While affairs were in this situation and these impressions afloat, a plan for bringing this uncertainty to an end was embraced by the King, the Prince, and the Duke, in those private discussions in which the general course of affairs was decided. It was determined that the Prince, accompanied by Buckingham, should visit Spain himself, in order to bring about the marriage and arrange the conditions. None of the Privy Councillors, not even Williams, who on other occasions was in their intimate confidence, knew anything about this plan. It pleased the King's sense of the romantic, that as he himself had formerly brought home his newly married wife from the icy North, so now his son should in person win the hand of his bride in the distant South. But however much in earnest the King was in the matter, we learn that he still contemplated the possibility of failure. He once said to the Duke of Soubise, that if the marriage came to pass, he would take up the cause of the Huguenots in alliance with Spain: but that if he did not succeed in his design they might still reckon upon him, for that his son would A.D. 1623. contract a marriage with a French princess, which would procure him great influence at the French court.[420]
On March 7, 1623, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Buckingham arrived in Madrid, with an escort including Cottington and Endymion Porter, both of whom afterwards enjoyed great influence. Their arrival was not altogether welcome to the ambassador in residence there, Digby, now Lord Bristol, who would rather have retained this important business in his own hands: but the Spanish court and the nation itself found a certain satisfaction for their pride in the personal suit urged by the heir-apparent of one of the most powerful kingdoms for the hand of the younger Infanta.
At first the Prince of Wales could only see the Infanta as she drove past along a sort of Corso in the Prado. He was then presented to her, but the words which she was to use to him were written down for her beforehand; for she was to receive him merely as a foreign prince without any reference whatsoever to his suit. Some surprise was created when the principal lady of the court one day condescended to say to the Prince that the Infanta in conversation gave signs of an inclination for him. In the country no doubt was felt that the marriage would come to pass, and the prospect was welcomed with joy. Often did a 'Viva' resound under the windows of the Prince. Lope de Vega dedicated some happily expressed stanzas to him; and splendid shows were given in his honour.[421] All that was now wanting was an agreement as to the conditions.
This depended however in large part on the resolutions which might be arrived at in England. Conditions affecting religion were laid before King James, which he might certainly have hesitated to approve. It was not only that the Infanta was to be indulged in the free exercise of her religion—for how else could the consent of the Spanish clergy or a dispensation from the Pope have been hoped for?—nor even that the children born from this marriage were to be educated under her eyes for the first ten years of their life, for this seemed the natural privilege of a mother: but the presumption that the children might become Catholics involved wide consequences. It was stipulated that the laws against Catholics should not apply to such children, nor prejudice their succession. Still more displeasing however were some other articles of general import, which were carefully kept back from the knowledge of the public. They amounted to this:—that the laws against the Catholics should no longer be carried into execution, and that the Councillors of the sovereign should be pledged by an oath to abstain from enforcing them.[422] The King met with some opposition to these articles in the Privy Council. But he said that the question was not whether they were advisable, but whether they were not necessary at a time when part of the domain under dispute, and the Prince himself, were in the hands of the Spaniards. And moreover they did not amount to a complete concession to the wishes of the Catholics, for they spoke only of tolerating their worship in private, not in public: the articles were in harmony with the old ideas of the King. James solemnly swore to the first articles, on July 20, in the presence of the Spanish ambassador; and immediately after him the members of the Council took the same oath. The King alone then pledged himself to carry out the second set of articles.
An extensive alteration had already taken place in the treatment of the Catholics. Priests and recusants had been discharged from prison and enjoyed full liberty. An injunction was issued to the preachers and to the Universities to abstain from all invectives against the Papacy. Men had to see individual preachers who transgressed these orders thrown into prisons which had been just emptied. The families which openly expressed their hitherto secret adherence to Catholicism were already counted by hundreds. Then came these transactions. What was learnt of the articles was enough to spread universal dismay among the Protestants, but they expected yet worse things. They thought they saw a pronounced Catholic tendency becoming ascendant in the conduct of affairs. An universal danger seemed to be hanging over the religion which they professed. Every one hastened to church to pray against it; the churches had never been more crowded. The second ecclesiastic in the country, the Archbishop of York, put the King in mind that by his project of toleration he was encouraging doctrines which he had himself proved in his writings to be superstitious and idolatrous. At this time moreover religious profession and political freedom were most closely connected: all these penal laws which the King was removing had been passed in Parliament, and were the work of the legislative power as a whole. The Archbishop reminded the King in conclusion that when he annulled the statutes of parliament by royal proclamation, he created an impression that he thought himself at liberty to trample on the laws of the land.[423]
The wishes of the King did not lean so decidedly in that direction as people assumed. Buckingham and the Prince, who recommended him to take the oath, remarked to him, among other observations, that his promise that Parliament should repeal the penal laws against the Catholics within three years would be fulfilled, if he merely exerted himself to the extent of his strength for that object, even if it should prove impossible to attain it.[424] In general everything was merely preliminary, and depended on further agreement. The Prince entreated his father to transmit to him the ratification of the articles, that he might decline them or not according to circumstances. He even wished that, in order to put an end to the dilatoriness of the Spaniards, his father should make an express declaration that any longer delay would compel him again to enforce the penal laws against the Catholics.[425] All these announcements, which filled the Catholics with joy and hope, but the Protestants with dejection, mistrust, and anxiety, were however only political agencies, and were intended to serve a definite end. The object was in the first instance to put an end by this means to all delay in sending the Infanta to England.
Although some religious scruples were still awake in the minds of the Spaniards yet they presented no further obstacle. The conditions for granting a dispensation which had been prescribed by the Pope to the Spanish Court, had been accepted; the Spanish ambassadors had been satisfied: the only question now was whether the Infanta should be conveyed to England at once with the Prince on his return, or in the following spring. As formerly the Tudors so now the Stuarts appeared to be taking their position as a dynasty in Europe in connexion with the Spanish monarchy.
Only one difficulty remained, that connected with the Palatinate; but at the present moment it was more serious than ever.
In his negotiations King James started with the supposition, that the Spanish court could control the Imperial, and bring it over to its own point of view. The inclusion of the German line in this dynastic combination was contemplated. A proposal was made that the eldest son of the expelled Frederick should contract a marriage with a daughter of the Emperor, which would make the task of reconciliation and restitution far easier.
The Emperor however had to take other interests into consideration; not only those of the Duke of Bavaria, to whom he was so deeply pledged, but those of the whole Catholic party, which thought of seizing this occasion to establish for ever its ascendancy in the Empire. The Emperor, who was also instigated by Rome to this step, solemnly transferred the electoral dignity previously held by the Elector Palatine to Maximilian of Bavaria in February 1623, with the intention of satisfying him, and at the same time of obtaining a majority of Catholic votes in the electoral body. It has indeed been assumed, both then and at a later time, that Spain, only bent on deceiving England, had agreed to all these proceedings. But in fact the Spanish ambassador had opposed them most strenuously at Ratisbon in the name of his king, as well as in that of the Infanta Isabella.[426] He prophesied with accurate foresight new and inextricable embarrassments as the consequence. The Papal Nuncio complained that the resistance of the ambassador weakened the Catholics and emboldened the Protestants. But his remonstrance had no effect on the Emperor. After his previous experiences Ferdinand II had no more fear of his adversaries, least of all of King James, who would certainly not in his old age make his first appearance as a warrior and try the doubtful fortune of war. He thought besides that he always consulted his security best when he had nothing before his eyes but the advantage of the Catholic Church.