<130>With the shouts of welcome ringing in his ears, Charles hastened to meet his father. After the first warm greetings were over, Oct. 6.Charles at Royston.the King took his son and his favourite into an inner room, and closed the doors. Charles spoke with angry dissatisfaction of the refusal of the Spaniards to allow him to bring his bride to England, and of their ill-treatment of him during his stay at Madrid. “I am ready,” he said, as soon as his tale was ended, “to conquer Spain, if you will allow me to do it.”[242] What else passed between the father and son after this boyish outburst, we do not know. The courtiers without listened long to the outbursts of merriment or of indignation which expressed the varying feelings of the speakers, in the vain hope of catching some indication of the turn which the conversation was taking. At last the doors were thrown open, and the King came forth to supper. Once more all ears were on the alert, and it was not long before the listeners were rejoiced by the sound of words to which they had been long unused from Royal lips. James, it seemed, after all, was not displeased at the delay of the marriage, as long as he had no <131>better satisfaction about the Palatinate. “I like not,” he said, “to marry my son with a portion of my daughter’s tears.”[243]
Yet, if Buckingham’s vehement denunciations of Spanish perfidy had shaken James from the calm and self-satisfied repose in which he had long been slumbering, they were not of a nature to open his eyes to the true position of affairs. Still, as before, the restitution of the Palatinate was a mere trifle, which the King of Spain could not courteously refuse to a friendly sovereign. For James, all the physical and moral difficulties which stood in the way had no existence whatever. If Philip did not comply with his wishes at once, it was simply because he had made up his mind to insult him.
The doubts of Spanish sincerity, to which James was now compelled to listen, must have been the more distressing to him, as he had just given his sanction to a plan for the settlement of Germany, which was, as he fondly hoped, to free Europe from war, and himself from all further trouble. On October 2, Oct. 2.Spanish plan for pacifying Germany.three days before the Prince’s return to England, the Spanish Ambassadors had a long interview with Calvert in London. The scheme which they proposed was couched very much in the form which had been suggested by Bristol in Spain. It would be well, they said, if the King would write to his son-in-law to recommend the marriage of the young Prince with the Emperor’s daughter. If, as was probable, the Emperor wished to have the education of the boy, he might be gratified on condition that his governor was appointed by his father, and that neither he nor any of his household were to be ‘forced in point of their conscience.’ To an inquiry from Calvert whether the King of Spain would, under these circumstances, give assurance of the ‘full restitution of the inheritances and dignities,’ the Ambassadors replied evasively that ‘it was a needless thing to take it into thought.’ If the marriage took place, there could be no doubt that the Emperor ‘would restore all.’[244]
It is difficult to regard this concession of a guarantee for the religion of the Electoral Prince as seriously made. It is just <132>possible that Olivares may have been frightened by the feelings which Its probable intention.Charles had manifested at his departure from Madrid; but it is more likely that he calculated upon Frederick’s resistance, and that he hoped, by moderating his own terms, once more to draw James over to his side.
The next day Conway replied, in his master’s name, to Calvert’s report of the conversation. James seems to have Oct. 3.It is accepted by James.taken it for granted that the Spaniards intended, if their terms were accepted, to procure the restitution of the Palatinate to Frederick himself, and not merely to the Electoral Prince. “His Majesty’s judgment,” wrote the Secretary, “is that it is an honourable and fair way to the ends of restoration; and that his Majesty will have clear and full assurance of an honourable, total, and punctual restitution in all points before he deliver his grandchild into their hands; and also take as punctual provision for the demands and limitations in point of freedom of conscience which shall be agreed on for his grandchild, as is here done for those that are accorded for the Infanta.”[245]
Thus it was that Buckingham found his master still busy, as of old, in the vain attempt to strike out a middle path between irreconcilably opposite pretensions. The day after his return was spent in anxious deliberation. If he had had his way, no doubt all further negotiation would have been broken off at once; but James’s mind was not yet ripe for this step, and he was obliged to wait a little longer till events forced on the inevitable decision. Oct. 7.Liberation of the priests.On one point at least there was no hesitation. Williams was ordered to open the prison doors, and to set the priests at liberty, that they might join in the general rejoicing.[246]
On the following day couriers were despatched in every direction. A letter to Frederick, Oct. 8.Proposal made by James to Frederick.laying before him plainly and distinctly the Spanish proposal for his son’s marriage, was easy enough to write.[247] It was far more difficult to know in what terms the Court of Spain was to be addressed.
<133>In considering this all-important question, James had before him a bundle of despatches, written on September 24, which had Sept. 24.The Infanta’s portion.recently arrived from Bristol. A difference had arisen about the Infanta’s portion, which Bristol had proposed to receive, at stated terms, in ready money, whilst Olivares, who knew well how empty his master’s treasury was, would only agree to pay a small part of the sum in money, whilst the rest was to be commuted partly for its worth in jewels, partly for a yearly rent, calculated at five per cent. upon the capital, and secured upon landed property in Spain.[248] Question of the Infanta’s going into a nunnery.In writing both to the King and to the Prince, Bristol reverted to the question which had been raised about the possibility of the Infanta’s betaking herself to a nunnery. On this point, he said, the King would give any security that might be desired. “I must now crave leave,” he continued in his letter to the Prince, “to speak unto your Highness like a faithful, plain servant, which is, if your Highness’s pleasure be to have use made of the powers you have left in my hands, I no way doubt but, in this particular, such satisfaction will be given as will appear reasonable to all the world. But, if your Highness desire that these powers should not be used, they may be detained upon other just reasons which will arise in the treaty of the temporal articles; and I doubt not but the marriage may be deferred for some few days upon other fair pretexts. But these inconveniences I conceive will follow;— First, it will be of great discomfort to the Infanta, who, until the marriage is past, is not her own woman, but must be governed by the pleasure of the junta, which, I think, she is very weary of; neither till then may she declare herself to be yours, nor comply with your Highness in answering of your letters and messages, and giving you those respects and comforts which I know she would be glad to do; but if she would any way judge that the delay of the marriage should arise from your Highness’s part, I conceive she would take it most heavily. Secondly, it will certainly raise great jealousies in this King and his ministers, and retard the resolutions that are fit to be <134>taken with speed, for the putting in execution that which is capitulated. I therefore offer it unto your Highness’s wisdom whether, upon the satisfaction which they will give in this particular, which will be whatsoever you can desire, and upon the agreement of the temporal articles your Highness would, upon the coming of the Pope’s approbation, make any further scruple in the delivering of your Highness’s powers.”[249]
To the King, Bristol spoke of his own difficult position even more explicitly. “I must further,” he wrote, “let your Majesty understand that the first of the temporal articles is that the marriage shall be within ten days after the arrival of the Pope’s approbation, which is hourly expected; so that I must deal like a faithful servant with your Majesty. If, upon the coming of the Pope’s approbation, I should withhold the powers, and they understand that it is by a secret order of the Prince’s, there being a clause in the said powers that the Prince shall no ways, either in part or whole, revoke the said powers, or detract from them, but that they shall be in force till Christmas, I fear your Majesty will find your business much disturbed and retarded by it.”[250]
To Bristol’s assurances about the Infanta there was nothing more to be said. “We have resolved,” wrote James, “with Oct. 8.The marriage to be postponed till assurance is given about the Palatinate.the great liking of our son, to rest upon that security in point of doubt of the Infanta’s taking a religious house, which you, in your judgment, shall think meet.” The ambassador’s statement that any postponement of the marriage would be attended with grave difficulties was thrown away upon James. He went on to say that it was his special pleasure that it should take place shortly after Christmas, ‘that holy and joyful time best fitting so notable and blessed an action.’
“But first,” he continued, “we will that you repair presently to that King and give him knowledge of the safe arrival of our dear son to our Court, so satisfied and taken with the great entertainments, personal kindness, favour, and respect he hath received from that King and Court, as he seems not able to <135>magnify it sufficiently, which makes us not know how sufficiently to give thanks, but we will that by all means you endeavour to express our thankfulness to that King, and the rest to whom it belongs, in the most ample manner you can. And hereupon you may take occasion to let that King know that, according to our constant affection to make a firm and indissoluble amity between our families, nations, and crowns, and not seem to abandon our honour, nor, at the same time we give joy to our only son, to give our only daughter a portion in tears, by the advice of that King’s ambassadors, we have entered a treaty concerning the restitution of the Palatinate and Electoral dignity to our son-in-law to be really procured by that King, according to the obligation of our honour, as you have well expressed in your reasons why the person of our son-in-law should not be left out of the treaty; but that the Emperor should find out a great title, or by increasing the number of Electoral States wherewith to satisfy the Duke of Bavaria. We now, therefore, require you that presently on your first audience you procure from that King a punctual answer what course that King will take for the restitution of the Palatinate and Electorate to our son-in-law; and in case that either the Emperor or the Duke of Bavaria oppose any part of the expected restitution, what course that King will take to give us assurance for our content on that point, whereof we require your present answer; and that you so press expedition herein that we may all together receive the full joy of both in Christmas, resting ourself upon that faithful diligence of yours we have approved in all your service; though almost with the latest we must remember to you as a good ground for you to work on, that our son did write us out of Spain that that King would give us a blank, in which we might form our own conditions concerning the Palatinate, and the same our son confirms to us now. What observation and performance that King will make we require you to express, and give us a speedy account.”[251]
In this letter, James, passing by, as unworthy of notice, Bristol’s statement that a postponement of the marriage would <136>be regarded in Spain as a personal insult, quietly fixed, as if it were Intentions of James.a mere matter of course, upon a day subsequent to the date at which, as he must have known if he had read his ambassador’s despatch with the slightest attention, his son’s proxy would expire. The remainder of the letter was no less characteristic of the man. He evidently believed that the King of Spain would be able and willing to effect what was now equivalent to a revolution in Germany as a personal favour to himself. For himself to take part in the German war on behalf of his kindred and religion was a task which was, in his eyes, surrounded by ever-increasing difficulties; for the King of Spain to join in the strife on the side opposite to his own family interests and his own warmest convictions, was a mere trifle, from which it would be ridiculous to expect him to shrink.
James’s letter was accompanied by one from the Prince. “The King,” wrote Charles, “has thought good in this interim of Charles writes to Bristol,expectation for my mistress, to give you a command to try what the King of Spain will do concerning the business of the Palatinate before I be contracted, and his reason is — which I could not reply to — that, having but two children, he would be loth that one of them should have cause to weep when the other has reason to laugh; and I was the rather induced to yield unto it, because the King may very well have a positive answer of this before Christmas, so that it will lose no time in that business I desire so much. Although this be a needless office, because I am sure you will understand this more amply by the King’s own letters, yet I have written this that ye may know from me, as well as from the King my father, the intent of this direction, which I assure you is in no way to break the marriage, but, in this dull interim of looking for my mistress, to put an end to the miseries of my sister and her children, which I should have done if I had stayed this winter.”[252]
Another letter, written to Aston on the same day, is far more indicative of Charles’s real feelings. “Honest Watt,” he wrote, <137>“the King, my father, has sent a command to Bristol not to deliver my proxy and to Aston.until we may know certainly what the King of Spain will do concerning the Palatinate. If you find that this do make them startle, give them all the assurance that you can think of, that I do really intend to desire this match; and the chief end of this is that we may be as well hearty friends as near allies; and, to deal freely with you, so that we may have satisfaction concerning the Palatinate, I will be content to forget all ill-usage and be hearty friends; but, if not, I can never match where I have had so dry entertainment, although I shall be infinitely sorry for the loss of the Infanta.”[253]
It is not probable that, if Charles had been allowed to bring the Infanta with him in September, he would have expressed himself so strongly about the Palatinate. But all his self-love was in arms to avenge the slight which had been put upon him. Now that the remembrance of the wounds which had been inflicted upon his vanity in Spain was rankling in his breast, his sense of his sister’s wrongs became more vivid than before.
To the summons peremptorily addressed to Madrid and to the Hague, Frederick was the first to reply. After thanking Oct. 20.Frederick’s reply.his father-in-law profusely for his good-will, and especially for his declaration that he would obtain for him an entire restitution, he touched upon the important demand which had now been made. “As to the overture,” he wrote, “of a marriage between my eldest son and the Emperor’s daughter, when I have obtained that full and entire restitution of which I have spoken, if your Majesty judges it expedient to insist upon the point, I shall always be very willing, through my duty and filial respect, to yield to whatever may tend to the advancement of the glory of God, and which is in conformity with your Majesty’s good advice, and is necessary for the public good, and the particular interests of my House.”[254]
However courteous may have been the forms in which it was expressed, the letter contained what was virtually a decided refusal to listen to James’s proposal. No candid person, <138>indeed, would think of blaming Frederick for his objection to His impracticable demands.marry his son to a Roman Catholic wife. Every day it was becoming more plain that the Protestant religion was in real danger in Germany. What the fugitive Prince could not see was, that, as long as he persisted in claiming total restitution as a right, so long would those moderate men who looked upon the Imperial institutions as the only bulwark against anarchy, be lukewarm in his cause, if they were not absolutely hostile. The best service that he could render to Germany was to leave the championship of his religion to men whose names would not sound in the ears of their countrymen as a challenge to sedition. Unhappily such patriotism as this is hardly to be expected from the majority of men, and least of all from such as Frederick.
However much opinions may differ as to Frederick’s duty, there can be no doubt whatever that his letter was a deathblow to Mediation now impossible.any vitality which may have been left in James’s mediation. It rendered all further negotiation hopeless. If Philip had been the most conscientious man in Europe, he would not have considered himself bound by promises made under other circumstances, either to persuade or to compel the Emperor to replace Frederick in his old authority, without any guarantees for his future conduct, on the mere chance that the restored Prince would abstain from sending out fresh hordes of plunderers to devastate the territories of his neighbours. If Frederick was to some extent in the right, so far as the quarrel concerned religion, Ferdinand and Philip were together in the right so far as it concerned the political security of Germany.
On the 21st, the day after Frederick’s letter was written, the King of Spain’s intentions with respect to the Palatinate were Oct. 21.Philip’s declaration about the Palatinate.made known to Bristol. With respect to the proposed marriage, he declared himself ready to do all good offices with the Emperor, if it were understood that the young Prince was to be educated at Vienna. It would then be for his father to make due submission, and to give guarantees that he would from that time become the firm ally of the House of Austria. Then everything possible would <139>be done to meet James’s wishes, and in proportion as the Palatine gave satisfaction, his States would be restored either to himself or to his children. After the death of the Duke of Bavaria, the Electorate would revert to Frederick’s eldest son. But, to quote the words of the document itself:— “As the aforesaid Count Palatine has up to this time shown so little sign of submission or repentance, and as he has made such notorious attempts upon his lord the Emperor, it seems that it would be of very ill example that he should not retain in his individual person some mark of punishment.”[255]
As far as Frederick’s own position was concerned, nothing more could fairly be expected. Ignorant as the Spanish ministers necessarily were of the letter which had been written the day before at the Hague, they were not ignorant that it was only after Christian’s defeat at Stadtloo that Frederick had been brought to consent to any negotiation at all. The really serious point in the King of Spain’s declaration was the total omission of any reference to the Protestant governor who was to have superintended young Frederick Henry’s education at Vienna. The omission was evidently intentional; and, in fact, Olivares, sanguine as usual, was already communicating to Khevenhüller a plan by which Frederick might be induced to travel to Vienna in order to throw himself at the Emperor’s feet, and to leave, not only his eldest, but also his second son, to be educated in the Catholic religion.[256]
Such were the secret plans of Olivares and his master, when, on October 21, the despatches written in England on the 8th were placed in Bristol’s hands. Ignorant, alike of Frederick’s last impracticable demands, and of the no less impracticable designs of the Spanish Government, the ambassador still cherished the belief that, when once the Prince of Wales was married, Philip could not fail to exert himself on behalf of the interests of his brother-in-law on the Continent. As he was himself without any religious enthusiasm whatever, and was accustomed to regard passing events from the point of view of a secular politician, he <140>was always too apt to leave out of consideration the action either of genuine religious feeling, or of that theological partisanship which follows like a ground-swell the storm which has been already hushed. But, mistaken as he was in his interpretation of the purposes of the Spanish Court, he knew far better than to imagine that the war which had now been raging for five disastrous years could be allayed in a few weeks by Philip’s mere word.
Under the influence of these impressions Bristol received directions to put off the marriage till after Christmas. Such a step Oct. 24.Bristol complains of the postponement of the marriage.he told his master plainly, would throw back into uncertainty all that had been covenanted in respect of the marriage. The proxy with which he was entrusted would then have expired. Nor was this the worst. This question of the Palatinate had often been under debate, but it had never been insisted upon as a ground for postponing the marriage. If it were now brought forward, it could not be but that the Spaniards would suspect that it was a mere pretext, and nothing more; for there could be no doubt that to make the match conditional upon the restoration of the Palatinate was a totally new demand. His own instructions had been ‘to insist upon the restoring of the Prince Palatine, but not so as to annex it to the treaty of the match, as that thereby the match should be hazarded;’ his Majesty having ‘seemed confident they here would never grow to a perfect conclusion of the match, without a settled resolution’ to give him ‘satisfaction in the business of the Palatinate.’ Both the Prince and Buckingham had treated the business in a similar spirit, and they might remember that ‘Olivares often protested the necessity of having this business compounded and settled before the marriage, saying, otherwise they might give a daughter and have a war within three months after, if this ground and subject of quarrel should be still left on foot.’
Bristol then proceeded to point out, in the most guarded terms, the absurdity of the course which he was asked to take. The restoration of the Palatinate, he showed, was not an affair to be hustled over in a day; it was a question in which many great Princes were interested, and it certainly could not be <141>obtained excepting after long and formal negotiations. If the Prince were to wait for his wife till these were brought to an end, he might wait long. He had no doubt that the King of Spain would really assist in obtaining that which had been asked; but to demand a peremptory answer, under the penalty of retaining the proxy, was to fling an insult in his face and in the face of his sister, which was sure to be bitterly resented. He therefore hoped that orders would at once be sent him to make use of the proxy when called for, and at the same time to use every means in his power to obtain a better answer about the Palatinate.[257]
However respectfully Bristol’s letter had been worded, he had contrived to tell his sovereign that he had done a foolish thing, and that he had better undo it as soon as possible.
It is not necessary to share Bristol’s confidence in the reality of Spanish promises — to agree with him in his estimate of James’s letter. It might be wise to break off his son’s marriage at any cost. It might be wise to obtain a distinct engagement from Philip about the Palatinate. But to expect to wring such an engagement from Philip by the studied insult of postponing the betrothal, and at the same time to talk about the most perfect amity and friendship, was mere infatuation.
Yet, infatuation as it was, it was a dream to which James clung with his usual tenacity. Every day, indeed, Buckingham, Anxiety of James.and the Prince under Buckingham’s guidance, were urging him to make the restitution of the Palatinate the indispensable condition of the marriage. But neither Buckingham nor Charles cared for anything larger than the immediate interests of the hour; whereas James, in his uncertain and helpless way, had been labouring for years to promote the peace and well-being of Europe. Whilst he was waiting for the replies from the Hague and from Madrid to the despatches which he had sent forth as the messengers of peace, his anxiety brought on a fit of the gout, which rendered him more than ever incapable of coming to a decision.
In the meanwhile, though the Spanish ambassadors were <142>treated with all outward show of respect, nothing beyond the liberation of the priests was done to satisfy their demands. The pardon and dispensation remained unused in the Lord Keeper’s hands.[258] The promised letters to the judges were not written.[259] Encouraged by the support of Buckingham, men now allowed themselves to talk more freely than they had dared before. Strange tales were told by those who had returned with the Prince of the ignorance and superstition of the Spanish people, and of the beggarly fare and discourteous treatment to which they had been exposed in Spain.[260] The air was thick with rumours. The words and actions of the men who seemed to have the destiny of England in their hands were noted as if they had been the oracles of fate. Charles, reserved and silent as usual, gave few tokens of his real feelings. Yet even he was unable altogether to conceal the change which had come over him. “It is certain,” said a keen observer, “that he does not love the Spaniards; and if he loves the Infanta, his affection is very moderate.”[261]
In the midst of these uncertainties, an accident occurred, which, if it threw no new light upon the intentions of the Court, might at least Oct. 26.The accident at Blackfriars.have served to open the eyes of the Spanish Ambassadors to the opposition which their scheme for securing a Catholic domination would be certain to meet with in England. It happened that a large number of persons were assembled, one Sunday afternoon, to hear a Jesuit preach in a garret attached to the French Embassy at Blackfriars. In the midst of the sermon the beam on which the flooring rested gave way, and about a hundred and fifty persons were hurled, in a confused, shrieking mass, below. The next storey was carried away by the falling ruin, and when the living had been separated from the dead, ninety-one <143>crushed and blood-stained corpses were drawn out from amongst the mass.
In the presence of such a scene of misery, even religious bigotry might well have been silent for a time; but the age was not one in which there was much charity to spare for Jesuits, and the dread of Papal encroachment was, thanks to James, rooting itself more firmly than ever in the English mind. As soon as the news was known, a noisy mob gathered round the doors, and threatened to break into the ambassador’s house. The Bishop of London refused to allow the dead to be buried in the churchyards. In order to escape insult and ill-usage, it was found necessary to dispose of the greater number of the bodies in pits dug in the court-yard of the French Embassy. Men who should have known better pointed out with triumph that October 26, the day on which the accident happened, was November 5 in the Roman calendar, and stated, in utter disregard of the fact, that the broken beam was a perfectly sound one. The inference from these two propositions was, of course, that the occurrence was a direct judgment of God.[262]
The time was rapidly approaching when it was to be decided whether the privilege of openly receiving Catholic preachers, which had been The Committee of the Privy Councilgrudgingly connived at in the case of foreign ambassadors, was to be extended to every Catholic gentleman in England. On October 31 the Prince suddenly arrived in London, and on November 1 twelve members of the Privy Council, who were specially entrusted with Spanish business, were summoned to meet him. After swearing, by the special command of the Prince, not to Nov. 1.receives Buckingham’s declaration.repeat a word of anything that they might hear, they were called upon to listen to a long narrative from Buckingham about his proceedings in Spain, which was no doubt as highly coloured by his personal resentment as his subsequent report to the Houses of Parliament. As soon as the statement had been made, he returned to <144>Newmarket to visit the King, by whom he was probably taken to task for his want of courtesy in refusing to receive a visit from the Spanish Ambassadors. At all events, he suddenly reappeared in London on the 9th, and lost no time in paying a formal visit to the Spaniards.[263]
The King’s gout had passed away, and he was able to come up to London. He had by this time received the replies of Nov. 12.The King in London.Bristol and Frederick to his letters, and even if it could be supposed that neither party in the dispute would ever put forward further claims than they now asserted, the discrepancy between the views of Philip and of Frederick was sufficiently wide to startle the most lethargic politician. What Philip asked was that Frederick and his children should be put upon their good behaviour, and readmitted to their former possessions as a matter of grace, in proportion as they appeared to deserve it. What Frederick asked was, that he should be at once reinstated as a matter of right, and that he should then be allowed to consider what was the nature of that ill-defined submission which he owed to the Emperor. It is evident that, even leaving the religious question out of sight for the moment, the two views of the respective rights of the head and of the members of the Empire were wide asunder as the poles.
To a man with any capabilities for thought, it would have been of infinite service to have had these two ideas of the constitution of the Empire thus boldly presented before him. He would have seen that he must make up his mind either to adopt one of the two views, or to strike out some new theory for himself. In coming to his decision, he would not forget to investigate the consequences of the victory of one side or the other, and, above all, he would ask himself whether he was prepared to take any part at all in the conflict. James, however, had always insisted that his son-in-law must make submission to the Emperor, and that, in some way or another, his son-in-law’s restitution was to be the consequence of the Prince’s marriage. The only result, therefore, of his present cogitations was <145>another long rambling letter to Bristol, in which he once more called upon the King of Spain to get him out of his difficulties.
He would never have written to defer the marriage till after Christmas, he said, if he had known that the proxy would have expired. Nov. 13.His letter to Bristol ordering the postponement of the marriage.He now sent a fresh proxy, which would continue in force till March. There would, therefore, be plenty of time to obtain entire satisfaction. Yet he could not but have doubts as to the intentions of the King of Spain. News had just arrived that the rich lands about the Bergstrasse, which had been given up by the Elector of Mentz more than a century and a half before, had now been reclaimed from the Palatinate, and had been surrendered into the Elector’s hands with the connivance of the Spanish garrisons. Bristol, therefore, before he delivered the proxy, was to procure a written declaration from Philip of his determination to obtain a complete restitution of the Palatinate and the Electorate by mediation, and to give assistance to obtain that object by other means, if mediation failed. He was also to be required to state ‘within what time the mediation shall determine, and the assistance of arms begin.’
In order, however, to show that he was not exorbitant in his demands, James expressed his readiness to propound a plan for satisfying the Elector of Bavaria. He was also prepared to go on with the negotiation for his grandson’s marriage, although, in deference to his son-in-law’s objections, the offer of sending the boy to Vienna must be withdrawn. James now proposed that the Electoral Prince should be educated in England, under the eye of the Prince of Wales and the Infanta.
Having thus disposed of the interests of Europe, James returned with unusual vigour to his own. He would have nothing to do, he said, with the proposal for sending any part of the Infanta’s portion in jewels, or with the substitution of a yearly rent for the payment of the capital. He must have the whole sum in ready money.[264]
This letter was accompanied by another from Conway, <146>ordering Bristol to come away from Spain if he did not receive a satisfactory answer within twenty days.[265]
Such was the despatch which, no doubt, much to James’s astonishment, proved to be an ultimatum, the rejection of which Character of the letter.brought down in ruin the whole edifice of the Spanish alliance. It has, perhaps, been usual to lay too great stress upon the influence of Charles and Buckingham in bringing about the change in the King’s method of proceeding. In point of fact, there was very little change at all, and what there was was the result far more of circumstances than of any alteration in James’s opinions. Always inclined to look upon the great religious and political questions of the age very much as a lawyer looks upon an action for the possession of an acre of ground, and leaving out of consideration the interests, the feelings, and the passions of men and of nations, he had for years been under the impression that if only a suspension of arms could be effected, everything else would be easy. At last he had got his wish. A suspension of arms had been agreed on, to be followed by a great diplomatic meeting at Cologne, at which all difficulties were to be surmounted if the conflicting parties could come to an understanding on the preliminaries of an arrangement.[266] A very few weeks had been sufficient to show that James was unable to discover a compromise which would be satisfactory to the disputants, and he could but call upon the King of Spain to come to his help or to forfeit his friendship for ever.
The King’s despatch was followed by one much shorter and sharper from his son. “Bristol,” wrote Charles, “the false interpretation of Nov. 14.Letter from Charles.the King’s and my directions concerning the not delivering of my proxy has made me in such haste to send away this bearer, that by this I can only give you a command, without giving any reasons at this time, which is not to deliver my proxy until you hear further from the King and myself. Make what shifts or fair excuses you will, but I command you, as you answer it upon your peril, not to deliver my proxy till you hear further from hence. So, hoping you will obey this command punctually, I rest your friend, Charles, P.”[267]
<147>The next day another letter from the Prince followed in the same tone. “Whatsoever answer ye get,” he wrote, “ye must not Nov. 15.A second letter.deliver the proxy till ye make my father and me judge of it. As for the whole business, ye must deal freely with them in as civil terms as ye will, that except that King will promise under his[268] hand to help my father with his arms, in case mediation fail, to restore my brother-in-law to his honours and inheritances, there can be neither marriage nor friendship; and, as to[269] the breeding up of my nephew in the Emperor’s Court, avoid it handsomely as ye can, but I assure you it shall never be. And if they will do all that my father desires, they may not only be sure of an alliance, but of a hearty sincere friendship. Make no replies. Suffer no delays.”[270]
The day on which this letter was written, Inojosa and Coloma were received by the King in the presence of the Prince and Buckingham. Audience of the Spanish ambassadors.For four long hours the discussion lasted. James was forced to admit that he had never asked that the restitution of the Palatinate should be made a condition of the marriage, and even that it was unreasonable to expect the King of Spain to take up arms against the Emperor;[271] but, he added, in his usual inconsecutive way, that his daughter and his grandchildren were dear to him, — he could not bear to abandon them,— he had promised that by fair means or by foul he would recover all that they had lost, — his reputation was engaged, and he could not break his word.
Whilst James was making these ineffectual representations in London, the question of the marriage was being decided at Madrid. On October 30, Oct. 30.Fresh answer about the Palatinate.Bristol received a fresh reply on the subject of the Palatinate: Philip now affirmed that he would try to get the Electorate restored after the death of Maximilian to Frederick himself <148>instead of to his son, but he gave no hope of taking arms against the Emperor. He would continue, he said, to interpose his good offices. To ask him for more was to ask for impossibilities.[272]
Whilst Bristol was waiting for a reply to a fresh application for a better answer,[273] tidings reached Madrid that the new Pope had The dispensation approved at Rome.given his approval to the dispensation granted by his predecessor, and that the documents necessary for the accomplishment of the marriage ceremony would soon be on their way from Rome. Bristol, having at this time received only the despatch of October 8, in which he was commanded to postpone the marriage till after Christmas, at once communicated his difficulties to James. “There is an intention,” he wrote, “to Nov. 1.Bristol demands instructions.call presently upon me for the Prince’s powers for the marriage left in my hands, the which I know not upon what ground or reason to detain, the Prince having engaged in the said powers the faith and word of a prince no way to revoke and retract from them, but that they should remain in full force till Christmas; and delivered unto me a politic declaration of his pleasure, that, upon the coming of the dispensation, I should deliver them unto this King that they might be put in execution, and hereof, likewise was there by Secretary Ciriza, as a public notary, an instrument drawn and attested by all the witnesses present. If I shall allege your Majesty’s pleasure of having the marriage deferred till one of the holidays, although they should condescend thereunto, that is impossible, for the powers will be then expired. If I shall insist upon the restitution of the Palatinate, this King hath therein declared his answer; and it would be much wondered why that should be now added for a condition of the marriage, having hitherto been treated of as a business apart, and was in being at the granting of the said powers, and hath been often under debate, but never specified, nor the powers delivered upon any condition of having any such point first cleared; and I must confess unto your Majesty I understand not how with honour, and that exact dealing which hath ever been observed in all your Majesty’s actions, <149>the powers can be detained, unless there should appear some new and emergent cause since the granting of them, whereof as yet I hear none specified. Therefore, being loth to be the instrument by whose hands anything should pass that might have the least reflection upon your Majesty’s or the Prince’s honour, which I shall ever value more than my life or safety, and judging it likewise to conduce more to your service, and assuring myself that your Majesty’s late direction to have the marriage upon one of the holidays in Christmas, was for want of due information that the powers will be then expired, I have thought it fit, with the advice of Sir Walter Aston, to raise no scruple in the delivery of the said powers; but do intend, when they shall be required, to pass on to the nominating of a prefixed day for the marriage; but I shall endeavour to defer the time until I may be advertised of your Majesty’s pleasure, if it may be within the space of twenty-four days, and will labour to find some handsome and fair occasion for the deferring of them, without alleging any directions in that kind from your Majesty or the Prince.”[274]
This was plain speaking. The King, and the Prince through him, were told that the course which they had adopted was utterly dishonourable. Was Charles dishonoured?With full knowledge that Spain would not give armed assistance for the recovery of the Palatinate, Charles had chosen to swear that he would fulfil the marriage contract in every particular, and it was monstrous that he should now repudiate his obligations on account of an obstacle which he had foreseen when he undertook them. If indeed he had chosen to plead that he had subsequently been enlightened, and that since his return to England he had learned that the engagements which he had formed were ruinous to his country, he might fairly have asked to be relieved from a promise given through ignorance or inadvertence. But nothing of the kind was the case. With him there was no admission of error, no confession of heedlessness. He was in the right when he had sworn; he was equally in the right when, without a word of explanation, he broke his oath.
<150>On the question of personal honour, few will probably be found to hesitate in deciding between Charles and Bristol. Bristol’s policy right in the main.Opinions are likely to be more divided on the larger question of the general policy of the ambassador; for it is plain that Bristol considered the offers of the Spanish Court on the whole satisfactory, and that he was prepared to enter upon the negotiations in Germany, with confidence in the diplomatic support of Spain. That he was wrong in supposing that Spain had renounced all exorbitant pretensions is, to us at least, undeniable; for we know that it would have been difficult to content either Spain or the Emperor without imposing a Catholic Prince upon the Palatinate. But in the main point, Bristol was undoubtedly in the right. Standing almost alone among his countrymen, he never ceased to maintain that there were faults on both sides, and he saw in the promised negotiations at Cologne a golden opportunity for putting his master’s son-in-law in the right. If Frederick could have understood the times in which he lived; if he could have cast away those pretensions to independence which had been so ruinous to himself and to his country; if, in short, he could have separated the cause of his religion from the cause of anarchy, he would either have forced both Spain and Austria to relinquish their schemes of armed proselytism, or would have united all Protestant States in a resistance to which his enemies would be compelled to bow. If Bristol failed signally, it was because he was so entirely unsupported. Frederick regarded the part which he was called upon to play with the utmost loathing, and signs were not wanting that, before many weeks, James, long-suffering as he had been, would throw up the game in despair.
At last, on November 12, the Pope’s approbation arrived at Madrid,[275] and the 19th, the Prince’s birthday, was talked of as Nov. 12.Arrival of the Pope’s approbation.the day for the ceremony of the marriage. Bristol, however, discovered means to interpose a short delay. Fresh conditions had been sent, together with the approbation, and till it was ascertained whether they would be accepted, the Nuncio refrained from placing the papal brief in <151>the King’s hands. His orders were, however, not to insist upon them if he found that they were likely to be refused, and after a week had passed away, he retired from the contest.[276] On the 19th he surrendered the document to Philip, who at once took the required oath to the observance of the articles by the King of England.
Bristol did his best to put off the ceremony as long as possible. It would be well, he said, to give time for the news to Nov. 23.The day fixed for the marriage.reach England before the day appointed, in order that it might be celebrated there as a day of triumph and festivity; but to all such suggestions the Spaniards turned a deaf ear. The King, he was told, intended punctually to perform his own engagements, and he expected the same accuracy on the other side. It had been expressly agreed that the marriage should take place within ten days after the arrival of the dispensation, and though he had consented to reckon the time from the day on which it was given into his hands, no further concession would be made. He would not force his sister upon the Prince, but if the marriage had not taken place on the 29th it must be understood that the promises made were no longer binding. Thus pressed, Bristol consented to fix the ceremony for the 29th, and waited anxiously for the courier, who, unless some unusual accident occurred, would be certain before that day to bring him more precise orders than had yet been sent.[277]
That those orders would be otherwise than favourable to the marriage he could not bring himself to believe. At the same time Answer promised about the Palatinate.he hoped much from the professions of good will which were addressed to him by the Spaniards. The Council of State, he was informed, had lately taken into consideration his renewed application about the Palatinate, and the King’s answer would be in his hands before the day appointed for the ceremony. That answer, he was solemnly assured, should be everything that he could desire.[278] It was <152>indeed not likely that Philip would again engage to take up arms against the Emperor, but it is not improbable that an effort would have been made to obtain some further concessions in Frederick’s favour.
Whether, under existing circumstances, the attempt to obtain the conversion of the young Prince would have been abandoned, it is impossible to say; but it is certain that Olivares was beginning to open his eyes to much to which, six months before, he had been wilfully blind. In the summer he had imagined that the conversion of England and the Palatinate were such mere trifles as hardly to be worth any extraordinary effort. Since the Prince had left Madrid he had begun to suspect that the prize might even now elude his grasp. He had begun to conceive the possibility that Charles might have ceased to set his heart upon the Infanta, and not a word was now uttered on the subject of those Parliamentary guarantees for religious liberty for the sake of which he had done so much to alienate the Prince. Upon the failure of the marriage, indeed, both he and Philip would probably have looked with considerable equanimity. What they really dreaded was a war with England, and as the tales reached them of Buckingham’s frenzied denunciations, and of Charles’s moody silence, they could not but regard such a war as likely to break out at no distant time. To avert this catastrophe they were ready to make any reasonable concession. There were some things, indeed, that they could not do. They could not readmit Mansfeld into the heart of Germany; and they could not, whatever they might have said in a moment of heedlessness, take arms against the Emperor. But whatever gave promise of a firm and stable peace, they were prepared to advocate. Let Frederick show that he could again be trusted in the Palatinate, and the Court of Madrid would not have been the last to relinquish those airy dreams of ecclesiastical supremacy which had seemed so lifelike a few short months before.
It is seldom possible for one who has woven such a web of falsehood as that at which Olivares had been labouring ever since his uncle’s death, to regain the solid ground of truth. <153>Even now, when Bristol was nodding approbation at his golden promises, the blow reached him which levelled his toilfully-constructed edifice to the dust. His empty professions, which had been intended to serve the purpose of the moment, had been Nov. 26.The order for the postponement of the marriage reaches Madrid.taken as equivalent to the most solemn covenant. On November 26, three days before the ceremony of the marriage was to have taken place, the despatches containing peremptory commands for its postponement were placed in Bristol’s hands.
The ambassador was deeply chagrined at an order so fatal to his policy and his hopes. He at least did not, like his master or Olivares, Postponement of the marriage.flatter himself with the idea that it was possible to insult a friendly sovereign, and at the same time to retain his friendship. Not doubting for an instant that the letter which he held in his hands was ominous of evil for his own country and for the whole of Europe, his first act was to write back to James an announcement that his directions would be punctually carried into effect. His next act was to inform Olivares that the marriage must be postponed, on the ground that his master wished the ceremony not to be separated from the foundation of a thorough amity between the Crowns.
Such an insult, thus publicly administered in the sight of the world, was not likely to lay the foundation of a thorough amity. The temporary gallery, along which the Infanta was to have walked to the church in which the ceremony was to be performed, was dismantled and removed. She herself ceased to be addressed by the style of Princess of England. The Prince’s letters were no longer allowed to reach her. Her English grammars and dictionaries were restored to the shelf. The marriage was considered as indefinitely postponed, if not as broken off altogether.[279]
It was with little hope, therefore, that Bristol and Aston delivered the summons for the restitution of the Palatinate, which they had been instructed to present. They first asked <154>for an explicit answer to their last request, in which they had begged for information as to what the King would do if the Emperor Nov. 29.The summons to restore the Palatinate.refused to grant entire restitution to Frederick upon due submission?[280] They then proceeded to complain generally of Philip’s conduct, of his allowing the reduction of Heidelberg and Mannheim, of his permitting the surrender of the Bergstrasse, and of his recognising the Electoral title of the Duke of Bavaria. They now wished to ask for his Majesty’s good offices and mediation, and begged him to fix a time after which, if no satisfactory result followed, he would assist the King of Great Britain with his arms.[281]
Three days after this decisive summons was delivered, the ambassadors received an evasive answer to their former proposition, Dec. 2.Philip’s first answer.to the effect that it was unbefitting for a mediator to take part in a quarrel. Bristol was plainly told that this was not the reply which had been prepared for him a week before. How was it possible, it was added, for the King to give a more pleasing answer, when he was summoned to do so on pain of his sister’s rejection?[282]
The tone of the reply to the last memorial was far more defiant. If Heidelberg and Mannheim had been taken, said Philip, Dec. 9.Second reply.it was the fault of the Count Palatine himself, who had continued to call himself King of Bohemia, had had two armies fighting on his side, and had tried to rouse the Princes of Germany, with Bethlen Gabor and the Turks, against the Emperor. As to his own recognition of the Elector of Bavaria, it was a courtesy due to him on account of the many services done by him to the House of Austria, though it could never be said that his private interests had ever been considered at Madrid to the injury of the public good and the peace of Germany.
“As to the proposition of giving armed assistance against the Emperor,” the King proceeded to say, “it is an unnecessary <155>demand, and one which is impracticable, on account of the Philip refuses to arm against the Emperor.great obligations under which his Catholic Majesty lies towards him. This was said to the Prince of Wales when the matter was discussed here; and lately the same declaration was repeated by the Marquis of Inojosa to the King of Great Britain, when, at his last audience, they were conversing on the subject, and his Majesty declared himself satisfied.
“As to the alliance and amity required, and the novelty of introducing the settlement of this question as a condition of the marriage, it is answered that this business of the settlement of the Palatine’s affairs has altogether changed both in form and substance by this new and unexpected course which the ambassadors have attempted to introduce, it being now asked as a condition of the marriage. On this point, therefore, his Majesty has nothing more to say than that he will on all occasions wish well to the prosperity of the King of Great Britain; and that that which would be most conducive to his security, and to the better success of this business, might easily be done. His Majesty, therefore, replies forthwith formally to the proposition made to him, that there is need of forethought; and his Majesty is still considering of giving a good direction, not only to this business of the Palatine, but to all those matters from which any inconvenience may spring to the perpetuity of this friendship and alliance. As his Majesty looks upon this amity with so great affection and desire for its perfect attainment, it would be an error not to forestall and to arrange everything that was conducive to this end, as his Majesty the King of Great Britain and the Prince his son did in the present business; a resolution which his Catholic Majesty approves and praises much.”[283]
Such was the answer by which James’s hopes were finally extinguished on the side of Spain. That the insult which he received had sunk deeply into Philip’s mind is most certain, but though the form of his reply would undoubtedly have been more courteous if the marriage had taken place, there is no <156>reason to suppose that the substance would have been very different. To ask the King of Spain to take arms against the Emperor was to ask a moral impossibility.
Nor was this the only rebuff to which James exposed himself by his inconsiderate persistence in a policy which was, in reality, Nov. 20.James lays the Spanish terms before Frederick.no policy at all. On November 20, he wrote once more to his son-in-law, laying before him, in greater detail than in his former letters, the terms which the Court of Madrid had at that time agreed to support. “We present to you,” he wrote, “these propositions — to wit, in the first place, a due submission to the Emperor, under convenient limitations, which first shall be granted and agreed in conformity to that which is noble, with a safe-conduct and assurance requisite and sufficient for the free and safe going and return of your person and train. This being done, we make you offer of a present and full restitution of all the Palatinate unto the person of your son, and that you shall be his administrator during your life; and that after the death of the Duke of Bavaria, your son be re-established in the Electoral dignity, and for the better confirming the sound amity and assuring your possession and enjoying of all according to the contract which is presently to be made; and also to serve for a preparation for the bettering of the said conditions to your person, which will be in all likelihood when the marriage will be resolved and concluded to be made betwixt your eldest son, our grandchild, and one of the Emperor’s daughters. In contemplation whereof they have approached a degree nearer, to wit, that the Electoral dignity shall come again to your person after the Duke of Bavaria’s death. In which treaty of marriage, to clear the principal difficulty, which consisted in the education of your son with the Emperor, we have taken from them all hope herein, wherein we assure ourselves you will be content, and are purposed that he shall have his education with our son, and with and in the presence of the Infanta, when she shall be at our Court.”[284]
It is evident from these last words that James had no clear <157>idea before his mind of the state of feeling at Madrid. The marriage, James’s hesitation.he seems to have fancied, could be indefinitely deferred, with the sole result of bringing Philip upon his knees. Yet in one respect the uncertainty of his position was beginning to tell upon him. Six months before, he would have accompanied the scheme which his letter contained, with a threat of withdrawing his support if it were not accepted at once. Now everything was changed. His old self-confidence was gone. His favourite and his son had taken part against him, and the King of Spain, in whom he had trusted, had turned his back upon him. He, therefore, contented himself with recommending his son-in-law to weigh the arguments on both sides thoroughly, and to let him know the result.
Whilst he was waiting for the answer, James underwent all the daily torments of uncertainty. At one time he talked of lighting up the flames of war, and of calling Bethlen Gabor and the Turks to his aid. But it was seldom that he used such language as this. One day his son adjured him to open his eyes to the trickery of the Spaniards. “What!” replied James, reproachfully, with tears in his eyes, “would you engage me in December.Talk about summoning Parliament.a war in my old days, and make me quarrel with Spain?”[285] To the urgent entreaties of Buckingham and Charles that he should summon a Parliament, he turned a deaf ear as long as he could. At last he consented to name a day on which the question might be debated in the Council; but when the day arrived, it only brought a message from James, declaring that nothing could be done till an answer to his last propositions had been returned from Spain.[286]
It was not long after James heard that his demand for an armed intervention had been utterly rejected by Philip, that he received a letter from Frederick. That letter contained, as might have been expected, a complete refusal of the terms proposed. Nor did the exiled Prince content <158>himself, as he might well have done, with raising objections to the Dec. 20.Frederick’s reply to his father-in-law.marriage of his son with a Roman Catholic princess. He took higher ground. His own restitution, he said, was a reality; the submission to the Emperor was but a ceremony. The restitution must, therefore, precede the submission, and might well enough be performed by deputy, as he dared not trust the Emperor by placing his own person in his power. Frederick soon showed that what he really wanted was war. Now, as ever, his easily excited imagination was filled with the wildest hopes. It was nothing to him that Christian had been driven headlong out of Germany in the autumn, and that Mansfeld, after committing unheard-of cruelties, was preparing to abandon the devastated meadows of East Friesland. It was not, according to Frederick, his alliance with these marauders that had left him without a friend in the Empire. It was by his too great readiness to seek for peace that his natural allies had been alienated. If James would but declare in his favour, the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg would come to his aid. The King of Denmark would be certain not to hang back. And if this were not enough, it was notorious to all the world, that the majority of the troops which marched under the banners of the Catholic League were Protestants, and were more inclined to its ruin than to its preservation.[287]
If James had merely been called upon to answer his son-in-law’s arguments, he would have made short work with such absurdities; but, The crisis come at last.unhappily for him, he had to with them not in the region of logic, but in the region of facts. It was a fact that neither Ferdinand nor Philip would agree to any peace which did not give sufficient guarantees for the predominance of the Imperial authority and the supremacy of law in the Empire. It was also a fact, that Frederick would not agree to any peace which did not place himself and the other Princes of the Empire in a position of virtual independence, which would enable them to retain in their hands the right of peace and war. The radical difference which <159>had long ago existed had now come to an open and avowed expression. There was a great gulf between the two, which no diplomatic arts, no well-intended commonplaces, could fill up.
What Bristol would have said, if he had been consulted at this crisis, can hardly be doubted. He would have told James that What James’s duty was.it was no fit part for England to become the champion either of the religious encroachment of the Emperor, or of the political anarchy of Frederick, and that it was his duty as a statesman and as an honest man to remain neutral, at least for the present, in the coming strife. James was not the man to say anything of the kind. Never having taken the trouble to master the simplest elements of the political question, he had boasted again and again, with his accustomed garrulity, that he would accomplish everything upon which he had set his heart. Frederick and Ferdinand should be once more fast friends; his son-in-law, without any effort of his own, should again enjoy his lands and his honours; the marriage tie, which bound the Prince of Wales to the Infanta, was to be the bond of amity within which pacified Europe would be encircled. Now that all this bright vision had faded away, and in its stead there stood the furies of war and faction hounding on the suffering millions to their ruin, how could he stand forth and acknowledge his blindness? How could he even comprehend, with his poor confused brain, in what his blindness really consisted? There was nothing left for him but to give way at once, to allow his son and his favourite, with the nation at their backs, to work their will, whatever it might be.
Accordingly, on December 28, James signed the warrant commanding the Lord Keeper to Dec. 28.Parliament summoned.issue writs for a new Parliament.[288] On the 30th, he despatched a courier to Bristol, Dec. 30.Recall of Bristol.reproving him for his conduct in agreeing to the betrothal, and ordering him to return immediately to England to give an account of his behaviour.[289]
The same courier conveyed a long letter to Aston, written <160>in a greater state of bewilderment than usual. James was, James’s bewilderment.beyond all measure, astonished at the interpretation put by the Spaniards on his order for postponing the betrothal. Both he and his son were more than ever anxious for the marriage. He had never meant to make the assurance for which he asked a condition of the marriage with the Infanta. He only intended it to be ‘as a fruit and blessing of the alliance with her, and an eternal pawn to this people of the constancy and faithful execution of that King’s promises, and our expectation grounded upon those promises.’
James might write in this style as much as he pleased; but it was none the less certain that the Spanish match was at an end. James’s reign virtually at an end.Nor was that the only thing which had passed away from the world of reality in those last days of December. For fifteen months more James was to sit upon the throne, and men would continue to style him King of England; but in the eyes of those who think more of the actual possession of power than of its semblance, he ceased to rule when he issued orders for the convocation of a Parliament. On that day the reign of Buckingham began.
So miserable had been the failure, so rapid the downfall of that self-sufficient monarch, that it is difficult to give him credit for Character of his policy.those good intentions which were marred by the cloudiness of his intellect and the infirmity of his will. Yet even to him belongs a place amongst those who heralded the dawn of the new era, when difference of religion should no longer be regarded as a motive for war. Intolerant of opposition to his personal claims, he had now and again appeared on the stage as a persecutor. He had struck at Puritans on the one hand, and at Roman Catholics on the other; but his tendency was towards peace and quiet, and not towards violence; and, stained as his foreign policy was throughout with selfish aims, no candid mind will fail to recognise in it an effort — ignorant and ineffectual it may be, but still an effort — towards that better day when the spiritual and eternal hopes and consolations of mankind would cease to form a rallying cry for blood-stained armies. It was by the consciousness that in this at least they stood upon a common ground, <161>and not by any mere cringing adulation of the crowned monarch, that he succeeded in attaching to his throne the two most prescient statesmen of his age; and that he counted Bacon and Bristol amongst his ministers.
Of the two men, it is to Bristol rather than to Bacon that we turn as the representative of the higher tendencies of his age. The Bacon and Bristol.sweep of Bacon’s thoughts was too wide, whilst he was too often oblivious of that which was actually passing before his eyes not to render him a figure apart, whose position must be laid down in the chart of time on the Character of Bristol.scale of centuries rather than of years. The mind of Bristol, on the other hand, was intensely practical: no visions of future glory thronged before his eyes; no general conceptions of law or policy ever exercised his intellect. From the hundreds of his letters which have been preserved, it would be difficult to reconstruct the theory upon which he acted; but he had that strong power of intuition which is accorded to some men, by which they are enabled to single out from all others the one predominant evil which is weighing down upon their time, and to discern instinctively the remedies which alone are applicable. Gradually as we read the long series of his despatches, the grand form of the noble-hearted man stands revealed before us, and we see him ever varying his means, as events drifted before him with their changing forms, but never losing sight of the object at which he aimed.
If his own unalloyed wishes could have been carried into execution, Bristol would gladly have seen a gradual modification of His early negotiations.the harsh treatment to which the English Catholics were exposed, and he would have based his foreign policy upon a friendly understanding with Spain, which would have made a Continental war impossible. It was not his fault that this friendly understanding was exchanged for a marriage treaty, and for some time he seems to have exercised whatever influence he might possess in restricting within the narrowest limits the concessions which it would be requisite to make. For many years both he and his master concurred in refusing to make any express stipulation for those beyond the pale of the Infanta’s household, though they were willing to <162>promise that, as a matter of favour, the lot of the English Catholics should be alleviated. It was on this rock that the negotiations had almost split when the war in Germany broke out. A Protestant Prince, in the hope of protecting the followers of his own creed, engaged in a rash attempt to overturn the whole political fabric of the Empire, without even proposing to substitute anything stable in its room. Borne back by the almost universal indignation which his rashness had excited, he was wandering about a fugitive, whilst the victorious Emperor was His mission to Germany.converting his recovered power into an engine of religious persecution. It was at this moment that the English statesman stepped upon the scene. Seizing at a glance the difficulties of the work of pacification, he proposed a compromise, which, whether it were logically defensible or not, would have been in the highest degree satisfactory to the vast majority of the German nation. Let the Emperor, he said in effect, blot the past out of his memory, and replace his rival in the position which he occupied before the war; let Frederick not only renounce the title of King of Bohemia which he had assumed, but let him, by making due submission to the Emperor, abandon the right of private war within the limits of the Empire.
That such a compromise would have conduced alike to the peace of Europe and the independence of Protestantism it is impossible to doubt. Relieved from the dread of anarchy, Lutherans and Calvinists would have presented a united front to Catholic aggression, and the provocation which in the end roused the opposition by which the Imperial power was crushed, would never have been given. Unhappily the English Ambassador stood alone. His master had sent him to speak words of wisdom, but had taken no care to support his representations by the argument of the sword; and he therefore hastened back to England to hurry on those preparations which had been too long delayed. The flames of war were already blazing behind him. Ferdinand could see no law but the written one, and no basis of authority excepting the Church of Rome. Frederick had thrown himself into the arms of a needy adventurer, who was prepared, in order to advance his own ends, to <163>spread fire and slaughter over the fair fields of his native land.
The day when Parliament was dissolved without granting a penny to the public service, must have been the saddest in the life of the patient, much-enduring man. Every apparent difficulty had been surmounted, and all opposition had been silenced, when he saw his dearest hopes wrecked on his sovereign’s infirmity of temper.
It would have been well for him if his public career had ended there. After his return to Spain he was rather hoping against hope His return to Spain.than pursuing any rational scheme. He learned to look with trust upon Spanish promises, though he had no longer the hope which he had once cherished, that his master would stand forward to enforce their performance. Yet, after all, his error was the error of a noble mind. He could not bear to think that others were less honest or less clear-sighted than himself. Against Frederick he maintained that no peace was to be had unless he would restore the reign of order in the Empire. Against Ferdinand and Philip he maintained that no peace was to be had without guarantees for religious independence. For the sake of the benefits which would be accorded to the English Catholics, Spain would, he trusted, support him in imposing his compromise upon Germany, and it was only too late that he learned how unconquerable was the perversity of Frederick’s nature, whilst he never learned at all that the Spanish ministers had been aiming, not merely at the alleviation of the sufferings of the few Catholics who were left in England, but at the reduction, by fraud or by force, of England herself to the creed of the Roman Catholic Church.
Thus it came to pass that Bristol saw the barque which bore his political fortunes go down before his eyes; wrecked, not as he himself imagined, Failure of his hopes.upon the petulance of Buckingham and the imbecility of Charles, but upon the inherent difficulties of the task which he had undertaken. The terms which he proposed may easily be criticised, and might probably have been amended with advantage; but his chief fault was that he attempted to impose terms at all upon those who were unwilling to assent to any reasonable compromise whatever.
<164>Bristol was now to take leave of the scene in which he had played so distinguished and so honourable a part. To the last he preserved 1624.Jan. 14.Bristol’s letter to Buckingham.the full dignity of his character. Buckingham he had never flattered; but he had never ceased to treat him with respect. The letter which he wrote to him soon after the postponement of the marriage would surely have touched the heart of any man who was not lost to all sense of public duty. “The present estate of the King’s affairs,” he said, “requireth the concurrency of all his servants, and the co-operation of all his ministers, which maketh me desirous to make your Grace this tender of my service; that if there have happened any errors or misunderstandings, your Grace would for that regard pass them over; and for anything that may personally concern my particular, I shall labour to give you that satisfaction as may deserve your friendship. And if that shall not serve the turn, I shall not be found unarmed with patience against anything that can happen unto me.”[290]
Language such as this was absolutely thrown away upon Buckingham. The favourite was not to be propitiated by anything short of Offers made to him by Olivares.the most cringing subservience, and it was not long before it was known all over Europe that when Bristol returned to London it would be, if Buckingham could have his way, to find ruin and disgrace before him. With the best intentions, but with very questionable taste, Olivares stepped forward to save him. In the presence of Gondomar and Aston he assured him that he was ordered to express his master’s gratitude for the services which he had rendered to both Crowns, and that he was directed to place in his hands a sheet of white paper, which he was at liberty to fill up as he pleased in his own favour. He might ask either for lands or for honours, with the full assurance that nothing would be denied him. If he could further suggest any means by which he might be defended against his enemies at home, it should be put into execution at once.
To this strange proposal Bristol replied with dignity. The <165>offer, he said, he could not but esteem as it deserved, but it Bristol’s reply.troubled him more than the malice of his enemies had ever done; for against that he could appeal to the security of a good conscience and of his sovereign’s justice; whereas what had now been said to him forced him to consider whether he had not been serving Spain rather than his own country. Spain, he proceeded to say, was not indebted to him the value of a leaf of paper. Whatever he had done, he had done because he thought it to be the best for England. He went home perfectly contented, and fully satisfied that he would meet with justice and protection from his sovereign. He was not, therefore, under the necessity of seeking the favour of another Prince. To speak plainly, he ended by saying, he would rather offer himself to the slaughter in England than be Duke of Infantado in Spain.[291]
A few days later, on January 28, Bristol took formal leave of Philip. When his audience was at an end, the King drew from Jan. 28.He takes leave of Philip.his own finger a valuable ring to present to the ambassador, an honour before unheard of at the Spanish Court. The next day Philip left Madrid for Seville on a journey of inspection into the state of the navy. It was the public signal that, though no formal notice had been given, the marriage treaty was practically at an end.
Whatever Bristol may have thought of the causes of his failure, he had at least a clear presentiment of its results. “I will 1623.December.His presentiment of coming evil.heartily pray to God,” he had written, in one of his last letters from Madrid, “to prevent that miserable storm which is like suddenly to be raised in Christendom, if it be not speedily prevented by His especial goodness.”[292] The war now about to blaze up once more from its smouldering ashes was indeed of such a nature that no one, acquainted with the real merits of the parties, could look upon without horror. On one side the cause of German nationality and of legal order was bound in an inextricable bond with an ecclesiastical despotism which was sapping the <166>root of all moral and intellectual vigour. On the other side was a Protestantism which had lost all respect for law, and which had allied itself with the selfish greed of princes, and with the marauding instincts of the plunderers by whom the honourable name of soldiers was disgraced. The coming The future of the Thirty Years War.miseries of that war were beyond even Bristol’s vision. The help which Charles was eager to render to his brother-in-law proved to be vain. No cause could support the accumulated burden of Frederick’s incapacity, of Charles’s weakness, and of the selfishness of Mansfeld and Christian; but when the victory had been won by the sword of Tilly, and the whole of Northern Germany lay at the Emperor’s feet, then was revealed in turn the incapacity of Ferdinand to become the second founder of the Empire. He might have been the head of a united Germany; he might have given renewed life to the old national institutions, and have made the cold and calculating aggressions of Richelieu and of Louis XIV. impossible. Lorraine and Alsace would still have remained German soil, and, what was of far greater consequence, two centuries of moral and political anarchy would have been spared to the noble German nation. Unhappily Ferdinand was still the Ferdinand of old. By the Edict of Restitution he replaced the two religions upon that legal basis which, in his eyes, was all in all. In the composition of his mind there was no room for the political element which weighs the feelings, the hopes, the passions of men before proceeding to action. He cared little that his extremity of law was held by half the nation to be the extremity of injustice. Therefore it was that, instead of standing, as he might have stood, at the head of a united people, he found himself coercing a divided nation by the sword of an army which represented nothing but a faction. And what an army it was! Mansfeld and Christian were no longer alive, and their misdeeds had ceased to be a terror to German citizens and peasants. Frederick was living in hopeless exile, unregretted and forgotten. It was round Wallenstein, the general who represented the majesty of the Imperial name, and the cause of order against anarchy, that every element of disturbance gathered. During the first years <167>of strife, men of every creed had cast yearning eyes towards him who wore the crown of the Ottos and the Fredericks, to seek for that help which might reduce the chaos into order. They would never look with hope to Vienna again. The Empire had survived external contempt and internal dissolution; but the iniquities of Wallenstein laid it in the dust.
For a moment, the avenging arm of the great Swede was raised to redress the balance of the war, and to re-establish the Empire upon a Protestant basis. With the genius to construct as well as to destroy, it is probable that if he had been born a German prince, he might have stood at the head of a new and happier era. As it was, his career, even if his days had been prolonged, was predestined to failure. It was the last effort, almost till our own day, to establish any national order in Germany. After him came that waste and howling wilderness, resounding with shrieks and bitter cries, and filled with the struggles of brutal and degraded beings who seemed in form alone to resemble human kind. The hideous misery of that war, if war it can be called, no writer would willingly descend to recount; no reader would care to hear recited.
Yet, if Bristol was in the right in holding that the sword of England could not be drawn in such a war to the advantage of Feeling in England.herself or of the Continent, he was scarcely conscious of the wide basis upon which rested that uneasy dissatisfaction with the existing state of things which had spread amongst all classes of the population at home; for he was hardly aware how completely the conditions of European politics had changed since he first arrived at Madrid in 1611. Change in the condition of progress.Then the evil, before which the rising intellect of the time shrank with horror, was the prolongation of the religious strife. Everywhere the tendency of the age was towards an obliteration of the line drawn with such marked distinctness between the two creeds. In the field of speculation, the historian of the progress of tolerance can point to the spread of the Arminian theory. In the field of practical politics, he can trace the growing preponderance of political over theological arguments for persecution. <168>Differing in everything else, Pym and Ferdinand II. would have agreed in repudiating the notion that a heretic ought to be imprisoned or put to death simply because he was a heretic.
Before 1623 a great change had passed over the scene. Divide the blame as we may, the fact was undoubted that the old religion was encroaching upon Protestant soil. The evil most to be dreaded was no longer the continuance of war, but the imminence of defeat. In Germany the rashness of Frederick had betrayed the key of the Protestant position into Catholic hands. In England the weakness of James had granted to Spain a basis of operations against his own faith. For the interests of the human race, a barrier must be raised against the great enemy of its progress.
It was this alteration of circumstances, far more than his personal quarrel with Buckingham, which threw Bristol into discordance with the spirit of the age. Partly from the habitual deference to the home government which is the inevitable law of an ambassador’s life, partly from his own mental constitution, his eyes were fixed too exclusively upon the horrors of a religious war. He saw all that was evil in those who had aroused it. He did not see that resistance to Catholic supremacy was rapidly becoming a necessity. He adopted, without a thorough examination of their ultimate tendencies, schemes for pacification which had not originated with himself, but which, faulty as they were, might perhaps lead to the consummation which he so ardently desired.
In truth, the balance of the two religions was only to be redressed by means which did not lie within the sphere of Bristol’s intellect. Moral position of Protestantism.No candid person can survey the world at the beginning of the seventeenth century without acknowledging that as far as the leaders were concerned, moral superiority was not on the Protestant side. It would be an insult to Ferdinand, to Maximilian, and to Tilly, to compare them for an instant with Frederick or with Mansfeld. Even Philip IV. and Olivares were superior to their English visitors. Liars as they were, they hoped to achieve by their falsehoods something more than the gratification of their immediate interests, or of their personal <169>vanity. The great question which the Protestants of that age were called upon to solve was the eternal question which presents itself to all who have embraced freedom in any form. Would they regard their liberty as a means by which to grasp the conception of a higher order than they had known before? Would they learn discipline and obedience? Would they reverence law, and count truth as a most precious jewel? If they could do this, then the victories of Wimpfen and Höchst and Stadtloo would have been won in vain. If not, the world would turn in disgust to the stillness of Papal absolutism, that it might escape from the miseries which the abuse of liberty had set before it.
Such was the question which Germany had failed to comprehend, but to which England was ready to respond. The men of that generation were prepared to build upon the foundations of that reverence at once for justice and for freedom which the events of centuries had laid deep in the English character. The world was to learn that there were men who were ready to suffer and to die, if need be, on behalf of principles more true, and of an order more fruitful of good and noble life than anything which Ferdinand and Maximilian had found it possible to conceive. From the study of Bacon, from the parsonage of George Herbert, from the pulpit of Baxter, from the prison of Eliot, a light was to break forth, splendid in its multiplicity of colour and of brilliancy, which would teach the world to shrink from anarchy and despotism alike, and to entrust the treasure of its moral and intellectual progress to ordered liberty.
How long the conflict in which England was about to engage would last, and to what issues it might finally be conducted, Position of Charles.it was impossible to foretell. But to anyone who, like Bristol, had a full knowledge of the events which had recently been passing in Spain, it must have been evident that the league which appeared to be springing up between the Prince of Wales and the English nation could not by any possibility be longlived. It was to no purpose that Charles had listened to the explosion of loyalty which had greeted his return; it was to no purpose that he found himself <170>accidentally thrown into a fortuitous accordance with the deeper feelings of the nation. In all this there was no abiding security. Once before in English history had a giddy youth won a fleeting popularity by stepping forward to declare himself the leader of the multitudes whose sufferings had never touched his heart; and those who could look most deeply into the character of Charles might well dread lest the tragical story of the second Richard should be repeated in the face of an earnest and long-suffering nation.
If we pause for a moment to allow our thoughts to dwell once more on the years which had passed by as Charles was Character of the past history,growing up to manhood, it is impossible to resist the feeling of discouragement. Not a hope had been formed which had not been baffled; not a man had stepped forward to guide the English nation who had not been thrown back into obscurity. Bacon was banished for ever from public life; Bristol’s career had been cut short, and he was looking forward to the future with more anxiety than he was willing to express; Pym was solacing himself in the seclusion of a country life, and was waiting for better times. The wish to send forth an English army to the help of the Continental Protestants, and the wish to put an end by mediation to the miserable war by which Germany was devastated, had alike been uttered in vain. Seven years had gone by since the negotiation for the Spanish match had been formally opened, and it seemed as if, since that day, nothing had been done.
Yet it was not really so. The worth of an individual or of a nation lies not so much in what they achieve, as in what they are. and prospects for the future.Ignorance enough there had been, and sloth; but the will to do right was there. Bacon and Bristol, Pym and Phelips, and even (whenever his better nature was in the ascendant) James himself, were filled with a desire to make their country and the world better and happier than they were. There was no petty desire of national aggrandisement in the English demand for war; there was no mere shrinking from laborious toil in the English demand for peace. It was thus that the seeds sown in these wintry days would bear precious fruit; that the silenced speakers of the <171>Parliament which had been dissolved by the irritable King would gather to their side comrades as noble as themselves to bear in common the burden of the new struggle, into which they were to enter with clearer perceptions and with higher aims; and that the frustrated advocates of peace, when they had passed away from earth, would leave behind them men who would take up their work when the time came for it to be accomplished.
[242] In his despatch of March 9⁄19, 1624, in the Madrid Palace Library, Carondelet stated that James told him that the first thing the Prince had said to him after his return from Spain was, ‘Despues de mostrarle el sentimiento que tenia de que le huviesen dejado volver sin la Infanta y quejadose de otras muchas cosas, fueron estas palabras; que avia de conquistar á España si lo permitia; y que esto se le avia confirmado el Principe muchas veces por cosa muy posible, aunque el le havia respondido haciendo burla dello.’
[243] Hacket, 165.
[244] Calvert to the King, Oct. 2, S. P. Spain.
[245] Conway to Calvert, Oct. 3, S. P. Spain.
[246] Conway to Coloma, Oct. 7, S. P. Germany.
[247] The King to Frederick, Oct., ibid.
[248] Bristol to the Prince, Sept. 24, Cabala, 94. Bristol to Calvert, Sept. 24, S. P. Spain.
[249] Bristol to the Prince, Sept. 24, Clarendon State Papers, i. App. xx.
[250] Bristol to the King, Sept. 24, Hardwicke State Papers, i. 481.
[251] The King to Bristol, Oct. 8, Cabala, 241.
[252] The Prince to Bristol, Oct. 8, Sherborne MSS.
[253] The Prince to Aston, Oct. 8, S. P. Spain.
[254] Frederick to the King, Oct. 20⁄30, S. P. Germany.
[255] Ciriza to Bristol, Oct. 21⁄31, S. P. Spain. Olivares to Cottington (?), Oct. 21⁄31, Hacket, 483.
[256] Khevenhüller, x. 99.
[257] Bristol to the King, Oct. 24, Hardwicke State Papers, i. 483.
[258] Salvetti’s News-Letter, Oct. 24⁄Nov. 3.
[259] Williams to Conway, Oct. 10; Conway to Williams, Oct. 11, S. P. Dom. cliii. 38, 39.
[260] Chamberlain to Carleton, Oct. 25, S. P. Dom. cliv. 98.
[261] “Il Principe è al solito cupo et usa gran silentio. Certo non ama Spagnuoli; et se ama l’Infanta, l’amor è temperato.” Valaresso to the Doge, Oct. 24⁄Nov. 3, Venice Transcripts.
[262] A relation of the fall of the room at Blackfriars, Court and Times of James I., ii. 428. Salvetti’s News-Letter, Oct. 31⁄Nov. 10. ——— to Meade, Oct. 29, Harl. MSS. 389, fol. 374. D. Carleton to Carleton, Nov. 1, S. P. Dom. cliv. 2.
[263] Salvetti’s News-Letters, Oct. 31⁄Nov. 10, Nov. 7⁄17, 14⁄24.
[264] The King to Bristol, Nov. 13, Clarendon State Papers, i. 13.
[265] Conway to Bristol, Nov. 13, Sherborne MSS.
[267] The Prince to Bristol, Nov. 14, Sherborne MSS.
[268] The word “his” is not in the original.
[269] The word “to” is also omitted.
[270] The Prince to Bristol, Nov. 15, Sherborne MSS.
[271] This particular admission is referred to in the King of Spain’s reply to the ambassadors on December 9. For the rest of the conversation see Salvetti’s News-Letter, Nov. 21⁄Dec. 1.
[272] Ciriza to Bristol, Oct. 30⁄Nov. 9, S. P. Spain.
[273] Bristol to Calvert, Oct. 31, ibid.
[274] Bristol to the King, Nov. 1, Cabala, 95. Compare Aston to Buckingham, Nov. 1, (?), ibid. 11.
[275] Bristol to Calvert, Nov. 13, S. P. Spain.
[276] Bristol’s Answer to the Interrogatories, Hardwicke State Papers, i. 520.
[277] Bristol to the King, Nov. 23, S. P. Spain. Aston to Buckingham, Nov. 23, Harl. MSS. 1580, fol. 10.
[278] Bristol to Conway, Jan. 23, 1624, S. P. Spain.
[279] Bristol to James, Nov. 26, Hardwicke State Papers, i. 488. Bristol and Aston to Calvert, Nov. 30, S. P. Spain.
[280] Proposition of the Ambassadors, Nov. 13, S. P. Spain.
[281] Proposition of the Ambassadors, Nov. 29, ibid.
[282] Reply to the Ambassadors’ Proposition, Dec. 2. Dated Nov. 26⁄Dec. 6. Bristol to the King, Dec. 6, ibid.
[283] Reply of the King of Spain, Dec. 9⁄19, S. P. Spain.
[284] The King to Frederick, Nov. 20, Cabala, 245.
[285] Rusdorf to Frederick, Nov. 26. Rusdorf, Mémoires, i. 145.
[286] Rusdorf to Frederick, Dec. 16, ibid. i. 156. Conway to Buckingham, Dec. 20, S. P. Dom. clv. 65.
[287] Frederick to the King, Dec. 20⁄30, Cabala, 246.
[288] The King to Williams, Dec. 28, Hacket, 173.
[289] The King to Bristol, Dec. 30, S. P. Spain.
[290] Bristol to Buckingham, Dec. 6, Cabala, 96.
[291] Account of the offers made by Olivares, Jan. 14⁄24, 1624, Sherborne MSS.
[292] Bristol to Calvert, Jan. 22, 1624, S. P. Spain.