Chapter II (1)

INDISPOSITION OF THE DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM--THE KING’S REGARD FOR
HER AND HER CHILD--ARCHBISHOP LAUD’S ENCOMIUM ON HER
CHARACTER--QUEEN ANNE’S CHAIN PRESENTED TO THE DUCHESS OF
LENNOX--EFFRONTERY OF THE COUNTESS OF BUCKINGHAM--THE DUKE’S
DEPORTMENT ON HIS RETURN FROM SPAIN--MORE DIGNITIES CONFERRED
UPON HIM--KING JAMES AND THE CLERGY--THE ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR
THE PERFORMANCE OF DIVINE SERVICE IN SPAIN--PUBLIC PREJUDICE
AGAINST THE SPANISH MATCH--THE WALLINGFORD HOUSE CABAL PRONOUNCE
IN FAVOUR OF A FRENCH ALLIANCE--POPULAR INDIGNATION AGAINST THE
SPANISH AMBASSADOR--COMPETITION FOR PRECEDENCE BETWEEN THE
AMBASSADORS OF FRANCE AND SPAIN--CHARACTER OF THE LORD KEEPER
WILLIAMS--HIS OPPOSITION TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF BUCKINGHAM--THE
COUNTESS OF BUCKINGHAM EMBRACES THE CATHOLIC FAITH--CONTROVERSY
BETWEEN THE DEAN OF CARLISLE AND THE JESUIT FISHER--BREACH
BETWEEN BUCKINGHAM AND WILLIAMS--THE KING MANIFESTS HIS
DISPLEASURE WITH BUCKINGHAM--THE SPANISH COURT AND THE ENGLISH
ALLIANCE--CONDUCT OF THE INFANTA AFTER THE DEPARTURE OF
CHARLES--PREPARATIONS FOR THE MARRIAGE--A COMMISSION APPOINTED
TO INQUIRE INTO THE CONDITIONS OF THE SPANISH TREATY--THE LORD
KEEPER IN FAVOUR WITH THE KING--PARLIAMENT COUNSELS JAMES TO
BREAK THE TREATY WITH SPAIN--POPULAR REJOICINGS, AND
DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE CATHOLIC PARTY--THE ILLNESS OF
BUCKINGHAM--PAINFUL ILLUSTRATION OF THE BIGOTED SPIRIT OF THE
AGE--INOJOSA ACCUSES BUCKINGHAM OF TREACHERY AGAINST THE
KING--THE PROPHECY OF GAMALIEL GRUYS--GENERAL DESIRE FOR WAR
WITH SPAIN--PROPOSED ALLIANCE OF PRINCE CHARLES WITH HENRIETTA
MARIA OF FRANCE--RESTORATION OF BUCKINGHAM TO THE KING’S FAVOUR.

=CHAPTER II.=

Buckingham had now returned to a house where more sources of real happiness awaited him than fall usually to the lot of the busy courtier and statesman. One drawback to his felicity, one stimulant to his return, had been the serious indisposition of the Duchess of Buckingham. Her uneasiness during her husband’s absence, her vexation at the rumours which prevailed to his disadvantage, and, above all, the doubts of his fidelity which embittered their separation, had produced that condition which the physicians of the day generalized under the name of “melancholy.”

Under these circumstances, the kindness of heart which formed part of King James’s character, unaccompanied as it was with dignity or judgment, was manifested, and, at the same time, he evinced his lively and unabated regard for Buckingham. An affection cannot be deemed wholly selfish which shows itself to those who are beloved by its object. James’s compassion for the Duchess, the fatherly interest he took in her, and his continual acts of favour to her child, elevate the character of his preference for Buckingham. It has been the practice of historians to ridicule as a weakness the good-nature of this monarch; but those who felt its effect forgot, probably, the absurdity of its mode of manifestation in the benevolent impulses of the royal heart.

The “poor fool Kate,” as the King entitled the Duchess of Buckingham, met with incessant consideration on small and great points from His Majesty. During the year previous to the journey into Spain, the Duchess (then Marchioness) had given birth to another daughter; the King stood sponsor to the infant, and gave her the name of Jacobina. During the young mother’s illness, James testified the greatest anxiety, and “prayed heartily” for her; calling at Wallingford House, where she was, several times a day to inquire after her health.[51] The child eventually died; and James was the more confirmed in his parental fondness for the Lady Mary Villiers, whom he usually denominated his grandchild, on the principle that her father was to him as a son. And now “my sweete Steenie” was the chief object of the King’s interest and gossip; he wrote from Whitehall to the Duke, in Spain:--"I must give thee a short account of many things. First, Kate and thy sister (the Countess of Denbigh) supped with me on Saturday last, and yesterday bothe dined and supped with me, and so shall do still, with God’s grace, as long as I am here; and my little grandchild, with her four teeth, is, God be thanked, well weaned, and they are all very merry." [52]

Footnote 51:

State Papers. Domestic. March 30, 1622, vol. cxxviii., No. 96.

Footnote 52:

Birches’s MSS., 4174.

The Marchioness dined, during her convalescence, in the bed-chamber of the King, who gave a diamond chain, worth 3,500_l._, with his picture, to the Duchess of Lennox, for having “made broths and caudles” for the Marchioness during her illness.[53]

Footnote 53:

State Papers, vol. cxxix., No. 92.

The Duchess had, it appeared, informed His Majesty of a domestic arrangement, all important to the mother and infant, but not usually deemed an affair such as royalty might condescend to take account of, or be a matter for an elderly pedant, like King James, to decide. “I hope my Lord Arran,” she wrote to the King, “has told your Majesty that I mean to wean Moll very shortly. I would not by any means do it till I had made your Majesty acquainted with it; so I intend to make trial this very night how she will endure it.”[54] “Little Moll,” who afterwards married successively three times, is mentioned frequently in the domestic correspondence of the day.[55]

Footnote 54:

Nichols, p. 843; from papers in the Advocate’s Library, Edinburgh.

Footnote 55:

Harleian, vol. 6987.

James’s regard for the Duchess was also shown in another way. When the Duke applied to His Majesty for jewels, his young wife, scarcely twenty years of age, was eager to part with baubles which were so precious in the eyes of others, in order to advance Buckingham’s interest, and enhance his splendour at the Spanish Court. The King could hardly bear that his favourite should accept her generosity. “And now,” he wrote, "my sweet Steenie gossip, that the poor fool Kate hath also sent thee her pearl chain, which, by chance, I saw in a box in Frank Steward’s hand, I hope I need not to conjure thee not to give any of her jewels away there, for thou knowest what necessary use she will have of them at your return here, besides that it is not lucky to give away anything that I have given her."[56] In his correspondence, James never forgot the Duchess. “This,” he says, addressing Buckingham, “is the sixt time I have written to you two, five to Kate, two to Su (the Countess of Denbigh), and one to thy mother, Steenie, all with my own hands.”[57] In presents of provisions he was considerate of her comfort, and so lavish that the Duke was wont to call his Majesty his “man-purveyor.”

Footnote 56:

Nichols, 850.

Footnote 57:

Nichols, from Harleian MSS., 6987.

Like a good wife, the Duchess appears to have occupied herself, during the absence of her husband, in maintaining and improving Newhall and Burleigh, places in which the Duke felt a lively interest, and his mother participated in these exertions without any of that petty jealousy of interference being exhibited, which a less amiable mind than that of the Duchess might have disturbed.

“For Burley,” she writes word, “I hear the wall is not very forward yet, and my lady” (the Countess) “bid me send you word that she is gone down to look how things are there. She says she is about making a littel river to run through the park. It will be about sixteen feet broad; but she says she wants money.”[58]

Footnote 58:

State Papers, vol. cxi., No. 13.

In all her letters to the Duke, the warmest affection is expressed by his wife; and she seems to have justified the encomiums of Archbishop Laud, who enters her name in his diary, as “that excellent lady, who is goodness itself.”[59]

Footnote 59:

Laud’s Diary.

In the concerns of his mother, the Duke found much dissatisfaction. In June, 1622, the Countess of Buckingham received a hint to stay away from Court on account of the Progress, but really on account of her professing the Roman Catholic faith, or rather, perhaps, as a punishment for a little Court intrigue, relative to the Duchess of Lennox. When the ambassador from the Emperor of Austria took leave, it was thought necessary to bestow some jewel upon him as a mark of royal favour. James commanded one to be brought to him; it proved to be a chain which had belonged to Queen Anne, and which was worth three thousand pounds. James thought it too valuable for the ambassador, and refused to give it, saying, “wherein hath he deserved so much at my hands?” Prince Charles, hearing this, suggested that the chain should be bestowed on the Duchess of Lennox, who had received no present since her marriage. An assent was given; and the Prince undertook to carry the gift to her Grace. He put it round his own neck, and, taking it thence, presented it to the Duchess. This was regarded as so unusual an act of respect, that the Countess of Buckingham could not hear of it unmoved. Relying upon the unbounded favour of the King to her son, she took upon herself to send for the jewel back again the next day, saying it was required for a particular purpose, and that it should be requited with a gift equally costly. The Duchess of Lennox, astonished, questioned the messenger, who confessed that the Countess had sent him. The truth was then disclosed; of course, the Duchess was highly indignant; she sent back the messenger with this answer, that since the Prince had brought it to her, it should be taken back by no hand but her own; accordingly, on the following day, she went with the chain in her hand to the King, desiring to know how she had offended His Majesty. The King, when he comprehended the matter, swore that he was abused, and the Prince burst into a passion of anger, and declared that if the Countess of Buckingham stayed in the Court he would leave it. This story has been in some particulars, however, discredited, for several good reasons; but it may be regarded as characteristic of those to whom it refers; and as exemplifying the unbounded effrontery attributed to the mother of the Favourite.[60]

Footnote 60:

Harleian MSS., 389.--See Nichols, 1113, note.

A change was observed to have taken place in the deportment of Buckingham almost immediately on his return from Spain. He became affable, and, therefore, “suddenly and strangely gracious among the multitude,” so that, as Sir Henry Wotton expresses it, “he did seem for a time to have overcome that natural incompatibility which, in the experience of all ages, hath ever been noted between the vulgar and the sovereign favour. But this was no more than a meer bubble or blast, and like an ephemeral bit of applause, as eftsoon will appear in the sequel and train of his life.”[61]

Footnote 61:

Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, 219.

Shortly after his return from Spain, fresh honours were added to those with which Buckingham had been so richly endowed. The King, it was observed, had now grown into “an habitual and confirmed custom” of loading his favourite with benefits; and the Duke was, accordingly, made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Steward of the Manor of Hampton Court; “dignities and offices,” says Sir Henry Wotton, “still growing out of trust and profit.”

But this apparent prosperity was alloyed by many difficulties, and shaken by cabals, some stimulated by direst foes, others induced by hollow allies; and the career of the Favourite, like that of all the fortunate, began to be embittered and precarious.

There required, indeed, much condescension and courtesy to soften the exasperated feeling of the people against the promoter of the Spanish match. The pulpits, far from being “tuned” to its praise, were continually clamouring against the alliance.

There were strange signs of the times when, notwithstanding the almost absolute dominion of the Crown, it was found necessary to issue orders that the sanctity of the royal presence, and the dignity of the Privy Council should not be lowered by persons coming in booted and spurred--forbidding them also to go into chapel in that guise, and ordering them to remain uncovered during the services.[62] In former days, James, as well as Elizabeth, had demanded an almost degrading respect; but the habits of the monarch had long since brought even royalty into contempt.

Footnote 62:

State Papers, Domestic, vol. cxxxvii., p. 5.

Accordingly, his influence over the pulpits had also decreased. James could not now control his impatience and petulance; even when listening to a sermon on Christmas-day, from the Bishop of London, the King, displeased at its length, talked so loud that the prelate was obliged to end abruptly. Urgent measures were taken to curb the taste for controversial sermons; and none below bachelors of divinity were henceforth to be allowed to preach them; for the Spanish match, and favour to recusants, were the great themes, especially when the King, on the plea that Protestants might find more freedom abroad, if there were more toleration here, released all Jesuits, priests, and persons refusing the oath of supremacy, who happened then to be in prison.[63] “Wise men,” wrote one courtier to another, his kinsman, “are troubled, and betake themselves to prayers, rather than inquiry.”[64] The clergy, meantime, had been ordered to pray for the Prince’s prosperous journey and safe return; but one stiff-necked preacher prayed “that God would be merciful to him now that he was going to the House of Rinmon.”[65]

Footnote 63:

State Papers, vol. cxxxix., No. 91.

Footnote 64:

Ibid, vol. cxxxviii., No. 9; Dudley Carleton to Sir Dudley Carleton.

Footnote 65:

Ibid, vol. cxxxii., No. 64.

The King had, however, before Charles’s departure, given sensible and stringent instructions to the two chaplains who were to attend on the Prince, with regard to the reverential performance of divine service whilst in Spain. They were to preach “Christ crucified, and the doctrines of the English Church,” but not to indulge in polemical discourses or in controversy. They might take with them Prayer-books, articles of religion, and the King’s works.[66] At a later period, however, this was altered, and the Prince’s “servants and chaplains” were ordered to follow him with chapel furniture and Prayer-books in Latin; the service was to be in Latin, and the communion celebrated with wafer-cakes and wine and water; “but it will be to no purpose,” adds the writer of this news, “as the Spaniards will not go near them.” Dr. Hakluyt, the Prince’s former chaplain, had written a work against the Spanish match, calling the Spaniards idolaters, and had presented it to the Princes,[67] so that he was, it may be concluded, not among the “servants and chaplains,” who were thus, according to the spirit of the day, coupled together as forming a part of the Prince’s household.

Footnote 66:

State Papers, vol. cxxxix., No. 71.

Footnote 67:

Ibid, vol. cxxii., No. 88.

The prejudice against the Infanta, as a future Queen of England, continued to increase, nor was it confined to uneducated or bigoted persons. It was supposed that, whilst Buckingham was in Spain, he received secret advices, which convinced him that to steer his course in safety, it would be necessary to break off a treaty which the Puritanical party regarded as a compact with Popery. “There were those who,” says Bishop Hacket, “sent instructions into Spain, to adjure the Duke to do his best to prevent the espousals.” The reasons assigned were "God’s glory, and his own safety." "For God’s sake, keep our orthodox religion from the admixture of that superstition which threatened against the soundness of it. And no corrosive so good to eat out the corruption of Romish rottenness creeping on, as to give the Spaniard the dodge, and leave the daughter of Spain behind." Such were the counsels despatched by friends to the Duke.

Consultations of his adherents were now held at Wallingford House, to consider what would be the best way of promoting, not the interests of the nation, but his own personal advancement. James had, of late, become partial to parliaments, and was resolved to close the next very graciously. “Therefore,” observes Hacket, "the cabinet men at Wallingford House set upon it to consider by what exploit their lord should commence to be the ‘Darling of the Commons,’ and, as it were, to republicate his lordship, and to be precious to those who had the vogue to be lovers of their country." It was, therefore, determined to abandon the Spanish marriage, and to direct the attention of the country, and more especially the regard of the Prince, towards a daughter of France; and it was agreed that it would be for Buckingham’s interests that he should have the full credit of the newly projected alliance. From these considerations was the Spanish alliance thrown aside, with, it must be confessed, little regard to honour. Whether the evident disgust of the nation to the marriage formed sufficient plea for the crooked and complicated means which were taken to do away with a contract which had been so nearly brought to a conclusion, it remains for posterity to decide; contemporaries were divided by faction, not reason.

It was in vain, by the arbitrary acts employed, to suppress public opinion. The Earl of Oxford had been committed to the Tower for saying that he hoped the time would come when justice would be free, and not come only through Buckingham’s hands. This committal was an instance of the resolution at Court to crush all discussion. Gondomar, smooth to the great, was a perfect fury towards the small. The people had been indignant with him for having, before his return to Spain, struck a Scotsman with his fists, for saying that he had been ill-treated in Spain. The Scotsman, though he took the insult patiently, had been sent to prison.[68] These were but scanty specimens of the petty oppressions by which the voice of an aroused people was to be stopped. It was therefore time, Buckingham thought, to save himself, at all events, from the storm. Public hatred had been already shown when Don Diego, as Gondomar was called, passed through the city. The mob insulted him, and even threatened violence, “but none was used.” Three apprentices were, nevertheless, whipped at the cart’s tail for this slight to the Spanish ambassador, whilst the people looked, pitying, on; and those who executed the sentence incurred much popular abuse. James, who was at that time angry with all who differed from him, came from Theobald’s to London in a rage to reprove such disorders. He was pacified by the Recorder, and contented himself with private admonition to the Aldermen to punish such offenders. Another man was then whipped, and those who murmured at the sentence arrested.[69]

Footnote 68:

State Papers, vol. cxxix., No. 50. Domestic.

Footnote 69:

State Papers, vol. cxx., No. 71.

Steps were immediately taken to mark a difference between the conduct to be pursued to the Spanish and the French ambassadors; and Charles, having first proposed an audience to the Marquis of Inojosa, granted it, under circumstances not very flattering. The Spanish ambassadors, having repaired to Theobald’s, returned not so well “satisfied as they ought” to be. They endeavoured, but in vain, to procure an audience of the King without the presence of the Duke; but finding that impossible, they became disposed to arraign his conduct in the marriage before his face.[70]

Footnote 70:

Nichols, 945.

The public, meantime, could not fail to interpret the real temper of the King’s Council by circumstances apparently trivial. In the course of the winter, there arrived from France a nobleman skilled in falconry, with a present of fifteen or sixteen cast-off hawks, some ten or twelve horses, and the same number of setters. He was accompanied by a numerous train, splendidly accoutred, and made his entry into London by torchlight. He was to remain until he had instructed the people in the kind of falconry in which he excelled, he and his troop costing the King from twenty-five to thirty pounds daily. Under this guise, probably, some political mission was couched; for James, although now fast declining, braved the advice of his physicians, and travelled to Newmarket on purpose to see these foreign hawks fly. He had put off the masque on Twelfth Night, on account, as he had assigned, of his indisposition; but actually because of the competition about precedence between the French and Spanish ambassadors, who could not be accommodated in his presence.[71]

Footnote 71:

Ibid, 960.

Thus did every variation in Buckingham’s plans appear to prosper. That he could so work upon James’s mind as to obliterate from it the cherished scheme of years, seems, indeed, a marvellous effect of his influence. For his ingratitude in this matter to the King, who had entrusted to him, as the object next his heart, the completion of the Spanish treaty, the Duke has justly been blamed. Could he, as Bishop Hacket asks, be deemed “execrable in point of honour and conscience? Did he do it the best for the King? Did he think the Spanish alliance would be fruitful in nothing but miseries, and that it would be a thankful office to lurch the King in his expectation of it? Evil befall such double diligence!” “Or did this great lord do it for the best for himself? I believe it. If the hope of the match died away, he lookt to get the love of the most in England; but if it were made up, he lookt for many enemies, for he had lost the love of the best in Spain. Let the Duke have his deserved praise in other things, great and many, but let fidelity, loyalty, and thankfulness hide their face, and not look upon this action.”[72]

Footnote 72:

Life of Keeper Williams, 138.

The blame of this conduct was attributable, according to the same writer, more to those who worked upon the flexible temper of Buckingham than to his own wishes. But no one has a right to throw off his own shoulders, or to place on those of another, the deliberate violation of solemn engagements. “For it is,” as the Bishop remarks, “not man, God that made the law: he that kindled the fire, let him make retribution.”

It was not long before James began to suspect that he had been abused by the favourite whose fidelity ought to have been secured by gratitude. Among the friends of the Duke, there was one who looked disapprovingly on his conduct. This was the Lord Keeper Williams; a man of “as deep and large wisdom,” says Bishop Hacket, “as I did ever speak with.” Confessing the greatest obligations to Buckingham, Williams had the courage to oppose him, when conscience dictated a remonstrance.

“His enemies,” says his biographer, “liked nothing worse in him than his courage, and he pleased himself in nothing more.” Of a stately presence, and possessing abilities to maintain that lofty demeanour which is absurd when not supported by real superiority of intellect, Williams could cope with the haughty Buckingham, whose headstrong will had become such that none of the King’s ministers could move it. Williams, too, was of temper somewhat irritable. “Choler and a high stomach were his faults, the only defects in him.”[73] His manners were, at times, even supercilious. He was not likely to be daunted by one whose capacity was, therefore, to his own, as that of the infant to the man, and over whom he exercised an ascendancy through a very noted channel; namely, the influence which the Lord Keeper possessed over the Countess of Buckingham. “Those dangerous and busy flies,” writes Bishop Hacket, “which the Roman seminaries send abroad, had buzzed about the Countess of Buckingham, had blown upon her, and infected her. She was mother to the great favourite, but in religion became a step-mother.” Her conversion had taken place about a twelvemonth previously. The Countess doted on her son; but her conversion was certain to be highly injurious to him, especially at that juncture, just before the Spanish journey. Complaints were uttered, importing that the mother, who was thought almost to govern her son, must indirectly sway the monarch who was now little other than that son’s slave. The part which Laud had taken to remedy the evil has been already detailed. The Lord Keeper also had foreseen and endeavoured to prevent the mischief which might arise from these rumours. “Safety,” he considered, “is easiest purchased by precaution.” “An instrument that is swung may be used upon a little warning.” Anxious for the welfare of the Duke, Williams addressed him to the following effect. “Your mother,”[74] he observed, “is departed from the bosom of the Church of England, in whose confession of faith she was baptized;--a strange delusion in any to go astray from that society of Christians among whom they cannot demonstrate but salvation may be had. I would we could bring her home so soon that it might not be seen she had ever wandered.” His concern, he intimates, was, however, not so much for the Countess’s eternal welfare, as for her son’s temporal security. It was, he thought, time to inform the Favourite “that clamours were opened,” “that now the recusants have a potent advocate to plead for their immunity, and when this should be handed in high and popular court by tribunitial orators, what a dust it would make!”

Footnote 73:

Hacket’s Life, p. 229.

Footnote 74:

Williams wrote, for the Countess’s especial conversion, “A Manual of
the Elements of the Orthodox Religion, by an Old Prebend of
Westminster,” of which twenty copies only were printed, and all
presented to the Marquis.--Nichols, vol. iii., p. 257.

“But,” pursued the Lord Keeper, “though I have touched a sore with my finger, I am furnished with an emplaister to lay upon it, which, I presume, will lenifie. Only measure not the _size_ of good counsel by the _last_ of success.” After this address, Williams had proposed that controversies between learned men, in which that age so much delighted, should be held for the Countess of Buckingham’s edification; that the King should be present at this; and the “conflux of great persons, as thick as the place would permit.” Then should Buckingham’s industry and zeal be manifested to “catch at every twig or advantage,” to give weight to every solid reason, to bring his mother into a sound mind again. If successful, the Duke would “save a soul very precious to him;” if unsuccessful, then the favourite’s “pious endeavours would fill the King with a good report,” and impart a “sweet savour” to all.

The result had justified the Lord Keeper’s anticipations; the Jesuit father, Fisher, was the champion in whom the Countess most relied; the King was the superintendent of the controversy. Dr. Francis White, then Dean of Carlisle, had gone first into the lists with Fisher, and given him “foil for foil,” according to the testimony of the Protestant party. But the lady was still unconvinced. The Lord Keeper engaged, therefore, in the combat. He managed the disputation with infinite skill, guided by worldly wisdom, mixed up with Christian charity. He had observed in the former conflict, that if some of the Jesuit’s arguments were admitted, “the Church of England, repurging itself from the super-injected errors of Rome, would stand inculpable.” He laboured, therefore, to show that if “unnecessary strifes were discreetly waved, little was wanting to a conclusive unity.” The King greatly commended this conciliatory mode of disputation, which surprised and baffled Fisher, yet which still failed to bring back the wanderers to their former path. The third who had contended for the palm of victory, to bring, as Hacket calls it, “eye-salve to the dim-sighted lady, was Bishop Laud, who was declared to have galled Fisher with great acuteness.” But all his labour was vain, as far as the Countess was concerned; she continued in her new belief. The conference had, however, effected what was desired for her son. He had appeared as an antagonist in the field against one whom he honoured, and whom he had treated with the deepest respect. He was "blazed abroad as the Red Cross Knight that was Una’s champion against Archinago."[75] And this scheme, which produced results afterwards, as well as at the time they were effected, of the utmost importance to Buckingham, had been accomplished from the suggestions and by the skill of the Lord Keeper Williams.

Footnote 75:

Hacket’s Life of Williams, pp. 172, 173.

It may therefore be supposed that Buckingham would listen with reverence to his representations, when the Lord Keeper ventured to warn him from the course he was pursuing. So far, however, from such being the case, the Duke never forgave him for a letter addressed to him whilst in Spain, advising a reconciliation with the Earl of Bristol, whose knowledge of Spanish affairs, and repeated success in negotiations, would, it was thought, secure the completion of the marriage treaty.[76] Even whilst writing the letter, which seemed to alienate Williams from Buckingham for a time, the Lord Keeper was aware that he had already incurred the favourite’s displeasure. “What I wrote formerly,” he says, “may be ill-placed, and offend your grace, but all proceeded from as true and sincere a heart as you left behind you in all this kingdom.”[77] The Earl of Bristol, on hearing of this act of mediation, argued truly when he anticipated that it would produce a quarrel. He wrote to Williams to the following effect, “that the friendship of the Duke was a thing he did infinitely desire, that he did infinitely esteem the good offices that the Lord Keeper had done therein, but that he conceived that any motion he had made in that kind had been despised rather than received with thankfulness.”[78]

Footnote 76:

Hacket’s Life of Williams, p. 147.

Footnote 77:

Ibid.

Footnote 78:

Hacket, 148.

Buckingham had formerly been compared to Alcibiades, the Lord Keeper to Socrates; but all obligations to that supposed Socrates were henceforth annulled. The interference of Williams, creditable to himself, and due to the King, was so misinterpreted that Buckingham withdrew from him his friendship, forgetting not only the axiom of Solon, “never to choose a friend suddenly, nor to lose him suddenly,” but the still stronger argument of services which could not be denied. During the Duke’s absence in Spain, Williams had watched over his welfare with the utmost care; he had ventured boldly to speak the truth to him; a benefit scarcely less important; yet Buckingham could not be appeased.

He instantly avowed his determination, expressed with such effrontery and openness that it was soon conveyed to Williams, that he "would pluck down the highest roof of the Lord Keeper’s dignity." Williams, however, remained undaunted. He knew the favourite well. He allowed him to be a “generous and incorrupt patron, a great exacter of duty from those whom he served, and a bitter enemy.” But he confided in his own powers of rhetoric, and in the pliable temper of his former friend. The Earl of Rutland, Buckingham’s father-in-law, was employed to mediate between them; and to him the Duke said, referring to Williams, “Whenever I disagree with him, he will prove himself to be in the right; and though I could never convict him of being dishonest, I am afraid of his wit.”

Before Buckingham returned, Williams sent another letter, warning him of the risk he ran, and offering excellent advice on the subject of the Spanish treaty, and upon the Duke’s demeanour. The Spaniards had remarked with resentment that when Charles attempted to speak in Buckingham’s presence, the Duke took the words out of his mouth, or checked, with an abrupt contradiction, what he had to say; the more gently Charles endured this presumption, the greater was the general admiration expressed towards him, and disgust towards his favourite. The Spaniards, who never address their kings first, were indignant with his freedom, which constituted one of those points against which Williams had warned the Duke. It was in vain that the Lord Keeper strove to conciliate Buckingham, in vain that he praised the Duke’s skill and energy in the marriage treaty to King James; a breach was made, which was never entirely repaired, and which is as discreditable to the Duke of Buckingham as any of those violations of good faith and propriety by which his career was sullied.

On Tuesday, the thirteenth of January, whilst Buckingham’s disfavour with the King was suspected, a singular scene took place. The King, being much disturbed by his affairs, resolved to go to Theobald’s for change of scene. His health was now completely broken, and the vexatious and arbitrary conduct of his favourite added greatly to his sufferings. The morning before he left Whitehall, he received the various foreign ambassadors--the Venetian was first admitted, the French second, the Spanish last. They were introduced privately; and, after a full hour’s audience, the Prince and Buckingham were called in; what passed remained a secret, but the Prince and Duke were observed to come out looking very much dejected.

The Duke’s carriage stood at the door, ready to follow that of the King to London; and the favourite was prepared, as usual, to accompany his royal master in his own coach. The King and his son were in the coach, when the Duke received an intimation from His Majesty that he was not to go. Buckingham, it is related, with tears in his eyes, entreated “his Master” to inform him how he had offended his gracious sovereign. “I vow,” he added sternly, “to purge, or confess it.” James, also, shed tears, and exclaiming that he was the unhappiest man alive, to be forsaken by those who were dearest to him, ordered his coach to drive on, and the Duke was left standing, dismayed, and probably indignant. Charles, who witnessed this scene, behaved with his usual weakness, his tears, also, expressing his concern and contrition.

Buckingham retired to Wallingford House, where, sometime afterwards, the Lord Keeper Williams went to him, having with difficulty been admitted. “He found him,” says Bishop Hacket, “lying on a couch, in that unmovable posture that he would neither rise up nor speak, though invited twice or thrice with courteous questions.” But Williams generously consoled him, admonishing that he believed "God’s directing hand was in it, to stir up his grace;" he assured him that he came on purpose to bring him out of his sorrow with the light of the King’s favour. He besought the Duke to set off instantly for Windsor; not however to show himself to His Majesty before supper was over, and then to deport himself with all “amiable addresses;” not “to quit the King night or day, for the danger was that some would thrust themselves in to push his Majesty on to break utterly with the Parliament; and the next degree of theirs to be was, upon that dissolution, to see his grace convicted to the Tower, and God knows what would follow.”[79]

Footnote 79:

See Hacket’s Life of Williams. Also Mr. Chamberlain’s Letter to Sir
Dudley Carleton, quoted in Nichols, 961, from Birch’s MSS., Brit.
Mus., 417. These separate accounts are here connected; and Mr.
Chamberlain’s date and statement of the place to which the King went,
adopted upon the ground given by Nichols.

The Duke, as if awakening from a dream, aroused himself, and set off, on the following day, to Theobald’s, where he arrived before he was expected.

Thus, to Williams’ mediation, did Buckingham owe the avoidance of any open displeasure on the part of his sovereign; unhappily this obligation did not cancel in the Duke’s mind that avowal of a difference in opinion, and that condemnation of the policy pursued towards Spain which Williams esteemed it his duty to express.

Opinions differed as to the actual obligations of the Prince to complete the contract with the Infanta.

The Earl of Bristol declared that the King and the Prince stood as much engaged to it as princes could be; but Charles is said to have styled himself, as he knelt down before the King, at Royston, to have been “an absolute free man, but with one limitation--the restitution of the Palatinate.”[80]

Footnote 80:

Hacket, 164.

These matters, painful and disgraceful as they were, were not concluded until the end of the year 1624, when the “golden cord,” as Bishop Hacket terms it, was broken. “Nothing,” adds the same authority, "is more sure than that the Prince’s heart was removed from the desire of that marriage after the Duke had brought him away from the object of that delightful and ravishing beauty."[81] If the report of other historians be credited, a far greater degree of constancy was shown by the young Princess whose affections were thus cruelly gained, and then sacrificed. After an acquaintance of many months, during which every possible exertion had been made by Charles to win her regard, these young persons, affianced as they doubtless were, had separated on terms of the closest affection. “The rare Infanta,” as she was styled, “seemed to deliver up her own heart at parting in as high expression as that language, and her learning could, with her honour, set out.” And when Charles had assured her that “_his_ heart would never be out of anxiety till she had passed the intended voyage, and were safe on British land,” she answered with a blush, “that should she happen to be in danger upon the ocean, or discomposed in health with the rolling, brackish waters, she would cheer up herself, and remember to whom she was going.”[82] After his departure the Princess began to study English “a-pace,”[83] two Englishmen, the one a Mr. Wadsworth, and the other Father Boniface, being appointed to teach her. The English ambassador, and all the ambassadors in Madrid from other countries, gave her the title and style of an English Princess, the Earl of Bristol and Sir Walter Aston remaining uncovered in her presence. In order to pass the period of absence, the Infanta employed herself in working “divers suits of rich cloths” for Charles, of perfumed ambar leather, some embroidered with pearls, others with gold and silver. Her household was on the eve of being settled, and nothing but one more despatch from home was expected, and then the solemnization of the nuptials would take place. In the midst of these preparations, one circumstance puzzled observers. “There is,” says Howell, "one Mr. Clerk (with the lame arm), that came hither from the seaside as soon as the Prince was gone; he is one of the Duke of Buckingham’s creatures, yet he is at the Earl of Bristol’s house, which we wonder at, considering the darkness that hapned ’twixt the Duke and the Earl. We fear that this Clerk hath brought about something that may puzzle the business."

Footnote 81:

Ibid, 167.

Footnote 82:

Hacket, 161. From Sanderson, p. 552; taken from the Spanish reports of
their conference.

Footnote 83:

Howell’s Letters.

Nevertheless, the preparations for the espousals proceeded; the first check given to them being a letter from Prince Charles, desiring Lord Bristol not to deliver up his proxy to the marriage to the King of Spain until further notice from England. On receiving this intimation, Lord Bristol observed “that he and Sir Walter Aston had a commission under the Broad Seal of England to conclude the match, and that there could not be a better favour for the surrender of the Palatinate than the Infanta, who would never rest until she had merited the love of the British nation.” He did not, therefore, relax his preparations; and provided rich liveries of watered velvet, with silver lace up to the very capes of the cloaks for his servants; and, in a fortnight afterwards, the ratification arrived, the marriage-day was fixed, and a terrace, covered with tapestry, was raised from the King’s Palace to the next church, a distance about the same as that between Whitehall and Westminster Abbey. But when she stood thus on the very threshold of her happiness,as she deemed it, the Infanta was doomed to be rejected and disappointed. “She had studied,” writes Bishop Hacket, “our language, our habit, our behaviour, everything but our religion, to make her English. Her conversation turned continually upon the Prince, and on her projected voyage to England in the spring. On the other hand, she was led to suppose that Charles admired her for her beauty; that his attachment was equal to her own; and that he was worthy of the affection which she undoubtedly bore him.”[84]

Footnote 84:

Life of Lord Keeper Williams, p. 164.

The young King of Spain, her brother, participated in the sentiments of personal attachment which Charles appears to have inspired in those who beheld him, in the prime of his youth, at the Court of Madrid. Philip was now anxious to conclude the marriage, which he meant to do on the day on which his infant daughter was christened. Invitations were actually sent to the principal nobility to attend the espousals by proxy; ordinance was ordered to be fired off in the port-towns; and all Spain was prohibited from speaking disadvantageously of the alliance; when a new commission to Lord Bristol arrived. By this he was forbidden to deliver up the Prince’s proxy until a full and absolute satisfaction for the surrender of the Palatinate was given under the hand and seal of the King of Spain.

This pretext--for the plea of the Palatinate could not in justice be adduced at this stage of the treaty--was met by the insulted Philip IV. with spirit. He replied that the “Palatinate was not his to give;” that he held only a few towns there; but that if the King of Great Britain would set a treaty on foot, he would send his own ambassador to join in it.[85] But the final blow was given to the Spanish treaty. Lord Bristol was prohibited from delivering any more letters to the Infanta, and her title of Princess of England and Wales was prohibited.

The King, on his return to Whitehall, commissioned a select junto to inquire, whether, in the treaty with the King of Spain, that monarch had been sincere to the last in his desire to satisfy the Prince and the Duke; and whether, in the treaty for the restitution of the Palatinate, he had violated the league between the two kingdoms, so as to deserve a war to be proclaimed against him.[86]

Footnote 85:

Nichols, p. 943.

Footnote 86:

Hacket, p. 157.

Some of the proceedings of this junto having been bruited abroad, it was found that they were divided into three parties, five of their number being for the Spanish marriage--among whom was the Lord Keeper Williams--four neutral, and three directly against the alliance. These were the Duke of Buckingham, who sent his vote, the Earl of Carlisle, and Secretary Conway. The evident distaste which Charles now showed for the match had a great influence in the deliberations of the junto. The Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain, who was at first neutral, “nobly spoke out, declaring it as his opinion that, if the Spaniards performed the conditions, he saw not how the thing could in honour draw back.” It was supposed that this candid declaration was owing to some pique between him and Buckingham. Much heart-burning, indeed, existed on the part of several of the junto towards the favourite, who engrossed, as it was plainly seen, the regards both of the King and of his son, and contrived to cut off all access to those whom it was his aim wholly to govern.[87]

Footnote 87:

Nichols, p. 964.

But the chief object of Buckingham’s wrath was Williams. “The proceedings in this affair were,” says Bishop Hacket, "so far against the Lord Keeper’s mind, that he wished, before a friend or two in private, that a fever in his sick-bed might excuse him." Buckingham was now become incapable of that generous candour which permits a friend to differ in opinion. He “was now mortally anti-Spanish,” as Bishop Hacket observes, “and his anger was headed with steel. He assayed the Lord Keeper to hale him to his judgment, as an eddy does a small boat,” and would have persuaded him to influence the King against Spain; but he found him as “inflexible as a dried bough.” When pressed by the favourite to advance his views, he declared that, as God was his protector, he would suffer all the obloquy in the world, rather than be ungrateful to the Duke. But when the King asked his judgment--he must be true and faithful--Buckingham, to his discredit be it spoken, had not the generosity to appreciate Williams. The Duke had been apprized that James, addressing the Earl of Carlisle, had remarked, "that had he sent Williams into Spain, he would have kept both heart’s ease and honour, both of which he lacked at that time." And one day, when Prince Charles was present, James, looking at Williams, said, “This is the man that makes us keep merry Christmas.” The Prince, not seeming to understand his father, the King explained himself. “It is he,” he said, “that laboured more dexterously than all my servants to bring you safe back home this Christmas, and I hope you are sensible of it.” A finishing stroke was put to Buckingham’s mortification when the King announced his intention of promoting the Lord Keeper to the Archbishopric of York when next it should be vacant.[88]

Footnote 88:

Hacket, 168.

The decision of the junto exonerated Philip IV. from any hollowness in his share of the treaty. They blamed the Earl of Bristol for not revoking the proxy, which was left in his hands sooner, and thus stopping those preparations for the nuptials which had rendered the King of Spain ridiculous. But when they voted that that Monarch should be defied with open war, till amends were made to the Prince Palatine for the wrongs he had suffered, the majority of the conference hesitated, and refused to say more than that the “girths of peace were slack, but not broken.” Buckingham had now become wholly impatient of opposition; scarcely any of the council had voted to his satisfaction. Sometimes strange scenes were witnessed in the conference; the fiery Duke would arise, and “chafe against” those who opposed him from room to room, “as a hen who has lost her brood, and clucks up and down when there is none to follow her.” Upon meeting Lord Belfast, one of the party adverse to his wishes, he asked him contemptuously, “Are you turned too? and flung from him; upon which Lord Belfast, in a manly and candid letter, announced his resolution to conform in all things to the pleasure of his royal master.” But the greatest anger was displayed by Buckingham against the Lord Keeper, who seldom spoke, but who, when he gave his opinion, swayed that of the majority.[89]

Footnote 89:

Hacket, p. 69.

Buckingham was not of a character to dissemble his feelings; and his displeasure was shown, not only in his countenance, but expressed in angry expostulations. He told Bishop Laud that the Lord Keeper had so strangely forgotten himself to him that he seemed to be “dead in his affections.” Laud, who was devotedly attached to the favourite and his family, meeting Williams in the withdrawing-chamber at Whitehall, “fell into very hot words with him,” which were reported to the Duke. Eventually, however, these differences were healed, and, in February, 1624, a reconciliation was effected through the mediation of Laud. From henceforth, nothing but an appearance of friendship subsisted between Buckingham and Williams. “The wound,” says Dr. Heylyn, “was only stunned, not healed, and festered the more dangerously, because the secret rancour of it could not be discerned.”[90]

Footnote 90:

Heylyn’s Life of Laud, p. 113.

The issue of all this was that the Duke insisted on a parliament, by way of appeal;[91] and during the heat of these Court cabals, that body was assembled at Westminster in February.

Footnote 91:

Hacket, p. 169.

Meantime, public aversion to the match was from time to time forcibly expressed. The pulpits were still profaned by political allusions; a clergyman named Knight was committed for preaching that tyrannical kings might be brought to order by their subjects; a doctrine which appeared so monstrous to James, that he talked of having the sermon burned by the hangman.[92] This arrest took place at Oxford; the King highly approved the proceedings, and directions were forthwith sent to the heads of the colleges, to desire the students to apply themselves to the Scriptures, to general councils, and the ancient fathers and schoolmen, excluding the heretical doctrines of both Jesuits and Puritans. The document which contains these directions is still extant, and is endorsed by Laud. Sedition seems not to have been the only rank weed that then sprang up in the universities.[93]

Footnote 92:

State Papers, cxxix., No. 62.

Footnote 93:

Ibid, cxix., No. 68.

The King, in addressing the Parliament, declared that he had called them together to correct previous misunderstandings; that he would cherish his people as a husband does his wife; he wished for their advice in matters of the greatest moment; he had long been engaged in treaties, hoping to settle the peace of Christendom, but had found treaties fallacious. With regard to Spain, he referred the houses to the secretaries, the Prince, and to Buckingham; on their good advice he conceived the felicity of the kingdom depended. He had never, he said, neglected religion, nor intended anything but a temporary indulgence to recusants. He concluded this original and eccentric harangue (rather different from a modern royal speech) by saying that he knew that never was there a king more beloved than himself, and that he wished the two houses to be the mirrors of the people.[94]

Footnote 94:

State Papers, vol. cxix., No. 55.

The Speaker was then elected; and Sir Thomas Crewe, sergeant-at-law, in his reply, recalled the benefits of the good parliament in the thirty-second year of Henry VIII., and the thirty-ninth of Elizabeth.

Soon afterwards, More, an attorney, was sentenced to lose both his ears “for speaking disrespectfully of those two deceased monarchs.” Such was English liberty. The culprit laughed whilst the sentence was being put into execution in Cheapside. A proclamation was issued, ordering priests and Jesuits to leave Ireland within forty days;[95] so instant was the change from toleration to persecution. James was not more free from troubles about Ireland than his successors have been. On visiting the State Paper Office, and seeing a large mass of documents relating to that island there, he had once remarked that there was “more ado about Ireland than about any of his dominions.”[96]

Footnote 95:

Ibid, No. 70.

Footnote 96:

State Papers.

The Duke had now so completely regained the love of the people, by his abandoning the Spanish marriage, that it was proposed in the Lower House to confirm all his lands and honours to him by act of parliament; but the reply was that this was no time to commend men, though deserving well.[97] A few days afterwards, the Prince told the Upper House that they need not fear “advising a breach, for if we did not begin the war, Spain would.”

Footnote 97:

Ibid, Nos. 93, 94.--Locke to Carleton.

In the House of Commons, Sir Benjamin Rudyard declared that the King of Spain had verified the proverb that kings’ daughters are so many ways to deceive their neighbours; and that since the match was first thought of, much Papistry had sprung up amongst the people; that Protestantism was disunited as in Germany; suppressed as in France; threatened as in Holland. All the speakers on this memorable occasion praised the Prince. Rudyard declared that he had shown both courage and wisdom in his journey, which “had matured his excellent parts.” The Lord Keeper Williams related how the Prince had sent a message to the council, to say that though he stole to Spain for love, he would not steal back again for fear; how he had told Grimes, one of his servants, to tell his father, in case he should hear that he was detained, to think of him no more as a son, for he would be lost, but to place all his affections on his sister.[98] On the second of March, Sir Edward Coke was instructed by the Commons to advise the Lords of their unanimous resolution to counsel the King to break the treaties with Spain; and was instructed to request the Lords to join in a petition to make a declaration to that effect, which should comfort his people and encourage his allies abroad.[99] Sir Edward answered, that he never knew a petition of both houses refused; he could not say anything more “for weeping;” and Sir Thomas Edmondes, treasurer of the household, taking up the pecuniary part of the question, said that the “mysteries of delusion in the treaties were now discovered, and that the Spanish, having enticed us from the match with France, now offered, instead of a dowry of 600,000_l._, only 20,000_l._ yearly with the Infanta, and some jewels; whilst France would give a wedding portion of 240,000_l._” This, perhaps, considering the King’s debts, and the almost bankrupt state of the treasury, was probably a stronger argument with James than the restitution of the Palatinate, or the security of Protestantism, on which points his conscience seems to have been conveniently callous.

Footnote 98:

State Papers, clx., Nos. 8 and 10.

Footnote 99:

Ibid, Nos. 1 and 33.