<339>Would the policy foreshadowed in the names of Bristol and Weston be sufficient to save the King from the difficulties which would stare him in the face when Parliament met again? Even if an attempt were made to effect some compromise about tonnage and poundage, the religious difficulty remained unsolved. There was one man at least in the party which had played so stirring a part in the House of Lords who had no confidence in the system of giving promotion to a small minority amongst the clergy. Williams had sense enough to see that Views of Williams.the favour shown to Manwaring and Montague was no road to a settled government. For the high dogmatic ways of Calvinism he had little taste; but he could not ignore the fact that Calvinism was a great power in England, and he had too much of the instinct of a statesman to treat with contempt the religion of the large majority of the English people.
Already, before the session was at an end, overtures had been made to Williams by Buckingham’s mother. The Countess had May.Overtures of the Countess of Buckingham.in old days been on familiar terms with him, and she may well have looked at that sagacious counsellor as the most likely man to save her son from the ruin which she saw approaching. Before the end of May, at a time when the Petition of Right, if not accepted by the King, had been definitively accepted by the House of Lords, she had a long interview with him, whether at her son’s instigation <340>or not we cannot say.[599] The result was that Williams, being allowed to kiss the Duke’s hand, made use of the opportunity to May.Overtures of the Countess of Buckingham.urge the wisdom of a policy of indulgence towards the Puritans.
Unless there is some error in the report which has reached us, Williams had already recommended that Eliot rather than Wentworth should be selected to receive tokens of the Royal favour. Though it may be doubted whether Eliot, as matters stood, would have responded to the call, the suggestion, if it was really made, showed a clear insight into the political situation. The fact that English Calvinism existed was one which no wise Government could pass by, and though Williams would not have been likely to advise Charles to silence Laud and Montague to please the House of Commons, he would have advised that Laud and Montague should not be permitted to impose their opinions on the rest of the clergy. Williams would, however, have changed his nature if some intrigue had not been mingled with the wise counsel which he gave. He suggested that his reconciliation with Buckingham should be veiled in profound secrecy, in order that when he supported a compromise on the dispute about tonnage and poundage in the next session, he might speak with greater authority as an independent member of the Upper House.[600]
Whatever may be the truth about the proposal made relating to Eliot, there can be no doubt that Williams’s counsel was worthy of acceptance. As far as it is possible to argue from cause to consequence, if Williams had been trusted by Charles instead of Laud, there would have been no civil war and no dethronement in the future.
<341>It is needless to pursue the speculation further. How could Eliot trust the overtures of a King Buckingham’s difficulties.who had just given a bishopric to Montague and a rich living to Manwaring? Nor could Williams be sure even of Buckingham. If Williams could speak of wise toleration, he could not speak otherwise than as an advocate of peace, and peace would be the ruin of the Duke. During the whole of the last five years Buckingham had been planning some effective blow against Spain or France, some brilliant achievement which was to fix upon himself the admiring gaze of a whole continent. How could he settle down to the ordinary drudgery of attending to the administration of the law, of balancing arguments for or against religious liberty, of improving the finances, and banishing corruption from the machinery of government? On all these questions Williams and Laud, Wentworth and Weston, would have something to say. The brilliant Duke, who had for more than three years been in the King’s stead in the eyes of the nation, would have to sit as a learner at the feet of those towards whom he had hitherto played the part of a providence upon earth.
There was one man, with little real knowledge of England, who was eager to lead Buckingham in a more congenial path. In the Carleton’s influence.middle of June Carleton had returned from the Hague. He soon gained Buckingham’s entire confidence, and received from him a promise that before long he should be Secretary in place of Conway, whose health had lately become impaired. July 25.He is raised to a Viscountcy.He was soon raised, as Viscount Dorchester, to a higher step in the peerage. The new Viscount was too completely dependent on Court favour to advocate a policy which would be unpalatable to his patron; but there could be no doubt that if he found a favourable moment he would advocate, not a general peace such as Wentworth and Williams desired, but a peace with France which would enable Buckingham to turn his attention to Germany and to reconquer popularity by achieving the recovery of the Palatinate.[601]
<342>One step was taken by Buckingham to conciliate popular opinion. His retention of many offices had long been matter of complaint, and Buckingham’s surrender of the Cinque Ports.he now divested himself of the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports. That which might have gained him credit in 1625 could gain him no credit now, even if he had not chosen as his successor Suffolk, the cowardly Peer who had brought a false charge against Selden, and had shrunk from supporting the accusation.[602]
Almost at the same time an attempt was made to win back the Restoration of the East Indiamen to the Dutch.friendship of the Dutch Government. The East Indiamen seized in the autumn were restored, on an engagement that effectual steps should be taken to investigate the truth of the massacre of Amboyna.[603]
Was it indeed possible for Buckingham to shake off his past and to replace himself in the position from which he had started in 1624? Progress of the siege of Rochelle.One terrible object must have been ever before his eyes to remind him that things were not as they had been then. Rochelle was suffering the horrors of starvation, and he could not act as though he had no part in the matter.
The city was by this time in great distress. Before the end of June famine was making fearful ravages. Grass and roots, with a little shell-fish and boiled leather, formed the only food of the women and children, the weak and infirm, though men <343>with arms in their hands were able to take advantage of their strength June.Resistance of Rochelle.to extort for a time the means of subsisting on a somewhat better fare. Guiton, the champion of resistance, had held out bravely as yet; but now, for a moment, even Guiton’s iron resolution gave way. He sent to ask Richelieu for terms.[604] Before the answer reached him he had changed his mind, and had resolved to resist to the uttermost. July.A month later the starving crowd was crying out for surrender, and the cry of misery awoke the pity of men in high office. Guiton called upon his armed followers for support, and drove the officials from the town. Yet from what quarter could assistance be hoped for? In the South of France Rohan was still in arms, but he was utterly unable to make head against the forces opposed to him. In other quarters Richelieu’s success was telling. The incapable Soissons, who the year before had been meditating an attack upon France with the aid of England and Savoy, made his peace with the Cardinal, and the Duke of La Tremoille, a leader amongst the Huguenot aristocracy, came into the camp before Rochelle to profess himself a convert to the religion which was accompanied by the sure tokens of victory. Yet it was not on victory alone that Richelieu rested, so much as on the conviction which he was able to impart that he was not engaged in a war of religion. After Rochelle was taken, the French Protestants should be free, as before, to worship after their own fashion; but the King’s authority must be supreme.
Amongst the French Protestants outside the city the resistance of Rochelle came to be regarded as a great misfortune, increasing their prospect of hard treatment from their Catholic neighbours.[605] Even in Rochelle itself the same opinion was gaining ground. At last, even Guiton could not prevent the opening of negotiations with Richelieu, though he contrived to delay them till he knew that the English fleet was really coming to his aid.
<344>The enterprise in which Buckingham was now engaged was one in which success or failure would be equally ruinous. To allow Buckingham’s prospects.the great Protestant city, which was suffering untold misery in reliance upon his plighted word, to be taken before his eyes, was to confirm the settled belief of the world in his incompetence if not in his treachery. Yet what would be the result of his success? If the arms of the national King were beaten back from the walls of Rochelle, the innocent Protestant populations scattered over France would be regarded as the traitorous allies of the foreign enemy. It would be well if the horrors of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, combined with the horrors of the rule of the Jacobin Committee of Public Safety, were not anticipated. Royal indignation would combine with popular bigotry to mark the Huguenots out for destruction. All this would happen because Buckingham and his master had failed to read the signs of the times, and had thought that it was as easy for them to interfere to prevent the national consolidation of France as it was for them to interfere to prevent the merely military consolidation of Germany.
Some perception of the dangers upon which he was running was beginning to dawn upon Buckingham. The Dutch and Venetian Dangers in his way.ambassadors had warned him from time to time that he was throwing away his chances of again interfering in Germany. If once Catholic and Protestant were exasperated to the utmost against one another in France, there would be little hope of obtaining French co-operation against the House of Austria in the Empire, even if France did not throw all her weight on the side of Spain and the Emperor. Buckingham listened to what they said without impatience, though he had no definite plan to propose. Evidently he would have been glad to be relieved from the duty of succouring Rochelle, if only he could be relieved without dishonour.
Difficulties of another sort now came upon Buckingham. During the summer months the trusty Sir John Coke had been at Portsmouth, toiling in vain to re-organise the fleet. “Give me leave to say freely,” he had written to his patron on June 25, <345>“that not only my abode here will now be of no use, but that August.Slowness with which the fleet is fitted out.every day whilst the fleet stayeth in this harbour it will be less ready and worse provided to set to sea. The victuals and provisions daily waste, and supplies cannot be made so fast; and if it linger till towards autumn, when the winds will blow high, they will require more supplies of anchors, cables, and all things else than I fear all the stores of the navy can supply; and, what is most important, the men, part by sickness, part by running away, do every day grow fewer.”[606]
At last, at the beginning of August, an effort was to be made to bring order out of chaos. The King went down to Southwick, a house of Sir Daniel Norton, in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth, to superintend the fitting out of the fleet, whilst Buckingham remained in London to hasten the supplies which were needed for the expedition. The great Duke had to learn the weakness of the omnipotence which he was accused of possessing. No man in England believed any longer in him or his undertakings. His own officers opposed the force of inertia to Aug. 6.Buckingham’s despondency.his reiterated commands. “I find nothing,” he was reduced to write, “of more difficulty and uncertainty than the preparations here for this service of Rochelle. Every man says he has all things ready, and yet all remains as it were at a stand. It will be Saturday night before all the victuals will be aboard, and I dare not come from hence till I see that despatched, being of such importance.”[607]
On the day on which Buckingham wrote these despairing lines, Dorchester received a visit from Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, which Contarini proposes peace with France.threw a ray of light into the darkness. Contarini had been horror-struck at the idea of Buckingham’s cold-blooded scheme for making Italy the battle-ground between France and Spain, and he now brought with him nothing less than a project of pacification with France which had been forwarded to him by Zorzi, the representative of the Republic in France. Dorchester <346>received Contarini with open arms, and assured him that the Duke would always prefer a peace with France to a peace with Spain, if it could be had on honourable terms. The moment the fleet was no longer needed at Rochelle it would steer to the aid of the King of Denmark.
Contarini then had an interview with Buckingham himself. The only difficulty in the way seemed to be that the King of France would His interview with Buckingham.make it a point of honour not to treat with a foreign sovereign on the conditions to be granted to his own subjects. It was at last agreed to propose that the Rochellese should treat directly with Louis. Nothing, said Buckingham, would satisfy him better than to find when Buckingham welcomes the idea of peace.he arrived at Rochelle that the citizens had received satisfaction from their own king. Zorzi should be entrusted with the negotiation, and if there was not time to settle everything before the Duke sailed, the good news might meet him when he arrived on the coast of France. Care, however, must be taken not to effect peace between Louis and the Huguenots without making peace between France and England at the same time. When everything was arranged there might be an interview between Buckingham and Richelieu to conclude peace under the walls of Rochelle.[608]
Once more the sanguine Buckingham was looking forward to carry out Preparations for war in Germany.his old scheme of a Protestant war. Morgan was ordered to gather together the remains of the garrison of Stade, and to carry them back to the aid of the King of Denmark. Dulbier had letters of credit <347>given him, with orders to keep his men on foot till the end of October.[609]
Buckingham’s authority was great in England, but it was not everything. It was necessary for him to go down to Portsmouth to Aug. 15.Buckingham says the King wishes delay.consult the King. On the 15th he was back in London, and told Contarini that Charles was in no hurry. He was afraid that if the negotiation began before the fleet arrived, the Rochellese would be disheartened and the French inspirited to make exorbitant demands.
On the 17th Buckingham was again at Portsmouth. Soubise, backed by two of the deputies from Rochelle, spoke vehemently against peace. Aug. 17.Buckingham at Portsmouth.Buckingham himself was to some extent shaken. He told Contarini, who had followed him, that it was impossible to trust Richelieu, who might communicate the whole negotiation to Spain if time were allowed him. Contarini was perfectly satisfied that Buckingham Aug. 22.Contarini’s last interview with the Duke.wished for peace, and was not making difficulties in order to create delay. He left him on the understanding that they were to meet the next morning in the King’s presence at Southwick, to come to a final decision on the matter.[610]
That interview was never to take place. Before the hour for the meeting arrived the great Duke had been struck down by the knife of a fanatic.
The members of Buckingham’s family had long been prepared for coming evil. Strange fancies, the offspring of despondency, lay, doubtless, at the root of the wild stories which have floated into the history of the time. Clarendon himself <348>gravely told how the ghost of Sir George Villiers appeared to an ancient servitor, commanding him to warn his son to propitiate the nation which he had offended; and Buckingham’s sister, the Countess of Denbigh, writing to him on the fatal 23rd of August, ‘bedewed the paper with her tears,’ and fainted away as she thought of the dangers of his voyage. Even Buckingham himself, fearless as he was, was haunted by a feeling of insecurity. In taking leave of Laud he begged him to put his Majesty in mind of his poor wife and children. “Some adventure,” he explained, “may kill me as well as another man.”[611]
Yet he was not prepared for assassination. Some weeks before, Sir Clement Throgmorton had begged him to wear a shirt of mail beneath his clothes. “A shirt of mail,” answered the Duke, “would be but a silly defence against any popular fury. As for a single man’s assault, I take myself to be in no danger. Aug. 22.Mutiny at Portsmouth.There are no Roman spirits left.”[612] On the 22nd he had nearly fallen a victim to that popular fury which alone he dreaded. A sailor who had affronted him a fortnight before was condemned to death by a court-martial. As he was led to execution, an attempt was made to rescue him by force, and the guard was attacked by an angry mob of his comrades. Buckingham, followed by a train of mounted attendants, rode hastily to the defence. The assailants were driven on board ship. Two of them were killed in the struggle, and many more were wounded by the armed horsemen. Buckingham then accompanied the procession to the gibbet. But for the mutiny the poor man’s life would have been spared, as the Duchess had interceded for him. The pardon could no longer be granted, if discipline was to be maintained.[613] Yet, even after this vindication of his authority, Buckingham was still in danger. The officers formed a circle round him, and brought him in safety to the house in the High Street, in the occupation of Captain Mason, the treasurer of the army, in which he was lodging.
That night Buckingham was restless in his sleep, as well he <349>might be. The Duchess, anxious as ever, adjured him in the morning to take more precautions. At first he spoke harshly to her. Then, softened by her manifest affection, he told her that he would take her importunity as a sign of her love.[614] About nine o’clock he came down to breakfast, in a room communicating by a dark passage with the central hall. As he breakfasted news was brought that Rochelle had been relieved. Such news, if it had been true, would have set him free at once from the burthen which he had found too heavy to bear. A peace with France — a triumphant peace — would have speedily followed, and the fleet would have steered for the mouth of the Elbe, where Glückstadt still held bravely out for the King of Denmark and the Protestant cause. But, alluring as the prospect was, it was all the more necessary for Buckingham to be on his guard against false rumours. Soubise and the deputies of Rochelle protested warmly that the tale could not be true, and their vehement gesticulations gave rise, with those who were alike ignorant of the French language and the French temperament, to the supposition that their eagerness to bear down contradiction was passing into angry menace.
The breakfast party was soon at an end. Dorchester had come in from Southwick to fetch the Duke to the conference with Contarini, which was to settle the terms on which Charles would be ready to agree to peace when the fleet arrived at Rochelle. Buckingham rose to follow him. As he stepped into the crowded hall he stopped for an instant to speak to one of his colonels, Sir Thomas Fryer. Fryer was a short man, and Murder of the Duke.the Duke stooped to listen to him. As his attention was thus engaged, a man who had been standing at the entrance of the passage into the breakfast room stepped forward, and struck him heavily with a knife in the left breast, saying, “God have mercy upon thy soul!”[615] as he dealt the blow. Buckingham had strength enough to draw the knife out of the wound, and crying ‘Villain!’ attempted to follow the assassin. But the blow had been struck by no feeble arm. <350>Tottering on for a step or two, the Duke fell heavily against a table and sank dead upon the ground.[616]
All was confusion for a moment; the immediate bystanders thought that Buckingham had been seized with a stroke of apoplexy; but The murderer seized.the blood gushing from his mouth and from the wound soon undeceived them. The murderer had slipped away into the kitchen, and men who had witnessed the quick words and flashing eyes of Soubise in the breakfast room, fancied that they had found there the explanation of the mystery. Shouts of “A Frenchman! a Frenchman!” were mingled with “Where is the villain? Where is the butcher?” In the excitement of the moment, the assassin fancied that his own name, Felton, was pronounced. He was no coward, and, stepping calmly into the hall with his sword in his hand, he confronted the crowd with the simple words, “I am the man. Here I am.” But for the intervention of Dorchester and a few others, he would have been cut down on the spot. It was only with difficulty that he was rescued and carried off for examination.
Then followed a scene the like of which had never been witnessed by any present. Lady Anglesea, the Duke’s sister-in-law, was The Duchess of Buckingham in the gallery.watching the crowd in the hall from a gallery into which the sleeping apartments opened. Flinging open the door of the chamber in which the Duchess was, she told her that the sad day which her loving heart had so long foreboded had come at last. Rushing out in her night-dress with a bitter cry, the poor lady, now a widow, looked down upon the bleeding, lifeless corpse of him who had been her only joy. “Ah, poor ladies!” wrote one who was present; “such was their screechings, tears, and distractions that I never in my life heard the like before, and hope never to hear the like again.”[617]
In a few minutes the body was taken up and removed to the room in which the Duke had breakfasted. There was no one there who thought it his duty to watch by the corpse <351>of him who had been the greatest man in England. The throng, amongst which were so many who had received everything at his hand, poured forth to spread the news or to provide for the dangers of the hour. The mortal remains of him who had stood apart in life from his fellow-men were left for the moment untended by any friendly hand.[618]
In the meanwhile the news was on the way to Southwick. The messenger who bore the tidings found the King at morning prayers, and The King informed.whispered the tale of horror in his ear. If the workings of his countenance betrayed the emotion within, he did not rise or leave the room till the service was at an end. Then going into his own apartment he threw himself upon his bed, and with bitter tears and lamentations gave free vent to his sorrow.[619]
Charles might well grieve for the loss of the only real personal friend he ever had; but with personal sorrow was doubtless mingled another feeling. “His Majesty,” says a contemporary letter-writer, “since his death, hath been used to call him his martyr, and to say the world was much mistaken in him. For whereas it was commonly thought he ruled his Majesty, it was clear otherwise, having been his Majesty’s most faithful and obedient subject in all things; as his Majesty would make hereafter sensibly appear to the world.”[620] There was doubtless much exaggeration in the view that Buckingham did no more than carry out the King’s orders. Charles was the last person to discover how much he had been influenced. There was, however, more truth in it than history has been willing to acknowledge. The secrets of the intercourse between the two men will, in all probability, never be revealed; but there is every reason to believe that Charles’s tenacity and self-sufficiency had to the full as large a share in the mischief as the presumptuous optimism of his favourite.
<352>It was for Charles a melancholy duty to discover the motives of the assassin. John Felton, a gentleman springing from Story of Felton.an old Suffolk family, had served as a lieutenant in the expedition to Rhé. The captain of his regiment had been killed and he had expected promotion. But promotion, on account of some rule of the service, was refused him. When he applied a second time, the Duke, to whom he appealed asking how he was to live, had, according to one account, told him that he might hang himself if he could not live.[621] Returning to England, he remained in London, a moody, discontented man, whiling away his time by much reading. At last he could bear his misery no longer. Besides his own special grievance, he was weighed down by the common misfortune of all who entered the King’s service. His pay amounted to some seventy or eighty pounds, and not a penny of it was forthcoming. At the beginning of August he was deeply in debt, and he saw no means of sustaining life much longer. His reading brought to him the persuasion that the man who had cut short his career was a public enemy. The Remonstrance of the Commons taught him that the Duke was the cause of all the grievances of the kingdom. A book written by Dr. Eglesham, a physician of James I., in which Buckingham was accused of poisoning the late King, and the Marquis of Hamilton as well, painted his oppressor in still darker colours.[622] Certain propositions culled out of a book called the Golden Epistles, which taught him that all things done for the good, profit, and benefit of the commonwealth should be accounted lawful, confirmed him in the resolution to rid the country of its tyrant.[623]
On the 19th his resolution was finally taken. He himself always ascribed his determination to the reading of the Remonstrance. One who saw him in his disconsolate condition not <353>long before, had told him that it was not fit for a soldier to want courage. “If I be angered or moved,” replied Felton, “they shall find I have courage enough.” It was quite true. At a cutler’s shop on Tower Hill he bought a tenpenny knife, and, as his left hand was maimed, he sewed a sheath for it into his pocket, that he might draw it easily with one hand. As he passed through Fleet Street he went into a church and left his name to be prayed for as ‘a man much discontented in mind.’ So he passed on to Portsmouth, making his way mostly on foot, but riding whenever he fell in with a friendly waggoner. On the morning of the 23rd he was at Mason’s house, ready for his victim.
Felton’s only care was to The writing in the crown of his hat.assure the world that he was an executioner, not an assassin. In the crown of his hat he had sewn a paper on which he had written, to persuade others as he had persuaded himself, that
Nought he did in hate, but all in honour:—
“If I be slain, let no man condemn me, but rather condemn himself. It is for our sins that our hearts are hardened and become senseless, or else he had not gone so long unpunished.
“John Felton.”
Then again, as if he had just risen from the perusal of those propositions in the Golden Epistles of which he kept a copy in his trunk:—
“He is unworthy of the name of a gentleman or soldier, in my opinion, that is afraid to sacrifice his life for the honour of God, his King, and country.
“John Felton.”[624]
If Felton stood alone in conceiving his murderous purpose, he did not stand alone in regarding it with complacency after it was accomplished. His popularity.The popular feeling about Buckingham was something like that with which the despot of an old Greek city was regarded. He had placed himself above his king, his country, and the laws of his country, and <354>he had no right to the sympathy of honest men. When the news was known in London, men went about with smiling faces, and healths were drunk to Felton on every side.[625] “God bless thee, little David!” Sept. 12.cried an old woman to the slayer of the Goliath of her time, as he passed through Kingston on his way to the Tower. Outside the Tower itself a dense throng was gathered to see him, and friendly greetings of “The Lord comfort thee! The Lord be merciful unto thee!” were the last sounds which rang in his ears as the gates closed upon him.[626] Nor was the feeling of exultation confined to the illiterate and uneducated. Even Nethersole, courtier as he was, spoke of the murder as the removal of the stone of offence by the hand of God, and as a means by which the King might be brought to join in perfect unity with his people.[627] Verses expressive of satisfaction were passed in manuscript from hand to hand. One of these copies was believed, even in such a well-informed company as that which met at Sir Robert Cotton’s at Westminster, to have been the work of Ben Jonson himself, who, as poet laureate, was officially bound to abstain from sympathy with the national rejoicing. The charge was thought sufficiently serious to demand inquiry by the Attorney-General, and the verses were finally traced to a minister, Townley’s verses.Zouch Townley, a devoted admirer of the poet, who had caught the ring of Jonson’s versification. Townley avoided punishment by a prudent flight to Holland; but his words remain as a startling memorial of what a student of Christchurch and a minister of the gospel could write under the impressions caused by Buckingham’s rule. The poem is a long exhortation to Felton to enjoy his bondage and to bear with courage the tortures preparing for him. Townley ended with words of encouragement which doubtless met with a hearty reception from their readers:
“Farewell! for thy brave sake we shall not sendHenceforth commanders enemies to defend;<355>Nor would it our just monarchs pleaseTo keep an admiral to lose the seas.Farewell! Undaunted stand, and joy to beOf public sorrow the epitome.Let the Duke’s name solace and crown thy thrall,All we for him did suffer — thou for all;And I dare boldly write, as thou darest die,Stout Felton, England’s ransom he doth lie.”[628]
When assassination was thus lauded, it is no wonder that those few to whom Buckingham was not a monster regarded with horror the deed which threatened to refer political disputes to the arbitration of the dagger. To Charles and Laud this outburst of hatred conveyed no warning of the risk of conducting a government in defiance of opinion; it was simply the opening of the floodgates of iniquity, which they were in duty bound to keep closed at all hazard to themselves. Such a feeling as this could alone account for a strange passage in the life of William Chillingworth, the divine whom all men now combine to honour. He was at this time a Fellow of Trinity at Oxford, and to his argumentative mind, with its eagerness to try every conclusion by its own logical tests and its dislike of foregone conclusions, the Puritan dogmatism was extremely hateful, especially when it was found in conjunction with a noisy, irreverent temper. Gill at OxfordAmongst the members of the College was a certain Alexander Gill, a man of some abilities, who was assistant to his father, the head master of St. Paul’s School, and who, in that capacity, had contrived to impress at least one of his pupils, John Milton, with the idea of the splendour of his talents. The younger Gill, however, was much given to bluster and wild talk of every kind, and one day towards the end of August he came down to Oxford full of delight at the Duke’s murder. “The King,” he said, “is fitter to stand in a Cheapside shop, with an apron before him, and say ‘What lack ye?’ than to govern a kingdom.” Then he proposed Felton’s health, and talked rashly about the Duke and the late King being in hell together. All this Chillingworth, in disgust at the ribaldry, related to Laud. Gill was brought before the Star <356>Chamber, and only escaped the full infliction of a terrible sentence by Laud’s intercession on the ground of his father’s position and services.[629]
The day before Felton was brought to the Tower, the Duke’s funeral was hurried over ‘in as poor and confused manner as hath been seen.’ Sept. 11.Ceremony of Buckingham’s funeral.At ten o’clock at night a coffin was brought to Westminster Abbey, attended by only about a hundred mourners. Yet even this, if Sept. 10.His body buried the day before.the story told can be believed, was mere show. The body had the day before been privately interred in the Abbey, lest the people in their madness should rise to offer insult to the remains of the man whom they hated. Even the sham funeral was attended with marks of extraordinary precaution. “To prevent all disorders,” we are told, “the trainbands kept a guard on both sides of the way all along from Wallingford House to Westminster Church, beating up their drums loud, and carrying their pikes and muskets upon their shoulders as in a march, not trailing them at their heels, as is usual in mourning.”
The dishonour shown to the remains of the Duke ceased at the Abbey doors. His place had already been marked out by the excessive favour of his sovereign. In the Chapel of Henry VII., set apart in older days for members of the Royal house, Buckingham had received permission to take possession of a vault for his own family. It had already been twice opened. There lay his eldest son, a child who had died in infancy. There lay his sister’s son, young Philip Fielding. Now the vault was open for the third time, to receive the mortal remains of him who whilst living had stood amongst kings, and who was not to be divided from them in his death.
Charles at first spoke of erecting a stately monument to the memory of him whom he had loved so well; but he had no money to spare, and Buckingham’s monument.Weston warned him against the costly project. “I would be loth,” said the Lord Treasurer, “to tell your Majesty what the world would say, not only here, but all Christendom over, if you <357>should erect a monument for the Duke before you set up one for King James, your father.” Charles took the warning to heart, and left his friend without the token of respect with which he had intended to honour him.[630] At last, the widow to whom he had ever been the most loved of husbands, in spite of his many infidelities, stepped in and built that pretentious tomb in which the bad taste of an age in which grace and beauty were forgotten was signally manifested. Yet with an unconscious irony the piled marble points the moral of the story of him who sleeps below. Unlike the figure of the Duke of Lennox on the opposite side of the chapel, the form of Buckingham lies open to the eye of day without the superincumbent shadow of a canopy to shroud him from the crowd whose observation in life he loved to court. The report of his actions is committed not to some ‘star-ypointing pyramid’ firmly and immovably based upon the firm earth, but to a sprightly Fame, who, with bursting cheeks, proclaims with a trumpet the great deeds of the Duke. On either side of her are two slender obelisks, which would evidently succumb to the first gust of wind that blew, and which rest upon a foundation of skulls. “Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return,” is the sentence written upon the works of him who has built his house upon the sand. The one touch of human interest in the tomb is the attendance of the children, who had been taught by their loving mother to reverence their father’s name. The Duchess, in truth, had no doubt of her lost husband’s perfections. In the inscription which she caused to be affixed to the monument, she spoke with sweet remembrance of his gifts of mind and body, of his liberality, and above all of his singular humanity and incomparable gentleness of disposition. To her he was still the enigma of the world, who had been styled at one time the parent, at another time the enemy, of his country. She, at least, herself cherishing in her heart a warm attachment for the ancient forms of religion, could speak with wonderment, if not perhaps with half-concealed sarcasm, of the strange fate which caused him to be charged with attachment to the Papacy whilst <358>he was making war against Papists, and to be slain by a Protestant whilst he was doing what he could to give assistance to Protestants.[631]
The solution of the enigma is not to be found in the popular imagination of the day, and still less in the popular history which Career of Buckingham.has been founded upon it. Buckingham owed his rise to his good looks, to his merry laugh and winning manners; but to compare him with Gaveston is as unfair as it would be to compare Charles with Edward II. As soon as his power was established, he aimed at being the director of the destinies of the State. Champion in turn of a war in the Palatinate, of a Spanish alliance, and of a breach first with Spain and then with France, he nourished a fixed desire to lead his country in the path in which for the time being he thought that she ought to walk. His abilities were above the average, and they were supported by that kind of patriotism which clings to a successful man when his objects are, in his own eyes, inseparable from the objects of his country. If, however, it is only just to class him amongst ministers rather than amongst favourites, he must rank amongst the most incapable ministers of this or of any other country. He had risen too fast in early life to make him conscious of difficulty in anything which he wished to do. He knew nothing of the need of living laborious days which is incumbent on those who hope to achieve permanent success. He thought that eminence in peace and war could be carried by storm. As one failure after another dashed to the ground his hopes, he could not see that he and his mode of action were the main causes of the mischief. Ever ready to engage in some stupendous undertaking, of which he had never measured the difficulties, he could not understand that to the world at large such conduct must seem entirely incomprehensible, and that when men saw his own fortunes prospering in the midst of national ruin and disgrace, they would come to the mistaken but natural conclusion that he cared everything for his own fortunes and nothing for the national honour.
<359>Buckingham’s ignorance of the real basis of the popular indignation was fully shared by the King. The explanations of Felton, Felton threatened with the rack.natural as they were, were received with deep incredulity by Charles. He could not but believe that Felton was the instrument of a wide-spread conspiracy. Dorset, who was one of the councillors employed to examine the prisoner, threatened him with the rack. Felton replied that if he were put on the rack he would accuse Dorset himself of being his accomplice.[632] Still the wish to wring the supposed truth out of the murderer was strong with Charles. On November 13 Nov. 13.The judges consulted.he ordered that the judges should be consulted whether Felton could be tortured by law, as he was not inclined to use his prerogative as it had been so often used in former reigns. To this question the judges Nov. 14.Nov. 27.Felton condemned and executed.unanimously returned an answer in the negative.[633] On the 27th, therefore, Felton was at last brought up for trial. He pleaded guilty. Some compunction he showed for his deed, though the repentance was probably not very deep. He asked that the hand which had been the instrument of the crime might be cut off before he suffered. His request was, of course, refused, as contrary to the law.[634] On the 29th he was hanged at Tyburn. The body was then carried down to Portsmouth, to be suspended in chains in the sight of those amongst whom his crime had been committed.
The murdered Buckingham had no successor in Charles’s <360>affections. No other man could bring with him the long habitude of September.Buckingham not replaced in Charles’s favour.personal friendship, or the promptness of decision made palatable by winning gracefulness of manner, which had enabled the late Lord Admiral, under the show of deference, to guide his sovereign at his pleasure.
It was easy to dispose of Buckingham’s offices, to give the Mastership of the Horse to Holland, and to place the Admiralty His offices given away.in commission, in order that the profits of the place might be applied to the payment of debts which Buckingham had contracted, for the most part in his master’s service. Charles, however, marked his sense of personal loss by refusing to give away the vacant Garter which his friend had worn.[635]
Buckingham had been more than a Master of the Horse or a Lord Admiral. He had been even more than a Prime Minister is The government undertaken by the King.in a modern Cabinet. His word had given the impulse to the whole machine of government. Every act had been submitted to his approval. Every office had been filled by personal followers, who had learned that their fortunes could be made or marred by his nod. Into this supreme direction of affairs Charles stepped at once. He announced his intention of presiding continually at the Council, and ordered each minister to report directly to himself on the business entrusted to his charge.
Of industrious attention to business Charles was eminently capable. Countless corrections upon the drafts of despatches and state papers Charles as a director of government.show how diligent he was in moulding the minutest turns of expression to his taste, and how little latitude he allowed to those who served under him. For government in the higher sense he had no capacity. He was as obstinate in refusing to abandon any plan which he had once formed, as he was irresolute in the face of any obstacles which might arise in the way of its execution. Hence the contrast between his treatment of difficulties at home and abroad. Within the kingdom, where his authority <361>was undisputed, he required prompt obedience without troubling himself about the growing ill-will which was storing itself up to become the source of future trouble. With the Kings and States of the Continent, who had no thought of taking his word for law, he never succeeded in gaining his ends. Constant repetition of the same demand without any intention to offer advantages in return, or any power to extort by prompt action the object which he sought, made Charles’s diplomacy a byword on the Continent, as his father’s had been before.
From the beginning of the reign it had been the fault of Charles’s foreign policy that it rested rather on the supposed Charles’s foreign policy.necessity of giving satisfaction to the personal honour of the King than on the well-understood interests, either of England or of the nations of the Continent. Because he had himself failed to secure a wife at Madrid, and because the Elector Palatine was his brother-in-law, he had engaged in war with Spain. Because his guarantee to the treaty between Louis XIII. and his Huguenot subjects had been disregarded, he had engaged in a war with France. As long as Buckingham lived Charles had struck blow after blow in the vain hope of recovering the Palatinate and saving Rochelle. With Buckingham no longer at his side, it was likely that words would take the place of deeds, and that he would write despatches and instruct ambassadors, instead of arming fleets and appointing generals; but it was not likely that he would frankly acknowledge that events were stronger than himself, or that he would give up the hope of obtaining objects which he still believed to be desirable, because they were beyond his reach.
Everything thus combined to increase the influence of the minister whose voice was persistently raised in favour of peace. Character of Weston.Weston, the Lord Treasurer, was neither a high-minded nor a far-sighted politician. His wife and some of his children were acknowledged recusants; and though he himself conformed to the English Church, it was generally believed that but for the allurements of temporal interest he would have followed in their steps. He was outrageously rude to those whom he could afford to despise, and obsequiously <362>subservient to those upon whom he was obliged to depend. He alone of all who had advocated the maintenance of peace in 1624 had contrived to keep his place in Buckingham’s favour by promptly accommodating his actions to the wishes of the favourite; and men were already beginning to laugh at the timidity with which he shifted his ground whenever a persistence in the course which he had adopted would be likely to be accompanied by consequences unpleasant to himself.
Like Middlesex, Weston was a careful and economical administrator of the treasury, though he took good care to His political influence.fill his own pockets, by means even more unscrupulous than those to which Middlesex had resorted. Like Middlesex, too, he was now endeavouring to impress upon the Government the policy of complete abstention from foreign complications, except when intervention was absolutely required by the material interests of England. The men of the sixteenth century had handed down traditions of heroism displayed on behalf of the Continental Protestants. Weston wished to hear of nothing of the kind. He cared for England alone; but he cared for England with no exalted patriotism. It was not to him the land of ordered liberty and ancient pre-eminence in arts and arms. It was a land the people of which it was his business to make rich, in order that they might be more easily made obedient.
The influence of Weston would thus bring itself to bear on that side of Charles’s character which had been neglected by Buckingham. His influence upon Charles.Buckingham had encouraged Charles’s unyielding persistency, and had relieved his helplessness by his own promptness in action. Weston taught him that inactivity was in itself a virtue, and that the best policy was to do nothing. But he did not weary him by contradiction. He offered himself as the instrument of his will, whatever it might be, certain that something would occur in the end to throw insuperable difficulties in his way. No minister, in fact, could hope to keep his place for an hour who should venture to inform Charles that the recovery of the Palatinate was beyond his power to effect.
For the present, however, it was evidently not in Charles’s <363>power to do anything for the Palatinate. When great men die, or are driven from office, their works survive them. The testament of Richelieu was written in the triumphant story of victory which decorated the annals of his weaker successor. The legacy of Buckingham to his country was failure and disgrace. All through August the misery of Rochelle was growing blacker. The inhabitants were dying by hundreds. Rats and other August.Misery at Rochelle.unclean animals were no longer to be met with. Leather and parchment boiled up with a little sugar were regarded as delicacies. Entire families perished together. Even the soldiers, for whom the scanty supplies in the town had been husbanded to the utmost, were dying of sheer starvation. Voices were everywhere raised for a surrender, and it was with difficulty that Guiton was able to induce his fellow-citizens to hold out till the English fleet appeared.[636]
Charles had thrown himself eagerly into the preparations for succouring the beleaguered town, and on September 7 the fleet Sept. 7.Sailing of the fleet.weighed anchor. Buckingham’s place as Admiral was filled by the Earl of Lindsey, who, as Lord Willoughby, had commanded the futile expedition which had been driven back by a gale in the Bay of Biscay in the summer of 1626.[637]
On the 18th Lindsey anchored Sept. 18.Anchors off St. Martin’s.off St. Martin’s, the scene of Buckingham’s failure of the year before. Baffling calms and contrary winds prevented an immediate attack, and it was not till the 23rd that any attempt was made Sept. 23.Prospects of the attack.to succour the starving city. The difficulties were almost if not entirely insuperable. Up the narrow channel which led to the port lay the two moles advancing from either side, the space left between them to admit of the scour of the tide being covered by a palisade. In front of the moles were thirty or forty vessels, which in themselves would have been unable to oppose a persistent <364>resistance to the far more numerous English force; but the harbour swarmed with boats and small craft laden with armed soldiers, and artillery was posted on each point of vantage at the entrance of the harbour, so that an advancing squadron could only reach the enemy under a cross fire of cannon and musketry from either side, as well as under the fire of the guns upon the moles.
Lindsey, unhappily for his chances, had other risks to encounter besides those which awaited him from the enemy. His crews were Want of enthusiasm in the fleet.no more ready to follow him into danger than Denbigh’s had been to follow their commander in the spring. The system which had ruined the Cadiz expedition was still at full work. Now, as then, men had been brought together by compulsion, and those in authority had fancied that human valour and enthusiasm could be had to order, like so much wood and iron. When the word was given to attack, the masters of the merchantmen which had been pressed into the service complained that they were being exposed to danger by being ordered to the front, where they might possibly be deserted by the King’s ships, which had been directed to follow in support. The King’s ships drew too much water to come to close quarters, and the Admiral could only order them to go as near the danger as possible Ineffectual attack.without running aground. It was to no purpose. The merchantmen remained at such a distance that after firing for two hours the whole fleet lost but six men. No attempt was made to board the enemy, though Lindsey believed the operation to be perfectly feasible.
The next day’s attack was equally ineffectual. In vain orders were issued to the commanders to carry their vessels Sept. 24.Second attack fails.nearer to the danger and to send in fire-ships to grapple with the enemy. Five or six fire-ships were sent drifting in, without any attempt to direct their course, and the Frenchmen in the boats easily towed them aside and ran them ashore where they could do no harm. Not one ship of the French fleet was set on fire. Not one Englishman was slain in the attempt.
In spite of these pitiable results Lindsey could not make <365>up his mind to relinquish hope. In a few days the spring tide would Sept. 26.News from the town.enable him to bring his largest ships nearer to the mole. Time, however, pressed. A messenger from the town succeeded in reaching the English fleet with a tale of desperate misery, whilst the deputies who had accompanied the fleet from England talked of placing the town in the hands of the King of England, as if he had any chance of taking possession of it in any other than a figurative way.[638]
Walter Montague had accompanied the fleet in order to carry out the negotiations which had occupied Buckingham Oct. 5.Montague’s negotiation.on the eve of his assassination. Hitherto no use had been made of his services; but, as the prospect of relieving Rochelle was becoming dubious, Lindsey resolved to send him to the Cardinal on pretence of effecting a change of prisoners, to see what the French might have to say. Montague had no reason to complain of his reception. Richelieu received him with all courtesy, showed him over the moles, and convinced him that the works were impregnable by any force which Lindsey could bring against them.[639] Naturally Richelieu refused to quit his hold upon Rochelle. The city, he said, must surrender to its own sovereign. It was not to Charles’s interest to support rebellion. He would, however, assure him that there should be no persecution. Oct. 7.Richelieu’s terms.As soon as the King returned to Paris after the town had yielded, he would issue a declaration confirming to the Huguenots freedom of worship in the places in which they had formerly enjoyed it. The prizes taken at sea, with the exception of the ship unfairly seized in the neutral waters of the Texel,[640] might be kept by the captors. The Queen’s household might be regulated on the scheme negotiated by Bassompierre. The moment that these terms were accepted Louis would turn his arms against Spain in Italy, and would come to an understanding with <366>England and her allies on the best mode of assisting the King of Denmark.[641]
With these terms Montague was despatched to England, with instructions to inform the King that the fleet was in need of Oct. 14.Montague in England.victuals and munitions. On October 14 he appeared before Charles. His message could hardly fail to carry conviction that the relief of Rochelle was hopeless, and that it was absurd to expect better terms than those which were now offered. Charles, too, had need of his forces September.Mission of Rosencrantz.in another direction. In the beginning of September a Danish ambassador, Rosencrantz, had arrived to represent Christian’s urgent need of men and money. Charles accordingly desired Morgan to carry to Glückstadt the 1,200 men who formed the shattered remains of the garrison of Stade, and to do his utmost to relieve Krempe. Before the end of the month, commissioners were appointed to treat with Rosencrantz on the best means of rendering more considerable assistance.[642] They would find their task all the lighter if the ships and men under Lindsey could be spared for service in the North. Contarini too continued to offer the mediation which had been interrupted by Buckingham’s assassination. He had the unusual satisfaction of finding his advances accepted by men of every shade of opinion. Weston was delighted to help on peace in any shape; whilst Pembroke and Dorchester looked upon a treaty with France as a necessary preliminary to an active co-operation with the German Protestants.
In the view taken by Pembroke and Dorchester Charles apparently concurred. In conversation with Contarini he even went so far as to express a preference for the plan which he had rejected when proposed by Gustavus in 1624, that France should carry on war against Spain in Italy, whilst <367>England and the Protestant Powers combated the Emperor in Northern Germany.[643]
Contarini had further found a warm ally in the Queen. Henrietta Maria had been gradually accustoming herself to the The Queen supports the French alliance.loss of her French attendants. Buckingham’s death had been the removal of a wall of separation between herself and her husband. When the confidential friend was gone, Charles turned for consolation to his wife. At last he tasted the pleasures of a honeymoon. She was now in her nineteenth year, ignorant and undisciplined, but bright and graceful, with flashing eyes and all the impulsive vehemence of her race. Her pouting sulkiness had been the response to her husband’s cold assertion of superiority, and when he threw aside his reserve, and sought but to bask in the sunshine of her smiles, she repaid him with all the tenderness of a loving woman. Courtiers had many stories to tell of the affection of this pair so long estranged, and it was soon announced that a October.direct heir to the English throne was to be expected. Of politics the Queen was completely ignorant, and it was always difficult to interest her in them, unless some personal question was involved; but she could not be indifferent to the continuance of strife between her brother and her husband.
In spite, however, of all the influence brought to bear upon him, Charles received the overtures brought by Montague coldly. Oct. 14.Charles rejects the French terms.Montague carried back to France the following reply: “His Majesty cannot admit to hearken to any accommodation wherein his Majesty shall leave those of the Religion in worse condition than he found them when he was invited by the King of France to treat for them, and his ambassadors were received to stand as pledges for the performance of the conditions. If, therefore, his brother the King of France will show his affection to the common good of Christendom by taking away the cause of the difference, and put those of the Religion into their promised liberties, and dis-siege Rochelle, his Majesty will not only <368>re-enter into a strong league and friendship with his dear brother, but will endeavour to draw not only the Duke of Savoy, but all his other friends and allies into a resolution for the re-establishing of the affairs of Italy and Germany, and to enter into it with united counsel and forces as to the defence of the common cause; and therein, in respect of the near correspondence that is between them, his Majesty doubts not to prevail with them.”[644]
Evidently his Majesty was fitted to control the affairs of some other than this world of ours, where men have to submit to superior force, if they will not yield to superior reason. More ridiculous demand was never made than this, that after all that had passed Louis should raise the siege of a city which would in a few days be in his hands.
Charles’s letter to Lindsey did not echo the despondent tone of the Admiral’s despatches. “We will give you no other charge or advice,” Orders Lindsey to persevere.he wrote, “than that you take care of our honour, the honour of our nation, and your own honour, according to the rules of wisdom and reason and the ancient practice of former generals. We see that the passage must be opened before the town can be relieved. And we conceive the French ships must be beaten before the passage can be opened, which we think can best be done while they are on float, but cannot be done without hazard of some of our ships, and loss of our subjects whom we much more tender. But our honour and our pious intention to relieve those distressed churches give way to such actions as may clear our affections and intentions in that point. And therefore we do call for it at your hands, that, according to your wisdom and noble disposition, upon which we rely, you make a vigorous trial for beating of their ships, and that being done, and when you shall have applied your engines of war and your courage and industry to force the passage for the relief of the town — to which we pray God give success — if it prove unfeasible, we shall hold ourself to be excused to the world, and that you have worthily acquitted yourself to us. We will only add <369>this word, that whereas the French[645] have often made the work feasible to us, and offered to lead on our men, and instruct their courages by example, we would have you let them know that we expect at their hands that they do now by some notable action make good their former boastings, howsoever we do rely upon the courage of our own subjects, which we hope will never deceive us, and particularly in this occasion of the relief of Rochelle.”[646]
It was not a very useful letter to address to a commander whose chief difficulty was that he could not persuade three quarters of his force to go into action. Its effect was never to be tried. Oct. 18.Surrender of Rochelle.The Rochellese had discovered for themselves the futility of Charles’s efforts to save them. On October 18 the capitulation was signed which put an end to their long and heroic resistance.
Externally Rochelle was treated like a conquered city. The massive walls which had bid defiance to so many armies were destroyed. Treatment of the city.The privileges of the town were cancelled, and the King’s officers governed the Protestant municipal republic as they governed Paris or Rouen. Richelieu had, however, set his heart on showing to the world an example of toleration, and his influence with Louis was great enough to enable him to have his way. He, at least, was no dreamer, and he knew that if France was to be strong against her enemies without, she must be at peace at home. Those who expected that the victory of a Cardinal would be the signal for outrages upon the Huguenots found that they were much mistaken. Wherever the French Protestants had enjoyed liberty of worship before, they were to enjoy it still. Protestant and Catholic would be equally welcome to aid their common country with their services; but there was to be no more political independence, no more defiance of the sovereign who represented, in the eyes of all, the unity of France.
The fall of Rochelle was a bitter draught for Charles. Whilst he had grown weaker, Louis, who had rejected his mediation and <370>frustrated his efforts, was growing stronger. Nor was Charles’s Charles’s failure.military and naval failure the measure of his disaster. The French king’s declaration of tolerance was an announcement to the world that the war which Charles and Buckingham had persistently waged had been a blunder from the beginning. All for which Charles could reasonably ask was now given to the Huguenots without his intervention. There need have been no forced loan, no arbitrary imprisonments, no expedition to Rhé, no attempt to goad unwilling mariners to break through the guarded barrier at Rochelle. Charles’s fancy that Richelieu was a mere emissary of the Roman See, was shown beyond question to have been an entire delusion. He had proved himself as incompetent to recognise the conditions under which war ought to be waged as Buckingham had proved himself incompetent to carry it to a satisfactory conclusion.
Yet even the news of the fall of Rochelle did not at once convince Charles that it was necessary to come to terms with France. November.Effect of the news of the capture of Rochelle.He took it ill that Richelieu did not immediately despatch messengers to England to sue for peace,[647] and began to cast about for other means than French aid by which to recover the Palatinate. In Buckingham’s lifetime Endymion Porter had been sent to Madrid, and Carlisle, after passing through Brussels and Lorraine, had arrived at Turin, to knit together, if possible, a general league of the enemies of France. Ever since the failure of the French alliance, which he had negotiated in 1624, Carlisle had thrown himself warmly into opposition to Richelieu, by whose arts, as he held, the honest intentions of the English Government had been thwarted. There was, indeed, much to complain of on both sides. If Charles had broken his word in the matter of the marriage treaty, Louis had broken his word in the matter of Mansfeld’s expedition; and whilst the expulsion of the Queen’s attendants and the renewed persecution of the English Catholics were bitterly remembered at the Louvre, the utter failure of <371>the first military expedition of the war was by no means forgotten at Whitehall. He suggests a Spanish alliance.Carlisle now urged the continuance of the war with France. “If the present Government of France,” he wrote, “were such as good and honest patriots do wish and desire, many questions would fall to the ground.” The King of France, however, he continued, had neither the power nor the will to recover the Palatinate, and he certainly designed the ruin of Protestantism in his own country. If Charles listened to the overtures of Spain, without accepting them too impatiently, he might have full satisfaction in all that he desired. Charles caught at the suggestion. He hoped that no one would suspect him of ‘so great a villainy’ as a peace with France which failed to secure terms for the Huguenots. He at once invited the Savoyard diplomatist, the Abbot of Scaglia, to England, to act as an intermediate agent between Spain and himself, and he assured the Duke of Rohan that he would continue to support him in spite of ‘the late mis-accident of Rochelle.’[648]
It was the fundamental weakness of Charles’s foreign policy that he had no moral sympathy with any single party on the Continent. The States which he courted were nothing more in his eyes than instruments which might help him to gain his own objects. If one King would not help him, another might. He forgot that it was unlikely that anyone would care to help him at all, unless he had something to offer in return.
In the meanwhile, Weston’s influence was daily growing. He effected a complete reconciliation between the King and Arundel. October.Arundel in the Council.That stately nobleman once more took his place at the Council board, ready when the moment came to Nov. 12.Cottington a Councillor.give his vote in favour of peace. He was soon joined there by Cottington, a man of the world without enthusiasm, believing that the Roman Catholic belief was the safest to die in, and that Weston’s policy ran less risk than any other in the immediate present. Weston was <372>thankful for his support, and marked him out for the Chancellorship of the Exchequer as soon as a vacancy could be made.
Weston’s voice was always raised in favour of economy. With as great persistency as he had shown in opposing the Weston’s economy.erection of a monument to Buckingham, he now opposed every enterprise which was likely to require fresh warlike expenditure. Rosencrantz was urgent that some of the He holds back from interference in Germany.ships and troops returning from Rochelle be sent to the King of Denmark’s assistance. Weston hastened to pay off the landsmen, and gave an unfavourable answer about the ships.[649]
When news arrived that Krempe had surrendered to the Imperialists, Charles resolved to send no present aid to Denmark, and Nov. 24.Morgan was ordered to keep quiet at Glückstadt till the winter was over. Yet though Charles allowed himself to be persuaded into inaction for the present, he could not be induced to forego the luxury of promising large aid in the future. His ambassador, Anstruther, was directed to inform the King of Denmark that though the aid which he sorely needed was postponed, it was not refused. Parliament would, doubtless, grant the necessary supplies, and help would be sent in the spring. Morgan’s regiment should be reinforced, and a fleet of forty ships should be despatched to the Elbe.[650]
In the course of December a nomination was made which showed that Charles did not place himself unreservedly in Weston’s hands. Dec. 14.Dorchester Secretary.Conway was old and sickly, and was removed from the Secretaryship to the less troublesome office of President of the Council, which the still older Marlborough was induced to vacate. He was succeeded by Dorchester, a warm advocate of the French alliance. It was not long before Dorchester had the satisfaction of seeing the difficulties in the way of peace with France <373>gradually removed; and in January a treaty sent over by Richelieu was, 1629.January.with the exception of one not very important particular, agreed to by the English Council.[651]
Almost at the same time Carlisle and Porter returned from their respective missions. The most dazzling offers were Return of Carlisle and Porter.dangled before Charles’s eyes as the price of an alliance with Spain. With the help of Olivares, Frederick and Elizabeth would soon be reinstalled at Heidelberg, whilst Denmark and the Dutch Republic should be relieved from the attack of the Catholic Powers. Already the two great rivals, Richelieu and Olivares, were measuring one another’s strength with hostile glances, and were anxious to secure the neutrality, if not the alliance, of England in the inevitable conflict.
A negotiation almost completed and publicly avowed for a treaty with France, which might possibly lead to an alliance Progress of the negotiation with France.against Spain and the Emperor — an inchoate and unavowed negotiation for a treaty with Spain, which might possibly lead to an alliance against France — and a promise to send active aid to Denmark in its war against the Emperor; such were the bewildering results of three months of Results of Charles’s diplomacy.Charles’s diplomacy since he had lost Buckingham’s assistance. What likelihood was there that he would succeed in making his policy intelligible to the House of Commons, or that he would gain the support of the nation for his plans?
As far as it is possible to gauge the feeling of the nation, it may be asserted that, though any favour shown to Spain would be unpopular, Feeling of the nation.there was no longer that burning zeal for war which had animated the political classes when the news of the loss of the Palatinate first reached England. Growing weakness of Spain.Not only had the thoughts of the nation been diverted to domestic affairs, but Spain herself was far less formidable in 1629 than she had been in 1621. The reduction of Breda in 1625 had been followed by a <374>long period of quiescence, during which the Spanish generals had not even attempted to push home the advantage which they had gained. In Germany, though Spanish troops continued to occupy Frankenthal and the Western Palatinate, they stood aloof from all active participation in the war, and left Tilly and Wallenstein to stamp out, if they could, the last embers of resistance on the coasts of the Baltic. Nor, if Spain failed to make any show of strength in Germany or the Netherlands, was she able to explain her inertness by any increased activity in opposing England. Even at the height of Buckingham’s mismanagement, when Cecil returned discomfited from Cadiz, when Buckingham brought back the beaten remnants of his army from Rochelle, she had not ventured on a single aggressive movement. Now at last it was seen that she could no longer hold her own. In the summer of 1628, the stadtholder, Frederick Henry, for the first time, quitting the defensive tactics which necessity had for so many years 1628.The fall of Grol.imposed on the guardians of the Dutch Republic, had attacked and taken Grol under the eyes of Spinola. Before the year was out, still more glorious tidings were wafted across the Atlantic. The prize which Drake and Raleigh had failed to secure, and for which Cecil had waited in vain, had been secured by the skill and courage of a Dutch mariner. Hein’s capture of the Plate fleet.Peter Hein had captured the Plate fleet, and the treasure which had been destined for the payment of Spanish soldiers was on its way to support the arms of the Republic in a more daring campaign than any Dutchman had ventured to contemplate since the day when Ostend had surrendered to the skill and resources of Spinola.
It had thus become plain in England that the danger of the erection of a universal monarchy having its seat at Madrid had passed away. 1629.English sympathy with the German Protestants limited.Nor were the imaginations of Englishmen much moved by the risk of the establishment of a strong military and Catholic empire having its seat at Vienna. No doubt there was sympathy with the German Protestants, and much angry talk about the devastations of Wallenstein and Tilly. But, after all, the coast of the <375>Baltic was far away, and the fall of Krempe did not touch Englishmen as the fall of Ostend had touched them in earlier days. It did not bring home to them any sense of immediate danger to themselves, nor were the conquerors men of that race whose very existence had been a standing menace to England ever since the early days of Elizabeth’s reign. Tilly’s veterans were not the military representatives of the troops who had contended with Sidney under the walls of Zutphen, or had waited on the Flemish sandhills under Parma till the Armada should appear to convey them to the invasion of the island realm.
Above all, neither the King of Spain nor the Emperor threatened now to undermine the institutions of England by secret sap. There was The fear of Spanish interference at home removed.no longer any fear of the arrival of an Infanta to be the bride of a King of England; and it is difficult to say how much of the warlike ardour of 1621 was to be attributed rather to the fear of the intrigues of Spain in the English Court, than to the fear of its warlike predominance in Germany and the Netherlands. Those who in 1621 were eager to avert a domestic danger by engaging in a foreign war, were ready in 1628 to allow the Continental nations to shift for themselves.
Whatever might be the ultimate result of Charles’s diplomacy, there could be no doubt that the period of history which End of the war period.began with the meeting of the Parliament of 1624 was at an end. The war fever had died down upon its embers. A few months might pass before peace would be actually signed with France and Spain, but sooner or later peace was inevitable. Charles had no longer the means of carrying on war. Would he be able to lead the nation in time of peace? The man was dead who had concentrated upon his own person the general hatred, and it might seem as if Charles would start fairly upon a new course. Such an expectation, if it really existed, was founded on a delusion. In all the mischief of the past years Charles had had his share, and the qualities which had combined with Buckingham’s presumption to bring about the ruin, were not likely to assist him when he undertook to calm the excitement and discontent of an <376>alienated people. James had been regarded with disfavour because, with all his knowledge and shrewdness, he had no resolute energy to give effect to his determinations. Charles had forfeited his popularity because he refused to look facts in the face, or to acknowledge that opinions other than his own had either a right to exist or strength to compel their recognition. When the war was at an end questions about internal government and legislation, questions especially about Church doctrine and discipline, would be certain to come into the foreground; and there was unfortunately no chance that the man who had dealt so unwisely with foreign opposition to the wishes which he had conceived, would deal more wisely with the opposition of his own subjects to the principles which he believed to be true. The years of unwise negotiation in James’s reign led up to the war and desolation which followed. The years of unwise war in the reign of Charles were leading up to divisions and distractions at home, to civil strife, and to the dethronement and execution of the sovereign who had already given such striking proofs of his incapacity to understand the feelings of those whom he was appointed to govern.
End of the sixth volume.
[599] The fact of the interview between them is all that is known. Woodward to Windebank, May 28, S. P. Dom. cv. 55.
[600] Hacket, ii. 80, 83. Mr. Hallam, who has been followed by Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Forster, fancied that this promise of support referred to Williams’s behaviour in the debates on the Petition of Right; whereas anyone who will read Hacket’s words with the least attention will see that it refers to the ‘next session.’ Williams’s conduct is, perhaps, open to censure, but it does not deserve all the blame which has been bestowed upon it. He was perfectly straightforward about the petition.
[601] After Buckingham’s death Dorchester wrote as follows: “My private respects are many testimonies of his love, and none greater than a purpose he declared unto me upon my last return from your Majesty and hath <342>since often reiterated unto me, of making me by his favour with the King, our gracious master, an instrument of better days than we have seen of late, he having had a firm resolution, which he manifested to some other persons in whom he reposed trust and confidence, as well as to myself, to walk new ways, but upon old grounds and maxims both of religion and policy, finding his own judgment to have been misled by errors of youth and persuasions of some persons he began better to know, so as I must confess to your Majesty, knowing otherwise the nobleness of his nature and great parts, and vigour both of mind and body, as I had full satisfaction in him myself, so I made no doubt but the world would soon have, notwithstanding the public hatred to which he was exposed.” — Dorchester to Elizabeth, Aug. 27, S. P. Dom. cxiv. 17.
[602] Suffolk’s appointment, July 14, Patent Rolls, 4 Charles I. Part 28.
[603] Contarini to the Doge, Aug. 4⁄14, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[604] That the offer came from Guiton, and not from Richelieu, is proved by M. Avenel. Lettres de Richelieu, iii. 125.
[605] Substance of letters from Niort, July 4⁄14, S. P. France.
[606] Coke to Buckingham, June 25, Melbourne MSS.
[607] Buckingham to Conway, Aug. 6, S. P. Dom. cxii. 32.
[608] Contarini to the Doge, with enclosures, Aug. 10⁄20, Ven. Transcripts, R. O. Carleton to Wake, Sept. 2, Court and Times, i. 391. Carleton Letters, xxi. Mr. Forster saw treachery in all this; I see none. There was no intention to withdraw from fighting unless the negotiation was satisfactory, as is shown in a letter from Peblitz and Knyphausen to the King, in which the details of Buckingham’s plans are given, Aug. 25, Melbourne MSS. The facts must be taken in connection with Clarendon’s statement that the Duke, shortly before his death, thought of turning against Weston. If Cottington, as is most likely, was Clarendon’s informant, the story doubtless originated with Weston, and may be taken as Weston’s interpretation of the probable result of Buckingham’s change of policy.
[609] Contarini to the Doge, Aug. 12⁄22, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[610] Contarini to the Doge, Aug. 23⁄Sept. 2, ibid. It does not appear from these letters what terms Contarini proposed; but we know from another source that he meant to suggest that the King of France should raise the siege of Rochelle and grant religious liberty to the Protestants, on condition that the King of England should renounce all pretensions to interfere between Louis and his subjects. Contarini to Dorchester, Aug. 27⁄Sept. 6, S. P. France.
[611] Rel. Wottonianæ, i. 335.
[612] Ibid. i. 233. D’Ewes, Autobiography, 381.
[613] A letter from one of the Highams. Rous’s Diary.
[614] Johnston’s Hist. Rerum Britannicarum, 722.
[615] Clarendon, i. 55.
[616] Meade to Stuteville, Sept. 20, Ellis, ser. 1, iii. 261.
[617] Dorchester to Elizabeth, Ellis, ser. 1, iii. 256, Aug. 27, S. P. Dom. cxiv. 20.
[618] Rel. Wottonianæ, i. 234.
[619] Clarendon, i. 62. Contarini distinctly speaks of the King as showing trouble in his countenance; and it is likely enough that the contrary story, which has been usually accepted, was an exaggeration based upon the fact that the King did not leave his place.
[620] Meade to Stuteville, Sept. 20, Court and Times, i. 395.
[621] This is but a way of reconciling Wotton’s statement that Felton was satisfied with the Duke’s answer with the other story that he received from the Duke the reply which is given above, and which he could not have regarded as satisfactory. He said he was twice rejected, so both accounts may be true.
[622] Rel. Wottonianæ, i. 232.
[623] Inclosure (Sept. 19) in Meade’s letter to Stuteville, Court and Times, i. 399. Duppa’s Report, Sept. 11, S. P. Dom. cxvi. 101.
[624] Dorchester to Elizabeth, Ellis, ser. 1, iii. 256.
[625] Nethersole to Carlisle, Aug. 24, S. P. Dom. cxiv. 7.
[626] Meade to Stuteville, Sept. 13, 20, Court and Times, i. 394, 395.
[627] Nethersole to Carlisle, Aug. 24, S. P. Dom. cxiv. 7.
[628] Preface to Bruce’s Calendar, 1628–9, viii. Court and Times, i. 427.
[629] The facts are collected from Meade’s letters and the State Papers in Masson’s Life of Milton, i. 177.
[630] Meade to Stuteville, Nov. 1, Court and Times, i. 419.
[631] Keepe, Monumenta Westmonasteriensia, 283. Compare Stanley’s Memorials of Westminster Abbey, 236.
[632] ——— to Stuteville, Sept. 19, Court and Times, i. 399.
[633] Mr. Jardine, in his Reading on the use of Torture, has reduced this matter to its true dimensions. Torture had been allowed by custom as inflicted by the prerogative, but not by law. The judges only said what Charles ought to have known already. Torture was inflicted as late as 1640 by prerogative. I do not agree with Mr. Jardine in throwing discredit on Rushworth’s narrative, or in connecting the inquiry which was made on Nov. 13 with the affair about the hand which took place on the 27th. The position Charles was in after the grant of the Petition of Right would make him shy of using his prerogative unless he felt himself to be unquestionably justified in doing so.
[634] Whitelocke’s story that Charles wished the hand to be cut off is no doubt a mere substitution of Charles for Felton.
[635] Contarini to the Doge, Sept. 28⁄Oct. 8, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[636] Pory to Meade, Nov. 28, ibid. i. 437. Arçere, Hist. de la Rochelle, ii. 306.
[637] Dorchester to Carlisle, Aug. 30; Meade to Stuteville, Sept. 23, Court and Times, i. 388, 398.
[638] Lindsey to the King, Oct. 3, S. P. Dom. cxiii. 7. Soubise to the King, Oct. 2, S. P. France.
[639] ——— to the Count of Morette, Oct. 8⁄18, S. P. France.
[641] Propositions sent by Montague, Oct. 7 (?); Lindsey to the King, Oct. 7, S. P. Dom. cxviii. 27.
[642] Proposition by Rosencrantz, Sept. 4; Commission to Weston and others, Sept. 28, S. P. Denmark. Carleton to the Privy Council, Oct. 20, S. P. Holland.
[643] Contarini’s despatches give full particulars of his conversations with the King and others.
[644] The King’s answer, Oct. 14 (?), S. P. Dom. cxviii. 68.
[645] i.e. the refugees from Rochelle.
[646] The King to Lindsey, Oct. 14, S. P. Dom. cxviii. 66.
[647] Contarini to Zorzi, Nov. 11⁄21; Contarini to the Doge, Nov. 22⁄Dec. 2, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[648] Carlisle and Wake to Conway, Nov. 1; Conway to Carlisle and Wake, Nov. 23; The King to Carlisle, Nov. 24, S. P. Savoy. Conway to Rohan, Nov. 23, S. P. France.
[649] Council Register, Oct. 26, Nov. 12. Contarini to the Doge, Oct. 24⁄Nov. 3, Nov. 22⁄Dec. 2, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.
[650] Coke to Morgan, Nov. 24; Anstruther to Conway, Dec. 29. Answer of the Commissioners, Jan., S. P. Denmark.
[651] Contarini to the Doge, Dec. 30⁄Jan. 9, Jan. 10⁄20, Ven. Transcripts, R. O.