<1>Almost a year had passed since Gondomar received from the lips of the Prince of Wales the assurance of his intention to visit Spain. 1623.January.The projected journey.To Baby Charles, as his father appropriately named him, the impolicy of the step which he was about to take appeared not to be worth a moment’s consideration. Of the intrigues which would gather round him, of the strange expectations to which his mere presence at Madrid would give rise, he had simply no conception whatever. What he saw before him was a gay ride across a continent, a lovers’ meeting, a brilliant adventure, with the spice of peril which made the enterprise all the more attractive to his irresolute mind, incapable, as it was, of weighing calmly the advantages and the dangers likely to ensue. If he Charles and Buckingham.had not himself approved of the plan, doubt would have been impossible in the presence of that brilliant creature, so self confident and so insinuating, to whom his father in his weakness had entrusted the companionship of his tender years. A worse guide for such a youth it was impossible to select. Charles, ready now, as in future life, to resent opposition which presented itself in the name of popular rights, or of a higher wisdom than his own, had no objection to raise against the boisterous familiarity of his friend. For <2>Steenie, as he was called from some real or imaginary resemblance to a picture of St. Stephen in the King’s possession, never asked him to trouble himself with the painful operation of thinking, whilst he took care to represent his own foregone conclusions with all outward forms of respect. He had early discovered how easy it was to make a tool of Charles. The inertness of the father, which had so often refused to comply with his sudden freaks, had no place in the son. Had Charles been on the throne in James’s place, there can be little doubt that England would have been engaged in a war with the Emperor in 1620, in a war with the Netherlands in 1621, and in a war with Spain in 1622.
At what time the King was first acquainted with the plan is uncertain; but, on the whole, it is most probable that before the The journey proposed to James.end of the year his consent had been won to the project, though in a different shape from that which it afterwards assumed. If Buckingham was to go as Admiral of the Fleet to fetch the Infanta home in May, there would be comparatively few objections to his taking the Prince on shipboard with him. By that time the dispensation would have arrived, and the conditions of the marriage would be irrevocably settled. It could not, therefore, be said that there was any likelihood of Charles being treated as a hostage for the enforcement of new and exorbitant conditions.[1]
<3>This was not, however, what Charles and Buckingham wanted. To arrive after all difficulties were at an end was far February.They ask leave to go at once.too commonplace an arrangement to suit their fiery imaginations. One day in February, after binding the King to secrecy, they told him that they wished for his leave to go at once. It would be a long time before the fleet could be ready. A pass to travel through France would not be granted without delay. Why should they not travel incognito? It would surely not be difficult, by hard riding, to reach the Spanish frontier before they were missed at Whitehall.
Never in the whole course of his life did James find it easy to say “No” to those with whom he was on terms of familiar intercourse, and James consents.of late years his fatal habit of irresolution had increased. His body was racked with terrible attacks of gout, and his mind was deadened by a sense of failure, which did not exercise the less influence upon his temper because he was unwilling to confess its existence. If he had been asked to do anything himself, he would undoubtedly have resisted any pressure that could be brought to bear upon him. As it was, he gave way without difficulty, and accorded the required permission.
Before the morrow came, the mistake which he had committed rose before James’s mind. As soon as the spell of Hesitation of the King.the young men’s presence was removed, he was able to think of the dangers into which his beloved son was about to run, and of the extreme probability that the Spanish ministers would raise their demands as soon as they had such a hostage in their hands.[2] Accordingly, when the Prince returned with the Marquis the next morning to make arrangements for the journey, James adjured him to think of <4>the danger into which he was running. If any evil befell the Prince, he added, turning to Buckingham as he spoke, it was at his door that the blame would be laid, and his ruin would be unavoidable. Then, bursting into tears, he begged them not to press him to a thing so mischievous in every way, the execution of which was sure to break his heart.
Neither Charles nor Buckingham took the trouble to argue the question. With Buckingham, at least, it was a fundamental Language of Charles and Buckingham.article of faith that opposition and difficulty must give way before him. The Prince contented himself with reminding his father of the promise which he had given the day before, and with assuring him that if he were forbidden to go to Spain, he would never marry at all. The insolent favourite took higher ground, and told the King that if he broke his promises in this way, nobody would ever believe him again. He must have consulted some one, in spite of his engagement to secrecy. If the rascal who had suggested such pitiful reasons could be discovered, he was sure the Prince would never forgive him.
The poor King was completely cowed. He swore that he had never communicated the secret to anyone, and allowed the young men Cottington’s opinion.to discuss the details of the journey, as if there had been no question of stopping it. Cottington and Porter were soon mentioned as proper persons to accompany the Prince. Upon this the King sent for Cottington, in the hope that he would prove more successful than himself in combating the idea.
As Cottington entered the room, Buckingham turned to Charles. “This man,” he whispered in his ear, “will be against the journey.” “No,” answered the Prince, “he dares not.” “Cottington,” said the King, after engaging him to silence, “here are Baby Charles and Steenie, who have a great mind to go by post into Spain, to fetch home the Infanta, and will have but two more in their company, and have chosen you for one. What think you of the journey?” In his amazement, Cottington, cool as he generally was, could scarcely speak. It was only upon the question being repeated that he answered, in a trembling voice, that he could not think well of it. In his <5>opinion it would render everything that had been done fruitless. As soon as the Spaniards had the Prince in their hands, they were certain to propose new articles, especially with respect to religion. When he heard these words, the King threw himself upon his bed. “I told you this before,” he shrieked out passionately. “I am undone. I shall lose Baby Charles.”
Buckingham turned fiercely upon Cottington. It was his pride, he told him, which had led him to condemn the journey because James gives his final permission.he had not been sooner consulted. No one had asked for his opinion upon matters of state. The King only wanted to know which was the best road to Madrid. It was in vain for some time that James tried to take Cottington’s part. In the end he was obliged to confess himself beaten, and gave his final consent to the journey.[3]
Headlong as he was, there was one precaution which Buckingham did not omit to take before starting. For some days Repayment of money to Mandeville.it had been observed that he seemed more than usually anxious to be reconciled with all to whom he had given any cause of offence. On January 28, Mallory, one of the four members of the late House of Commons who were still restrained to their country houses, received permission to go where he would, though a similar relaxation was not accorded either to Coke, to Phelips, or to Pym. A few days afterwards, Lord Saye, who was still in the Tower for his opposition to the Benevolence, was allowed to go down into the country, to remain in confinement in his own house.[4] At last, too, Buckingham had begun to make preparations for repaying, or for giving security to repay, the purchase-money with which Mandeville had bought the temporary possession of the White Staff, upon the understanding that he would consent to a marriage between his eldest son, the future general of a parliamentary army, and Susan Hill, one of the <6>many penniless kinswomen of the favourite.[5] At the same time, young Monson, who Monson and Brett sent abroad.five years before had been selected by the Howards as a possible rival to Buckingham in the King’s good graces, was knighted, and sent to travel on the Continent. A more formidable opponent was treated in the same way. For some time the discordance between the parsimony of Middlesex and the lavish ostentation of Buckingham had threatened to lead to an open rupture, and it was even supposed that the Lord Treasurer had fixed his eye upon his brother-in-law, Arthur Brett, a handsome gentleman of the bedchamber, as one who might possibly supplant the favourite. Of the particulars of the quarrel we have no information. Just as he was ready to start, Buckingham sought a reconciliation. Brett, like Monson, was knighted, and recommended to keep out of the way.
On the 16th, Cottington, who had by this time made his peace with Buckingham, was created a baronet, and was ordered to take Porter with him to Dover, and to hire a vessel for crossing the Straits. The next day Charles took leave of his father at Theobalds, and rode off, accompanied by Buckingham, to the Marquis’s house in Essex. Feb. 18.Adventures on the way.On the morning of the 18th the real difficulties of the adventure began. Disguised with false beards, the young men started from Newhall, under the names of Tom and John Smith. They had no one with them but Sir Richard Graham, the Marquis’s master of the horse and confidential attendant. At the ferry opposite Gravesend they surprised the boatman by ordering him to put them ashore on the outskirts of the town instead of at the usual place of landing. His astonishment was complete when one of the party handed <7>him a gold piece, and rode away without asking for change. Supposing that the two principal gentlemen were duellists, about to cross the sea for the purpose of settling their differences with the sword, he at once gave information to the magistrates, who sent off a postboy to Rochester, with orders to stop them; but the freshest horse in Gravesend was no match for the picked steeds from Buckingham’s stable, and the party had left Rochester long before the arrival of their pursuer. A little later they were exposed to a more serious risk. Just as the three riders got out of the town, they saw advancing to meet them a train, in which they recognised the royal carriage, which was conveying the Infanta’s ambassador, Boischot, under the escort of Sir Lewis Lewknor, the master of the ceremonies, and of Sir Henry Mainwaring, the Lieutenant of Dover Castle. To avoid detection, they spurred their horses off the road, and galloped across the fields. Mainwaring, who fancied that the party might contain two of Barneveld’s sons, who had recently been concerned in an attempt to assassinate the Prince of Orange, sent a messenger back to Canterbury with orders to detain them. It was only by pulling off his beard, and by assuring the mayor that he was the Lord Admiral going down to Dover to make a secret inspection of the fleet, that Buckingham obtained leave to continue his journey. At Dover, Feb. 19.Cottington and Porter had a vessel in readiness, and early the next morning the whole party, five in number, put off Feb. 21.Arrival in Paris.without further hindrance for Boulogne, from whence they pushed on in the afternoon to Montreuil. Two days’ more riding brought them to Paris.[6]
The next day they spent in strolling about the French capital. They caught a sight of the King and of Mary de Medicis; and Feb. 22.The Prince sees his future wife.in the evening, upon the plea that they were strangers in Paris, they contrived to obtain admission to the rehearsal of a masque, in which the Queen and the Princess Henrietta Maria were to take part. <8>Of his future wife, Charles seems to have taken but little notice. “There danced,” he wrote, as soon as he had left the scene of gaiety, “the queen and madame, with as many as made up nineteen fair dancing ladies; amongst which the queen is the handsomest, which hath wrought in me a greater desire to see her sister.”[7] Feb. 23.The next day they were up at three in the morning, riding hard for Bayonne.
Meanwhile James, who had gone down to Newmarket to be out of the way, put the best face possible upon the business. As soon as Carlisle sent to Paris.the news had spread, those of the Privy Councillors who were on the spot fell upon their knees, and implored him to inform them whether the Prince was really gone. He assured them that there was no doubt about the matter. His son was only imitating the example of his father, of his grandfather, Darnley, and of his great-grandfather, James V., who had all gone into foreign countries to fetch home their wives. Beyond doubt a general peace in Christendom would be the result. To prevent danger, however, he would send Lord Carlisle to Paris, to interpose his good offices in favour of the Prince’s journey.
With this answer the councillors were forced to be content. They did not, however, conceal the apprehensions which they felt, and Feeling in England.their apprehensions were shared by the whole nation. Prayers were put up in all the churches for the Prince’s preservation. If the marriage, it was said, were forward enough to justify the presence of the Prince at Madrid, why did he not go on board a fleet with an equipage suitable to his station? If everything was still uncertain, why should he risk his person, and give such an advantage to the King of Spain, by putting himself in his hands? It was generally felt that from this dilemma no escape was possible.[8]
The popular dislike found a mouthpiece in the shrewd and <9>cautious Williams. “Your journey,” he wrote to the Prince, “is Feb. 25.Letter of Williams to the Prince.generally reputed the depth of your danger, which in my fears and representations your arrival should be. You are in a strange state — for aught we know uninvited, business being scarce prepared — subject to be stayed on many and contrary pretences; made a plot for all the wisdom of Spain and Rome, for all the contemplations of that state and that religion to work upon. And peradventure the detaining of your Highness’s person may serve their turn as amply as their marriage; at leastwise for this time, and the exploits of the ensuing summer.”[9]
Especially loud was the outcry against Buckingham. Great lords, who were not afraid to say what they meant, declared their opinion that Outcry against Buckingham.he had been guilty of high treason in carrying the Prince out of the realm, and that he would one day have to answer to Parliament for what he had done. Even James began to hesitate, and seemed inclined to cast the blame from his own shoulders upon those of his favourite and his son.[10]
Whilst James was fretting at home, his ‘sweet boys, and dear venturous knights, worthy to be put in a new romanso,’[11] were March 2.The Prince arrives at Irun,speeding across France, leaving to Carlisle the empty task of demanding at Paris a safe-conduct which was no longer necessary. A few miles beyond Bayonne they met Bristol’s messenger, Gresley, carrying despatches to England. They opened his packet, but found that the greater part of the enclosed papers were in a cypher which they were unable to read. They then told Gresley that he must come back with them as far as Irun, as they wished him to be the bearer of a letter written to the King upon Spanish soil. Gresley afterwards reported in England that the Marquis looked worn and weary with his long ride; but that <10>he had never seen the Prince so merry. As soon as Charles stepped on the southern bank of the Bidassoa, he danced about for joy.
Yet even in that part of Bristol’s letter which he was able to read, there was enough to have made Charles doubt the wisdom of his enterprise. “The temporal articles,” he now told his father, “are not concluded, nor will not be till the dispensation comes, which may be God knows when; and when that time shall come, they beg twenty days to conceal it, upon pretext of making preparations.” Charles was, however, sanguine enough to imagine that these difficulties would vanish in a moment before the sunlight of his presence.[12]
About eight o’clock in the evening of March 7, the two young men, having outridden their companions, knocked for admittance March 7.and reaches Madrid.at Bristol’s door at Madrid. No one knew better than the ambassador what mischief was likely to result from the giddy exploit; but he had long learned to command his countenance, and he took good care to receive his unexpected guests with all the deference due to their rank.[13]
For that night at least, as he fondly hoped, the secret would be kept; but Gondomar was not to be deceived. In a few minutes March 7.Gondomar hears the news.He informs Olivares.he had learned that his long-cherished wishes had been gratified, and he at once proceeded to the Royal Palace, where he found Olivares at supper. “What brings you here so late?” said the favourite, astonished at his beaming face; “one would think that you had got the King of England in Madrid.” “If I have not got the King,” replied Gondomar, “at least I have got the Prince.” Olivares, stupified at what he heard, remained silent for some time. At last he congratulated Gondomar on the news he brought. It could not be, he thought, but that the Prince’s arrival would in some way redound to the advantage of the <11>Catholic Church. Olivares then went to find the King, and Olivares informs the King.the strange news was discussed between them in the royal bedchamber. On one point they were soon agreed. If Charles had not made up his mind to change his religion, he would not have come to Spain. Philip, turning to a crucifix which stood at the head of his bed, addressed Him whom the image represented. “Lord,” he said, “I swear to Thee, by the crucified union of God and man, which I adore in Thee at whose feet I place my lips, that the coming of the Prince of Wales shall not prevail with me, in anything touching Thy Catholic religion, to go a step beyond that which thy vicar the Roman Pontiff may resolve, even if it may involve the loss of all the kingdoms which, by Thy favour and mercy, I possess. As to what is temporal and is mine,” he added, looking at Olivares, “see that all his wishes are gratified, in consideration of the obligation under which he has placed us by coming here.”[14] With these words he dismissed Olivares for the night. During the first months of the year, the position of the Spanish minister had been one of extreme difficulty. If, indeed, a choice became inevitable, he would undoubtedly elect to stand by the side of the Emperor in war, rather than leave the cause of his Church without support. But the prospect was most unwelcome, and he had strained every nerve to bring Ferdinand and James to consent to terms, which, in his ignorance of the temper of Protestant nations, he fancied would prove acceptable to both parties. Already his dream had begun to melt away before the hard realities of life. It was Difficult position of Olivares.known at Madrid that the Emperor was not to be bribed to relinquish his fixed intention by the promise of the Infanta’s hand for his son. For some weeks Olivares had been tormented with renewed demands that the Spanish Government should take a side. Khevenhüller, the Imperial Ambassador, and De Massimi, the Papal Nuncio, had been urging him, in no measured terms, to secure his master’s approbation for the transference of the Electorate, whilst Bristol had been no less persistent in pressing him to <12>take active steps in thwarting a measure which he truly represented as ruinous to the prospects of peace. Under the circumstances, the perplexities of the Spanish Government had been overwhelming. If the Emperor would not yield, it might be possible, it was thought, to induce him to create an eighth Electorate, and this proposal had been allowed to reach Bristol’s ears, coupled with the suggestion that Frederick’s son should be educated at Vienna; though it is needless to say that no hint was given him of the scheme for bringing up the boy in the Roman Catholic religion.[15] Sanguine as his temperament was, Olivares can hardly have concealed from himself during these weeks that there was at least a possibility that his efforts to patch the rent might not be so successful as he had wished. Nor were the prospects of the marriage more favourable than those of his German diplomacy. The Infanta, as he well knew, had set her face against it as sternly as ever; yet he could not draw back from the treaty if he would. The penalty of his own dissimulation, and of the dissimulation of those who had gone before him, was being exacted to the uttermost. With a smiling face, he had to await the coming of the evil day which, unless the Pope chose to come to his help, would expose his falsehood to the world. At one time he had been obliged to make arrangements for the Infanta’s voyage and for the selection of the noblemen who were to take charge of her and her attendants; at another time he had been compelled to look on whilst the King wrote an autograph letter to the Pope pressing him to accord the dispensation, although the Pope must have been perfectly aware that the granting of the dispensation was the last thing for which Philip really wished.[16]
From this horrible dilemma he was now, as he fancied, relieved for ever. The Prince, he supposed, was come with the intention of Olivares expects the Prince to change his religion.professing himself a convert to the Catholic Church. Every difficulty, therefore, was now at an end. The marriage would be concluded to the satisfaction of all parties; the Emperor would concede the point of the eighth Electorate, and the Prince of Wales <13>would use all his influence in favour of the education of his nephew in the religion which would be his own; the Palatinate and the British Isles would, within a few years, be added to the spiritual dominions of the Roman see. Spain, so long maligned as aspiring to universal monarchy, would not ask for a foot of territory which was not legitimately her own. If she was from henceforth to look down upon the other kingdoms of the world, it would be from the height of the moral supremacy which self-abnegation alone could give. Olivares would be the Philip II. of peace.[17]
Such was the latest form of the long-enduring Spanish hallucination.[18] The next morning Gondomar, summoned to Bristol’s house, was, March 8.The Prince of Wales announces his arrival.for the first time, as the English Ambassador imagined, entrusted with the great secret. He was to tell Olivares that Buckingham had arrived, but he was to say nothing about the Prince. Accordingly in the afternoon, the two favourites met in the palace gardens. Every form which the most precise rules of Spanish courtesy demanded was observed between them; and, as soon as it was dark, Buckingham was admitted to the royal apartments to Buckingham presented to the King.kiss his Majesty’s hands. The next day, although the secret of the Prince’s arrival had been communicated to Philip, a mysterious silence was ordered to be preserved upon the subject. Philip, accompanied by the Queen and the Infanta as well as by his two brothers, the Infants Charles and Ferdinand, drove backwards and forwards through the streets, whilst the Prince of Wales, whose arrival was supposed to be still unknown, was placed <14>in another coach, from which he might catch a sight of the royal family as they passed. Once the King took off his hat to him, but there was no other sign of recognition. The streets were thronged, but no outward demonstrations were allowed, though everyone knew who the stranger in the coach was. Amongst that vast crowd there was not one whose heart did not swell with triumph at the thought that the Prince of heretic England had come to bow his knee at the altars of the national faith.
When the procession was ended, Olivares joined the Prince, and assured him that his master was dying to speak to him, and intended to visit him in the evening. Charles would not hear of this, and offered to pay his compliments to the King at once. The proposal was, however, declined, on the ground that the Prince’s retinue was not sufficiently numerous to enable him to appear with the dignity befitting his rank; and it was finally arranged that the meeting should take place in the open air.
As soon as they met, Philip invited Charles to come into his coach. March 9.Meeting of Philip and Charles.Bristol was taken with them as an interpreter, and they remained together in friendly conversation for half an hour.[19]
In the midst of these ceremonies Olivares had an eye to business. “Let us despatch this matter out of hand,” he said to Buckingham, “and Olivares’ conversation with Buckingham.strike it up without the Pope.” “Very well,” replied the Englishman; “but how is it to be done?” “The means,” replied Olivares, “are very easy. It is but the conversion of the Prince, which we cannot conceive but his Highness intended upon his resolution for this journey.” Against this idea, it would seem, Buckingham protested, doubtless in less vehement language than he took credit to himself for after his return to England. “Then,” said Olivares, “we must send to Rome.”
The next morning Olivares appeared with a letter which he had written to the Pope’s nephew, Cardinal Ludovisi. The King of England, he told him, had put such an obligation <15>on his master by sending his son, that he trusted there would be March 10.Olivares writes to Rome.no further delay in granting the dispensation, for there was nothing in his kingdom which he could now deny him. Some months afterwards, Buckingham asserted that he found the Spaniard’s language ‘heavy and ineffectual,’ and that he had all but quarrelled with him about it. In a letter written by himself and the Prince to James that very day, nothing of the kind is to be found. “We find,” they say, “the Count Olivares so overvaluing our journey, that he is so full of real courtesy, that we can do no less than beseech your Majesty to write the kindest letter of thanks and acknowledgment you can unto him.” That very morning, Olivares had said, with truly Spanish exaggeration, that if the Prince could not have the Infanta as his wife, he should have her as his mistress. “We must hold you thus much longer to tell you,” Question of acknowledging the Pope.the writers went on to say, “the Pope’s Nuncio works as maliciously and as actively as he can against us, but receives such rude answers that we hope he will be soon weary on it. We make this collection of it, that the Pope will be very loth to grant a dispensation; which, if he will not do, then we would gladly have your directions how far we may engage you in the acknowledgment of the Pope’s special power. For we almost find it, if you will be contented to acknowledge the Pope chief head under Christ, that the match will be made without him.”[20]
The old King was sadly puzzled by this last paragraph when it arrived in England. “I have written,” he replied, “a letter March 25.James’s reply.to Conde de Olivares, as both of you desired me, as full of thanks and kindness as can be devised, and indeed he well deserves. But in the end of your letter ye put in a cooling card, anent the Nuncio’s averseness to this business, and that thereby ye collect that the Pope will likewise be averse; but first ye must remember that in Spain they never put doubt of the granting of the dispensation; that themselves did set down the spiritual conditions, which I fully agreed unto, and by them were they sent to Rome, and the <16>Consulta[21] there concluded that the Pope might, nay ought, for the weal of Christendom, to grant a dispensation upon these conditions. These things may justly be laid before them, but I know not what ye mean by my acknowledging the Pope’s spiritual supremacy. I am sure ye would not have me renounce my religion for all the world, but all that I can guess at your meaning is that it may be ye have an allusion to a passage in my book against Bellarmin, where I offer, if the Pope would quit his godhead and usurping over kings, to acknowledge him for the Chief Bishop, to which all appeals of churchmen ought to lie en dernier ressort, the very words I send you here enclosed, and that is the farthest that my conscience will permit me to go upon this point, for I am not a monsieur who can shift his religion as easily as he can shift his shirt when he cometh from tennis.”[22]
It is not probable that either Charles or Buckingham was seriously thinking of acknowledging the authority of the Pope. March 10.Attempts to convert the Prince.A game of duplicity was being played on both sides. By constantly referring to the reluctance of the Pope to grant the dispensation, Olivares, no doubt, hoped to terrify Charles into the hoped-for conversion, whilst, at the same time, if he found his religious convictions to be unassailable, he was preparing him for the announcement that the Pope had refused to grant the dispensation. Charles, on the other hand, instead of meeting the difficulty in the face, was inclined to temporise, thinking it good policy to allow hopes to be entertained which he never intended to realise. Not long after his arrival, he threw away a splendid opportunity of clearing his position. Olivares was talking to him about his grandmother. The Queen of Scots, he said, had suffered for <17>the true faith, and her blood which had been shed would not cease to cry to heaven till her children who came after her were brought back to a knowledge of the faith. Instead of taking the chance, thus thrown in his way, of stating plainly what his religious position was, Charles affected in his reply to treat the whole matter as a mere historical question, and offered to show the Spaniard a portrait of his grandmother, and to enlighten him on some points relating to her execution.[23]
The Spanish ministers were much perplexed. At last they came to the conclusion that Charles was afraid of Bristol. Gondomar accordingly undertook to remove the obstacle, and adjured the ambassador not to hinder the pious work of the Prince’s conversion, to which, as he said, Buckingham was ready to give his aid. Bristol, knowing what the common rumour was, and having no doubt noticed the Prince’s deportment, accepted Gondomar’s account without difficulty, little dreaming that his mistake would one day be imputed to him as a crime. Going straight to the Prince, he asked him Bristol’s conversation with the Prince.with what object he had come to Spain. “You know as well as I,” answered Charles, briefly. “Sir,” said Bristol, who was too much a man of the world to be surprised at anything, “servants can never serve their masters industriously unless they know their meanings fully. Give me leave, therefore, to tell you what they say in the town is the cause of your coming: ‘That you mean to change your religion, and to declare it here.’ I do not speak this that I will persuade you to do it, or that I will promise you to follow your example, though you will do it. But, as your faithful servant, if you will trust me with so great a secret, I will endeavour to carry it the discreetest way I can.” By this time Charles began to show signs of vexation, hardly knowing, perhaps, how much he was himself to blame for the suspicions to which he had given rise. “I wonder,” he broke in, indignantly, “what you have ever found in me that you should conceive I would be so base and unworthy as for a wife to change my religion.” Bristol replied that he hoped he would <18>pardon what he had said, and then proceeded to give him some good advice. Unless he let it be known plainly that he had no intention of allowing himself to be converted, there would be no real effort made to obtain the dispensation. Nothing would be settled as long as that question remained open.[24]
It can hardly be doubted that both Gondomar and Olivares were well pleased when the day came on which the Prince was March 16.The Prince lodged in the Palace.to be removed from Bristol’s house. On March 16 he was conducted in state to the apartments prepared for him in the Royal Palace. The King himself came to accompany him, forcing him to take the right hand as they rode. A week before, Gondomar had been created a Councillor of State, and had been ordered to accept his dignity at the Prince’s hands. All prisoners, who were not confined on account of the most heinous crimes, were set at liberty. English galley-slaves, who had been captured when serving in pirate vessels, saw hope beam on them once more, and were freed for ever from their life of wretchedness. The sumptuary laws which had been recently imposed in the vain hope of restoring by such expedients the exhausted finances, were relaxed, and the Court was ordered to deck itself in all its ancient splendour.[25] As the Prince passed through the streets, the populace applauded him to the echo, and the song of Lope de Vega, which told how Charles had come, under the guidance of Love, to the Spanish sky, to see his star Maria, was sung by high and low.[26]
Yet, even amidst the gorgeous festivities which followed, the old question was ever returning. “For our main and chief business,” March 17.The conversion still looked for.wrote the two young men to the King, “we find them, by outward shows, as desirous of it as ourselves, yet are they hankering upon a conversion; for they say that there can be no firm friendship <19>without union in religion, but put no question in bestowing their sister; and we put the other quite out of question, because neither our conscience nor the time serves for it, and because we will not implicitly rely upon them.” This was certainly but a faint resistance, and it is hardly to be wondered at that Charles added, in his own hand, “I beseech your Majesty advise as little with your Council in these businesses as you can.”[27]
In truth, Charles was more than ever anxious to avoid giving offence to the Spaniards. He had found an opportunity of Charles’s opinion of the Infanta.seeing the Infanta more closely than when she had passed him in her brother’s coach. “Without flattery,” wrote Buckingham, “I think there is not a sweeter creature in the world. Baby Charles himself is so touched at the heart, that he confesses all he ever yet saw is nothing to her, and swears that, if he want her, there shall be blows.”[28] Of love, in the higher sense of the word, there can have been no question between two persons who had never exchanged a syllable with one another in their lives; but it is impossible to doubt that Charles’s fancy and imagination were deeply impressed, even if something is to be set down to his reluctance to return to England baffled and alone.
At last, however, the time came when it was necessary to think of more serious business. Buckingham was now, for the first time in his life, Buckingham as a diplomatist.to try his powers as a diplomatist. He began by requesting Olivares to join him in putting the marriage treaty into its final shape, the Prince having come to Spain upon the understanding that the King had already given his sincere assent to the match.[29]
It is not to be supposed that Olivares would leave anything unattempted to obtain better terms from Buckingham than those which he had wrung from Bristol. Before him rose the dreaded phantom of a war with England, a war which <20>could hardly be averted if Charles were sent back with wounded feelings. Yet, in the Infanta’s present temper, the marriage was impossible. One expedient only seems to have presented itself to the mind of the Spanish minister. It was almost certain that if the dispensation were granted at all it would be accompanied by a reiteration of the old demand for liberty of worship in England. If Charles could be persuaded to make this concession, was it likely that the Infanta would persist in her opposition to terms which had received the hearty approbation of the Vatican?[30]
The Spaniard, accordingly, informed Buckingham that the King was most anxious for the conclusion of the marriage. It depended, however, Olivares demands fresh concessions.entirely on the Prince whether it would take place or not. The King had done his best to obtain the dispensation from the Pope; but it was thought at Madrid that, if a favourable answer was to be obtained, it would be necessary for the King of England to grant liberty of worship, according to the Pope’s request. In this way all other difficulties would be easily surmounted.[31]
Buckingham was ignorant of mnch, but he at least knew England better than Olivares. It was impossible, he replied, for the King Buckingham’s reply.to admit such a proposition without danger of tumult, and even of rebellion, from which the Catholics would be the first to suffer. He had no power to promise anything beyond that which was contained in his master’s <21>letter written in 1620.[32] James was ready to promise that the Catholics should not be persecuted, and that they should not be meddled with as long as they confined their religious observances to their private houses. It was possible that time might bring them further advantages, but, for the present, nothing more could be done.
With this reply, Olivares betook himself to the junta of the Council of State for English affairs, It is communicated to the Nuncio,a committee which had recently been formed by excluding the ecclesiastics who had taken part in the original junta to which the marriage articles had been submitted. From it he received authority to consult the Nuncio on the subject.
It is better to see many things clearly than to be a man of one idea; but a sharp-sighted ecclesiastic, like De Massimi, possesses an undeniable advantage over a shifty politician like Olivares. What Olivares wanted might vary at any moment, according as the danger of offending the Emperor, or the danger of offending the King of England, was uppermost in his mind. The Nuncio’s object was ever the same. To the Infanta’s feelings, and to the impending bankruptcy of the Spanish monarchy, he was entirely callous. All he wanted to know, as each proposition was brought before him, was, how far it would conduce to the who raises objections.extension of his Church. Under his scrutiny, therefore, it is not to be wondered at if Buckingham’s proposal was weighed and found wanting. The Pope, he told Olivares, would do everything for the King of Spain that his honour and conscience would permit, but the decision had been entrusted to the Congregation of Cardinals, and it must be some very extraordinary cause which would move the Pope to set aside the resolution which they had taken. For his part, he thought that, unless liberty of worship were accorded, the dispensation would not be granted. If James did not choose to render real and effective service to the Catholics at a moment when he was so eager to gain the Pope’s consent to the marriage, it was vain to expect his good-will at a future time. Was it not ground for suspicion that he acknowledged that he was afraid of his own subjects, and that he was unable to induce them to <22>consent to the very change which he professed himself to be most anxious to grant? If it was true that the King of England’s power was limited by the will of his Parliament, was it likely that, when the Infanta was once in England, he would be able to keep any promises which he might now make?
This was, indeed, going to the root of the matter. After all, the liberty accorded to the Catholics would depend upon the will of the English people. If Gondomar and Olivares had been able to understand this, they would have saved themselves much discredit.
Olivares, however, was not yet ready to acknowledge the weight of the Nuncio’s objections. He tried to turn the subject, by alleging that he had not come to ask advice upon the general question. That had been carefully examined by the Council of State. All he wanted to know was, whether the Pope would assent to its decision.[33]
The Nuncio’s reply showed that, if he was more alive than Olivares to the general conditions of human action, his knowledge of Proposes the cession of a fortress to the English Catholics.special English feeling was limited in the extreme. Without some benefit to religion, he said, success was unattainable. If it were granted that, from fear of the Puritans and other heretics, the King of England was unable to permit the free exercise of the Catholic religion in his dominions, it was all the more necessary that he should give security that the concessions which he was willing to make would not be withdrawn. Let him, therefore, make over some fortified town to the Catholics, to be held by them in the same way that Rochelle was held by the French Huguenots.[34]
Charged with this monstrous proposition, the Spanish <23>minister hurried back to Buckingham, who at once made short work of the proposal. Rejection of the proposal by Buckingham.The circumstances of the French Huguenots and of the English Catholics, he said, were not the same. When the strong places were granted to the Protestants in France, it was done as a means of obtaining peace from a powerful body, which not only had the fortresses already in its possession, but was well able to keep them. The English Catholics were in a very different case. Living a retired and timid life in private, they had no following in the kingdom. The King could find no pretext to submit the proposition just made to Parliament. If Olivares thought of bringing forward any such demands as these, it would save trouble if he understood at once that they would not even be taken into consideration.[35]
Olivares saw that he had made a mistake. It is withdrawn by Olivares.He threw the blame of all that he had said upon the Nuncio, and assured Buckingham that he would write at once to the Pope to hasten the dispensation.[36]
Everything now appeared, to Buckingham’s inexperienced eye, to be going on smoothly. On March 25, March 25.he received from Olivares an engagement that no time should be lost in making preparations for the Infanta’s journey.[37] Two days afterwards, his Majesty’s humble and obedient son and servant, Charles, and his humble slave and dog, Steenie, were able to send home still more favourable news. “We think it not amiss,” they wrote, <24>“to assure you that, neither in spiritual nor in temporal things there is anything pressed upon us more than is already agreed upon. Fain would they, in this time of expecting the dispensation, have treated upon the ends and effects of friendship; but we have avoided it with so many forcible arguments that they now rest satisfied. They were likewise in hope of a conversion of us both, but now excuses are more studied than reasons for it, though they say their loves shall ever make them wish it. To conclude, we never saw the business in a better way than now it is; therefore, we humbly beseech you, lose no time in hasting the ships, that we may make the more haste to beg that personally which now we do by letter — your blessing.”[38]
For some weeks the Duke of Pastrana, a Spanish grandee — the natural son, if rumour was to be trusted, of Philip II. — had been Pastrana’s mission to Rome.preparing to start on a mission to Rome. He was now ordered to leave Madrid at once, and it was given out that he was to use every means in his power to hasten the dispensation. Before he left Madrid, he came to kiss the Prince’s hand, and assured him that ‘the chiefest errand of his employment was to do his Highness service.’[39] Charles would indeed have been startled if he had known that Pastrana carried secret instructions from the King of Spain, requiring him to inform the Pope of the state of affairs at Madrid, and to urge him to refuse to grant the dispensation, which was no longer desired, now that all hope of the Prince’s conversion was at an end.[40]
<25>That the secret was not communicated to the majority of the Spanish ministers there can be little doubt. It was a private arrangement Olivares’ anxiety about the Palatinate.between the favourite and the King. Knowing what was impending, Olivares, constant to his original policy, began to show renewed anxiety on the subject of the Palatinate. The war with England which, in any case, was probable enough, would be inevitable unless he could manage to smooth matters down in Germany. The news of His conversation with the Nuncio.the actual transference of the Electorate had by this time reached Madrid, and Buckingham had been speaking warmly about it. Olivares hurried to the Nuncio, begging him to urge the Pope to put forward his influence in favour of peace, and to invent some scheme by which the Catholic religion might be promoted, and the promise given by the King of Spain to James in favour of his son-in-law might be at the same time fulfilled. The best thing, he said, would be that the Emperor should deposit the whole of the Lower Palatinate in the hands of the Infanta Isabella, with a view to its restitution either to Frederick or to his son. He hoped that the Emperor would give an express engagement that after Maximilian’s death the Electorate should return either to the Count Palatine or to the young Prince, leaving, however, the selection between the two an open question, till it was known what were the final wishes of the King of England.
Olivares was now to learn once more how little a Roman ecclesiastic cared for the interests of Spain apart from the interests of the Church. De Massimi answered coldly that the Pope would doubtless do everything in his power to keep up a good understanding between the Emperor and the King of Spain, but that it would never do to treat the new Elector of Bavaria with disrespect. It would be well if Oñate received instructions to congratulate him on his advancement.[41]
Two or three days after this interview the subject came on <26>for discussion in the Council of State. It would be in vain to look for March 29.Discussion in the Council of State.an original or statesmanlike view of affairs from any one of the members of that body. There was a general feeling that a continuation of the war was almost unavoidable, and that the only chance of averting the calamity lay in getting as much of the Palatinate as possible into Spanish hands, in order that James might in due time be propitiated by its surrender. Olivares concurred in this advice; but he added an opinion that a great error had been made in form, if not in substance, by the irritating language which Oñate had used in dealing with the Emperor. It would have been far better to have acted in harmony with Ferdinand and Maximilian; and he would now recommend that whilst the fortresses in the Palatinate were brought as far as possible into Spanish hands, their surrender to the King of England should be made a matter of friendly negotiation with the Emperor.[42] Olivares’ faith in the possibility of patching up the peace of Europe was not yet completely overthrown.
Scarcely had Pastrana left Madrid when news arrived from Rome that, though the dispensation was not yet drawn up, the Cardinals had April.News that the dispensation will probably be granted.made up their minds not to withhold it any longer.[43] It was a sad blow to Olivares, for he could not now hope, by throwing blame upon the Pope, to soften down in the Prince’s eyes the asperity of the impending announcement that the marriage was impossible, excepting upon conditions to which even he could hardly expect a Protestant to consent; and the effect of the intelligence was easily to be perceived in the spasmodic efforts which he once more made to smooth away the almost insuperable obstacles by which the progress of the match was obstructed.
The Infanta, as was well known to the few who were allowed to penetrate the secrets of her domestic life, had fallen into a <27>profound melancholy. She warmly protested that, unless the Prince became a Catholic, Continued reluctance of the Infanta.she would never consent to be his wife. To Olivares and Gondomar she spoke in terms of the strongest condemnation of the mischief they had done both to the King and to herself. Olivares, who seems merely to have wished to extricate himself from the entanglement in which he was involved, did his best to quiet her. He tried to impress upon her a sense of the merit which Arguments of Olivares.she would acquire, both in this world and in the next, by assisting in the spread of the faith. It was not impossible, he added, that the Prince might still become a Catholic, although he was too much in dread of his father to make a public acknowledgment of his conversion.[44] To the Infanta such arguments were addressed in vain. Strong in her own feelings of right, she was not left without warm sympathy from other members of the Royal family. The Queen, Elizabeth of France, took up her cause, and the King himself was disposed to share her ideas. But her stoutest champion was her second brother, Charles, who threw himself with all the ardour of his boyish nature into the struggle, and who saw clearly how little reality there was in the supposition that the Prince of Wales intended to become a Catholic. Already, when after his first interview with the Prince, Philip expressed his belief that his guest had come with the intention of acknowledging his conversion, the boy had muttered that it would be well for his Majesty to take care that his sister were not carried away into heresy; and he now lost all patience when he heard some one telling the Infanta that she was elected by God to be the means of redeeming England. “I hope,” he said, “that the devil may not tempt us to send her there to her own destruction.”[45]
In despair of prevailing with the Infanta, Olivares turned once more to the Prince, hoping that he might win from him at <28>least a private acknowledgment of a change of religion. His Olivares hopes for a private conversion of the Prince.first step was to appeal to the Nuncio. If the Prince, he said, would give the private assurance required of him, would it not be possible to proceed with the marriage at once without waiting for the dispensation.[46]
The Nuncio replied in the negative, but Olivares was not discouraged. He determined to make his first attempt upon Buckingham, who had, whilst repelling the overtures of the Spaniards, been doing his best to simulate the appearance of one who was not unwilling to be converted, whenever the proper time should arrive. He had taken good care never to attend the Protestant service, which was regularly celebrated at the English Embassy by Bristol’s chaplain. When he visited a church he did not omit to bow the knee reverently before the Sacrament on the altar.[47] So successful had he been in conveying the desired impression, that the Imperial Ambassador, writing to his master about this time, informed him that the English were assuming, as much as possible, the appearance of Catholics.[48]
Thus encouraged, Olivares lost no time in talking to Buckingham on the subject. What a pity it was, he said, that the Prince should not seize the opportunity of informing himself on the doctrines of the Catholic faith. No compulsion was intended; but it could not be taken otherwise than as an insult, if he refused even to listen to what was to be said in its favour. Buckingham was all politeness. Truly or falsely, he asserted that he had brought orders not to throw obstacles in the way of a discussion upon religious subjects. He should be glad, however, to try the effect of such a conversation upon <29>himself before he recommended it to the Prince. It did not occur to Olivares that all that Buckingham wanted was to gain time. April 4.Religious discussion with Buckingham.The offer was thought to be a serious one, and on April 4 the Marquis was carried in profound secrecy to the monastery of San Geronimo, to engage in a theological disputation with Francisco de Jesus, a Carmelite friar, who had taken a principal part in the discussions upon the marriage treaty. For four hours the debate lasted. Buckingham listened patiently, said something whenever he could find anything to say in a paper which he had brought with him, and when he could not find an argument to the purpose held his tongue. At last the friar began to suspect that he had taken all his trouble for nothing. Buckingham did not appear to understand that he had been well beaten according to all the rules of logic, and that it was his business to surrender at discretion.[49]
A few days before this curious scene was enacted, the Marquis of Inojosa, the Viceroy of Navarre, was ordered to prepare to go Inojosa ordered to go to England.as Extraordinary Ambassador to England,[50] ostensibly to thank James for allowing his son to visit Madrid. He was, however, privately instructed to urge James to make yet further concessions to his Catholic subjects.[51]
It was impossible any longer to avoid coming to a conclusion on a point still more delicate. As yet Charles had never been April 7.The Prince allowed to visit the Infanta.allowed to see the Infanta except in public, and had never had an opportunity of speaking to her at all. Every excuse which Spanish customs could suggest had been made without giving the slightest satisfaction. The knotty point was seriously debated in the Council of State, and it was at last decided that on Easter Day the long-desired visit should take place. Accordingly the King, accompanied by a long train of grandees, came to fetch the Prince, and led him to the Queen’s apartment, where they found <30>her Majesty seated with the Infanta by her side. After paying his respects to the Queen, Charles turned to address his mistress. It had been intended that he should confine himself to the few formal words which had been set down beforehand, but in the presence in which he was, he forgot the rules of ceremony, and was beginning to declare his affection in words of his own choice. He had not got far before it was evident that there was something wrong. The bystanders began to whisper to one another. The Queen looked annoyed at the daring youth. Charles hesitated and stopped short. The Infanta herself appeared to be seriously displeased; and when it came to her turn to reply, some of those who were watching her expected her to show signs of her dissatisfaction. It was not so very long ago that she had been heard to declare that her only consolation was that she should die a martyr. But she had an unusual fund of self-control, and she disliked Charles too much to feel in the slightest degree excited by his speeches. She merely uttered the few commonplace words which had been drawn up beforehand, and the interview was at an end.[52] Nevertheless, Charles was in no way disconcerted. In writing home he declared that the Infanta was even more beautiful than he had expected.[53]
<31>The unlucky termination of this visit did not hinder Olivares from making one more attempt upon Buckingham’s religion. Fresh attempts to convert Buckingham.Before Easter week was over, he invited him to a second disputation. Seeing that the friar’s eloquence produced but little effect, Olivares himself came to the rescue, and took part in the argument. Of course it was all in vain, and no further assault was made upon the conscience of the magnificent Englishman.[54]
Such were the expedients by which Buckingham hoped to occupy the attention of the Spanish ministers till the dispensation arrived. He expects to return soon.He could not now, he thought, have much longer to wait. On April 18 he wrote to England, to countermand the sending out of some horses for tilting, which had been ordered for Charles. Before they could possibly reach Spain the Prince would have left Madrid.[55] On the same day he wrote to Conway, informing him that he had been privately assured that the dispensation had been conceded at Rome.[56]
Buckingham’s information was correct. The news of the Prince’s arrival in Spain reached Rome on March 15. There, too, as at Madrid, March 15.Discussion at Rome.it was the universal opinion that he intended to become a Roman Catholic, or at least to grant extraordinary concessions to the professors of that religion. On the 19th,[57] the question was solemnly discussed by the Congregation of Cardinals. Under the impression caused by the Prince’s journey, they resolved not to be content with the articles to which James had signified his assent in January, and though they no longer pressed their original demand for public liberty of worship, they put forward several by no means unimportant amendments of the treaty. These questions, however, were very far from forming their chief difficulty. Though even before Pastrana arrived, care had been taken to let the cardinals know that Philip had no real wish to have the dispensation granted, it had been <32>impossible for them to look upon the question with Philip’s eyes. No one who was not a Spaniard could imagine that if Charles returned without his bride, he would return otherwise than filled with indignation against those by whom his disappointment had been caused. Nor, on the other hand, was the comfortable arrangement by which Olivares proposed to discharge that indignation upon the broad shoulders of the Pope likely to be received with much favour at the Vatican. If James were led to understand that his failure was owing to the obstinacy of the Pope, April.The responsibility of a breach to be cast on Philip.he would be sure to vent his displeasure upon his Catholic subjects. It would be better, therefore, so to arrange matters that his quarrel — if quarrel there was to be — should be a personal one with Philip.[58]
With amusing gravity, therefore, which recalls the well-known formula with which the clergy were wont to hand over offenders to the secular arm, the cardinals proceeded to wash their hands of the whole business. They were shrewd enough to suspect that, as soon as Charles was safe in England with his bride, he would forget all the promises which he had made in Spain, and they entirely refused to be in any way responsible for the consequences. All they had to say about the matter was, that Charles must give some sort of security for his fidelity to his engagements. What that security ought to be it was not <33>their business to judge. All such questions must be referred Terms on which the dispensation is to be granted.to the consideration of his Catholic Majesty. The dispensation would be placed in the hands of the Nuncio at Madrid, who was to have orders not to part with it till Philip had sworn, in his own name and in that of his successors, that the promises made in accordance with the treaty would be faithfully observed by both parties; and that neither his Catholic Majesty, nor the King of Great Britain, nor any of their successors, would ‘do or execute anything, nor consent that any should do or execute anything to the contrary; though it should concern the conservation of their kingdoms.’ Moreover, within one year, so concluded this strange proposal, the King of Spain ‘shall send unto his Holiness the said capitulations, approved, confirmed, and assured by the King of Great Britain, and also allowed and received by his Councils and Parliament; and, besides this, his said Catholic Majesty shall promise and swear that he and his successors in that Crown shall always be ready with their arms, army, and armadas to the end that, so soon as any of the conditions shall be broken, without any delay he oppose himself with all his power and force against that Prince or King which shall break it, or not observe it.’
Cardinal Ludovisi at once wrote to De Massimi announcing the decision.[59] The dispensation, he informed him, would Olivares tells the news to the Prince.shortly be sent, though it would be accompanied by certain conditions, upon which he was at all hazards to insist. The letter, immediately upon its arrival, was imparted by the Nuncio to Olivares, with the strictest injunctions to secrecy; but; much to De Massimi’s disgust, the Spaniard could not resist the temptation of currying favour with Charles, by being the first to acquaint him with the news. The Prince was soon overwhelmed with congratulations on every side, as if all difficulties had now been surmounted.[60]
<34>It is only by conjecture that we can penetrate the secret feelings of Philip when he learned that the long intrigue had finally broken down, and that the Pope had refused to stand between his sister and her unwelcome lover. The only symptom of his agitation which came to the surface was one more desperate attempt to convert the Prince. A third theological discussion, in which Charles himself was to take part, was fixed for the evening of April 23.
That day, St. George’s Day, the Prince and Buckingham dined in state. Some weeks before, his father, in one of his garrulous letters, St. George’s Day.had encouraged them to keep the festival of the patron of England with unusual magnificence. “I sent you,” he wrote, “your robes of the order, which ye must not forget to wear on St George’s Day, and dine together in them, if they can come in time, which I pray God they may, for it will be a goodly sight for the Spaniards to see my two boys dine in them.” The Spaniards, however, did not appear to appreciate the display.[61] They had been thoroughly disgusted by Buckingham’s proceedings with respect to the religious conferences, and they now began to take it for granted that it was by his arts that the Prince’s conversion had been hindered. Before the day ended a violent quarrel had broken out between the English favourite and Don Fernando Giron, a member of the Council of State, and the angry disputants were only pacified by an assurance that the misunderstanding had been caused by the ignorance of an interpreter.
As soon as the evening came, Charles and Buckingham were carried off to the appointed conference. The King himself Another religious discussion.accompanied them to the place, though he withdrew immediately on the plea that it was unfit for a King of Spain to listen to a single word directed against his religion.
One friar had been thought sufficient to confront Buckingham. No less than four were summoned to convince the Prince. For some minutes after Charles had taken his seat, there was complete silence. At last one of the friars asked <35>him if he had no matter to propose for their consideration. “Nothing at all,” replied the Prince; “I have no doubts whatever.” Olivares then suggested that an attempt should be made to enlighten him. Upon this Antonio de Sotomayor, the King’s confessor, argued at some length in behalf of the Pope’s claim to be the Vicar of Christ. To clinch the argument, Father Zacharias chimed in with the passage in which the Saviour addressed the failing apostle, “And thou, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Charles at once replied that they were straining the text by forcing such an interpretation upon it, and requested that it might be read again in French. After it had been twice repeated, he said something to Buckingham in English. Regardless of those decencies of life which were so dear to the Spanish heart, Buckingham leapt from his seat, and, after expressing his contempt for the friars by unseemly gesticulations, threw his hat upon the ground, and stamped upon it. After this the conference was of course brought to an end.[62]
That Charles gave any direct support to the prevailing opinion that he intended to change his religion, is contradicted by Charles’s behaviour about his religion.every scrap of evidence which exists. He was ready, he told one of the friars who had taken part in the discussion, to abjure his religion as soon as he was convinced of its falsehood. Under ordinary circumstances, such language is usually taken as a polite form of refusal, but, situated as Charles was, it would have saved much misapprehension if he had absolutely declined to take part in religious conversations, lest they might give rise to those false hopes to which it was his duty to put an end.[63]
It was not with James’s good-will that the slightest ground was given to the Spaniards Chaplains sent by James.for supposing that they could effect a conversion of the Prince. A ship which sailed from England crowded with the attendants whose presence was needed to enable Charles to keep his Court <36>in state, carried also two of the Prince’s chaplains, Mawe and Wren. From these men James expected great things. When they arrived at Madrid they were to take care to have ‘a convenient room appointed for prayer,’ which was to ‘be decently adorned, chapel-wise, with an altar, fonts, palls, linen coverings, demy carpet, four surplices, candlesticks, tapers, chalices, patens, a fine towel for the Prince, other towels for the household, a traverse, wafers for the Communion, a basin, flagons, and two copes.’ The chaplains were further directed to see that prayers ‘be duly kept twice a day, that all reverence be used by every one present being uncovered, kneeling at due times, standing up at the creeds and gospel, bowing at the name of Jesus.’ The Communion was to ‘be celebrated in due form, with an oblation of every communicant, and admixing water with the wine.’ In the sermons there were to be ‘no polemical preachings,’ but the doctrine of the Church of England was to be confirmed ‘by all positive arguments either in fundamental or moral points, and specially to apply ourselves to moral lessons to preach Christ Jesus crucified.’ The chaplains were not to engage in disputation, excepting at the request of Bristol or Cottington; and, lastly, they were to carry with them ‘the articles of religion in many copies, the book of Common Prayer in several languages, store of English service books,’ and ‘the King’s own works in English and Latin.’[64]
“The Spanish Ambassador,” wrote James a month later, “let fall a word to Gresley, as if there would be some question made that Exhorts his son not to be ashamed of his religion.my baby’s chaplains should not do their service in the King’s palace there; but he concluded that that business would be soon accommodated. Always in case any such difficulty should be stuck at, ye may remember them, that it is an ill preparation for giving the Infanta free exercise of her religion here, to refuse it to my son there; since their religion is as odious to a number here as ours is there. And if they will not yield, then, my sweet baby, show yourself not to be ashamed of your profession; but go sometimes to my Ambassador’s house and have your service <37>there, that God and man may see ye are not ashamed of your religion. But I hope in God this shall not need.”[65]
No doubt there was enough of folly in the idea that it was possible to make a Protestant service palatable to the Spaniards; but there are few persons of upright minds who will not prefer the folly of the father to the prudence of the son.
James’s plan for exhibiting what he considered to be a service ‘decent and agreeable to the purity of the Prince’s Church, and English service prohibited in the Royal Palace.yet as near the Roman form as can lawfully be done,’[66] was never carried into execution. Olivares sent for Cottington, and told him plainly that any attempt of the chaplains to enter the Royal Palace would be resisted by force.[67] Against this intimation Charles was powerless. Once, indeed, it appears, in a moment of pique, Buckingham caused Charles to attend the ministrations of his religion in Bristol’s house; but the practice was not continued, and a month later, in the instructions given to Cottington when he was about to return to England, the Prince charged him ‘to give his Majesty satisfaction in that his Highness hath not had the exercise of his religion in hearing sermons.’[68]
On April 24 the dispensation was placed in the hands of the Nuncio at Madrid, accompanied by a letter to Philip from the Pope, The dispensation in the hands of the Nuncio.exhorting him to do everything in his power for the advantage of the Catholic religion in England, and by secret instructions in which the Nuncio was recommended to urge the concession of complete freedom of worship. He was also informed that the dispensation was Oath required of Philip.absolutely null till the King of Spain had sworn that the King of England would perform his obligations, and would obtain the consent of the Privy Council and the Parliament to the articles, and had engaged that he <38>would himself keep his fleets ready to enforce at any time the execution of the treaty.[69]
That Olivares should object strongly to such a startling demand, as derogatory to the honour of his master, was natural enough; but Quarrel between Buckingham and Olivares.the Nuncio simply referred to his orders, and the Spanish minister was forced to inform the Prince of Wales how matters stood. The reception with which he met, as may well be supposed, was not a favourable one. The alterations made at Rome in the articles themselves were by no means unimportant. The age at which the education of the children by their mother was to cease was now fixed at twelve; whilst James had only expressed his willingness, as an extreme concession, to go as far as ten. The Infanta’s church, it was again required, was to be open to all, and the oath drawn up by the Pope for her servants was to be substituted in the case of every English Catholic for that oath of allegiance which had been settled by Act of Parliament. After these demands, the question of the King of Spain’s oath, excepting so far as it led to fresh claims, was in reality unimportant. The articles themselves were utterly incompatible with James’s notion that he was about to grant favours to his Catholic subjects of his own free grace. For a sovereign to agree with a foreign power to set aside the laws is to sign away the independence of his crown, whatever may be the form in which the concession is couched; and the Pope’s demand that Philip should become a guarantee for James’s conduct, and should hold himself in readiness to enforce the execution of his engagements, merely ripped away the veil from the ill-concealed monstrosity behind.
The meeting between Olivares and Buckingham was a stormy one, and for two days after it the favourites refused even to speak to one another. By the English it was alleged that when the Prince came to Madrid he did not expect to be asked to make fresh concessions. They were answered that the Prince had come of his own accord; that, if Gondomar had spoken to him on the subject, he had done so merely as a private <39>person, and that, as it had always been understood that the Pope was to be satisfied, nothing added at his request could be properly regarded as a new demand.[70]
The quarrel thus begun was hushed up for the time, and on May 3 the whole question was referred to the Marquis of Montesclaros, May 3.The marriage referred to commissioners.the Count of Gondomar, and the Secretary Ciriza, who were appointed to treat as commissioners with Buckingham, Bristol, Aston, and Cottington on behalf of the Prince.
Before this body Charles appeared. He and his father, he said, were ready to swear that the penal laws should be suspended, and Charles offers to try to induce Parliament to repeal the penal laws.they would also do their best to obtain as soon as possible from Parliament a confirmation of the articles and also of the suspension of the laws, if it were impossible to have them altogether repealed. To this offer the Spanish Commissioners replied by asking how soon all this was likely to happen, and Charles, who knew perfectly well that there was not the slightest chance that Parliament would do anything of the sort, answered boldly that it might possibly be in three months, or in six. It would probably be in a year; but it would certainly, and without fail, be done in three.
The next day was taken up with hearing Charles’s arguments against the additional articles. It was needless, he observed, May 6.His offer refused by the Council of State.to state that the nurses of the children must necessarily be Catholics, as they were in any case to be selected by the Infanta herself. To admit the Catholics generally to the Infanta’s church was an uncalled-for innovation, as they would have the benefit of their religion in their own houses. He would promise, however, to connive at their occasional presence. To do more would amount to a public toleration of the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, to which, as the King of Spain knew well, his father had always refused to accede. To the universal application of the new oath he also objected as unnecessary. Besides, he added, it was unfit that the Pope should dictate the <40>form of oath due to the King of Great Britain by his subjects. With respect to the concession of two additional years of education he would intercede with his father, but he could not engage what the result would be.[71]
The declaration thus made was duly reported to the Council of State, where it was resolved that the articles must be accepted as they came from Rome, or not at all; and that the Prince’s offer was altogether insufficient. The oath required from the King of Spain must be sworn if the marriage was to take place, and the question what the conditions were which would justify him in swearing should be referred at once to a junta of forty theologians, to be summoned for the purpose.[72]
This decision, unacceptable as it was certain to be to Charles, did not go far enough for Olivares. It was impossible, he urged Olivares advises that the Infanta shall be retained.in a private paper addressed to the King, that James could be serious in the promises that he was willing to make, for it was altogether contrary to his interests to allow a religion differing from his own to grow up in his State. It would therefore be well to retain the Infanta in Spain till the engagements of the King of England had been actually put in execution.
It was, no doubt, under the impression caused by this opinion that the whole question was brought up again for May 7.His speech in the Council of State.discussion on the following day, when Olivares reproduced his ideas at greater length. “This marriage,” he said, “has been treated of solely wuth a view to the good of the English Catholics. Yet, though the King of Great Britain desires its accomplishment with all the anxiety which he has already shown, and with such eagerness as may be understood from the pledges which he has given, he says that he is unable to do more for the Catholics in his kingdom than to extend to them a mere connivance, and that without force of law, nor any confirmation greater than his own word, and that of the Prince, and although that is of great value, nevertheless, as it is in opposition to what they hold to be right, <41>it is not obligatory on them in conscience, especially as oaths to the contrary have been made, and legally established, in so many Parliaments; it is therefore to be supposed that everything that is now offered is only done in order to obtain the marriage, for if, though the King desires it so much, he can do no more than this, and if we are told that the people may become so unruly at his mere condescension to a simple connivance that it may be impossible for him to do even this, how can it be argued that, after the marriage is over, either the King or the Prince will wish to preserve, or to favour, in their kingdoms a religion which they consider in their conscience to be contrary to their own? And so little power have they, according to their own public acknowledgment, that even with the best wishes of the King and the Prince, they cannot introduce the free exercise of religion now. How, then, is it to be supposed that they will do it after the marriage?”
If he could hear that either the King or Prince were likely to become Catholic, Olivares went on to say, it would be a different thing; as it was, it was impossible to trust their mere word. Let us propose to them to celebrate the marriage at once; but let us at the same time inform them that the Infanta must remain here till we see them act as well as talk. When the release of the Catholics from the penal laws is accepted by the Council, and confirmed by Parliament; when offices of trust are placed in the hands of declared Catholics, then, and not till then, it will be safe to allow the Infanta to go. For by this means the Catholics would increase in number and strength, so that it would no longer be in the King’s power to depress them again. He would then be obliged to temporise, and perhaps even to adopt their religion for his own safety.[73]
In the Council of State Olivares found himself alone. It was not that the other ministers were less desirous to impose their own religion upon a foreign nation, but that they underrated the difficulties in their way. The idea of securing toleration for their co-religionists in England was utterly foreign to their minds. They wanted supremacy for their Church, <42>and they were on the whole inclined to think with Gondomar, that a little more cajolery would be sufficient to obtain it.
Olivares waited his time. Favourite as he was, it was not his habit to take violent measures with men who disagreed with him; and The Prince makes fresh offers.he was anxious to be regarded by the English as the firm friend of the match. He determined to apply once more to Charles, and asked him what in his opinion would be sufficient security to enable the King of Spain to take the oath? His father’s oath and his own, Charles now said, should be confirmed by that of the Privy Council, and he would do his best that it should be confirmed by Parliament as well. Shortly afterwards he declared himself ready to engage that he would never allow a word to be breathed in the Infanta’s presence which was prejudicial to her faith; and that on the other hand he would be ready, whenever his wife requested him, to listen privately to the discourses of Catholic theologians.
Upon this reply the Spanish Commissioners met once more, and laid the Prince’s propositions before the Nuncio. De Massimi’s The Nuncio refuses to dispense.answer was decisive. On these terms the dispensation could not be granted. The articles must be accepted precisely in the form in which they had been sent from Rome. Such a reply was peculiarly irritating to Buckingham. Confident, as usual, of the irresistible weight of his personal influence, he sought a secret interview with the Nuncio at the dead of night. For three hours he poured forth every form of argument and entreaty, descending even to threats. “There is no way,” he said at last, “to treat for this marriage, but with the sword drawn over the Catholics.”[74] Bristol was next sent to the Nuncio, with no better success. Charles was plainly told that without the consent of the Pope the articles could not be restored to their original form. The King of Spain would indeed be ready to refer the matter again to Rome, and it would be well if Charles would send to England to obtain his father’s consent to the concessions which were required. As for the King of Spain’s oath, the question should be laid before the theologians.
[1] “And I have it de bonâ manu, and under the rose, that the Prince himself goes in person.” Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 4, S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 5. This puts out of the question Clarendon’s story of the journey being suggested at once just before the Prince started. It must be remembered that our only knowledge of the scene which follows is derived from him. He undoubtedly obtained his information from Cottington, and that part of his narrative which relates to things which passed before Cottington’s own eyes may be at once accepted. But the remainder of his story, though doubtless generally true, is liable to error whenever it touches upon those circumstances of general history with which Clarendon had not made himself familiar. Clarendon, for instance, incorrectly asserts that the Marquis and the Prince had been at variance up to this time, that the journey to Spain was the beginning of James’s dissatisfaction with Buckingham, and that Frederick had already ‘incurred the ban of the Empire in an Imperial diet,’ all of which statements are manifestly incorrect. I suspect that the first conversation took place about New Year’s Day, and related only to <3>going with the fleet, and that there was an interval of some weeks before the question of the journey by land was mooted. Bristol was informed of Buckingham’s intention to come to Spain to the Infanta’s marriage.
[2] I do not insert the whole of the arguments used by James as given by Clarendon, as I have a suspicion that they were embellished by knowledge acquired after the event; I have adopted so much as would probably have occurred to James under the circumstances.
[3] Clarendon, i. 15. Cottington’s objections are mentioned by Valaresso, Feb. 28⁄March 10, Venice MSS. and in a letter of Dudley Carleton’s, Feb. 27, S. P. Dom. cxxxviii. 99.
[4] Privy Council Register, Jan. 28, Feb. 4.
[5] Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 10, S. P. Dom. cxxxviii. 23. It appears from Buckingham’s defence (Rushworth, i. 387), that the King promised to grant lands in fee farm of his own instead. It also appears, from the Patent Rolls, that a large grant was passed, under the Great Seal, to Mandeville by Charles almost immediately after his accession, and it was expressly stated that this was done in fulfilment of James’s promises. It is true that money was paid for the land. But this may easily have been a mere blind, the land being undervalued. Pat. 1 Charles I., Part 2.
[6] Reliquiæ Wottonianæ (1672), i. 212. Mainwaring to Zouch, Feb. 22. Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 22. Dudley Carleton to Carleton, Feb. 27, S. P. Dom. cxxxviii. 58, 59, 99. Calvert to Carleton, Feb. 27, S. P. Holland.
[7] The Prince and Buckingham to the King, Feb. 22. Goodman’s Court of King James, ii. 253. Ellis, series i. vol. iii. 121.
[8] Calvert to Carleton, Feb. 27, S. P. Holland. D. Carleton to Carleton, Feb. 17, S. P. Dom., cxxxviii. 99. Salvetti’s News-Letter, Feb. 28⁄March 10.
[9] Williams to the Prince, Feb. 25, Hacket, 116.
[10] Williams to Buckingham, Feb. 25, Hacket, 116. Valaresso to the Doge, Feb. 28⁄March 10, Venice MSS.
[11] The King to the Prince and Buckingham, Feb. 26, Hardwicke S. P. i. 399.
[12] The Prince and Buckingham to the King, March 2, Hardwicke S. P. i. 403. Salvetti’s News-Letter, March 7⁄17.
[13] ‘A True Relation,’ &c., Nichols’ Progresses, iii. 818. This account was compiled by Bristol himself.
[14] Roça, Add. MSS. 25,689, fol. 65. Appendix to Francisco de Jesus, 325.
[15] Bristol to Calvert, Feb. 23, S. P. Spain. Khevenhüller, x. 71–79.
[16] Bristol to the King, Feb. 22, S. P. Spain.
[17] The scheme of Olivares may be not unaptly compared to the ideas which dictated the maps of Europe which were published in Paris during the Second Empire. In them France always appeared without additional territory, though everything else is changed.
[18] The extract from the despatch in which Coloma, the Spanish Ambassador in England, announced the Prince’s journey, will show how deep-seated this idea was. The Prince, he says, has gone ‘á tomar las leyes que V. Magd. le diere, no solo en la materia del casamento, sino en las demas que miran á la confusion de nuestros enemigos, que sentirán este golpe como mortal para ellos.’ Coloma to Philip IV., Feb. 19⁄March 1, Madrid Palace Library.
[19] ‘A True Relation,’ &c., Nichols’ Progresses, iii. 818. Spanish Account. Guizot, Projet de Mariage Royal, 107. Francisco de Jesus, 54.
[20] Buckingham’s relation, Lords’ Journals, iii. 222. The Prince and Buckingham to the King, March 10, Hardwicke S. P. i. 401.
[21] i.e. the junta at Madrid.
[22] “As for myself, if that were yet the question, I would with all my heart give my consent that the Bishop of Rome should have the first seat. I being a Western King, would go with the Patriarch of the West. And for his temporal principality over the Signores of Rome, I do not quarrel at either. Let him, in God’s name, be primus Episcopus inter omnes Episcopos, et princeps Episcoporum, so it be no otherwise but as St. Peter was princeps Apostolorum.” The King to the Prince and Buckingham, March 25, Hardwicke S. P. i. 411.
[23] Francisco de Jesus, 57. Compare Roça’s narrative in the Appendix, 325.
[24] Seventh Article against Bristol. Answer to the Seventh Article. Charles I. to Bristol, Jan. 20, 1626, State Trials, ii. 1285, 1406, 1277.
[25] ‘A True Relation,’ &c. Nichols’ Progresses, iii. 818.
[27] The Prince and Buckingham to the King, March 17, Hardwicke S. P. i. 408.
[28] Buckingham to the King, March 17 (?), ibid. i. 410.
[29] Corner to the Doge, March 27⁄April 6, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[30] In ascribing this reasoning to Olivares, I have not followed any authority. But it appears to be the only possible way of accounting for his actions, taking them into consideration as a whole.
[31] “Olivares rispose, che il Rè persisteva non solo nell’ assento, et lo confermeva a pieno, ma che gradendo appunto la dimostratione del Prencipe di trasferirse qui, desiderava medesimamente che si concludesse et s’ultimasse; che tuttavia questi stava solo nella volontà del Prencipe; perche si era sempre con tal conditione trattato per il che più volte havea S. Mtà. supplicato il Papa della gratia, et che rinoverebbe con efficace colore le supplicationi; ma accio più facilmente fossero essaudite, si stimava necessario che il Rè d’Inghilterra si risolvesse permettere la libertà della conscienza nella maniera che insta il Pontifice, sperandosi che cosi tutte le altre difficoltà si superebbono.” Corner to the Doge, March 27⁄April 6, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[32] See Vol. III. p. 346.
[33] Corner to the Doge, March 27⁄April 6, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[34] “Monsignor Nuntio replicò che, senza beneficare la Religione et assicurarla, non sarebbono riusciboli i tentativi. Propose che, escusandosi il Rè di Inghilterra che in se non stava di ammettere publicamente l’essercitio Cattolico per non pericolarsi coi Puritani, et con gli alteri Heretici; che, almeno, perchè vi fosse sicurtà che non venissero fra poco tempo di nuovo travagliuti et molestati i Cattolici, et al exempio di Francia con gli Ugonotti, conseguesse alcuna fortezza o luogo da fortificarsi in mano di esse Cattolici per sicuro ricovero et difesa loro.” Ibid.
[35] “Il Conte di Olivares riportò il pensiero a Buckingham, qual maravigliendosene, esplicossi che non concorrea in parità di case lo succeduto nella Francia con quello che si ricercava deliberare il Rè suo Signore, perchè la consegnatione delle Piazze a quelli della Religione Reformata fu da stimolo et da desiderio di quiete del Regno, perchè si ritrovavano armati in furore, et con acquisti di Piazze; cosa che non era de Cattolici in Inghilterra, che nascosti, timidi, et senza alcuna existimatione viveano; onde che il Rè, non havendo pretesto, non ardirebbe porter nel Parlamento simil propositione; manifestando al Conde che, quando si pretendesse di nuovo queste dimande, si poteva riputar caduta e svanita qualunque trattica, ancorche avanti si trovasse.” Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[36] Ibid.
[37] The Prince and Buckingham to the King, March 25, Harl. MSS. 6987, fol. 44.
[38] The Prince and Buckingham to the King, March 27, Hardwicke S. P. i. 413.
[39] Aston to Carleton, April 2, S. P. Spain.
[40] “Tardandosi tanto a sentire la nuova della conclusione del matrimonio del Principe d’Inghilterra, et sapendosi che la dispensa di quà fu inviata gran tempo fu, habbiamo procurato d’intendere con fondamento il vero stato di questo importante negotio, et da persona principalissima che ha havuto gran parte in questi maneggi habbiamo havuto la seguente relatione:— che la dispensa fu inviata in Spagna quasi contra la volontà de Spagnuola, che per loro interessi tenevan volontieri questo negotio in piedi, ma anco per lor importanti rispetti non volevan per adesso venir a conclusione alcuna, et volevan servirse con Inghilterra per pretesti che non potevano cavar il consenso Ponteficio nè la dispensa, et che questo era uno <25>de’ principali negotii che portasse il Duca di Pastrana.” Soranza and Zen to the Doge, July 5⁄15 Venice MSS. Desp. Roma. Compare note to p. 32, and the extract from Zen’s former despatch quoted at vol. IV. p. 395.
[41] Corner to the Doge, March 27⁄April 6, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[42] Consulta of the Council of State, March 29⁄April 8, Simancas MSS. 2404, fol. 11.
[43] Aston to Carleton, April 2, S. P. Spain.
[44] “Et segli da anco speranza, che il Prencipe possa anchè inclinar ad essere Cattolico; ma che, per timor del Padre, non lo pubbliche.” Corner to the Doge, April 4⁄14, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[45] Ibid.
[46] “Il Conde de Olivares nondimeno ha ricercato Monsignor Nuntio, se il matrimonio si poteva effetuare senza permissione del Pontefice, mentre il Prencipe occultamente abjurasse o di segreto professasse la nostra religione, non comportando gli interessi suoi pubblica professione nè palese culto.” Corner to the Doge, April 4⁄14, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[47] Articles against Buckingham, State Trials, ii. 1288.
[48] “Stellen sich sehr Catholisch.” Khevenhüller to Ferdinand II., April 7⁄17, Khevenhüller, x. 79.
[49] Francisco de Jesus, 58.
[50] Aston to Carleton, April 2, S. P. Spain.
[51] Corner to the Doge, April 13⁄23, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[52] “Doppo molte consulte fu gratiato, il giorno dietro Pasqua di cumplire con essa per l’uso dell’ annuntio delle SSme. Feste, accompagnandolo il Rè con seguito di tutti li Grandi et comitiva de’ Cavalieri nell’ appartamento della Regina, appresso la quale si pose a sedere il Prencipe, et il Rè a canto alla sorella. Annuntiato che hebbe felicità alla Regina si approssimò il Prencipe alla Infanta, et gli espose complimento assai lungo, et con maniera affettuosa, di che si susurrava nella stanza, et perciò finì prima dele suo gusto vedendo anco certi segni della Regina, et che si annoiava la Infanta: qual rispose compitamenta et con la puntualità prescrittale di pochissime parole d’ufficio, et si notò per osservatione prencipale che ella si tenne tanto composta et senza minimo segno di mutatione, che tutte gli astanti rimasero stupidi, parlandosene con maraviglia universale, perchè è certissimo che ella ha una estrema antipathia et timore di queste nozze, non si consolando con altro se non col dire che morirà martire.” Corner to the Doge, April 13⁄23, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna. As might be expected, Bristol passes over the Prince’s repulse. Bristol to Calvert, April 8, S. P. Spain.
[53] Copy of Caron’s letter, Madrid Palace Library.
[54] Francisco de Jesus, 58.
[55] Buckingham to Graham, April 8, S. P. Spain.
[56] Buckingham to Conway, April 8, Harl. MSS. 6987, fol. 65.
[57] Francisco de Jesus, 56.
[58] The passage, part of which has been already quoted at p. 24, goes on as follows:— “Ma stimandosi qui pregiudicialissimo à Cattolici, che questa tardanza fusse tutta caricata al Pontifice, perchè ciò levarebbe dall’ animo del Rè della Gran Bretagna qualche inclinatione ch’ egli tiene alla sede Apostolica, et havarebbe potuto venir a qualche severa risolutione contra li Cattolici che si trovano sparsi per l’Inghilterra che sono infiniti; per il chesi risolvi sua Santità,” etc. Soranzo and Zen to the Doge, July 5⁄15, Venice MSS. Desp. Roma. That the belief that Pastrana had a secret mission really prevailed at Rome is shown from a decipher of an extract from a letter of his which I found on a scrap of paper at Simancas:— “Entráron en recato de que los queriamos por disculpa, y no para facilitar el negocio; y este fué la razon de aprocurar la dispensacion pasada, sin aguardar á que yo llegase, porque dessean siempre quedar bien con Inglaterra.” Simancas MSS. 1869, fol. 21.
[59] Cardinal Ludovisi to De Massimi. Translation in Cottington’s handwriting. Harl. MSS. 1583, fol. 297.
[60] Corner to the Doge, May 10⁄20, Venice MSS. Desp. Roma; De Massimi to Olivares, April 14⁄24, Bibl. Nat. MSS. Harl. 228, 16 fol. 183; the King to the Prince and Buckingham, March 17, Hardwicke S. P. i. 408.
[61] Corner to the Doge, May 10⁄20, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[62] Francisco de Jesus, 58.
[63] “Le voci continuano che il Prencipe inclina assai all abjurare le heresie, quando ne sia illuminato, cosi si e espresso col Capucino.” Corner to the Doge, May 10⁄20, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna.
[64] Directions to the Prince’s chaplains, March 10, S. P. Spain.
[65] The King to the Prince and Buckingham, April 7, Goodman’s Court of King James, ii. 297.
[66] The King to the Prince and Buckingham, March 17, Hardwicke S. P. i. 406.
[67] Francisco de Jesus, 59.
[68] Instructions to Cottington, May 21, Clarendon S. P. i. App. xviii.
[69] Francisco de Jesus, 64.
[70] Du Fargis to Puisieux, May 3⁄13, Bib. Imp. MSS. Harl. 228, 16, fol. 190.
[71] Account of the negotiation. Translated from the original at Simancas, by M. Guizot, Un Projet de Mariage Royal, 132.
[72] Francisco de Jesus, 66.
[73] Francisco de Jesus, 66–71.
[74] Francisco de Jesus, 72.