Scotland, King James’s own country, he behaved as ill in all things belonging to it as he did in England. But the thing that turned out worst for the country and his poor son Charles was his insisting on the Scotch people kneeling at the communion, keeping certain holy days, and having bishops, although the Scotch religion is presbyterian. This vexed the Scotch people very much indeed. And the Irish were not better pleased, because the Roman Catholics were ill-treated by James, and most of the Irish were Roman Catholics.
When James died, all the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland were discontented. Poor Ireland was even worse off than ever. Scotland had been neglected, and the people affronted about their religion; and, in England, James had taken money unlawfully, and behaved so ill, both to parliament and people, that everybody disliked him as a king, and he was so silly in his private behaviour, that everybody laughed at him as a gentleman.
In short, I can praise him for nothing but a little book-learning; but as he made no good use of it, he might as well have been without it. He reigned twenty-two years in England, during which there was no great war. But James had begun one against the Emperor of Germany and the King of Spain, just before his death.
I must tell you of one very great man who lived in his reign: Lord Bacon. He was one of the wisest men that ever lived, though not without his faults; but when you grow up you will read his books if you wish to be truly wise.
