By these and other symptoms, the people saw too plainly that the interests of Spain were adopted by the Favourite. Parliament, opened with so much state and promise, was opposed to the King’s wishes, and deprecated the Spanish alliance. Declamations against the growth of Popery were continually heard in that assembly, and formed a constant feature in its discussions during the reign of the Stuarts; these invectives were now exasperated by the treaty with Spain, and the indifference of James to the sufferings of the Protestant cause on the Continent. In the House of Lords, the presence of Prince Charles, around whom all the bishops, and most of the courtiers, flocked, was supposed to overawe the debates. All this time, James had “engaged his crown, blood, and soul,” such were his expressions, for the recovery of the Palatinate. Nevertheless, he dissolved Parliament early in the ensuing year; and the fruitless treaties and debasing intrigues went on as usual.[[310]]

An embassy extraordinary from the French King, who had visited Calais, proved the touchstone of much latent jealousy. An attendance of fifty or sixty persons of rank, and a retinue of three hundred, gave to the Marquis de Cadenat, brother to the Duc de Luisues, the favourite of the King of France, all the dignity that so numerous a company of the flower of their country could ensure. The ambassador and his suite were met at Gravesend by the Earl of Arundel, and conducted to Denmark House, where the Earl, merely accompanying the Marquis to the foot of the first stair which led to his lodgings, took his leave, saying that there were gentlemen there who would show him to his apartments. This was a decided slight. Shortly afterwards, an affront was given by the Countess of Buckingham, owing to her having placed the Marquise de Cadenat and her niece, Mademoiselle de Luc, at a ball at Whitehall, beneath her own daughter-in-law, the Marchioness of Buckingham.

On the eighth of January, a tilting match was performed, to entertain the French Marquis, wherein Prince Charles broke a lance with great success. Amongst the tilters was the “beloved Marquis of Buckingham,” so called by Sir Symonds D’Ewes, who thus describes the appearance of the Favourite on the occasion:—

“Seeing the Marquis of Buckingham discoursing with two or three French monsieurs, I joined to them, and most earnestly viewed him for about half-an-hour’s space at the least, which I had the opportunitie the more easilie to accomplish, because he stood all that time he talked, bareheaded. I saw everything in him full of delicacie and handsome features; yea, his hands and face seemed to me especiallie effeminate and curious.” The contrast with the homely-featured foreigners who surrounded him seems to have struck this not very good-natured observer. “It is possible,” he adds, “he seemed more accomplist, because the French monsieurs that invested him weere verie swarthie, hard-featured men.”

All irritation seems to have subsided by this time, and the natural hospitality of well-bred Englishmen to have reappeared. In the midst of the business and pleasure which occupied the English Court, the unpopularity of the Spanish match was, however, so apparent that Gondomar begged to retire to Nonsuch Palace, to avoid the “fear and fury” of Shrove Tuesday.

In the summer of this year,[[311]] James visited his Favourite at Burleigh, when he was so much pleased with his entertainment, that he could not forbear expressing his contentment in certain verses, in which he said “that the air, the weather, and everything else, even the stags and bucks in their fall, did seem to smile.” The chief diversion prepared for His Majesty was a masque by Ben Jonson, entitled “The Metamorphosed Gipsies;” it was acted first at Burleigh, then at Belvoir, and lastly at Windsor, within the course of a few months.

Buckingham employed the poet’s pen at his own expense, and himself enacted the Captain of the gipsies; and, in his disguise, marching up to the King, he thus addressed him, with the freedom of his lawless tribe:—

With you, lucky bird, I begin:

I aim at the best, and I trow you are he,

Here’s some luck already, if I understand