The arrangement concluded with Spain was of immense value for commerce, which was carried on in a very peculiar manner during the continuance of the general war. The Spaniards sent their gold and silver to England, from which country their payments could be made in Flanders and Germany through the bills of English houses which enjoyed good credit on the continent. The precious metals were A.D. 1635. sent from Spain in bars: the English crown thus gained the advantage of coining them. The transport of goods, and even of the necessaries of war, between Spain and the Netherlands, was carried on in English merchantmen, or under English escort. The Portuguese kept up their intercourse with their American colonies under the English flag, which assured them against the attacks of the Dutch; and they were glad to hire English ships, which were better armed than their own[73].
The construction of the English vessels aroused the admiration of experts: the ships of the East India Company by their solidity and their provision for every possible requirement, appeared to carry off the palm from all others.
As the King’s policy contributed to the extension of commerce, so the religious disputes contributed to the extension of the colonies. To those who would not submit to Laud’s ordinances New England offered a refuge: we shall return to the circumstances under which the colonies were planted there. But even for the toleration of Catholics in England there was no legal security. The first attempt at an ecclesiastical order of things, in which Episcopalianism came to terms with Catholicism on fixed principles, was made on the other side of the Atlantic, in Maryland. This may be the reason why this colony received a constitution that was to a great extent independent of the mother country. Maryland was peculiarly the creation of Charles I: the name it bears is derived from the Queen of that sovereign. A scheme was entertained at that time of colonising Madagascar in the interest of a Palatine prince.
As yet the colonies had no towns: London was the market to which they resorted for their supplies, and for the sale of their products: under these circumstances she began to be the emporium of the general trade of the world.
The cultivation of English commerce was almost a matter of personal care with the King. Not only the administration of his state, but even the maintenance of his court, rested upon A.D. 1637. the proceeds of the customs; and the court was still suitably and brilliantly kept up[74]. And however little Charles may have thought of endangering the repose of his kingdom for the sake of the Palatinate, yet he had never been loath to provide for the necessities of his sister and nephews.
But besides this he loved to support literature and art. He directly offended the scruples of the Puritans by attending the theatre. A splendid and costly masquerade, which the four Inns of Court combined to exhibit in the Carnival of the year 1633, was counted as a proof of their loyalty. They drove from Ely House through Chancery Lane and Whitehall in their carriages surrounded by torches; and the King sent to request them to take a route that would enable him to see the spectacle twice. The ladies and gentlemen of the court mustered in their richest dress, and later in the evening the Queen mingled with the dancers. Shirley, who was in the Queen’s service, Massinger, and old Ben Jonson still prevented the English stage from degenerating: Cymbeline, Richard III, and other plays of Shakespeare were favourite pieces with the public. Ben Jonson lived till 1637: from time to time he had the opportunity of celebrating the generosity of Charles I, of which he was greatly in need. In his later writings, such as his ‘Discoveries made upon Men and Matter,’ a ripe and lively feeling for literary culture and for culture generally is displayed which does honour to the age.
Charles I developed not only a preference, but a real appreciation, for art. Inigo Jones, whom many consider as the man of the greatest artistic talent whom England on the whole has produced, and in whose works we perceive a steady progress from an overcharged romantic style to purer forms, was one of his personal friends. It is easy to see why a man of architectural genius should attach himself to the court, for which he built chapels and banqueting halls, and to Archbishop Laud, who undertook to restore churches in the style of Christian antiquity, rather than to the Puritans A.D. 1637. who looked for salvation in the bare gospel. Among the King’s servants we find Vandyke, who in his incomparable portraits has preserved for us the forms of those who moved in high society; and Rubens, who reconciled his political commissions with constant practice of his art. On him as on others the obstinacy of the popular resistance with which Charles came into collision in his last Parliament produced an unfavourable impression. He blames the learned Selden for getting him involved in this confusion, to the prejudice of his art[75]. But as for the rest he was astonished by the zeal for study displayed by the English, and by the richness of their collections of works of art. The Arundel marbles were already rousing the attention of students of antiquity: Kenelm Digby procured for the King himself some of the finest monuments of ancient Greek art from the Levant. From Italy and Spain there was brought to him, as one of his contemporaries says, a whole troop of emperors and senators of ancient Rome, which he himself took pains to arrange in their chronological order: and he was capable of showing impatience if any one disturbed him in his task. He may be regarded as one of the best connoisseurs of art that has ever sat on a throne: he was able after short consideration to distinguish with delicate and certain judgment between those Italian masters who are closely allied in style and touch. There was no surer road to his favour than bringing him a picture of some celebrated master as a present, or pointing one out for purchase, which could still be effected with remarkable ease. The catalogues of his property show nine Correggios, thirteen Raphaels, forty-five Titians—among which are some of the greatest works of these masters, such as ‘The Education of Love,’ by the first; ‘The Holy Family,’ known under the name of ‘The Pearl,’ by the second; and among others by the third, ‘The Venus of the Prado.’ These catalogues present a many-sided interest in the history of art: they enumerate 400 works in sculpture, and 1400 in painting. Inigo Jones built a gallery for them: the King wished to have the principal works about him in his chambers at Oatlands, Hampton Court, St. James’s and Whitehall[76]. In the gardens of York House he put up the figures of Cain and Abel, by John of Bologna, the imitator of Michael Angelo, one of the finest groups by that master, a present from Philip IV of Spain. It was the intention of Charles I to adorn the squares and public gardens of London in general with works of artistic merit.
It is worth while to remark the connexion between these efforts in favour of art and poetry, and the social cultivation, the general tendencies in favour of toleration, of ecclesiastical ceremony, and of antiquity, and the cosmopolitan sympathies, which mark the ascendancy of royal authority. Could Charles I ever have succeeded in leading the English mind in this direction, and in instigating it to produce works of its own? We may feel ourselves tempted to agree with those who have at all times made it the bitterest reproach of the Puritans, that they opposed these intentions, and even frustrated them. But in the struggles between different tendencies, which give the tone to an age, the question in dispute cannot be settled by the encouragement which they afford to this or that branch of culture. They are like the forces of nature, which create but at the same time destroy. The other party also had its rights, its ideas, and, if we regard the general state of the world and of the time, a still greater destiny in the field of universal history.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Relation de Mr. Fontenay, 4 Juin 1634: ‘Le tresorier veut la paix et pour sa subsistance et par sa foiblesse: c’est pourquoy il demeure neutre entre France et Espagne.’ Cp. the instructions to the ambassador Poigny in the 4th vol of Avenel’s Lettres du Cl. Richelieu.