<280>To obtain from James the ratification of the marriage treaty was only part of Ville-aux-Clercs’ mission. He had also to Dec. 1.Ville-aux-Clercs to ask that Mansfeld might pass through Flanders.obtain permission for Mansfeld to attempt to succour Breda, and to contrive if possible to embroil James in open war with Spain.[474] James, indeed, almost immediately after the ratification of the treaty, took one step in the direction in which the Frenchman wished to guide him. On December 14 Dec. 14.James consents.he issued an explanation of his former prohibition to Mansfeld. That commander was to ask leave from the Infanta to enter Flanders; but in the event of a refusal he was to force his way through the Spanish territory.[475]
As yet the name of Breda had not been mentioned either by Ville-aux-Clercs or James, though the relief of the town was plainly intended by the French. James’s difficulties were only beginning. He had been given to understand that Mansfeld would land on French territory, and would march at once to the Spanish frontier in order to demand a passage of the Infanta. Now, however, Richelieu took alarm, or pretended to take alarm, at James’s former declaration that Mansfeld should not enter the Spanish Netherlands. Before James explained away his meaning on the 14th, orders had already been issued in the name of Louis to <281>Ville-aux-Clercs and Effiat to inform James that Mansfeld could not be permitted to land in France unless the English Government distinctly authorised his passage through the Spanish Netherlands. The alternative offered was that Mansfeld should go by way of Holland. He would certainly not be permitted to march a hundred miles on French territory.[476]
As usual, the French ambassadors applied to Buckingham for support. The exact nature of the conversation between them cannot now be discovered. Dec. 18.Misunderstanding between Buckingham and the French.The Frenchmen were under the impression when they left him, that Mansfeld, if the passage through Flanders seemed undesirable, might take any other route he pleased, on the sole condition that the French cavalry, which was to take part in the expedition, should accompany the English infantry. They therefore wrote at once to Mansfeld, strongly urging him to convey his men through Holland,[477] instead of through France and Flanders.
Such, however, was not the understanding of Buckingham. Perhaps, as Ville-aux-Clercs thought afterwards, he was so confident of his influence over Mansfeld that he assented to the proposal that the commander might take any route he pleased, without duly considering all that might be implied in those words.[478] Perhaps, when he came to speak to the King, and found how reluctant James was to give his consent to the course proposed, he may have thought it expedient to disavow the promise which he had heedlessly given, and it is certain that he afterwards assured Ville-aux-Clercs that he had never mentioned the possibility of Mansfeld’s passing through Holland to the King. In fact, something very different from a mere military question was at issue. James wished to obtain the <282>open complicity of France in the coming war. Louis wished to involve James in hostilities with Spain whilst himself remaining at peace. If English troops landed at Calais, and then, accompanied by French cavalry, crossed the frontier into Flanders or Artois, it would be very difficult for Louis to wash his hands of the whole matter; whereas if a small body of cavalry joined Mansfeld’s army in Holland, whatever Mansfeld chose to do might be set down to his own wrongheadedness, or to the orders of his English superiors.
In the meanwhile, the unlucky men whose destination was the object of such contention, were gathering to their rendezvous at Dover. The rendezvous at Dover.The aid of English troops was not to be despised. The Prince of Orange, who knew them well, used to say that when Englishmen had got over their first sufferings, they were the bravest men in his motley army. The ten thousand who had gone out in the summer had been received by the Dutch with open arms; but they had advantages which Mansfeld’s troops would never have. They were volunteers, not pressed men. They had been incorporated into the Dutch army, and had gradually learned their work in the strictest school of discipline then existing in the world. They would be well clothed and well fed. There may have been an exaggeration in the popular saying that an Englishman could not fight without his three B’s — his bed, his beef, and his beer — but it was exaggeration which contained a certain amount of truth.[479]
All that went to the making of an army was wanting to Mansfeld’s compulsory levies. His men, pressed against their will, Wretched condition of the men.had little heart for the service. The county officials, whose duty it had been to select them, had too often laid their hands upon those who were most easily within reach, rather than upon those who were fittest for the work. “Our soldiers,” wrote one who saw a number of them pass on their way, “are marching on all sides to Dover. God send them good shipping and success; but such a rabble of raw and poor rascals have not lightly been seen, and go so <283>unwillingly that they must rather be driven than led.” “It is lamentable,” wrote another in the same strain, “to see the heavy countenances of our pressed men, and to hear the sad farewells they take of their friends, showing nothing but deadly unwillingness to the service; and they move pity almost in all men in regard of the incommodity of the season, the uncertainty of the employment, and the ill terms upon which they are like to serve, whereof I know not how discreetly I should do to tell you all that I hear spoken; but it may suffice that I say the whole business is generally disliked, and few or none promise either honour to our nation by this journey, or anything but wretchedness to the poor soldiers.”[480]
Whether a real army could ever have been constituted out of such unpromising materials may admit of doubt. As it was, the men They are irregularly paid.had not fair play. Mansfeld, accustomed as he was to live at free quarters, was not in the habit of paying much attention to his commissariat. Money difficulties, too, were not long in presenting themselves to him. He had received 15,000l. for the expenses of levying and arming the men, and 40,000l. for their payment during the months of October and November. He now, though the men were only just gathering at Dover, asked for another 20,000l. for the current month of December. But the resources of the Parliamentary Treasurers were exhausted, and it was only after some delay that the Prince was able to borrow the money on his own personal security.[481] What chance was there that the further sum, which would soon become due for January, would ever be forthcoming?
Whilst Mansfeld was disputing with the Government over the accounts, the men were left to shift for themselves. When they reached Dover Dec. 25.Insubordination of the soldiers.they found that but few vessels had been collected to carry them over, and that the state of the tides was such that even those few were unable to enter the harbour. Neither food nor money awaited <284>them. As a natural consequence they roamed about the country, stealing cattle and breaking into houses. Their ranks were thinned by frequent desertions, whilst those who remained at Dover threatened to hang the mayor and burn the town.[482]
To send down a commission for putting martial law in force was the first thought of the Council. To those who were on the spot 1625.Jan. 1.Martial law.it seemed a very insufficient remedy. “If there be not order to pay the soldiers,” wrote Hippesley, the Lieutenant of Dover Castle, “all the martial law in the world will not serve the turn.” When the commission was read, one of the mutineers shouted out, ‘If you hang one you must hang us all.’ The man was seized and condemned to death; but the officers, who knew how much the men were to be pitied, were not anxious to carry out the sentence, and contrived to find an excuse for setting the prisoner free.[483]
In order to obtain vessels in greater numbers, an embargo was laid on several Hamburg ships which were lying in the Downs;[484] but Jan. 3.Ships for transport put under embargo.the removal of the physical difficulty in the way of the passage only served to bring the political difficulty into greater prominence. James and Buckingham, whatever may have been the real nature of their communications with the ambassadors, still flattered themselves that whether the troops passed through the Spanish Netherlands or not, they would at least be allowed to make a French port the starting-point of their enterprise, so as to establish the complicity of Louis in the undertaking.
This was, however, precisely the thing which the French had determined should not be. Ville-aux-Clercs and Effiat had gained over Mansfeld, and Espesses, the French ambassador at the Hague, was busily employed in urging the States-General to consent to the landing of Mansfeld somewhere near <285>Bergen-op-Zoom. In spite of the advocacy of the Prince of Orange, French negotiations with the Dutch.who was ready to risk anything to save his beloved Breda, Espesses found it hard work to gain the consent of the States-General, by whom Mansfeld was better known than liked. Their towns, they said, which contained neither forage nor victuals, could not receive his troops, and to quarter them on the peasants could not be suffered. If, indeed, the soldiers were regularly paid by the King of England, and commissioned by him to serve against Spain, and if the promised French cavalry were allowed to accompany them, it would be another matter.[485]
Before this hesitating acceptance of the plan reached England, Mansfeld had taken for granted that it would be adopted by the Dutch. Jan. 2.Mansfeld speaks of his change of plan.He sent orders to the German troops which were waiting for him in Holland to remain where they were, and began to drop mysterious hints of his intentions. He informed Conway that when his shipping was ready, he would take the course which the winds allowed him, and which was most proper and suitable to his designs, mentioning also certain vessels which would be required for the embarkation of the French cavalry. Conway replied that he did not understand his meaning. He thought it had been arranged that the army should land in France, and march by land.[486] Upon this Mansfeld spoke out plainly, and declared his intention of carrying his army to Flushing.[487]
Buckingham, perhaps, with some uneasy remembrance of a consent half-given in his conversation with the ambassadors, Jan. 6.Buckingham’s dissatisfaction.attempted to argue with Mansfeld. The winds would be contrary, the rivers would be frozen, the States-General would be quarrelsome; there were no ships to bring over the French cavalry, so that his Majesty would be obliged to make war alone, and to this he would never consent. The sooner Mansfeld sailed for Calais the <286>better. A few days later Buckingham spoke more impatiently. Jan. 10.The Prince angry.The Prince chimed in with him. “What he wishes,” he said, “is impossible. The best thing he can do is to land at Calais, or France will not be engaged. From Calais he can go by any way he likes. What has he to do at Flushing?”[488]
“France will not be engaged.” There was the root of the matter now. Two thousand French horse, and such shadow of a French alliance as might rest upon the expedition by its being permitted to land at Calais, was all that remained of the grand scheme for the co-operation of the two nations for the recovery of the Palatinate. James’s displeasure was still more outspoken. He sent Sir John Ogle and Sir William St. Leger to Dover to inquire into the condition of the troops. If they found Mansfeld bent on taking ways of his own, they were to dismiss the transports which had been collected with so much difficulty, and to send the men back to their homes.
The men had no such good fortune before them. Mansfeld, well aware that any attempt to land in France would be fruitless, replied that Jan. 19.Mansfeld forbidden to land in France.he would do his best to place his troops on French soil, and that he would allow himself to be stopped by nothing short of a direct prohibition from Louis. Such a prohibition was of course forthcoming, and on January 19 was placed in Mansfeld’s hands, in the presence of Ogle and St. Leger. By this time his men were on board, and he still talked of crossing over to Calais, though it was St. Leger’s opinion that ‘a very small matter would send him back.’[489]
The experiment was not made. Buckingham was anxious to get the army off on any terms. He told Effiat that, if the Buckingham gives way.prohibition to land were persisted in, James would allow Mansfeld no choice but to disband his troops. Would it not be possible, he asked, to allow the force to go on <287>shore at Calais only for a few hours? If this could not be, still, if only he could be assured that the French cavalry would really join the expedition, he would do his best to satisfy the King.[490]
To the Prince Buckingham gave his reasons for consenting to the passage through Holland. The opposition to the landing, he said, Jan. 23.doubtless proceeded from the Jesuit party in France. Was it, however, worth while to strive against it? Would it not be better, as matters stood, to send Mansfeld through Holland to the ecclesiastical territories on the Rhine? If the French cavalry were with him, Louis would be as much engaged in the quarrel as if Mansfeld had landed in France. Such an arrangement would do more to advance the main ends of recovering the Palatinate — as the States would be at Mansfeld’s back, and the Princes of Germany would move if they were only encouraged by the arrival of his troops — than if Mansfeld were forced to land in France against the will of Louis.[491]
The march to the Palatinate, not the relief of Breda, was uppermost in Buckingham’s mind. On the 26th he wrote to Mansfeld that, Jan. 26.Mansfeld forbidden to go near Breda.against his own judgment, he accepted his opinion in favour of the march through Holland, whilst on the same day Conway issued directions from the King to the colonels of the army, forbidding them to obey their general if he attempted to employ them at Breda.[492]
At last, on January 31, the sorely tried army was able to leave Dover. As had been foreseen, the port of Calais was closed against them. Jan. 31.He sails at last.The French cavalry, which had been placed under the command of Christian of Brunswick, was not ready to start. Feb. 1.Anchors at Flushing.Mansfeld passed on his way without any accession of strength, and on February 1 the vessels which bore the English army cast anchor off Flushing.[493]
<288>What good could come of an armament of which the commander was bent upon one line of action whilst the officers were Hardships of the men from want of food.under strict orders to pursue another? Before this difficulty could be faced there were many hardships to be endured. The provisions brought from England would only last for four or five days, and who could say how soon the scanty stock would be replenished? Mansfeld knew full well that not a single penny would be forthcoming from the English Exchequer for some time to come. Even if, by some strange good fortune, the men succeeded in reaching Germany without being starved on the way, what possibility was there that these raw levies, without food or money, could stand against Tilly’s veterans for a day?
Mansfeld, however, had plainly no intention of leading his men against Tilly. If he had wished to do so, a plan which would have Want of transport.left Breda unrelieved was not likely to find favour with the States-General, and without the good-will of the States-General there was no obtaining the means of transport which he needed. In Holland, at least, it was firmly believed that the relief of Breda was the first step needful to success in Germany. It was ‘the common opinion that if the Palatinate be only sought in the Palatinate, it would never be recovered.’
The troops could ill support delay. The men were ‘poor and naked.’ At Flushing they had remained for some days Sickness breaks out.closely packed on board the vessels which brought them over. Then they were transferred to boats which were to carry them to Gertruidenberg, a town not far from Breda. Three regiments reached the place of their destination. The other three had gone but a few miles when the frost came down upon them and made further passage impossible. Exposed to the cold blasts and the driving snow, sickness broke out amongst them. The exhaustion from which they had already suffered unfitted them to bear up against fresh hardships. When they left Flushing they had not tasted food for eight-and-forty hours. But for the aid of the Dutch Government they would all have perished from starvation.
<289>At Gertruidenberg matters were no better. No preparation had been made to provide food for such a multitude. “All day long,” wrote Lord Cromwell, who had come out in command of a regiment, “we go about for victuals and bury our dead.”[494] Forty or fifty deaths were recorded every night. At last Count Frederick Henry, the brother and heir of the Prince of Orange, came to the relief of the suffering Englishmen. He sent them meat and bread, and provided them with straw to cover their freezing limbs as they lay in the boats. The account which Carleton gave of their sufferings ended in a cry for money. Mansfeld had brought with him merely 2,000l. He was not a man, the English ambassador thought, to care much for the welfare of his troops. He would prefer filling up the vacancies with new levies to taking reasonable care of the old ones.[495]
What possible use could be made of these ill-starred troops? The way to the Palatinate was barred against them by the March 4.James still refuses to employ the men at Breda.Imperialist armies which had been hurried up to oppose them, and James persisted in his refusal to allow of their employment at Breda. Had they, indeed, been able to march up the Rhine, the diversion might have been useful to the Dutch. James, however, had no money to send, and he argued that the French, who had caused all the mischief, ought to supply the deficiency. If this could not be done, the States might perhaps advance the 20,000l. a month which he had bound himself to pay to Mansfeld.[496]
The Dutch were not quite inexorable. They allowed their to be used to The Dutch lend money.raise a loan of 20,000l.[497] They perhaps hoped that James would get over the difficulty by accepting a proposal which had been made for placing Mansfeld March 21.under Frederick’s orders, who would not be bound by the King of England’s engagement. “His Majesty,” they were told, “cannot yet be moved to think <290>it fit to break it by equivocations, or by changing of forms and names.”[498]
James’s last words in this matter — for they were his last — were entirely in consonance with his earlier ones. The Palatinate, and James’s part in Mansfeld’s expedition.the Palatinate alone, was the object at which he aimed. War with Spain was to be avoided as long as possible. Impartial posterity will perhaps be inclined to think that he was wise in looking to the recovery of the Palatinate, rather than to vengeance upon Spain, as the true object of the war; but his mind, indolent in itself, and becoming more indolent as years rolled by and health failed, shrank from the fatigue of planning a large scheme of foreign policy as a whole, and he did not see that the enmity of Spain was the inevitable result of any serious attempt to recover the Palatinate. Even if he had been right in thinking it possible to interfere in Germany without provoking Spain, it would have been a grave mistake to pursue this object in close connection with France and Holland. For the first interest both of France and Holland was to diminish the power of Spain, and not to recover the Palatinate.
Whilst the Governments were disputing, the soldiers were dying. In little more than a week after James’s last refusal was given, The army wastes away.out of a force of 12,000 men, barely 3,000 were capable of carrying arms. The French cavalry was equally thinned by sickness and desertion. When at last Christian of Brunswick brought his troops from Calais only a few hundreds out of the two thousand men originally under his orders were disembarked on the Dutch coast.[499]
Whilst Mansfeld’s prospects of finding his way into Germany were becoming more hopeless every day, where were Negotiations in Germany.those allies upon whom James ought to have been able to reckon before he allowed a single Englishman to take part in an enterprise for the recovery of the Palatinate? What had been done to engage the assistance of <291>the North German States, or of the Kings of Denmark and Sweden?
When Anstruther unfolded his master’s plans in August to Christian IV. of Denmark, the King answered that he was quite ready 1624.August.Anstruther’s mission.to take arms, but that he must first be assured of support of England and of the Protestant States of North Germany. It was therefore arranged that Anstruther should visit the princes who had most to fear from the progress of the Imperialists, and that Christian should give him a final answer on his return.[500]
The position of the King of Denmark was a typical one. Like the other princes of North Germany he had looked with disfavour Christian IV. and the ecclesiastical territories.upon Frederick’s Bohemian enterprise; but he looked with equal disfavour upon the establishment of a strong Imperial authority, and his zeal for Protestantism was quickened by the knowledge that, whether the secularised ecclesiastical possessions held by his house in Germany were held legally or not, no doubt existed in the Emperor’s mind that they were still rightfully the property of the Church. His personal interest in the great question of the ecclesiastical lands was by no means slight. His younger son Frederick had the dioceses of Bremen, Verden, and Halberstadt either in possession or reversion.
As usual, personal and political objects were closely intertwined with objects which were neither personal nor political. These The North German bishoprics.North German sees were occupied by Protestants, who, though they called themselves bishops, or sometimes, more modestly, administrators, were simply lay princes, like the dukes and counts around them, the only difference being that, instead of holding their rank by hereditary right, they were elected for life by the chapters of <292>the dioceses, which often consisted, at least in part, of aristocratic sinecurists like themselves. It was quite natural that Catholics should regard such an arrangement as wholly indefensible, and, if no more had been at stake than the loss by the neighbouring princes of so rich a provision for their younger sons, the sooner a change came the better for Germany.
The results of the forcible dispossession of the Protestant administrators would, however, have been widely felt. Their lands were inhabited by a Protestant population, which would at once have been doomed to compulsory reconversion. Their fortresses Danger to North Germany.would have been occupied by troops hostile to the order of things established in the neighbouring territories, and their revenues would have served as a bait to those Protestants who were anxious to make provision for their families, and who might perhaps not be slow to learn that canonries and bishoprics would fall into the laps of ardent converts to the doctrines of the Emperor and the Pope.
Were the North German princes so steadfast in their faith that they could be trusted to withstand the temptation? It is hardly What was at stake.too much to say that the fate of German Protestantism was at stake. With the fortunes of German Protestantism would come at last to be involved the fortunes of German nationality. The intellectual giants who since the days of Lessing and Göthe have overshadowed Europe, have all sprung up on Protestant soil; and the generation which has only just passed away could tell of the peaceful conquest over the ignorance of Catholic Germany achieved at the beginning of this century by men of the Protestant North,[501] and which paved the way for that political unity which is at last healing the wounds inflicted by the great war of the 17th century.
Though the Emperor had accepted the agreement made at Mühlhausen in 1620, by which the Was the Emperor likely to reclaim the bishoprics?Protestant administrators were declared safe from attack as long as they remained obedient subjects, doubts were freely expressed whether he would keep, in the days of his prosperity, the promise which he had made in adversity. Even <293>if scant justice were done to Ferdinand in this surmise, he might fairly be expected to urge that the diocese of Halberstadt was no longer under the protection of the agreement of Mühlhausen. Its Administrator, Christian of Brunswick, had certainly not been an obedient subject to the Emperor. Though he had now abdicated, in the hope that the chapter would choose a Protestant successor, in the eyes of the Emperor such an election would have no legal basis. Christian’s treason, he would argue, had replaced the see in the position in which it was before the agreement of Mühlhausen, and the chapter was therefore bound to elect a really Catholic bishop, instead of a cavalry officer who called himself a bishop in order that he might enjoy the revenues of the see. There were, moreover, other ways, besides that of force, by which Protestantism could be undermined in the bishoprics. If a majority of a chapter could be gained over, a Catholic bishop would be chosen at the next election. Many of the canons were Catholics still, and, with the help of an armed force, it was easy to find legal grounds for turning the minority into a majority. In this way Osnabrück had lately been won from Protestantism; and other sees might be expected, unless something were done, to follow soon.[502]
At such a time Anstruther had not much difficulty in gaining the ear of most of the princes to whom he addressed himself. Anstruther’s successful negotiation.The Elector of Saxony, indeed, continued to stand aloof, but in other quarters there was no lack of readiness to stand up against the Emperor, if only the English ambassador could engage to bring into the field a force large enough to give promise of success.
Whilst Anstruther was passing from one German state to another, Spens was engaged in making similar advances to the Gustavus Adolphus.King of Sweden. Gustavus Adolphus was bound by every conceivable tie to the Protestant cause. He had to fear a Catholic pretender to the Swedish crown in the person of his cousin Sigismund. If the Emperor extended his authority to the shores of the Baltic, the throne of Gustavus <294>and the national independence of Sweden would be exposed to serious danger. The dominion over the Baltic was for him a question of life or death. Yet it would be in the highest degree unjust to speak of him as taking a merely selfish or even a merely national view of the work of his life. Politics and religion were closely intertwined in the minds of the men of his generation. To him, the consummate warrior and statesman, the defence of Protestantism was no empty phrase. It filled him with the consciousness that he was sent forth upon a high and holy mission. It taught him to believe that in prosecuting the aims of his own policy he was a chosen instrument in the hands of God.
For Sweden he had already done much. Succeeding to his father in an hour of desperate trial, when the armies of Christian of Denmark were sweeping over the desolate land, the His position in 1624.youthful hero had stemmed the tide of invasion at its highest, and had wrung from the invader a peace which had preserved the independence of the country. He had since driven back the Russians from the coast of the Baltic, and was able to boast that the subjects of the Czar could not launch a boat on its waters without the permission of the King of Sweden. He had struggled, not unsuccessfully, against his Polish rival. But his eye had never been removed from the strife in Germany. To drive back the Imperial armies from the North, if not to overthrow the House of Austria altogether, was the object of his ambition. Yet no man was less likely than Gustavus to interpret the conditions of success by his wishes; and it was certain that he would never throw himself, as Frederick of the Palatinate had done, into the labyrinth of a desperate enterprise, on the complacent assurance that what he was desirous of doing was certain to obtain the approval and the support of Heaven.
Already, the year before, Gustavus had made proposals to the exiled Frederick for a general Protestant league. Those proposals had been, with the consent of the States-General, communicated to the Prince of Wales; and when Spens arrived Mission of Spens.at Stockholm in August 1624, he brought with him, in addition to his public instructions from James, verbal directions from Charles and Frederick to come to an <295>understanding with Gustavus respecting the proposed alliance. Gustavus Plan of Gustavus.was not long in sketching out his programme. The time for half-measures he held to be passed. There must be a common understanding between all Protestant states. He, if properly supported, would make his way, through Poland and Silesia, into Bohemia. England and Holland could do much to help. Spain would have to be kept in check as well as the Emperor to be beaten back. The assistance of Catholic powers — France, Venice, and Savoy — was not to be despised. But let them find their own field of operation for themselves. They might attack Bavaria, or might make war in Italy at their pleasure.[503]
The view taken of the war by the Swedish king was certainly very different from that taken by James. Moderation, fairness, and conciliation, Its merits.admirable as they are whilst friendly settlement is still possible, or when it once more becomes possible after victory has been won, must be flung aside when hostilities have been once commenced. The spirit must be aroused which alone gives endurance to the warrior. The watchword must be spoken for which men’s hearts will beat. To place poor, vacillating Frederick once more in his Electoral seat was not an object for which nations would care to fight, least of all if it were to be accomplished with the aid of a marauder like Mansfeld. But if it once came to be believed that Protestantism was in danger, it would be a very different thing. Then, indeed, an irresistible force could be gathered to make head against Imperial aggression; and with strength would come again the possibility of moderation. The leader of an army such as Gustavus would have gathered under his standards would enforce discipline and spare the towns and fields of Germany from indiscriminate plundering. More than this, if he could give assurance that he was fighting in defence of his own religion without any intention of proscribing that of his opponents, he might gain help from those who from political motives alone were hostile to the House of Austria.
All this Gustavus was one day to accomplish. It was <296>perhaps premature to entertain such a design in 1624. Until men have actually felt the weight of evil, they are hard to rouse to a course so revolutionary as that which Gustavus proposed. The Lower Saxon Circle was, indeed, threatened by Tilly, but Was it not premature?it had not yet been invaded. The fertile plains of Northern Germany had not yet been wasted by the armies of the South. The clouds were gathering, but the bolt had not yet fallen. The iron had not yet entered into the souls of the peasants of Pomerania or of the burghers of Magdeburg.
There was another risk, too, not unforeseen by Gustavus himself. Though he was not at war with Denmark, the fires of Risk from Denmark.the old rivalry still smouldered on. What if Christian should fall upon Sweden when its king was in the heart of Silesia or Bohemia? Denmark was not then the petty realm which modern events have made it. Its king reigned in Norway, ruled in Schleswig, and in part of Holstein, and held lands beyond the Sound which are now counted as the southern provinces of Sweden. So certain was Gustavus that no good could come from Denmark,[504] that he demanded that his allies should join him in forming a fleet to guard the Baltic against a Danish attack in his absence.
Before long Gustavus was compelled to modify his plan in a way which was certain to give offence to Christian. The September.Bellin at Stockholm.Elector of Brandenburg sent an ambassador, Bellin, to Stockholm, to offer to the King of Sweden his aid in placing him at the head of a league of North German princes. The Elector, however, coupled his offer with the condition that the war should be carried on as far as possible from Brandenburg. Instead of directing his course through Silesia into Bohemia, Gustavus was to ascend the valley of the Weser, and to cut his way to the Palatinate.[505]
<297>Before these representations Gustavus consented to abandon his original plan; but though he was ready to act in any way which might, at the time, seem advisable, he was not ready to act at all excepting under conditions which would give him a fair prospect of success. When, therefore, Spens, accompanied by Bellin, presented himself in England to declare the intentions 1625.January.Demands of Gustavus.of the King of Sweden, those who heard him were fairly astonished at the magnitude of his demands. Gustavus, the ambassador said, was ready to lead an army of 50,000 men to the Palatinate. Of these he would furnish 16,000 himself, leaving the remaining 34,000 to be provided by his allies. He was ready to meet one-third of the expenses of the war, but another third must be borne by England, and the remainder by the German princes. There must be something more than mere talk of finding money. Gustavus had no intention of throwing himself upon a friendly country, like Mansfeld or Christian of Brunswick, on the mere chance of being able to pay his way. Sufficient to support his army for four months must be supplied in hard cash before he would stir. When he did stir, he would not encounter the dangers of a divided command. The whole direction of the war must be placed in his own hands. That he might be secured against a possible attack in the rear from Poland or Denmark, a fleet of twenty-five ships must be stationed in the Baltic, and the German ports of Wismar and Bremen must be temporarily surrendered to him, to give him a firm basis of operations. In order to discuss these propositions, a congress of the powers friendly to the operation should be held as soon as possible.[506]
If there was to be war at all, the best policy for the English Government would probably have been to place itself unreservedly Jan. 2.James shrinks from the expense.in the hands of Gustavus; but Gustavus was as yet but little known in England; and as matters stood, with Mansfeld’s expedition swallowing up all the little money which remained in the Exchequer, and with Jan. 5.no Parliamentary grant possible for many a month to come, the magnitude of the Swedish demands only inspired alarm. “I am not so great and rich a prince,” said <298>James, “as to be able to do so much. I am only the king of two poor little islands.” The yearly expense, in fact, which he was asked to meet, would have exceeded 400,000l., and he had already engaged to pay nearly 100,000l. a year for the troops which he had sent to the help of the Dutch, and 240,000l. a year for Mansfeld’s army.
As the discussion went on, a natural anxiety was expressed by the English Government to see Sweden and Denmark acting in concert. Denmark to be asked to join.Why, said Conway, should not Christian be asked to bear part of the burthen? If neither of the kings would serve under the other, might not the supreme command be given to the Elector of Brandenburg?[507]
Day by day the financial difficulties appeared in a stronger light. At last Buckingham assured Bellin that, though he would Jan. 11.France to be consulted.spare neither life nor honour in the cause, he must first hear what the Kings of Denmark and France would do. Bellin had better go on to Paris to consult Louis. As he had done in the case of Mansfeld, James was at last brought to promise that he would do as much as the King of France would do. Christian might be asked to leave the direction of the war to Gustavus, and a congress could meet at the Hague on April 20.
On his arrival at the French Court, Bellin found no difficulty in obtaining a promise of assistance. A French emissary, La Haye, Bellin in France.had visited the courts of Copenhagen and Stockholm, and, though he does not seem to have had any definite overtures to make,[508] it is probable that Richelieu was now hoping to obtain his sovereign’s consent to a more active intervention in Germany. Bellin, however, was told that help would be given only on the understanding that the conditions of peace to be demanded after the war were to be settled by the Kings of France and England. Whether Gustavus would have consented to take money on such terms may reasonably be doubted.[509]
<299>Before Bellin returned to England, important despatches were received from Anstruther.[510] Christian, encouraged by the reports Offers of Christian IV.which the English ambassador had brought from the North German Courts, and possibly urged to exertion in the hope of outbidding the King of Sweden, now professed himself ready to embark on the war with less extensive preparations than those which seemed indispensable to Gustavus. Instead of asking for 50,000 men, he thought that 30,000 would be sufficient. If England would support 6,000 foot and 1,000 horse, at the expense of 170,000l. or 180,000l. a year, he would be perfectly satisfied. As his own dominions lay on the south side of the Baltic, he could secure a basis of operations without asking for the surrender of German ports. Finally, he made no request for the provision of payment in advance.[511]
To a Government without money in hand these considerations were decisive. In England, however, it was not understood that Feb. 20.James promises to ally himself with Denmark.the acceptance of Christian’s offers involved the rejection of the Swedish plan. The rivalry between the two kings, it was thought, would be put an end to by the decision of the Congress when it met at the Hague.[512] In the meanwhile Spens was to go back March 15.Gustavus invited to co-operate.to persuade Gustavus to enter upon the stage in conjunction with Christian. The offer of Denmark, he was directed to say, ‘stood upon shorter ways and less demands, and if not so powerful, yet feasible, and held sufficient for the present.’[513]
The task of reconciling the two kings was not so easy as it seemed to the English Government. Not only was there jealousy of Aims of Gustavus,long standing between Sweden and Denmark, but the enterprise to which Christian and Gustavus were invited, was not one to be lightly undertaken. Though the North German princes were alarmed for the future, they were not <300>yet reduced to desperation. Gustavus stood alone in perceiving the conditions indispensable to success. In the first place, a military force strong enough to defy opposition must be brought together. In the second place, within the larger league of the political opponents of the House of Austria, there must be a narrower league of those who specially aimed at a Protestant restoration in Germany, which would be able to speak with the authority of conscious strength if any attempt were made by France to snatch from it in the hour of victory the object at which it had aimed.
In England, for different reasons, neither James nor Buckingham were capable of taking so broad a view of passing events. James, of James,wishing to recover the Palatinate with as little cost as possible to his impoverished exchequer, was drawn on, half against his will, from one step to another, always selecting that policy which would involve him as little as possible in the war, and which would spare him something at least of those terrible demands upon his purse which even and of Buckingham.the most economical mode of conducting military operations was certain to make. Buckingham, on the other hand, with Charles following in his wake, desired a vigorous and all-embracing war. Yet for the very reason that he had no idea of the strength gained by the concentration of effort in one direction, he shrank almost as much as James had shrunk from the large demands of Gustavus. If war was to be carried on here, there, and everywhere, it must of necessity be starved in each separate locality. If Gustavus stood alone in perceiving the way to victory, he also stood alone in resolutely refusing to take part in a war in which the probabilities of victory appeared to him to be small. As soon as the English resolution was reported to him, he informed Spens that Gustavus turns against Poland.he would take no part in the German war on such conditions. Those who thought it so easy a task to overpower the resistance of the House of Austria might do their best.[514] The negotiation was thus brought <301>to a close. When the spring came to an end, Gustavus embarked to carry on his hereditary feud with the King of Poland, hoping at least to prevent the Poles from coming to the assistance of the Emperor.
Even if Buckingham’s policy had been far surer of a favourable reception in Parliament than it was, the demands for Buckingham’s further schemes.money for Mansfeld, for the Netherlands, and for Germany, would have strained his late popularity to the utmost. Yet these projects, involving as they did an annual expenditure of more than 500,000l., formed only a part of the magnificent schemes upon which Buckingham was launching the English nation. After all, if he was not a great military commander even in his own eyes, he was Lord High Admiral of England, and the war would be sadly incomplete if the navy were to take no part in it. Though the armament of the fleet had been postponed from want of money, and on account of the cessation of any fear of an attack from Spain, orders had been given which pointed to the employment of the ships in the following spring.[515]
What was the exact use to which these ships were to be put was still undecided. When Wake had set out in May 1624 for Turin, 1624.May.Proposed attack upon Genoa.he had carried with him instructions to sound the Duke of Savoy on the subject of the co-operation of an English fleet with a French and Savoyard army in an attack upon Genoa similar to that which had been suggested by Raleigh before he started on his expedition to Guiana. August.When Wake arrived at his destination, he found Charles Emmanuel already prepared with a design of his own. Let the King of England, he said, lend him twenty ships of war, and pay twenty thousand soldiers for three months. The whole expense would be about 126,000l. In return for this, James should have a third part of the booty; or, if he preferred certainties to uncertainties, the Duke would engage to pay him 900,000l. after the surrender of the city.
Genoa had so notoriously merged her interests in those of <302>Spain, that she could hardly claim the privilege of neutrality. October.Hesitation in England.In England, as soon as the Duke’s proposition was known, doubts were expressed, from a financial point of view, of the soundness of the proposed investment. Wake was told to ask the Duke what were his grounds for thinking the enterprise an easy one, but at the same time to assure him that it would be seriously taken into consideration if he could succeed in showing it to be feasible.[516]
By this time, however, a French army under the command of old Marshal Lesdiguières was preparing to take part in the Lesdiguières’ offers.attack upon Genoa, as a diversion in favour of the troops invading the Valtelline, and Lesdiguières, sorely in need of a naval force, had despatched agents to England and Holland to recommend the plan in another shape. He proposed that the fleet should sail in the name of the King of France, though it was to be composed of English and Dutch vessels. They were simply to be hired by Louis as he might hire them from a merchant; and if neither James nor the States-General would be able to lay claim to any share of the splendid profits of which the Duke of Savoy had held out hopes to the English Government, neither would they be called upon to take any part in the expense.
To this plan the Dutch at once gave their consent, and agreed to lend twenty ships for the purpose.[517] In England Buckingham December.Dutch and English ships to be lent for the attack.warmly supported the agent of Lesdiguières, and persuaded James to follow the example set by the States-General. It was therefore understood that the French commander would have twenty English ships at his disposal.
Merely to lend a few vessels, however, was a trifle hardly worth mentioning in the midst of Buckingham’s far-reaching schemes. The fleet for Spain.In the course of a conversation with Ville-aux-Clercs and Effiat on the subject of this arrangement, he flashed before their eyes the grand project which, in the following summer, was to occupy so large a space in the thoughts of men. Another fleet, he said, there must be. It <303>should be sent to sea in the name of the King of Bohemia, and should carry a land army strong enough to seize some December.fortified post on the Spanish coast. Afterwards it could look out for the treasure ships which annually returned to Spain with their precious freight from the mines of America. When that was taken — and there could be no real difficulty in the way — the power of Spain would be crushed. Mansfeld and the Prince of Orange — at the time when Buckingham was speaking, Mansfeld was still in England — would have an easy task; and France and England would be the joint arbiters of Europe.[518]
Truly it was a bright and glorious vision. When Genoa had been taken, when Mansfeld had won his victorious way into Buckingham’s self-confidence.the heart of Germany, when city after city of the Spanish Netherlands was surrendering to the armies of the Dutch Republic, then, even if the wealth of the Indies were not there to pay for all, Buckingham would have small need to fear the persistent opposition of the House of Commons. It was true that he had made no allowance for difficulties, or even for accidents. But how could difficulties or accidents be thought of when he was there to guide the State?
Buckingham’s vainglorious forecast was uttered in the middle of December. A month later he learned that even his path Difficulties arise.was beset by obstacles. By that time he knew that Gustavus at least did not think victory easy of attainment. He knew also that the French had ideas of their own about Mansfeld’s employment. Finally he knew, too, that if they liked to control the march of English troops according to their own convenience, they were also quite ready to appeal to England for the aid which they needed in their own domestic difficulties.
For a long time the condition of the Huguenots had been such as to forebode a catastrophe. The French Huguenots.Too weak to trust themselves to the protection of the common laws of the realm, they had yet been strong enough to wrest from their <304>sovereign the right of maintaining garrisons in certain fortified places, so as to secure at least a local independence. Such a situation was full of danger. To surrender their privileges was to place their religion at the mercy of a jealous, perhaps of a bigoted, master. To keep them was to exist as a state within a state, and to flaunt the banners of a group of urban republics in the face of the growing popularity of a monarchy which had undertaken the task of founding the unity of France upon the ruins of a self-seeking aristocracy.
Whatever may have been the right solution of the problem, the French Government, before Richelieu’s accession to power, Encroachments of the French Government.made no attempt to discover it. The Peace of Montpellier, by which the last civil war had been brought to a conclusion, had been violated again and again. Amongst other promises the King had engaged to pull down Fort Louis, a fortress erected during the war to command the entrance to the port of Rochelle; but the Rochellese knew only too well that the walls and bastions thus solemnly devoted to destruction in word, were being strengthened under their eyes. Marshal Lesdiguières is reported to have said that either the Rochellese must destroy the fort, or the fort would destroy Rochelle. Richelieu, there is little doubt, would have counselled the fulfilment of the terms of the treaty, in order that France might have her arms free to operate against Spain; but he had to consult his master’s mood, and would find it hard to wring from Louis a consent to an act which looked like the abandonment of all control over a French city.
At last, whilst the more prudent among the Huguenots were still counselling submission, two brothers, the Dukes of Rohan and Soubise, Dec. 26.Soubise seizes the French fleet.both of them alike ambitious and incompetent, resolved upon once more fighting out the old quarrel in arms. On December 26 Soubise sailed into the harbour of Blavet in Brittany, and capturing six vessels of war, carried his prizes safely to Rochelle. The seafaring population of the great city welcomed him as their deliverer, and the civil war once more began.
Great was the indignation at the French Court when the <305>news was told. Yet Louis was unable to take vengeance on the rebels Richelieu asks aid from England and the Netherlands.without a larger navy than that which, after Soubise’s captures, he had at his disposal. Richelieu as usual came to the rescue in the hour of difficulty. Whether he wished to see the demands of the Huguenots conceded or not, he was not the man to deal lightly with rebellion. If England and the States-General, he argued, had been ready to lend ships to Lesdiguières for an attack upon Genoa, why should they not lend ships to Louis to be used against that perfidious city which was holding him back from the fulfilment of his obligations to favour their interests against Spain.
The Dutch Government had scarcely a choice. They could not afford to offend 1625.January.Consent of the Dutch,the sovereign with the help of whose subsidies they were making head against their oppressor. Richelieu’s request, therefore, was at once granted at the Hague.
In England the preparations for the great naval expedition against Spain were in full swing. Twelve ships of war and a hundred and of the English Government.transports were being prepared for sea,[519] and Buckingham was only waiting to hear once more from Lesdiguières in order to get ready the vessels intended for Genoa. To him, therefore, news which made it likely that there would be any obstacle in the way of the French co-operation on which he counted was most unwelcome. He at once informed Effiat that the demand made by his master should be complied with, and, without going through the form of consulting James, gave orders that the ships required should be fitted out immediately.[520] Not that James was likely to throw any obstacle in the way. When he first heard what had taken place, before Effiat had had time to ask for the use of his ships, he expressed himself strongly on the subject. “If Soubise,” he said, “or anyone else takes upon himself to commit such follies in your master’s dominions, I will give every <306>kind of assistance against him, in men, in ships, and in any other way in my power.” When he heard what Effiat wanted, he had no objections to make. “If those rascally Huguenots,” he said, “mean to make a rebellion, I will go in person to exterminate them.”[521]
The French alliance was still regarded at the English Court as worth making sacrifices for, in spite of the misunderstanding which had Buckingham to go to France.by this time arisen about Mansfeld’s destination. It was known in December that the dispensation for the marriage had been granted at Rome; and, as it was believed that the Princess would be in England before the end of January, Buckingham, who was to hold the Prince’s proxy at the ceremony, began his preparations for the journey. Charles indeed had been eager to go in person to Paris, as he had gone to Madrid; but, upon a note from Louis intimating that his presence in France was not desired, he had been forced to abandon the idea.[522]
January, however, passed away without the arrival of the dispensation; and with the delay came the necessity for a Jan. 19.Prorogation of Parliament.further prorogation of Parliament,[523] which, in its turn, deferred for a yet longer time the possibility of obtaining money with which to meet the wants of Mansfeld’s starving soldiers.
Richelieu had taken every means in his power to induce the Pope to grant the dispensation. Immediately upon the fall of La Vieuville, 1624.August.Richelieu and the dispensation.he had despatched Father Berulle to Rome to expound to the Pope the advantages which would accrue to the Catholic Church from the English marriage. He had also taken care to reinforce the pleadings of the gentle enthusiast by plain speaking at Paris. <307>He declared openly that if the dispensation did not come quickly, Louis would proceed to the marriage without it.[524]
Richelieu’s attitude had the desired effect. The dispensation was granted on November 21. When, however, it arrrved in Paris November.Alterations in the contract are demanded by the Pope.it appeared that the Pope had only given way conditionally upon certain changes being made in the wording of the agreement between the two kings. Amongst other demands, he asked that, instead of the private engagement taken by James and his son, there should be a public instrument assuring freedom of worship to the Catholics, of which all the world might take cognisance.[525]
Some of the French ministers, forgetting that publicity had never been required before, fancied that even this concession 1625.February.They are rejected by James.might be wrung from James. Effiat, however, soon convinced himself that the Pope’s wishes had no chance of being complied with. In England a show was made of a readiness to throw up the marriage treaty with France, and to fall back once more on the Spanish alliance. On March 11 a courier started with a safe-conduct for Gondomar, and with letters from the Prince as well as from the King, addressed to the old diplomatist.[526] Richelieu, however, was not likely to risk a quarrel to satisfy the exigencies of the Pope, and on March 21st March 21.The marriage finally agreed upon.a promise was signed on behalf of the King of France to the effect that if the Pope’s demands were not withdrawn within thirty days, the marriage should take place without any dispensation at all.[527]
Whether the French alliance would be able to stand the strain which the divergent views and interests of the two nations were certain to put upon it might perhaps be doubted; <308>but there could be no doubt that, as far as position at Court went, Strong position of Buckingham at Court.both Buckingham and Richelieu were the stronger for the successful termination of the controversies which had sprung out of the marriage treaty. Of Buckingham it might truly be said that he held the government of England in his hands. Whatever wild scheme crossed his brain was accepted with docility by the Prince, as if it had been the highest effort of political and military wisdom; and, when Charles and Buckingham were agreed, James was seldom capable of offering any serious opposition to their impetuous demands.
Until Parliament met, therefore, Buckingham had nothing to fear. It is true that there had been murmurs in high places at His opponents at his feet.his tergiversation with respect to the English Catholics, and there can be little doubt that the greater part of the old nobility regarded him with aversion as an upstart. Such opposition he could afford to disregard. The Privy Council and the Government offices were filled with his creatures, or with men who found it expedient to bear themselves as though they were his creatures. No man January.Middlesex and Bristol.except Middlesex and Bristol had ventured to stand up against him. Middlesex, though upon his humble submission he had been liberated from the Tower, and had been excused the payment of a large part of his fine, was hopelessly excluded from public life. Bristol was less yielding than Middlesex. To a fresh demand that he Feb. 2.should acknowledge that he had been guilty of errors in judgment during his embassy at Madrid, he replied by a re-statement of his own view of the matter, accompanied by a letter which, though humble enough, did not contain any acknowledgment that he had been in the wrong.[528] An <309>acknowledgment that he had been in the wrong was, however, the one thing upon which Buckingham insisted, and, unless Bristol was much mistaken, he was debarred from appearing at Court by an order issued by the favourite in the King’s name, without the consent of James. The Duke, said Bristol, in the account which he subsequently gave of the matter, ‘moved his Majesty that I might first make an acknowledgment of my fault, which his Majesty refused to compel me unto, saying he might then be thought a tyrant to force a man to acknowledge that which he was not guilty of; and his Majesty sent me word that I should make no acknowledgment unless I would freely confess myself guilty. Yet the Duke caused a message to be sent me that his Majesty expected that I should make the said acknowledgment, and confess myself guilty.’[529]
Others were more supple than Bristol. Williams and Weston had convinced their patron that they would be ready to Williams, Weston, and Calvert.carry out his wishes; whilst Calvert, who was secretly a convert to the Church of Rome, and had long been anxious to escape from the entanglements of office, had laid his secretaryship at the Duke’s feet, telling him plainly that he intended to live and die in the religion which he professed. Buckingham, who had spoken hard things of Calvert a few months before, was always inclined to deal gently with opposition of this submissive kind, and assured the secretary that he should come to no harm by his avowal. He was therefore allowed, according to the custom of the time, to bargain with his successor for 6,000l. to be paid to him as the <310>price of his withdrawal from office, and he was soon afterwards created Lord Baltimore in the Irish peerage.[530]
Calvert’s successor was Wotton’s nephew, Sir Albertus Morton. He had formerly been secretary to Elizabeth, when Feb. 9.Morton secretary in Calvert’s place.she was still at Heidelberg. For the first time since the office had been divided, both the secretaries were thoroughgoing opponents of Spain; and though neither of them was likely to be more than an exponent of Buckingham’s policy, this indication of the views now prevailing at Court is not to be neglected. A few weeks later, March 23.Conway made a peer.the other secretary, Sir Edward Conway, received the reward of his obsequious devotion to Buckingham, ‘his most gracious patron,’ as he always called him, and was raised to the peerage as Lord Conway. The treasurership, which had been in commission since the fall of Middlesex, 1624.Dec. 20.Ley Treasurer.had recently been placed in the hands of Chief Justice Ley, who acquired a peerage with the title of Lord Ley. If he knew nothing of finance, he has at least Milton’s high testimony to his personal integrity. After all, if Buckingham was to spend money at anything like the rate he was inclined to do, it hardly mattered much whether Ley knew anything of finance or not. A Colbert or a Peel would under the circumstances have failed in guarding the Exchequer against an enormous deficit.
In the course of the past year, Buckingham had added another office to those which he already held. Having received the Buckingham Warden of the Cinque Ports.reversion of the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports, he persuaded the Warden, Lord Zouch, to surrender the post to him at once, by an offer of 1,000l., and a pension of 500l. a year.[531] Such arrangements were too common at the time to call forth much remark, and but for subsequent events it is probable that we should have heard no more of it than we have heard of the very similar transaction between <311>Calvert and Morton, or than we heard, till within the last few years, of the sums of money which passed from hand to hand whenever an officer in the army thought fit to sell his commission.
Buckingham afterwards declared that in accepting this office he was solely actuated by consideration for the public welfare. In His defence of his conduct.the approaching war, it would be highly inconvenient if one part of the coast were to be under the jurisdiction of the Lord High Admiral, and another part under the jurisdiction of the Warden of the Cinque Ports; and future generations, by reducing the Warden’s office to a dignified sinecure, were to afford testimony to the Duke’s foresight in this particular. However this may have been, there is no reason to doubt Buckingham’s sincerity; for, about the same time, he refused to accept an office of still greater dignity which James pressed upon him. It was proposed that he should He declines the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland.be named Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and should execute the functions of government by deputy. It is said that his refusal to decorate himself with the title caused great annoyance to his enemies, who hoped to profit by the disrepute into which his acceptance of the offer would have brought him.[532]
In truth, it was not so much from the number of offices which he held that Buckingham was likely to lose the popularity which 1625.March 2.Advice of Williams.he had gained in the preceding spring, as by the superiority which he assumed over the holders of all offices. Williams, whose cautious prudence always led him to avoid extreme follies, but whose want of tact was continually leading him to forget that good advice is not always palatable, contrived to give dire offence to his patron by recommending him to retire from his dangerous prominence. The Marquis of Hamilton, the Lord Steward of the Household, had just died, and Williams at once wrote to Buckingham advising him to give up the Admiralty and to become Steward of the Household. In time of war, it was a necessity for the Admiral ‘either to be employed abroad <312>personally, or to live at home in that ignominy and shame as’ his Grace ‘would never endure to do.’[533]
Williams’s advice was good, but it was hardly likely to commend itself to a man who fancied himself equally capable of commanding a fleet and of governing a state. Williams had only succeeded in injuring himself.
Hamilton was but one of the many men of note who had fallen victims to that sickly winter. In the Low Countries, Southampton, Deaths of men of note.the patron of Shakspere in early life, succumbed to the fatigue of his duties as colonel of one of the regiments which had gone out in the summer to maintain the cause of Dutch independence. At home Caron, for thirty years the representative of the States in England; Chichester, the soldier statesman, who had ruled Ireland so wisely; and Nottingham, the Admiral whose flag had floated over the fleet which drove the Armada to its destruction, sunk one after another into the grave.
Rife as disease had been, no apprehension had been entertained of any danger to the King’s life. At the beginning of the year Illness of the King.he had recovered from the severe attack of gout from which he had suffered at the time of Ville-aux-Clercs’ visit in December, and he was again able to take his usual interest in current affairs.[534] On the 1st of March he was at Theobalds, in his favourite deer-park. On the 5th he was attacked by a tertian ague, and, although those around him did not think that anything serious was the matter, he was himself prepared for the worst. Hamilton’s death affected him greatly, the more so as there were wild rumours abroad that he had been poisoned, and that he had been converted on his deathbed to the Roman Church, rumours which, however destitute of truth, made some impression at the time on the popular mind. To James the loss of Hamilton was the loss of a personal friend. “I shall never see London more,” he said, as he gave directions for the funeral; and he gravely reproved his <313>attendants who sought to cheer him with the popular saying, “An ague in the spring is physic for a king.” The large quantities of fruit which James consumed had probably impaired his constitution, and the constant habit of drinking small quantities of wine at short intervals, though it did not affect his head, was likely to weaken his health. He had never been a good patient, and he now refused to submit to the prescriptions of his physicians, who would consequently be all the more likely to take offence if irregular treatment were applied.[535]
On the 12th James was believed to be convalescent, and was preparing to move to Hampton Court for change of air. March 12.His apparent recovery.Anxious to improve his condition still further, he remembered, or was reminded, that when Buckingham had been ill in the spring, he had been benefited by some remedies recommended by a country doctor living at Dunmow. Under the directions, it would seem, of Buckingham’s mother, Lady Buckingham’s doctoring.a messenger was despatched to Dunmow, and the result was a posset drink given by the Duke himself, and some plaister applied to the King’s stomach and wrists by the Countess, with all the zeal which elderly ladies are apt to throw into the administration of remedies suggested by themselves. The remedies may have been, and probably were, harmless; but they were given just as March 14.The King worse.the hour came round for the returning fit, and this time the fit was worse than ever. The regular physicians found out what was going on, and were highly indignant. They refused to do anything for the patient until the plaisters were removed. After this fit the King’s condition again improved, but on the 21st he again asked for Lady Buckingham’s remedies, and, though Buckingham appears to have remonstrated, the wilful patient insisted on having his way. The next fit was a very bad one, and again the physicians remonstrated. One of the number, Dr. Craig, used exceedingly strong language, and was ordered to leave the Court. But Craig’s tongue was not tied, and it soon became an article of <314>belief with thousands of not usually credulous persons that the King had been poisoned by Buckingham and his mother.[536]
The next day, when the fit was over, Pembroke was about to leave Theobalds. James, however, could not bear to part March 22.with him. “No, my lord,” he said, remembering the rumours that had been spread of Hamilton’s change of religion; “you shall stay till my next fit be passed; and if I die, be a witness against those scandals that may be raised of my religion, as they have been of others.”
The King called for Bishop Andrewes; but Andrewes was too ill to come, and Williams had been sent for to administer March 23.Williams sent for.spiritual consolation to the sick man. On the road he met Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, who expressed his fears that the patient would not recover. Williams found the King’s spirits low; and the next morning he obtained the Prince’s leave to tell his father that his end was near. James bore the tidings well. “I am satisfied,” he said, “and I pray you assist me to make ready to go away hence to Christ, whose mercies I call for, and I hope to find them.” Till the end came, Williams was by the sick man’s side whenever he was awake, ‘in praying, in reading, most of all in discoursing about repentance, March 24.James receives the Communion.faith, remission of sins, and eternal life.’ On the 24th, James, after making at some length a confession of his faith in the presence of his son and the principal attendants on his person, received the Communion from March 27.His deaththe hands of Williams. After this his strength gradually sunk, and on the 27th he died.[537]
James was in his fifty-seventh year when, already an old man <315>in constitution, he was taken away from a world which he had and character.almost ceased even to attempt to guide. The last years of his life had not been happy; nor was the promise of the future brighter. He had raised expectations which it would be impossible to satisfy, and it was certain that any credit which might accrue to him would be attributed by the popular voice to others than himself. It is but just to ascribe to him a desire to act rightly, to see justice done to all, to direct his subjects in the ways of peace and concord, and to prevent religion from being used as a cloak for polemical bitterness and hatred. But he had too little tact, and too unbounded confidence in his own not inconsiderable powers, to make a successful ruler, whilst his constitutional incapacity for taking trouble in thought or action gave him up as an easy prey to the passing feelings of the hour, or to the persuasion of others who were less enlightened or less disinterested than himself. His own ideas were usually shrewd; and it is something to say of him that if they had been realised both England and Europe would have been in far better condition than they were. The Pacification of Ireland and the effort which he made to effect a more perfect union with Scotland were the acts which did him most credit. If in late years his attempts at putting an end to the war in Germany had covered him with ridicule, and if his efforts to form a great Continental alliance as the basis of war seemed likely to end in failure, it was not because his views were either unwise or unjust, but because either the obstacles in his way were too great, or he was himself deficient in the vigour and resolution which alone would have enabled him to overcome them. Keenness of insight into the fluctuating conditions of success, and firmness of will to contend against difficulties in his path, were not amongst the qualities of James.
The irony of flattery which in his lifetime had named him the British Solomon, was continued after his death. Williams, to whom His funeral.the best points of the late King appeared so admirable, in contrast with the rash, headstrong violence of his successor, proclaimed in his funeral sermon the comparison between James and the wisest of the Hebrew kings. <316>Either by the wish of Charles or by James’s own desire, the body of the first of the Scottish line in England was not to lie apart, as Elizabeth lay in her own glory. The vault in which reposed the remains of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York was opened, and the occupants of the tomb were thrust aside, to make room for the coffin in which was the body of him who was proud of being their descendant. To unite England and Scotland in peace justly seemed to James to be as great an achievement as to unite the rights of York and Lancaster, and to close the long epoch of civil war. The comparison which was thus invited could not but bear hardly upon the memory of the late sovereign. Henry, by his mingled vigour and prudence, laid the foundation of the strong monarchy of the Tudors; James sowed the seeds of revolution and disaster.[538]
[474] Ville-aux-Clercs and Effiat to Louis XIII., Dec. 1⁄11, Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 144.
[475] Explanation by the King, Dec. 14⁄24 (?), ibid. fol. 187.
[476] Louis XIII. to Ville-aux-Clercs and Effiat, Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 200 b.
[477] They told Mansfeld that the English would give him entire liberty ‘de prendre tel parti que vous estimerez le plus avantageux sans demander de nous autre condition que la cavallerie Français prendra même route, et sera embarquée pour passer avec leur infanterie.’ — Ville-aux-Clercs and Effiat to Mansfeld, Dec. 18⁄28, Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 212 b.
[478] Mémoires de Brienne, i. 394.
[479] Relazioni Venete, Inghilterra, 75, 233.
[480] Chamberlain to Carleton; D. Carleton to Carleton, Dec. 18, S. P. Dom. clxxvi. 65, 66.
[481] Burlamachi’s accounts, 1625, S. P. Germany. Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 8, S. P. Dom. clxxxi. 29.
[482] Hippesley to the Privy Council, Dec. 25; the Mayor of Dover and Hippesley to the Privy Council, Dec. 26; Wilsford to Nicholas, Dec. 27; S. P. Dom. clxxvii. 17, 18, 33.
[483] Hippesley to Nicholas, Jan. 2; Hippesley to Buckingham, Jan. 3; S. P. Dom. clxxxi. 10, 11.
[484] Embargo by the Council, Jan. 3, S. P. Germany.
[485] Carleton to Conway, Jan. 6, S. P. Holland. Villermont, E. de Mansfeldt, ii. 26. Rusdorf to Frederick, Dec. 18⁄28, Mem. i. 399.
[486] Mansfeld to Conway, Jan. 2; Conway to Mansfeld, Jan. 4, S. P. Germany.
[487] This is implied in Buckingham’s letter of the 7th.
[488] Buckingham to Mansfeld, Jan. 6⁄16; Rusdorf to Mansfeld, Jan. 10⁄20, Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 230, 231.
[489] Ogle and St. Leger to Conway; St. Leger to Conway, Jan. 19; S. P. Dom. clxxxii. 15, 16; Mansfeld to Buckingham, Jan. 19; S. P. Germany.
[490] Effiat to Louis XIII., Jan. 23⁄Feb. 2, Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 2956.
[491] Buckingham to the Prince, Jan. 23, S. P. Dom. clxxxii. 96.
[492] Conway to the Colonels, Jan. 26; Minute in Conway’s letter-book, p. 688, S. P. Dom.
[493] Carleton to Conway, Feb. 3, S. P. Holland. Villermont, E. de Mansfeldt, ii. 283.
[494] Cromwell to ——— (?), S. P. Holland.
[495] Carleton to Conway, Feb. 14, 18, March 4, ibid.
[496] Conway to Carleton, March 4, ibid.
[497] Memorial of Money raised for Mansfeld, Aug. (?), ibid.
[498] Rusdorf, Mem. i. 498–510. Conway to Carleton, March 21, S. P. Holland.
[499] Villermont, E. de Mansfeldt, ii. 285.
[500] Anstruther, in his account of his negotiations, March (?) 1625, S. P. Denmark, says ‘that the King did ingenuously advise me, and did not forbear to second me by invitation of the Electors of Saxe and Brandenburg and others, by his own particular letters by me sent, and since again by letters of the King of Great Britain.’ Droysen (Gustaf Adolf, i. 207–224), not being aware of this evidence, fancied that Christian assented to take part in the war at a later period through jealousy of Gustavus.
[501] See specially the life of Friedrich Thiersch, by his son, Dr. H. Thiersch.
[502] On the position of these bishoprics, and of Halberstadt especially, see Dr. Opel’s Niedersächsische Dänische Krieg.
[503] Oxenstjerna to Camerarius, Aug. 24, Moser’s Patriotisches Archiv, v. 42.
[504] Writing to Spens on Nov. 18⁄Dec. 8, Oxenstjerna says that everything is as it was when he left, ‘nisi quod his ipsis diebus pro certo cognoverimus tractari inter Danum et Regem Poloniæ de confederatione mutua adversum nos.’ Stockholm Transcripts, R. O.
[505] Oxenstjerna to Camerarius, Sept. 10, Moser’s Patriotisches Archiv, v. 56, 58.
[506] Rusdorf, Mémoires, i. 438, 439.
[507] Rusdorf to Frederick, Jan. 3, 8⁄12, 18, (probably misprinted 18⁄28), Mémoires de Rusdorf, i. 420, 430.
[508] Notes of a letter from Anstruther to Carlisle, Jan., ibid. i. 478. Oxenstjerna to Camerarius, Jan. 23, Moser, v. 94.
[509] Rusdorf to Frederick, Feb. 12⁄22, ibid. i. 480.
[510] They arrived between the 9th and 20th of Feb., as I judge from two letters written by Conway on those dates; S. P. Denmark.
[511] Substance of Anstruther’s despatch, Jan. 13, Mémoires de Rusdorf, i. 472.
[512] Rusdorf to Frederick, March 19, ibid. i. 510.
[513] Instructions to Spens, March 19, S. P. Sweden.
[514] Gustavus Adolphus to Spens, March 13, S. P. Sweden. This characteristic letter will be published in the next volume of the Camden Society’s Miscellany.
[515] Survey of the Fleet, Aug. 31, 1624, S. P. Dom. clxxi. 36.
[516] Wake to Conway, Aug. 9; Conway to Wake, Oct. 20, S. P. Savoy.
[517] Treaty with M. de Bellujon, Dec. 14, S. P. Holland.
[518] Ville-aux-Clercs and Effiat to Louis XIII., Dec. 16⁄26, Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 208 b.
[519] The King to the Council of War, Dec. 1624, S. P. Dom. clxxvi. 58, i.
[520] Effiat to Louis XIII., Jan. 11, 17, 18⁄21, 27, 28, Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 258 b, 277 b, 290 b.
[521] Effiat to Ville-aux-Clercs, Jan. 23⁄Feb. 2; Effiat to Louis XIII., Jan. 23⁄Feb. 2, Feb. 14⁄24, Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 295 b, 298 b, 327.
[522] Chamberlain to Carleton, Dec. 4, S. P. Dom. clxxvi. 15; Ville-aux-Clercs and Effiat to Louis XIII., Dec. 12⁄22; Louis XIII. to Effiat, Jan. 10⁄20 Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 157, 262.
[523] Proclamation, Jan. 19, Rymer, xvii. 648.
[524] Richelieu, wrote Langerac, the Dutch Ambassador at Paris, on Aug. 6⁄16, ‘verclaert dat indien deselve dispensatie niet haest en compt, dat men daerom niet laeten en sal met het huwelick voorts te procederen.’ I owe this quotation, taken from the despatch at the Hague, to the kindness of Dr. Goll, of Prague.
[525] Carlisle to Buckingham, Feb. 16, Hardwicke S. P. i. 551.
[526] Spanish News-Letter, March 11⁄21, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[527] Carlisle and Holland to Buckingham, Feb. 24, S. P. France. Effiat to Louis XIII., March 1⁄11, Harl. MSS. 4596, fol. 359 b.
[528] “Hoping that your nobleness and equity will be such as a true and clear answer will be more acceptable to your Grace than an unjust acknowledgment, I have entreated Sir Kenelm Digby to deliver unto your Grace my answers unto the propositions which he brought unto me from you, and humbly beseech your Grace to cast your eyes over them, and if there shall be anything wherein your Grace shall rest unsatisfied, I entreat your Grace to give me leave to attend you, where I shall endeavour <309>not only to satisfy you in these particulars, but that I truly and unfeignedly seek your Grace’s favour, to which, if I may upon fair and noble terms be admitted, your Grace shall find me for the future a faithful and real servant to you to the utmost of my power. But if I must be so unhappy as these my humble seekings of your Grace may not find acceptance — although I conceive my ruin an easy work for your greatness — I shall with patience and humility endeavour to bear whatsoever God shall be pleased to lay upon me as punishment for other sins committed against Him, but not against my master, whom I take God to record I have served both with exact fidelity and affection.” — Bristol to Buckingham. Earl of Bristol’s Defence, Pref. xxiii, Camden Miscellany, vi.
[529] Ibid. xxiv.
[530] Salvetti’s News-Letter, Jan. 27⁄Feb. 6; Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 12, S. P. Dom. clxxxiii. 43.
[531] Agreement between Buckingham and Zouch, July 17, 1624. Statement relating to the Cinque Ports, Nov. 11, S. P. Dom. clxx. 16, clxxiv. 71. Grant of Office, Patent Rolls, 22 Jac. I.
[532] Pesaro to the Doge, Nov. 19⁄29, Dec. 13⁄23, 1624, Ven. Transcripts.
[533] Williams to Buckingham, March 2, 1625, Cabala, 280. This is the true date. Hacket, fancying the letter related to the death of Lennox, supposed it to have been written the year before.
[534] Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 26, S. P. Dom. clxxxiv. 47.
[535] Chamberlain to Carleton, March 12, ibid. clxxxv. 48. Chambermayd to Elizabeth, March 27, S. P. Dom., Charles I., i. 2.
[536] State Trials, ii. 1319; Fuller, Church History, v. 568. The evidence is worthless in itself, and the only ground for supposing it to have any value is cut away when once it is understood that Buckingham had no object in poisoning the King. Except in the single matter of the relief of Breda, he had had his way in everything. In a pamphlet published in 1862, entitled Did James the First of England die from the effects of poison, or from natural causes? Dr. Norman Chevers has shown that there is no medical evidence in favour of the theory of poison.
[537] Hacket, i. 222. Conway to Carleton, March 31, Court and Times of Charles I., i. 1.
[538] There is an account of the opening of the tomb in Dean Stanley’s Memorials of Westminster Abbey. Curiously enough, James was defied even in the tomb. Close by the coffin of the author of the Counterblast to Tobacco was found a pipe, probably dropped by a workman.