Chapter XVI: Part 16

We next come to the “Ungentle Gentle.” In the definition of this term, the author, with all his reverence for nobility, is compelled to allow that there is a nobility of condition as well as a nobility of birth; but others who contested this fact, gave a new word to the English tongue, or made a new application of an old word in order to support their theory and assail those whom they sought to lower.

“Ungentle Gentle,” says our author, “is he which is born of a low degree--which man, taking his beginning of a poor kindred, by his virtue, wit, policy, industry, knowledge in laws, valiancy in arms, or such like honest means, becometh a well-behaved and high-esteemed man, preferred then to great office, put in great charge and credit, even so much as he becometh a post or stay of the commonwealth, and so growing rich, doth thereby advance and set up the rest of his poor line or kindred. They are the children of such one commonly called gentleman; of which sort of gentleman we have now in England very many, whereby it should appear that virtue flourisheth among us. These gentlemen are now called ‘Up-starts,’ a term lately invented by such as pondered not the grounds of honest means of rising or coming to promotion.” Nevertheless, says our censor, there be upstarts enough and to spare. The worshipful unworthies, he tells us, abound; and the son of good-man Thomas, or good-man John, have obtained the name of gentlemen, the degree of esquires or knights, and possessing “a little dunghill forecast to get lands, by certain dark augmentative practices,” they are called “worshipful” at every assize. He dates the origin of this sort of nobility, knighthood and esquirearchy, from the time of the suppression and confiscation of abbeys and abbey-estates. He has a curious passage on this subject:--

“They have wrongfully intruded into gentry, and thrust themselves therein, as Bayard, the cart-jade, might leap into the stable of Bucephalus, and thrust his head into the manger with that worthy courser. The particular names of whom, if I should go about to rehearse, it would require long labor, and bring no fruit to the readers thereof. And it is well known that such intruders, such unworthy worshipful men, have chiefly flourished since the putting down of abbeys, which time is within my remembrance.”

While allowing that gentlemanly manners help to make the gentleman, and that birth is only an accidental matter, having little to do with the subject, he still can not forbear to reverence rather good men of high birth than good men of low degree. He evidently thinks that he was enjoined by religion to do so, for he remarks: “As in times past, no man was suffered to be ‘Knyght of the Roodes,’ but such one as was descended of the lyne of gentleman, whereby it appeareth that no men were thought so meet to defend the right, that is to say the faith of Christ, as gentlemen, and so to have their offices agreeable with their profession, it is most meet that all gentlemen be called to such room and office as may be profitable to the commonwealth.” This idea that the holy sepulchre was to be rescued from the infidels only by gentlemen, and the fact that it has not been so rescued, reminds me of that king of Spain, who, finding himself in danger of being roasted alive, from sitting in a chair which one of his great officers had placed too near the fire, chose to roast on, for the singular reason that there was no grandee at hand to draw his chair away again!

In 1555, this writer still accounted the profession of arms as the noblest, the most profitable to the professor, and the most useful to the commonwealth. Courage, liberality, and faithful observance of all promises; thus endowed, he thinks a man is a true gentleman. He draws, however, a happy parallel when admitting that if it become a gentleman to be a good knight and valiant soldier, it even more becometh him to be a great statesman. For, “although to do valiantly in the wars it deserveth great praise and recompense, yet to minister justice in the state of peace is an office worthy of higher commendation. The reason is, wars are nothing necessary, but of necessity must be defended when they fall. And contrariwise, peace is a thing not only most necessary, but it is called the best thing which even nature hath given unto man.” This parallel, if indeed it may be so called, is only employed, however, for the purpose of showing that certain posts in the state should only be given to gentlemen born. There is a good deal of the red-tapist in our moralist after all; and he has a horror, still entertained in certain localities, of admitting the democratic element into the public offices. Thus we find him maintaining that, “Unto a gentleman appertaineth more fully than unto any other sort of man, embassage or message to be done between kings or princes of this earth; more fitly I say, because gentlemen do know how to bear countenance and comely gesture before the majesty of a king, better than other sorts of men.” One would think that the majesty of a king was something too dazzling for a common man of common sense to look upon and live, and yet the writer is evidently aware that there is nothing in it, for he concludes his chapter on this matter by observing that “a gentleman sent of embassage unto a prince ought to think a king to be but a man, and, in reverence and humility, boldly to say his message unto him.” Surely a man of good sense might do this, irrespective of his birth, particularly at a time when the unskilfulness and ignorance of gentlemen were so great as to pass into a proverb, and “He shooteth like a gentleman fair and far off,” implied not only ill-shooting with bows and arrows, “but it extended farther and reached to greater matters, all to the dispraise of ignorant gentlemen.”

It is so common a matter with us to refer to the days in which this author wrote, as days in which old knights and country gentlemen maintained such hospitality as has seldom been since witnessed, that we are surprised to find complaint made, in this treatise, of something just the contrary. The author enjoins these knights and gentlemen to repair less to London, and be more seen dispensing hospitality in their own houses. “In the ancient times,” he says, “when curious buildings fed not the eye of the wayfaring man, then might he be fed and have good repast at a gentleman’s place, so called. Then stood the buttery door without a hatch; yeoman then had no cause to carve small dishes; Flanders cooks had then no wages for their devices, nor square tables were not used. This variety and change from the old English manner hath smally enriched gentlemen, but much it hath impoverished their names, not without just punishment of their inconsistency in that behalf.” Let me add, that the writer thinks the country knight or gentleman would do well were he to exercise the office of justice of the peace. He is sorely afraid, however, that there is a disqualification, on the ground of ignorance. A moralist might have the same fear just now, without coming to the same conclusion. Our author, for instance, argues that reverence is to be paid to the noble, _quand même_. Let him be ignorant and tyrannical, yet to reverence him is to give example of obedience to others. This is very poor logic, and what follows is still worse; for this writer very gravely remarks, that “We ought to bear the offences of noble men patiently, and that if these forget themselves, yet ought not smaller men to be oblivious of their duty in consequence, and fail in their respect.”

We come upon another social trait, when we find the author lamenting that, however much it becometh a gentleman to be acquainted with hawking and hunting, yet that these pastimes are so abused by being followed to excess, that “gentlemen will almost do nothing else, or at the least can do that better than any other thing.” To the excess alluded to does the author trace the fact that “there are so many raw soldiers when time of war requireth their help. This is the cause of so many unlearned gentlemen, which, as some say, they understand not the inkhorn terms that are lately crept into our language. And no marvel it is, though they do not understand them, whereas in their own hawking and hunting terms they be ignorants as ‘Auvent’ and ‘Retrouvre,’ which they call ‘_Houent_’ and ‘_Retrires_.’” What better could be expected from men who had given up the practice of the long bow to take to the throwing of dice? But there was now as wild extravagance of dress as ignorance of uncommon things, in the class of foolish knights and gentlemen. This is alluded to in the chapter on dress, wherein it is said that “the sum of one hundred pounds is not to be accounted in these days to be bestowed of apparel for one gentleman, but in times past, a chamber gown was a garment which dwelt with an esquire of England twenty years”--and I believe that the knights were as frugal as the esquires. “Then flourished the laudable simplicity of England,” exclaims the author; “there were no conjurors and hot scholars, applying our minds to learne our new trifle in wearing our apparel.” Upon the point of fashions, the author writes with a feeling as if he despaired of his country. “The Englishman,” he observes, “changeth daily the fashion of his garment; sometimes he delighteth in many guards, welts and pinks, and pounces. Sometimes again, to the contrary, he weareth his garments as plain as a sack; yet faileth he not to change also that plainness if any other new fangle be invented. This is the vanity of his delight.” And this vanity was common to all men of high degree in his time--to those to whom “honor” was due, from men of less degree--and these were “dukes, earls, lords, and such like, of high estate,” as well as to those who were entitled to the “worship” of smaller men, and _these_ were “knights, esquires, and gentlemen.” There is here, I think, some confusion in the way such terms are applied; but I have not made the extract for the purpose of grounding a comment upon it, but because it illustrates one portion of my subject, and shows that while “your honor” was once the due phrase of respect to the peerage, “your worship” was the reverential one paid to knights, esquires, _and_ gentlemen. We still apply the terms, if not to the different degrees named above, yet quite as confusedly, or as thoughtlessly with respect to the point whether there be anything honorable or worshipful in the individual addressed. This, however, is only a form lingering among the lower classes. As matters of right, however, “his honor” still sits in Chancery, and “your worship” is to be seen behind any justice’s table.

We will now return to a race of kings who, whatever their defects, certainly did not lack some of the attributes of chivalry.

THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS.

THE STUARTS.

“May’t be pleasure to a reader’s ear,
That never drew save his own country’s air,
To hear such things related.”
HEYWOOD, _the English Traveller_

It is an incontrovertible fact, that the king of England, who least of all resembled a knight in his warlike character, was the one who surpassed all his brother sovereigns in his knightly spirit as a lover. I allude to James I. The godson of Charles IX. of France was in his childhood, what his godfather had never been, a dirty, droll boy. He is the only king who ever added an original remark to a royal speech set down for him to deliver. The remark in question was, probably, nearly as long as the speech, for James was but four years old when he gave utterance to it. He had been rolling about on the throne impishly watching, the while, the grim lords to whom he, ultimately, recited a prepared speech with great gravity and correctness. At the end of his speech, he pointed to a split in the tiled roof of the hall, or to a rent in the canopy of the throne, and announced to the lords and others present the indisputable fact, that “there was a hole in the parliament.”

The precocious lad passed no very melancholy boyhood in Stirling Castle, till the Raid of Ruthven took him from his natural protectors, and placed him in the hands of Gowrie. His escape thence exhibited both boldness and judgment in a youth of sixteen; and when Frederick II., of Denmark, gave him the choice of the two Danish princesses for a wife, no one thought that so gallant a king was undeserving of the compliment. When it was, however, discovered that the royal Dane required James either to accept a daughter or surrender the Orkney and Shetland islands, as property illegally wrested from Denmark, men began to look upon the Danish king as guilty of uncommonly sharp practice toward the sovereign of the Scots. A world of trouble ensued, which it is not my business to relate, although were I inclined to be discursive--which, of course, I am _not_--I might find great temptation to indulge therein, upon this very subject. Suffice it then to say, that a world of trouble ensued before James made his selection, and agreed to take, rather than prayed to have granted to him, the hand of Elizabeth, the elder daughter of Frederick II.

How the intrigues of Queen Elizabeth prevented this marriage I must not pause to relate. The Danish Princess espoused a reigning duke, and James was on the point of engaging himself to Katherine of Navarre, when the offer of the hand of Anne the younger daughter of Frederick being made to him, coupled with the alternative of his either taking Anne, or losing the islands, he “prayed and advised with God, for a fortnight,” and wisely resolved to wed with “pretty Anne.”

The matter progressed anything but smoothly for a time. At length, after endless vexations, the young princess was married by proxy, in August, 1589, and set sail, soon after, for Scotland under convoy of a dozen gallant ships, and with prospects of a very unpleasant voyage.

A terrible storm blew bride and convoy on to the inhospitable coast of Norway, and although two or three witches were executed for raising this storm out of very spite, the matter was not mended. Disaster pursued the fleet, and death overtook several who sailed in it, till the coast of Scotland was fairly in sight. The Scotch witches, or perhaps other causes not less powerful than witches, in those seas, in the fall of the year, then blew the fleet back to the mouth of the Baltic. “I was commissioned,” said Peter Munch, the admiral, “to land the young queen in Scotland; it is clear, therefore, that I can not return with her to Denmark. I will put her majesty ashore, therefore, in Norway.” The conclusion was not logically attained, but the fact was as we have described it. Letters reached James announcing to him the deplorable condition in which his queen was lying at Upslo, on the Norwegian coast--storm-bound and half-famished. After many projects considered for her relief, James resolved to set forth and seek the princess himself. It is in this passage of his life that we have an illustration of the degree in which he surpassed all other kings who have sat on the English throne--as a gallant knight _es amours_.

Toward the end of October, of this year, in the very stormiest portion of the season, James went, privately, on board a diminutive vessel, with a very reluctant party of followers and confederates, leaving behind him, for the information of the astonished lieges, a promise to be back in twenty days; and for their especial profit, a solemn exhortation to live peaceably till he arrived again among them, with his wife.

The knightly lover landed in Norway, early in November, and made his way along the coast, now on foot, now on horseback anon in sledges, and occasionally in boats or on shipboard, until with infinite pains, and in a sorry plight, he reached Upslo, to no one’s astonishment more than the queen’s, about the 19th of November. Accoutred and travel-soiled as he was, he proceeded at once to her presence. He was so well-pleased with the fair vision before him, that he made as if he would at once kiss the queen, who stood gazing at him. “It is not the form of my country,” said pretty Anne, not very violently holding her head aside. “It’s good old Scottish fashion,” said the young king: and it was observed that in less than an hour, Anne had fallen very completely into the pleasant mode from beyond seas, and quite forgotten the forms of Denmark.

The young couple were duly married in person, on the Sunday following the arrival of James. The latter, like any Paladin of romance, had perilled life, and contended with almost insurmountable obstacles, in order to win the royal lady after a less easy fashion than marks the wooing and wedding of kings generally. Such a couple deserved to have the merriest of marriage banquets, but while such a storm was raging without as Norway itself had never seen since the sea-wind first blew over her, such a tempest was raised within, by the Scottish nobles, on a question of precedence, that the king himself was chiefly occupied in soothing the quarrellers, and only half succeeded in accomplishing the desired end. Added to this was the prospect of a long winter among the melancholy huts of Upslo. James, however, again exhibited the spirit of a knight of more than ordinary gallantry. He not only resolved that the young queen should not be thus imprisoned amid the Norway snows till May, but he resolved to conduct her himself across the Norwegian Alps, through Sweden, to her Danish home. The idea of such a journey seemed to partake of insanity, but James proceeded to realize it, by means of method and judgment. He first performed the perilous journey alone, as far as Sweden, and finding it practicable, returned for his wife, and departed a second time, in her company. Much peril but small accident accompanied them on their way, and when the wedding party arrived safely at Cronenburg, toward the end of January, the marriage ceremony was not only repeated for the third time--to despite the witches who can do nothing against the luck that is said to lie in odd numbers, but there was a succession of marriage feasts, at which every gentleman drank deeper and deeper every day, until such uproar and dissension ensued that few kept their daggers in sheath except those who were too drunk to draw them. That all were not in the more disgraceful state, or were not continually in that condition, may be conjectured from the fact that James paid a visit to Tycho Brahe, and conversed with the astronomer in his observatory, in very vigorous Latin. The king, however, was not sorry to leave old Denmark, and when a Scottish fleet appeared off Cronenburg, to convey his bride and himself homeward, he could no more be persuaded to stay a day longer, than Tycho Brahe could be persuaded that Copernicus was correct in dislodging the earth from its Ptolemaic stand-point as centre of the solar system. The bridal party set sail on the 21st of April, 1590, and was safely moored in Leith harbor on May-day. A pretty bride could not have arrived at a more appropriate season. The royal knight and his lady deserved all the happiness that could be awarded to the gallantry of the one and the beauty of the other. But they did not escape the trials common to much less dignified couples; and here the knightly character of James may be said to terminate. Exemplary as he had been as a lover, and faithful as he continued to be as a husband, he was in all other respects, simply a shrewd man; and not indeed always _that_. There is little of this quality in a husband who begins and continues his married life with an indifference upon the matter of borrowing. With James it was silver spoons to-day, silk stockings to-morrow, and marks and moidores from any one who would give him credit. The old French knight who drank broth out of his own helmet rather than sip it from a borrowed bowl, was moved at least by a good principle. James rather agreed with Carlo Buffone, in Jonson’s “Every Man out of his Humor,” that “it is an excellent policy to owe much in these days.” A policy which, unfortunately, is still deemed excellent, in spite of the ruin which attends its practice.

The grave chivalry impressed on the face and features of Charles I., is strikingly alluded to by Ben Jonson in his Masque of “The Metamorphosed Gypsies;” for example:--

“His brow, his eye, and ev’ry mark of state,
As if he were the issue of each grace,
And bore about him _both his fame and fate_.”

Echard says of him, that he was perfect in all knightly exercises, “vaulting, riding the great horse, running at the ring, shooting with cross-bows, muskets, and sometimes great guns; that if sovereignty had been the reward of excellences in those arts, he would have acquired a new title to the crown, being accounted the most celebrated marksman, and the most perfect manager of the great horse, of any in the three kingdoms.”

It was with reference to the expression of the face, alluded to by Jonson, that Bernini the sculptor said, on executing the bust of Charles, that he had never seen any face which showed so much greatness, and withal such marks of sadness and misfortune. The knight, Sir Richard Bulstrode, tells us, that when the bust was being carried across Greenwich Park, it suffered, what Moore calls on another occasion, some “Tobit-like marks of patronage” from the sparrows. “It was wiped off immediately,” says Charles’s good knight--“but, notwithstanding all endeavors, it would not be gotten off, but turned into blood.” No chevalier in poetic romance meets with more threatening portent than the above.

The Scotch soldiers of fortune, at this period, were as good representatives as could be found of the old knight-errant. To them, Vittorio Siri imputes many of the misfortunes of the period. Some one tells of an old Scottish knight exclaiming, in a year of universal peace, “Lord, turn the world upside-down, that gentlemen may make bread of it.” So, for the sake of furthering their trade of arms, the Scottish, and, indeed, other mercenary men-at-arms, fanned the flame. The words of Siri are precise on this point, for he says, “Le Leslie, le Gordoni, le Duglas ed altri milordi della Scotia, del’ Inghilterra, e dell’ Irlanda.”

Never had knights of romance worse fare in the dungeons of morose magicians than they who entered the bloody lists, where was fought out the quarrel between royalty and republicanism. “I heard a great officer say,” remarks Blount, “that during the siege of Colchester, he dined at an entertainment, where the greatest delicacies were roast horseflesh.”

The warlike spirit was, probably, never stronger than in this reign. It is well illustrated by Hobbes, who remarks that, the Londoners and citizens of other county capitals, who fought against Charles, “had that in them which, in time of battle, is more conducing to victory, than valor and experience both together; and that was _spite_.”

But it is as a lover that Charles I. is chiefly distinguished when we consider him solely to discover his knightly qualities. In his early days he was strongly impressed by romance, and possessed of romantic feelings. This fact is best illustrated by his conduct in connection with the Spanish Match; and to this matter we will devote a brief space, and go back to the time when James was king, and Charles was Prince of Wales.

THE SPANISH MATCH.

This unhappy and ill-advised affair, will ever remain one of the darkest blemishes on the uniformly pacific but inglorious reign of the royal pupil of Buchanan;--the whole detail is an ungrateful one of intrigue and ill-faith, and however justly Buckingham may be accused of exerting his baleful influence to dissolve the treaty, and that he did so in the wantonness of his power is now past doubt; the disgrace which should have attached to him, still hangs round the memory of the timid king and his weak yet gallantly-disposed son. I am more inclined to allow a high-mindedness of feeling to Charles than to his father. The king, who supposed the entire art of reigning lay in dissimulation, may not be charged with an over-scrupulous nicety in his observations of the rules of fair dealing; but the young prince, at this period, had the sentiments without the vanity of a knight-errant, his only error was in the constitutional weakness which bent to the arrogance of Buckingham’s somewhat stronger mind. With such a disposition, the favorite found it as easy to persuade Charles to break off the match, as he had with facility advised him to the romantic journey--as rash as it was impolitic. It would be almost an unprofitable occupation to search for Buckingham’s motives, they are quite unattainable, and, like hunting the hare in a wagon, conjecture might lead us on, but we should, at every step, be farther from our object. It is the received opinion, that the prince’s visit was begun in caprice; and with caprice it ended. Buckingham viewed it, perhaps, at first as a mere adventure, and he terminated it, because his wounded pride suggested to him that _he_ was not the favorite actor in the piece. His terms were, “Ego et rex meus,” and a less-distinguished station would not satisfy the haughty insolence of Somerset’s succession in the precarious favor of the king.

Our British Solomon who willed, but could not restore, the Palatinate to his son-in-law, had long been accustomed to consider the union of Charles with the Infanta, as the only available means left by which he could secure the object he had so much at heart. He was not made of the stern stuff, which in other kings would have set a whole army in motion. That “sagacious simpleton” was never in so turbulent a vein. His most powerful weapon was an ambassador, and the best of these were but sad specimens of diplomacy, and thus, weak as he was, both in the cabinet and field, we may guess at his rapture when the marriage was agreed to by the Court of Spain--the restoration of the Palatinate talked of as a wedding present, and the bride’s dowry two millions of eight.

It was at the expiration of five years of negotiation, that James at length saw the end of what had hitherto been an ever-continuing vista. The dispensation of the Pope, an indispensable preliminary to the union of a Most Catholic princess, with a Protestant heir-apparent, had been held up as a difficulty; James immediately loosened the reins with which he had held in the Catholic recusants--he set them at liberty, for the good of the reformed religion, _he said_; then apologized to his subjects for having so set them at liberty--for the benefit of Protestantism; and finally, he exulted in having accomplished so honorable an end for England, as making her the first to enter the path of moderation. He, moreover, sent to Spain, Digby, the good and great Lord Bristol, and while _he_ was negotiating with Philip IV., the Infanta’s brother, George Gage, “a polite and prudent gentleman,” was employed at Rome to smooth down the obstacles which the zeal of the Fourteenth Gregory raised in behalf of his mother-church. The parties were a long time at issue as to what period the presumed offspring of this marriage should remain under the guardianship of their mother; that is to say, under the Catholic tuition of her confessors. The period of “fourteen years,” was suggested by the Pope, and agreed to by the Court of Spain. Now, George Gage, we are told, was both polite and prudent; George made some slight objection. The father of the faithful and the descendant of Roderic now named twelve years as the stipulated period of maternal or ecclesiastical rule. Mr. Gage, without losing sight of his prudence, retained all his civility; he treated the Pope courteously. Gregory, in return, granted the dispensation, condescended even to agree to the term of nine years, and merely asked a few privileges for the Catholic suite of the Infanta, which were not hard to grant, and would have been impolitic to refuse. James’s advisers counselled him to demand the restitution of the Palatinate by a preliminary treaty. This he wisely refrained from doing; he saw that his desired object was considered inseparable from the marriage, and he was content to trust to the existing treaty which, probably, would not have been changed, had he so expressed his wish. There is a curious item in all these diplomatic relations; beside the public treaty there were various private articles, passed between and signed by the parties concerned, agreeing that more toleration should be granted to the papists, and that more of the penal laws against them should be repealed than was expressed in the public document. There appears also to have existed a yet more private treaty, of even more restricted circulation, whereby James was not to be required to act up to the very letter of that article, by which his royal word pledged what was then considered--emancipation to the Catholics.

Thus far had proceeded this tedious affair of state; the nation was beginning to consider its accomplishment with diminished aversion, and a few months would have brought a Spanish Princess of Wales to England, when all this goodly and fair-wrought edifice was destroyed by the temerity of the man who was the evil spirit of the age. Charles’s youth and inexperience readily lent a willing ear to the glowing description which Buckingham recounted of the celebrated journey. His young melancholy was excited into cheerfulness, when he dwelt on the hoped-for and surprised rapture with which his destined bride would receive a prince whose unusual gallantry spurned at the laws of political interest, and whose chivalric feeling had broken through state negotiation, and, despising to woo by treaty, had brought him to her feet to win her by his merits. His blood warmed at the popularity he would acquire by such a step, from a nation famed for its knightly devotion to the fair, and whose watch-word, according to one of its poets, has ever been, “love and the ladyes.” Charles would have been a dull lover, indeed, had he only, like other princes, thought his bride not worth the fetching. He would have been doubly dull and undeserving had he paused to consider the bearings, the risks, or the probable absurdity of the act. There was a certain political danger; but Charles, young, and a lover, refused to see it; he was tearing the bonds which might bind more ignoble princes, but were too weak to confine him; he rent the shackles which proxies force on their principals, and stood in his own princely strength to win a prize which has often lost the world.

The only step subsequent to the prince’s acquiescence, was to obtain the king’s permission, a matter of little difficulty. They attacked the good-natured and simple James at a moment when his jovial humor would not have denied a greater boon. He had sense, however, to see something of the impropriety of the absence of Charles and Buckingham from England; but his obtusity of intellect was overpowered by the craft of his favorite, and the petitioners at length obtained his unadvised sanction to the wild enterprise, less by the strength of their arguments, than the persisting urgency of its expression. The prince and his companion further obtained a promise of secrecy; and they saw nothing more wanting than the ordinary preparations for their departure. Left to his own reflections, however, the poor king reproached his own weakness; he saw with terror that his subjects would not readily forgive him for committing so invaluable a pledge into the hands of a Catholic sovereign, who might detain Charles in order to enforce new exactions or demands; and with equal terror he saw that even success could not possibly justify the means; for there was no advantage to be obtained, and no unprejudiced censurer would consider the freak otherwise than as one played for the gratification of the will of the duke, and of an enthusiastic prince, whose abstract idea of chivalrous love had overcome his character for prudence.

There ensued, on the return of Charles and Buckingham to the royal presence for despatches, a melancholy scene. There were the objurgations and schoolboy blubbering of the monarch, the insolent imperiousness of the favorite, and the silent tears and submission of the prince. The audacious threats of the duke wrung from James the assent which Buckingham required--a second permission for their journey. A knight, Sir Francis Cottington, the prince’s secretary, and Endymion Porter, a gentleman of the bedchamber, were selected as the attendants of the Prince. The duke was, however, also to be accompanied by his master of the horse, a man of knight’s degree, Sir Richard Graham. There was a recapitulation of the crying scene when the two former gentlemen were appointed, for Sir Francis boldly pointed out the danger of the proceeding. Charles’s countenance showed his displeasure; but Buckingham was completely carried away by his overwhelming passion. James cried, the duke swore, and the king had nothing left to do, but to wish them God speed on their amorous and knight-errant mission.

There is a work, known to many and read by few, the “Epistolæ Howelianæ,” consisting of a collection of familiar letters on many subjects, by a certain James Howell. The author was a cadet of a noble family, several members of which had been on the roll of knighthood. He pushed his fortunes with all the vigor of an aspiring younger brother. His letters exhibit him as agent to a glass factory at Vienna--a tutor--a companion--a clerk--secretary to an embassy--agent again, and finally an attaché to the privy council. Master Howell, in these epistles, continually rings the changes on the importance of attending to the main chance; bewails the stagnation which non-employment throws round his fortunes; or congratulates himself on the progress they are making, through his industry. At the period of Charles’s visit to Madrid, he was agent there for the recovery of a vessel taken by unlawful seizure, and he contemplates the prince’s arrival with delight, viewing him as a powerful adjunct to his cause. He complains bitterly of the prince as showing more condescension to the needy Spanish poor, than politeness to the accredited agent of an English company. The agent’s honor or ruin depended on the success of his mission, hence good Master Howell is occasionally and ill at ease. The success of his mission, too, hung upon the happy termination of the match; a marriage he considers as the avant-courier of his appointments, but should some unlucky reverse prevent the end he hopes for, why then, to use one of the worshipful agent’s most favorite figures of speech--then “my cake is dough.” His letters are the chief authority for what follows.

It is quite consistent with the whole character of this drama, that the journey should be prosecuted through France. Charles and his suite travelled incognito it is true, but Buckingham was rash enough to introduce the prince at a court-ball in Paris, where he perhaps saw and admired the lovely Henrietta Maria. From the gay court of France the errant company speedily decamped, hurried rapidly toward the south, and crossed the frontier just in time to escape the strong arm of the governor of Bayonne, stretched out to arrest their progress.

On Friday the 7th of March, 1623, Charles and his attendants arrived at Madrid, under the guise of very homely personages. Buckingham took a name which has since served to cover a fugitive king of the French--that of (Thomas) Smith, and therewith he entered Bristol’s mansion, “’twixt the gloaming and the murk,” with a portmanteau under his arm, while Charles waited on the other side of the street, not as the Prince of Wales, but as Thomas Smith’s brother, John. Lord Bristol did not allow the son of his monarch to remain long in such a situation. Charles was conducted to the house, and on being ushered into a bedchamber, he immediately asked for writing materials, and despatched a messenger to his father, announcing his safe arrival in the Spanish capital. Cottington and Porter arrived the next day; and even so soon as this, a report was spreading through the city that James himself was in Madrid. On the evening of Saturday, Buckingham went privately to court, in his own person, and told the tale of the adventures of the knight to whom he had acted as squire. The delight of all parties was intense. Olivarez accompanied Buckingham on his return to the prince, to express how immeasurably glad his Catholic majesty was at his coming. This proud minister, who was the contemporary, and perhaps the equal, of Richelieu, knelt and kissed the prince’s hand, and “hugged his thighs,” says Mr. Howell, like a slave as he was. Gondomar, too, hastened to offer his respects and congratulations to the young prince. At ten that night, too, came the most distinguished as he was the most desired visiter: Philip himself appeared in generous haste to welcome the person and thank the noble confidence of his almost brother-in-law. The meeting of the parties appears to have been unaffected and cordial. After the salutations and divers embraces which passed in the first interview, _they parted late_. The stern severity of Spanish etiquette would not permit of Charles’s introduction to the Infanta, and it was accordingly arranged that the princess should appear in public on Sunday, and the prince meet her on the Prado, just as the knight Guzman sees Inez, in the ancient ballad. In the afternoon of the eventful day, the whole court, neglecting for the occasion all sumptuary laws, appeared in all its bravery. Philip, his queen, two brothers, and the Infanta, were together in one carriage, and the princess, the cynosure of attraction, scarcely needed the blue riband which encircled her arm, as a sign by which Charles might distinguish her. The knightly lover, who had experienced some difficulty in making his way through the exulting multitude, who threw up their caps and cried “God bless him,” was in waiting, with his diminutive court and Count Gondomar, to view the defiling of the procession. The royal carriage approached, and as the eyes of the princess first rested on her destined lord, she blushed deeply, “which,” adds the calculating Mr. Howell, “we hold to be an impression of love and affection, for the face is oftentimes a true index of the heart.” The Infanta, at this period, was only sixteen and tall for her age--“a very comely lady,” says the agent, “rather of a Flemish complexion than Spanish, fair-haired, and carried a most pure mixture of red and white in her face: she is full and big-lipped, which is held as beauty rather than a blemish.”

Charles was now honored with a complete court establishment and apartments in the palace; there was revelry in camp and city; and the gallantry of the journey so touched this high-minded people, that they declared the beautiful bride ought to have been made Charles’s immediate reward. Gayety was at every heart and poesy, in the person of Lope de Vega, celebrated “the Stuart,” and “Marie, his star.” In all the festivals and carousals at court, Charles was not once permitted to approach “his star.” The royal family sat together under a canopy, but there was ever some unwelcome intervener between the lovers, and the prince was compelled to satisfy his ardent soul with gazing. The worthy English agent records that he has seen him “have his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half-an-hour together, in a thoughtful, speculative posture, which,” he sagaciously adds, “would needs be tedious unless affection did sweeten it.” It was on one of these occasions that Olivarez, with less poetic truth than energy of expression, said that Charles watched her _as a cat does a mouse_.

Whatever outward respect Charles may have voluntarily offered to the prejudices and observances of Spanish ceremony, he, and perhaps the blushing Infanta, thought it very cumbersome love-work for young hearts. Words had passed between them, it is true, but only through the medium of an interpreter, and always in the presence of the king, for Philip “sat hard by, to overhear all,” and understand if he could, the interpretations made by Lord Bristol.

Weary of this restraint, the prince soon found means, or rather an opportunity, to break through the pompous obstacles which opposed the good old plan of love-making, and he, with Endymion Porter to attend him, did not fail to profit by the occasion. Near the city, but across the river, the king had a summer-house, called Casa di Campo. Charles discovered that the Infanta was accustomed to go very often of a morning to gather May-dew. The knight and esquire, accordingly, donning a silken suit for a spring morning, went out betimes, and arrived without let or hindrance at the Casa di Campo. Their quality was a sure passport, and doors, immovably closed to all others, opened to _them_. They passed through the house into the garden, but to their wonder and disappointment, the “light of love” was not visible. The Infanta had not arrived, or had fled, and disappointment seemed likely to be the probable reward of their labor. The garden was divided from an adjoining orchard by a high wall; the prince heard voices on the other side, perhaps heard _the_ voice, and hastened to a door which formed the only communication of the two divisions. To try this outlet was the work of a moment; to find it most vexatiously locked, was the conviction of the next. The lover was at bay, and Endymion’s confused brain had no resource to suggest. They looked at the wall. It was high, undoubtedly; but was ever such a barrier too high for a king’s son--a knight and a gallant, when it stood between him and such a “star” as the muse of De Vega made of the Infanta? Charles was on the summit of the wall almost as soon as the thought of climbing it had first struck him; with the same eagerness he sprang lightly down on the other side, and hastily made toward the object of his temerity. Unfortunately there was an old “duenna” of a marquis with her in quality of guardian, and the Infanta, who perchance expected to see the intruder, was constrained, for the sake of appearances, to scream with well-dissembled terror. “She gave a shriek and ran back.” Charles followed, but the grim marquis interfered his unwelcome person between the lovers. “Turning to the prince, he fell on his knees, conjuring his highness to retire;” he swore by his head, that if he admitted the prince to the company of the Infanta, he, the grisly guardian of the dove, might pay for it with his head. As the lady, meanwhile, had fled, and did not return, Charles was not obdurate. Maria, though she had escaped (because seen) could not but be pleased with the proof he had given of his devotion, and as the old marquis continued to talk of his head, the prince, whose business lay more with the heart, turned round and walked slowly away. He advanced toward the door, the portal was thrown open, and thus, as Mr. Howell pithily says, “he came out under that wall over which he had got in.” Endymion was waiting for him, and perhaps for his story, but the knight was sad, and his squire solemn. Charles looked an embodying of the idea of gloom, and Master Porter, with some ill-will, was compelled to observe a respectful silence.

The Infanta and her governor hurried back to the palace, while her suitor and his followers were left to rail in their thoughts against the caprice of the ladies, and the reserve of royal masters; and so ends a pretty story of “how a princess went to gather May-dew.”

This solitary and unsuccessful love-passage was the last effort which Charles made to engage the good-will of Maria. He, at once, retired to his apartments in the palace; whence he seldom went abroad, except for the purpose of attending a bull-fight. Buckingham was sick a-bed, his offended nobility lay ill-disposed at court, and the palace residence was gradually becoming irksome to all parties. Charles could only have bedchamber prayers, and not possessing a room where he might have attended the service of his own church, the sacred plate and vestments he had brought over were never used. Moreover, the Knights of the Garter, Lords Carlisle and Denbigh, had well nigh set the palace on fire, through leaving their lighted pipes in a summer-house. The threatened mischief, however, was prevented by the activity of Master Davies, my Lord of Carlisle’s barber, who “leapt down a great height and quenched it.” Perhaps a more unfortunate accident than this, in the eyes of a Catholic population, was a brawl within the royal precinct between Ballard, an English priest, and an English knight, Sir Edmund Varney. The prince had a page named Washington, lying mortally ill; to save his soul the anxious priest hastened to the death-bed of the page; here, however, he met Sir Edmund, an unflinching pillar of the English church. An unseemly scene ensued; and while knight and priest passed from words to blows, the poor suffering page silently died, and soon after was consigned to the earth under a fig-tree in Lord Bristol’s Garden.

In the meantime, the Princess Infanta was publicly addressed as Princess of Wales, and as an acquaintance with the English language was a possession much to be desired by the bearer of so proud a title, the Lady Maria began “_her accidence_,” and turned her mind to harsh declensions and barbarous conjugations. Though enthusiasm had somewhat cooled, the business continued to proceed; the most serious interruption was occasioned by the death of the Pontiff, as it entailed many of the ensuing obstacles which at once began to rise. The unfinished work of Gregory was thought to require a _da capo_ movement from his successor Urban, and the new Hierarch commenced a string of objections and proposals, which were of no other effect than to produce mistrust and delay. Buckingham too, recovering from his sickness, longed to return to England, where it was now understood that the Pope’s tardiness was founded on hopes of the prince’s conversion. The people of England were alarmed and clamorous. Charles and the duke discontented and impatient. The latter urged a return, and the prince, in expressing his wishes to Philip, stated as his reasons, his father’s age and infirmities, the murmurs of his people, and the fact that a fleet was at sea to meet him. He added, a most close argument, that the articles which had been signed in England bore, as a proviso, that if he did not return by a specified month, they should be of no validity. It honorably belied the suspicions against the Spanish Cabinet, that not the slightest opposition was made to the return; proxies were named, and on the termination of affairs with the Pope, Maria was to follow Charles to England. The lady is said to have remarked, that if she was not worth waiting for she was not worth having. Charles must have felt the remark, but the duke was paramount, and the wind, which favored their departure, as speedily blew away the popularity of a prince whose knightly bearing, modest gallantry, and high virtues, so particularly formed him for the favorite of a romantic nation. The treaty for the Spanish match was broken.

The secret history of the French match possesses an equal interest with that of the Spanish; but Charles only wrote to his bride on this occasion, and met her, on her way to him, at Canterbury.

As a further instance of the chivalrous gallantry of Charles I., it deserves to be recorded, that he it was who suggested a revival of the custom of inviting the ladies to participate in the honors of the Garter. I have elsewhere said, that at one time, the ladies were regularly admitted, but nothing is known as to when this gallant custom was first introduced. Dr. Barrington, in his excellent “Lectures on Heraldry,” says, that “in the earliest notice of the habit of the order having been issued to the ladies, immediately after the accession of Richard II.,” they are said to have been “newly received into the Society of the Garter,” and were afterward called “Ladies of the Fraternity of St. George.” Who were admitted to this distinguished order, or how long the practice continued, does not appear, though it is probable it had fallen into disuse in the time of Henry VIII. Charles remained content with merely suggesting the revival of the custom, and “nothing,” says Dr. Barrington, “seems to have been done to carry this suggestion into effect. If any one period,”--adds the doctor, most appropriately--“if any one period were more fit than another for doing it, it must surely be the present, when a _lady_ is the sovereign of the order.”

THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS.

FROM STUART TO BRUNSWICK.

Charles II. loved the paraphernalia of courts and chivalry. He even designed to create two new orders of knighthood--namely “the Knights of the Sea,” a naval order for the encouragement of the sea-service; and “the Knights of the Royal Oak,” in memory of his deliverance, and for the reward of civil merit. He never went much farther than the intention. He adopted the first idea at another’s suggestion, and straightway thought no more of it. The second originated with himself, and a list of persons was made out, on which figured the names of the intended knights. The matter never went further.

At Charles’s coronation, the knights of the Bath were peculiarly distinguished for their splendor. They were almost too gorgeously attired to serve as waiters, and carry up, as they did the first course to the king’s own table, at the coronation banquet, after a knight of the Garter had been to the kitchen and had eaten a bit of the first dish that was to be placed before his Sacred Majesty.

If the king was fond of show, some at least of his knights, shared in the same feeling of vanity. The robes in recent times were worn only on occasions of ceremony and service. The king revived a fashion which his knights followed, and which sober people (who were not knights) called a ridiculous humor. They were “so proud of their coats,” as the expression went, that they not only wore them at home, but went about in them, and even rode about the park with them on. Mr. Pepys is particularly indignant on this matter especially so, when told that the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Oxford were seen, “in a hackney-coach, with two footmen in the park with their robes on; which,” adds the censor, “is a most scandalous thing, so as all gravity may be said to be lost, among us.” There was more danger of what Pepys calls “gravity” being lost, when the Order, at command of the Sovereign head, elected such men as the Elector of Saxony, who had no other distinction but that of being a good drinker.

I do not know what the rule now may be in St. George’s Chapel, but in the reign of Charles II., a singular regulation is noticed by Pepys. He went in good company to the royal chapel, where he was placed, by Dr. Childe, the organist, “among the knights’ stalls, and pretty the observation,” he adds, “that no man, but a woman, may sit in a knight’s place, where any brass plates are set.” What follows is also, in some degree, germane to our purpose. “Hither come cushions to us, and a young singing boy to bring us a copy of the anthem to be sung. And here, for our sakes, had this anthem and the great service sung extraordinary, only to entertain us. Great bowing by all the people, the poor knights particularly, toward the altar.”