A portion only of the careful eulogium passed on the Infanta reached Charles, whilst he was as yet contemplating a journey to see the rare being upon whom his hopes of felicity were placed: but a description was sent by Digby of the interview which took place between him and the Infanta. “After I had secluded her from His Majesty,” wrote the ambassador, “I told her that I had likewise a message to deliver her, with her permission, from another cavalier, the Prince of Wales. She blushed, and told me, ‘I might;’ whereupon” Digby said, “that in regard to the desire which King James had to unite these kingdoms in nearer friendship, by way of marriage, there was nothing the Prince had so much at heart.” “So you hoped,” he added, addressing Charles, “it was agreeable unto her, and that she likewise wished well, and would aid in the effecting of it.”
At this interrogation the Infanta “blushed extremely, and asked particularly of the Prince’s health, and how,” adds Digby, “I had left you; and told me she gave me great thanks for the favour you did her. I will set down the very words in Spanish, for I think your Highness should be angry with me for the omission of any word in this particular:—‘Agradesco mucho al Principe de Inglatierra, la merced que me hazo.’”
Lord Digby inclosed also letters in Spanish, addressed to Charles. The Infanta having heard that her suitor was studying her native language spoke to Digby on the subject. “He doth it,” was the reply, “whereby to use with you a style of more familiarity.”[[387]]
These particulars are interesting, as proving that it was not without some inquiry and deliberation that Charles undertook to procure, in person, a knowledge of the young Princess to whom his hand was destined.
The Condé de Gondomar, one of the most astute diplomatists of his time, had now been accredited to England for the last three years. His object in coming was to give satisfaction to the King and Court on the subject of the marriage, but the feeling of the people was against him. It was his arrival that had precipitated the fall of Ralegh. It was from his influence that any toleration to the oppressed Catholics would be dated.
Ely House, once the residence of the Bishop of Ely, but given by Queen Elizabeth to her favourite, Hatton, was the tenement destined to receive the ambassadors of Spain; although the envoys from the Palatinate were then in England, and “no one knew,” as it was said, “how two buckets could go down into the well at once.”[[388]] But it was soon seen which “bucket was to go down;” for, whilst he was waiting in expectation of Gondomar’s arrival, James had coldly dismissed Baron Dona, the Prince Palatine’s envoy, saying that he disapproved of his son-in-law’s election to the throne of Bohemia as factious; and refusing to embark his subjects, “who were as dear to him as his children,” in a war. This indifference to his daughter’s condition, and the outrage offered to public opinion in allowing mass to be celebrated in what had once been the private chapel of the Bishop of Ely, scandalized all staunch Protestants, and Gondomar was constrained to open a back door in Ely House to let in Catholics to worship. Nevertheless, the virago, Lady Hatton, who lived almost next door to the Spaniard, threw every hindrance in her power in the way of that arrangement; yet, in the very face of honest Protestant scruples, the Ladies of the Court were invited to witness the ceremonies at Ely House; and, doubtless, found it not inconsistent with their conscience to comply.[[389]]
It was at this juncture that Buckingham is said first to have proposed to Charles to evade open censure by making a journey, incognito, to Spain. Nor were such expeditions unknown in those times. Buckingham well knew, in this instance, the tone of argument most appropriate to address to a prince whose blameless career, untainted by dissipation, had not seared one of the best safeguards of youth—romance. The Prince was accessible to the influence of that which Mackenzie calls “a higher sense of virtue.” A lover of the refined and beautiful, he shrank from the notion of a mere political union; the suggestions which were thrown out from motives of Statecraft were received in a spirit of trust and hope, and sank instantly into a mind of delicacy and feeling.
Buckingham drew a picture, it is stated, of a marriage contracted on public grounds alone. He pointed out the miseries of such an alliance; he referred to the indifference, if not loathing, with which a bride so selected would view the object, not of her own choice, but of that of the State, for reasons with which she had no sympathy.
He portrayed the misery of one who could deem herself nothing but a victim, and who could not fail to view with disgust a bond which brought her from a beloved home to a foreign court, where every early enjoyment of her youth must be forgotten, every cherished association and remembrance abandoned.
Buckingham found an attentive auditor. He represented to Charles that by accomplishing a journey to Madrid, and seeking an interview with his promised bride, he might create an interest in her affections, and, by the attentions of a lover, gain even the coldest heart. The delicacy of the compliment would be felt also in the Court of Madrid; it would resemble the fictions in which the Spaniards delighted; it would present him to the young Princess under the aspect of a devoted suitor; it would expedite the conclusion of those negotiations concerning the Palatinate which had languished so long. These representations were heightened by Murray, the Prince’s tutor, who, some insinuated, was instigated by the cunning Gondomar.[[390]] Murray reminded his royal pupil that his father had gone to Denmark to fetch his wife; that his grandfather, “living in the heart of England,” went into Scotland to marry: especially that his great grandfather, James V., went into France several times—first, to woo the daughter of the French King, the Lady Mary of Lorraine: that interviews between kings and princes were customary; and that no occasion could be so suitable as a negotiation of marriage. “God,” added Murray, “had blessed the Prince with an able body, fit for any exercise and recreation: with great intellectuals, fit to enter into any treaty himself; God had blessed him with a civil carriage, mild and temperate—no way passionate, as some princes were;” and thus, being fitted for the enterprise, the sagacious Scot thought that a journey would improve the Prince’s abilities, and exhibit them to the world.[[391]]