The King, after making some stipulations as to the day of the return of his precious travellers, parted from them composedly; “he did then,” says Goodman, “express no passion at all, for he was an excellent master of his own affections, if you would give him a little respite, and not take him suddenly. He carried himself as though there were no such thing intended, and so he took his journey through Kingston and Newmarket.”
“For want of better matter,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, “I send you here certain verses made upon Jack and Tom’s journey (for the Prince and Lord Marquis went through Kent under the names of Jack and Tom Smith). They were fathered at first upon the Prince, but, I hear, were only corrected and amended by him.”[[402]]
“They wore fair riding coats,” he continues, “and false beards, one of which fell off before they arrived at Gravesend, and caused suspicion.” Messengers were therefore sent after the fugitives; and they were overtaken near Sittingbourne, where one of their horses failed; they were detained at Canterbury, but got away; but were again stopped at Dover by order of the Privy Council, where they gave some “secret satisfaction” to the authorities of that port.
This enterprise, so consistent with Charles’s character, so agreeable to Buckingham’s high spirits, had not been made known to the Privy Council.
The King sent a message to them to say it was the Prince’s doing, and not that of Buckingham; and that the Council was not told of the scheme because “secrecy was the soul of the business.” The Council was ordered to “stay,” by a proclamation, the “amazement of the people,” who began to conclude that the Prince would be married “at a mass.” It appears, however, without any doubt, that the whole was a plot of James’s; for the Treasurer of the Household, Lord Brooke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Heriot the jeweller, and others, had been commanded by His Majesty, when he was at Newmarket, to go to the Tower and select some fine jewels, suitable to wear in hats, and “the best rope of pearls,” and some fine jewels, fit for a woman, for His Majesty to choose, which he will send abroad. They were not all for presents, but some to be lent to the Prince, and restored on his return home.[home.][[403]] Buckingham, we hear from the same authority, took Sir Paul Pindar’s great diamonds, promising “to talk with him about paying for them.”
A more detailed account of the commencement of this singular journey than the preceding may, however, be collected from other services.
The travellers slept one night at Newhall; on the following day[[404]] they were accompanied by Sir Richard Graham, Master of the Marquis’s Horse, and his own earliest friend, adviser, and confidant.[[405]] They set off with a very small retinue, some of which they dismissed at various places, upon some idle pretence or another, but only to get rid of them. Thus they proceeded towards Gravesend; but, on crossing the river, a difficulty occurred. They had no small pieces of silver about them; and for want of them, were obliged to give the boatman, who rowed them across, a piece of twenty-two shillings; which, as Sir Henry Wotton relates, “struck the poor fellow into such melting tenderness, that so good gentlemen should be going (for so he suspected) about some quarrel beyond seas,” that he thought it right to acquaint the officers of the town with his suspicions. A message was instantly despatched to detain the travellers at Rochester; but they had passed through the city before it arrived.
The peril of discovery had not yet passed. As the Prince and his companion ascended the hill above Rochester, they beheld, to their great consternation, the equipage of the French ambassador, attended by one of the royal carriages, approaching them in state. “This,” says Wotton, “made them baulk the beaten road, and teach post hackneys to leap hedges.” “It[“It] seemed, however,” says the same writer, “as if a voice had run before them; for at Canterbury, as they were preparing to take fresh horses, the Mayor of the town came up, and declared, with very little ceremony, first, that he had an order from the Privy Council to arrest them; next, on finding them incredulous, from Sir Lewis Lewkners, Master of the Ceremonies; and, thirdly, from Sir Richard Mainwaring, then Lieutenant of Dover Castle.”[Castle.”] Buckingham had no leisure “to laugh” at this occurrence; but, taking off his disguise, he told the Mayor that he was going “covertly with such slight company,” to take a survey of the fleet of the narrow seas, which was then in preparation. Thus, this obstacle was with some difficulty overcome; but the disguise still puzzled the worthy man in office. The travellers journeyed onwards, but met with a fresh recognition from the boy who carried their baggage, and who had been at Court, and had a suspicion who the party were; but it was not difficult to ensure his silence. Owing to bad horses, and these hindrances, it was six in the evening before the party reached Dover.
Here they met the two gentlemen who were alone in their confidence. One of them was Sir Francis Cottington, who was selected not only for his intimate knowledge of Prince Charles’s affairs, but from his acquaintance with the Spanish Court, “where he had,” says Sir Henry Wotton, “gotten[“gotten] singular credit, even with that cautious nation, by the temper of his carriage.” He was, indeed, a prudent man, well acquainted with business, and conversant with Spanish and French. He had been created a baronet only two days before this journey, his family holding a respectable rank at Godmanstown, Somersetshire.
At his first entrance into the world, Cottington had only fulfilled the post of Gentleman of the Horse to Sir Philip Stafford, Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth; but he was afterwards attached to the embassy in Spain, and in 1621, was made secretary to Prince Charles. He was considered to know the politics of the Spanish Court “to a hair.” Charles, in spite of the jealousy afterwards manifested by Buckingham towards this gentleman, who had protested strongly against the Spanish journey, never forgot his early companionship in an undertaking of some risk. He promoted him in various ways, and, in 1631, created him Baron Cottington, of Hanworth, and Lord Cottington enjoyed several high offices, from which he was driven when the troubles began in 1640. Charles, however, trusted him to the last, and, when his failing cause detained him at Oxford, made Cottington High Treasurer of his diminished resources.