At dawn on Saturday, 30th August, King Philip and his brother Carlos, with their English guest, and followed by hundreds of gallant gentlemen, rode across the bridge of Segovia out of the Castilian capital, over the arid plain towards the vast monastery palace of the Escorial in the Guadarramas, the enduring gloomy monument of the first of the Spanish Philips. The next day was spent in seeing the wonders of the building, and on Monday hunting in the woods and moors around occupied the day. On Tuesday morning, 3rd September, the party set forth, and a few miles on the road the King, after an alfresco luncheon and a long private conversation with his guest, took final leave of Charles, with much ceremonial salutation and professions of eternal regard. That night the English Prince, in whose coach travelled Buckingham, Bristol, and Gondomar, arrived at the village of Guadarrama, and the next night was spent at the ancient city of Segovia.
Charles had left in Bristol's hands a power to conclude the marriage on the arrival in Madrid of the consent of the Pope to the modified conditions; but at Segovia he signed two letters, one to King Philip reiterating his intention and desire to carry the match through, and the other revoking the full powers he had given to Bristol to conclude the espousals when the Pope's consent arrived, on the ground that there was nothing in the conventions to prevent the Infanta from embracing a conventual life after the marriage.[[32]] With Charles's slow progress through Spain to Santander[[33]], and so to England, this book has naught to do, nor with the extraordinary set of intrigues by which, to Bristol's indignation and subsequent ruin, Buckingham on his return drew the pliant James into alliance with France against Spain.
Bristol, during his short further stay in Madrid, laboured hard, aided by Gondomar, to keep the negotiations afoot, the Spanish party in the English Court endeavoured with the same object to arouse the fears of James against Buckingham, and nearly succeeded in doing it. Bristol's colleague and successor at Madrid, Sir Walter Aston, hoping to smooth matters, incurred Buckingham's violent resentment by provisionally agreeing to a day for the espousals, when at last the Pope's conditional consent came. James, and now apparently Charles, had quite made up their minds that no marriage should take place without the Palatinate being surrendered by the Emperor; and Philip, as Olivares had said again and again, would never coerce his Catholic kinsman to do that for the sake of a heretic. Thenceforward though the bickering both in Madrid and London still continued for months, the marriage of Charles and the Infanta was impracticable, and the unwise attempt to force the hands of cunning statesmen by a romantic coup de théâtre came to the undignified and unsuccessful end that it deserved.
Failure of the match
The Spaniards pretended that the match would have been carried through but for Buckingham's bad faith and his personal quarrel with Olivares, and they found it convenient to defend their own character for sincerity by using the favourite for a scapegoat. But it is quite certain now, with the abundant authoritative documents before us, that, except upon quite impossible conditions, there never was any intention on the part of Philip and Olivares to give the Infanta to Charles. Olivares played the game with consummate skill, obtaining concessions to the English Catholics, which, if they had been sincerely carried out, would have endangered James's crown; and presenting to Europe the spectacle of the English King and Prince soliciting an alliance with Spain in a way which allowed such a rebuff to be administered to England as might have made the great Elizabeth turn in her grave.
That Buckingham was keenly alive to his defeat, and was determined to avenge it upon Spain, is seen in his letter to James as soon as he left Madrid,[[34]] and by the strenuous and successful efforts which he made on his return to London to defeat the Spanish party, to which he had, thanks to Gondomar's bribery, formerly belonged. The subsequent ignominious war with Spain into which England was dragged by Buckingham and the French alliance, was a fitting sequel, in its inept mismanagement, to the utter foolishness of the policy which had precipitated it. The comparison between the incompetence of Sir Edward Cecil with his disorganised and futile fleet before Cadiz in 1625, and the English attack upon the same city in 1596 under Howard, Raleigh, and Essex, is as complete and humiliating as the contrast between shallow Buckingham and sagacious Burghley, or between the doting poltroon whose letters to his "sweet Boys" we have seen, and the proudly patriotic termagant whom he succeeded on the throne of England.
[[1]] Soto y Aguilar. Another unpublished contemporary account in Spanish of the state entry in the British Museum, MSS. Add. 10,236, says that Charles advanced to the centre of the room and took off his hat as the councillors entered. It is mentioned that Charles retained his English dress and had "a gallant figure" (bizarro en el talle). He was noticed to doff his hat whenever Philip did on passing a church or sacred image, and this greatly impressed the crowd in his favour. When the royal personages arrived at the palace at half-past six, having taken three hours to cover the distance of about a mile from St. Geronimo to the palace, the Prince was led to salute the Queen, Lord Bristol kneeling before them to interpret their conversation. This account is very enthusiastic as to Charles' graciousness and dignity.
[[2]] MS. Soto y Aguilar.
[[3]] Familiar Letters.