He received no immediate answer, and in the pause of silence he glanced attentively at the master whom he had served so whole-heartedly and believed in so intensely—for such as he must always believe intensely in the principle for which they fight.
Charles was leaning against the mullions; melancholy and levity were strangely mingled in his mien. In stature and make he was slight, in dress extravagant, his dove-grey silk was embroidered with seed pearls and gold, and a deep collar of exquisite lace was fastened by two gold tassels at the lacing of his doublet.
Every Englishman, first seeing him, noted how foreign he was in appearance. Though brought up as one of the nation whom he was to rule, blood was here stronger than breeding, the powerful French-Scotch strain of his famous name, the influence of his gay, foreign mother, showed in his elegance, his refinement, his somewhat sad dignity, which gave him an air as if he were too great to be proud outwardly, but was beyond measure proud inwardly.
His hair, of the renowned Stewart auburn colour, fell full and soft round a face that was slightly worn and troubled, but handsome and composed still—a face that was too charming to be the index of a mind, or more than a mere seductive disguise for whatever manner of man lay beneath.
My lord had served him long and known him as intimately as any man save my late murdered Duke of Buckingham, but even my lord, now it was coming to the issue of their joint policies, could not be quite sure what the King would do,—where he would be adamant and where give way, where he would fail, and where he would stand firm.
"A lost business," Charles repeated at last. He had a blood-red cameo on the little finger of his fair left hand, and turned it about as he spoke; it was the only jewel he wore save a long pearl in his right ear.
"Sir, I call it no better than lost. The army unexercised and unprovided, great disloyalty abroad, the Scots in a rebellion which is daily more successful, the people mightily disaffected, and all in a clamour for a Parliament—and I would to God, sire, that you had not dismissed the last one, for it was better than any you are like to have called together at this turn."
"I will," said Charles, "call none at all." He knew secretly that his minister was right, and he already regretted the moment of spleen in which, after a three weeks' sitting, he had dismissed the first Parliament he had called for eleven years—had called in desperation for aid against the Scots—for he saw that what Strafford said was true, and that in the present temper of the nation he was unlikely to get men so loyal in their temper as even the Members of the so-called Little Parliament had been.
"Yea, call none at all," returned the Earl, "and where are we for money? Is there any king or country to whom we can turn? Have we not asked in vain even at Rome—even from the merchants of Genoa?"
"The money must be raised in England," said the King. He would not put it into words, but to himself he was forced to admit that no foreign power nor personage would lend money without security—and security Charles was quite unable to give; for in the eyes of Europe a King of England, acting without his Parliament, was a person by no means to be seriously regarded.