<169>On the whole Charles’s treatment of his home difficulties had been tolerably straightforward. He had been under no temptation 1629.November.Domestic and foreign policy of Charles.to act otherwise than he had done. He had cast upon the judges the duty of defending his position, and as there was no general disposition to resist their decisions he was able to maintain his ground without much effort of his own.
The moment that Charles cast his eyes beyond his own dominions these conditions were reversed. He could not cite the kings of France or Spain before the Court of Exchequer. He could not persuade the citizens of the Dutch Republic to submit the interests of their state to technical argument. Whatever he wanted he must achieve by wise foresight and by the confidence inspired by honesty of purpose and by readiness to postpone considerations of his own welfare to considerations of the general good. Nothing of the kind was to be expected from Charles. His knowledge of foreign nations was most elementary. With their aims and struggles he had no sympathy whatever. James had made many mistakes, but at least he had a European policy. Charles had no European policy at all. The one thing for which he cared was the re-establishment of his sister in the Palatinate. His object was merely dynastic. How it would affect Germany, even how it would affect England, were questions which he never thought of proposing to himself. The result was what might have been expected. Whatever tendency to duplicity was in <170>him was fostered by the effort to cajole those who had it in their power to give him what he required. Regarding himself as the one just man in the midst of angry and interested combatants, he began by offering aid to one or the other, regardless of the intrinsic merit of the quarrel which for his own purposes he offered to espouse. The habit of looking out for the highest bidder quickly grew into the habit of making profuse and often contradictory offers to each bidder in turn.
When, in the autumn of 1629, Vane started for the Hague and Cottington for Madrid, Charles was probably full of the Vane at the Hague.most beneficent designs. If he could mediate a peace between Spain and the Netherlands at the same time that he was negotiating a treaty for himself, he would at least be quit of the obligations of the Treaty of Southampton, which bound him to assist the Dutch against their enemies. Vane now discovered that his message of peace found no favour in the eyes of the Prince of Orange. The campaign of 1629 had been eminently successful. Wesel and Hertogenbosch had fallen. 1630.January.When the English ambassador informed the Prince that if Charles failed to recover the Palatinate by his treaty with Spain, he would be ready to enter into a fresh agreement with the Republic on condition that the restitution of the Palatinate was distinctly provided for, Frederick Henry replied that the States would never consent to bind themselves to a stipulation which would bring them into direct collision with the Emperor. Charles thought it very hard that the Dutch were unwilling to run the risk in his sister’s service.[242]
Was it likely that the chivalrous self-renunciation for which Charles had sought in vain in Holland would be found at Madrid? When Coloma’s reception in England.Don Carlos de Coloma arrived in England, the banqueting hall at Whitehall was crowded with spectators, and the ruffs of the ladies were torn in the struggle which ensued.[243] There were, however, very few who gave the new ambassador a hearty welcome. The <171>Queen paid him no compliment, and it was only with difficulty that a house had been found for his reception.[244] Yet Coloma did not despair, as he had Weston on his side, and he knew that Weston’s word was all-powerful with Charles.
It was to Cottington, however, not to Coloma, that the business of the negotiation was entrusted. Cottington soon found that Cottington at Madrid.Olivares would make no positive engagement for the restitution of the Palatinate. German ambassadors were expected, and when they came the whole subject might be discussed.[245] Nothing need be done at once. “We well know,” said the Spanish minister, “that the King will be contented with a promise from hence.” Cottington had to inform his master that if he expected anything more decisive he had better order his return.[246]
When Charles heard of the difficulty, he was much annoyed, and the Queen took good care to heighten his displeasure. One morning February.Charles dissatisfied.he sent her in jest a white hair which he had discovered on his head. “Don Carlos,” she replied, “will give you many such before the Emperor restores the Palatinate.” In spite of his disappointment, however, Charles ordered Cottington to await the coming of the ambassadors from Germany.[247]
With one diplomatist, at least, Charles was on good terms. When Rubens left England he received the honour of knighthood. Feb. 22.Rubens leaves England.During his stay his brush had not been idle. The picture of Peace and War, which formed one of the glories of Charles’s gallery, is the memorial of the painter’s abode here. After wandering to the shores of the Mediterranean, it has once more found a fitting resting-place in the national collection.[248]
Between peace and war Charles had, in reality, no choice. <172>It pleased him, however, to think that he had a choice. In March March.Further negotiation.fresh news came from Madrid that the German ambassadors were not coming after all, and that all negotiations must be carried on in the Diet which was expected to meet shortly at Ratisbon. At the same time Philip insisted that if a peace was to be treated of it must be treated of independently of the cession of the Palatinate. He would do all that lay in his power to induce the Emperor to take off the ban. Frederick would then be capable of holding the towns occupied by Spanish garrisons, and it might be hoped that April.the rest would follow. To this reasoning Charles succumbed. He would not ask for any promise about the Palatinate as a condition of peace, but he must have, for his own satisfaction, a written declaration stating what the King of Spain intended to propose at the Diet, and he must have a document conferring on him powers to mediate with the Dutch. Whatever firmness still remained in Charles’s mind was explained away by Weston. The Lord Treasurer told Coloma that his master was ready to make peace, whatever was done about the Palatinate, and that his demand for a declaration had only been made to stop the mouths of the wretches who were trying to sow discord between himself and Spain.[249]
Cottington, in fact, had private orders to hold out hopes that if his master’s mediation were not accepted by the States-General, May.Proposed league against the Dutch.England would interfere in a far more decisive manner. On May 10, Olivares and Oñate were authorised to listen to a proposal which the English ambassador had made for a league offensive and defensive against the Dutch.[250] Of course the Spaniards were delighted. Powers were at once sent off to enable Charles to mediate conjointly with the Infanta Isabella as soon as his <173>own peace was made with Spain. He was to offer his mediation to the Dutch as satisfaction in full of all demands which might be made upon him for assistance in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Southampton. If the Dutch refused to accept it, he might consider himself free from all obligations to them. At the same time Philip himself wrote to assure Charles that not only would he support the claims of his brother-in-law at the approaching Diet, but that, if the exiled Frederick were rendered capable of holding territory in Germany by the revocation of the ban, he would at once surrender into his hands the fortresses in the Palatinate which were garrisoned by Spanish troops.[251]
It was a strange revolution of events. The days of James and Gondomar seemed to have returned. Charles expressed himself June.Missions of Anstruther and Vane.content with offers which six years before had at his instigation been indignantly rejected. Anstruther was to go to Ratisbon to negotiate with the Emperor. Vane, who had returned to England, was to go back to the Hague to ask the Dutch to accept the proposed mediation. He was also to hold out hopes of what might happen July 5.if the negotiation with Spain proved unsuccessful. “We may then,” Charles expressed it in Vane’s instructions, “make this virtue of necessity. We shall have leisure to rectify our affairs at home, to make friends abroad, and by a joint quarrel with those who have equal if not more interest in the restitution of the Palatinate, work better effects than by the course we have hitherto continued of diversion by the war upon Spain; for experience hath shown us that to beat the King of Spain until he bring the Emperor to reason is not the next way to gain our desires; besides, it is impossible for us alone to effectuate this great work, except our friends and allies join with us more heartily than hitherto they have done.”
A league with Spain against the Dutch, or a league with the Dutch against Spain, was to Charles Charles and Richelieu.but means to an end. He was perhaps right in thinking that Richelieu’s professions of interest in the public welfare were hollow. <174>Richelieu cared for the national aggrandisement of France and for the humiliation of the House of Austria, and he was ready to seek any allies who would help him to attain his object; but he did not, like Charles, fancy that allies could be gained without definite action on his own part, or without a resolution to associate himself with those great currents of popular feeling in which strength is ultimately to be found.
Affairs in Germany were rapidly approaching a crisis. On the one hand, the resolution of the Emperor and the Catholic States June.Dismissal of Wallenstein.to carry out the Edict of Restitution exasperated the Protestants. On the other hand, the ravages and oppressions of Wallenstein and the Imperial army exasperated the Catholic States. At the Diet of Ratisbon, Ferdinand was compelled to dismiss Wallenstein at the demand of the Elector of Bavaria and the Catholic Princes. The great military instrument which had hitherto overpowered all resistance was shattered. Before it could be reconstructed a fresh enemy appeared to attack that Empire which was outwardly so strong, but Landing of Gustavus.which had grown so weak through its inward distractions. In June, Gustavus Adolphus landed on the Baltic coast.
Richelieu had been ready to profit by every circumstance. All through the year French troops had been fighting in Italy. French emissaries had been busy at Ratisbon, hounding on the angry princes against Wallenstein. A French envoy, in conjunction with Roe, had patched up the truce between Sweden and Poland which set Gustavus free for his great enterprise. Charles was strongly urged to seize the opportunity, and to strike for the Palatinate in the only way in which he had a chance of regaining it, by placing himself on the side of Gustavus.
Charles could neither accept nor reject a policy so promising and yet so hazardous. He listened to appeals from every side. August.Hesitation of Charles.He assured both the Dutch and the French that he would join them on some future occasion, if his negotiation with Spain should fail. For the present he adopted his father’s favourite device for freeing himself from responsibility. He gave permission to the Marquis of Hamilton <175>to levy six thousand volunteers for the service of Gustavus, a course September.Hamilton’s volunteers.which would not implicate himself, whilst it gave him, as he fancied, a title to the gratitude of the King of Sweden.[252]
Roe, who had by this time returned from Germany, was amongst the most active supporters of a more warlike policy. Charles proposed Roe asks for further assistance.to send him back as his ambassador to Gustavus. Roe told him plainly that unless he could carry with him a large sum of money the mission would be useless, and he soon found that his master ceased to care to listen to his advice.[253]
If Charles had held aloof from the German war on the ground of his own inability to take part in war at all, no reasonable objection Charles’s poverty.could be raised to his inaction. Almost at the moment when the Swedish army was crossing the Baltic, a story was going the round of the English Court, telling how the Queen, in receiving a French lady who came to see her and the infant Prince, had been obliged to direct that the shutters should be closed, lest the visitor’s critical eye should detect the signs of poverty in the ragged coverlet of the bed. It is possible that the tale was untrue or exaggerated; but how was a king to go to war of whom such a story could be credited for an instant?[254]
No difficulties of this kind, however, could restrain Charles from meddling with Continental affairs. At Madrid, indeed, Nov. 5.The treaty of Madrid.no further obstacle was placed in the way of the negotiation for peace, and on November 5 a treaty was signed which reproduced, with a few unimportant modifications, the treaty which had been concluded in 1604. Charles received the news with the liveliest satisfaction, and <176>ordered bonfires to be lighted in the streets. The Queen, on the other hand, Nov. 20.took care to note her displeasure by appearing at a banquet given to Coloma in her soberest attire, and it was observed that there was but little enthusiasm in the public demonstrations. The unofficial partisans of peace were mostly to be found amongst the merchants who looked forward to the prospect of enriching themselves, now that the fear of the Dunkirk privateers was removed.[255]
On December 7 Coloma swore to the peace in his master’s name. At the same time he placed two papers in Charles’s hands. Dec. 7.The peace sworn.The one contained the King of Spain’s promise to do his best for the restoration of the Palatinate. The other contained the authority to Charles to mediate with the Dutch.[256]
The Prince of Orange at least, did not form a high opinion of the value of either of these papers. “Whenever,” he said to Vane, “either 1631.Jan. 4.Views of the Prince of Orange.the Upper or the Lower Palatinate is restored by treaty, I will give his Majesty my head, which I should be loth to lose.” Nor did he think more of Charles’s capacity for war than he thought of his capacity for negotiation. “The Emperor,” he added, “is powerful and great, and to think of the recovery of the Palatinate by the sword may be as full of difficulty as by treaty.” Besides, the King’s treasure was exhausted, and he was ‘in dispute with his people.’ If he wished the States to bind themselves to make no peace without the restitution of the Palatinate, he must ‘be pleased timely to consider of the way and means’ of maintaining the undertaking ‘upon solid grounds.’ Vane replied that his master was thinking of some way to provide money. Frederick Henry shook his head. Only by a Parliament, he said, could money be readily obtained.[257]
The Prince little thought what a price Charles was prepared to offer for the Palatinate. On January 2 a secret treaty was signed at Madrid by Cottington and Olivares for the partition <177>of the independent Netherlands. The two kings were to make war Jan. 2.Secret treaty with Spain.upon the Dutch by land and sea till they were reduced to submission. In the part which was to be ceded to England the Roman Catholic religion was to be freely tolerated. No corresponding stipulation was inserted on behalf of Protestantism in those lands which were to be handed over to the King of Spain.[258]
No doubt everything was not settled by this nefarious instrument. It still needed Charles’s ratification. It seems, too, that there was no more than a general understanding upon the order in which each Government was to take the steps to which it was bound. In Spain there was a tendency to think that the promise of an intervention with the Emperor would be fulfilled by a few formal words. In England there was a tendency to think that nothing short of the complete restitution of the Palatinate was intended. Charles, at all events, took care to remind the Spanish ambassador of the extent of his expectations. Feb. 15.Coloma’s leave-taking.Upon taking leave, Coloma asked for certain favours which had been granted to former ambassadors. Charles replied that the cases were different. In his father’s time there had been friendship between England and Spain. Now there was only a ‘peace barely and simply concluded, with promise of further satisfaction.’[259]
Pending Charles’s resolution on larger questions, there was one way in which he hoped to reap a profit from his new ally. Cottington brought home with him 80,000l. in Spanish silver, to be made over in bills of exchange to Brussels for the payment of the troops in the Netherlands. So much bullion, to the simple economists of the day, was a mine of wealth. London would become the exchange of Europe where the precious metals would be received, and nothing but paper would be given in return. The Dutch might grumble if they pleased.[260] The ambassador received <178>his reward on his elevation to the peerage by the title of Baron Cottington.
Early in March instructions were sent to Anstruther to set out for Vienna, that he might put the Spanish professions to the test. March 5.Anstruther sent to Vienna.The mission was hopeless from the beginning. Gustavus had been establishing himself in Pomerania during the autumn and winter. It was impossible that either the Emperor or the Catholic States should listen to a demand for the re-establishment of a Calvinistic prince in Southern Germany. Charles, too, had given offence by Hamilton’s levies.his permission to Hamilton to levy volunteers for Gustavus. The explanation with which he had accompanied the act was not likely to be considered satisfactory at Vienna. Coloma had been told before he left that he was not to be surprised if Charles should think fit to assist Gustavus, ‘engaging himself in the public cause of the liberty of Germany,’ which ‘hitherto,’ he added, ‘we have not done, but only permitted our subjects to serve him; yet it may be that shortly we shall, of which we judge the Spanish ministers should not be very sorry, for that by that means we shall have a tie of that king not to go further than for the liberty of Germany.’[261] Hamilton’s levies, in short, were to serve as a threat to the Emperor to drive him to the surrender of the Palatinate, whilst they might also be used as a check upon the ambition of Gustavus if that end were once obtained.
Charles’s designs were far too complicated to prosper. He thought he had done much when he granted Hamilton 11,000l. for his levies, Roe’s comment.leaving him to depend afterwards upon Gustavus for support. Roe’s comment was the utterance of common sense. “I fear nothing,” he wrote, “but the greatness of the design, not laid low enough in the foundations to build so high.” He wished that the King had himself undertaken the enterprise in his own name.[262]
Whilst Charles was attempting to stand well with the House <179>of Austria and its enemies at the same time, Richelieu was aiming at Richelieu’s designs.the less difficult object of uniting the two branches of the opposition to that House. In January, by the Treaty of Bärwalde, he engaged to provide Gustavus with money, whilst Jan. 13.The Treaty of Bärwalde.Gustavus promised to leave the Catholic religion unmolested where he found it established, and undertook to allow the Elector of Bavaria and the Catholic League to enter into a treaty of neutrality if they chose so to do. Four months later on May 10, May 10.Treaty between France and Bavaria.a secret treaty was signed between France and Bavaria, by which they mutually guaranteed to one another the territories which they respectively possessed. The Upper Palatinate was therefore placed by this treaty under French protection.
To substitute political opposition to the House of Austria for the religious conflict between Catholic and Protestant was Richelieu’s object. His plan was simplicity itself when compared to the airy imagination of Charles. Yet even Richelieu had aimed at more than he could accomplish. The Edict of Restitution stood in the way. The Elector of Bavaria wished to preserve it intact. Gustavus had not only come to detroy it, but saw in the terror which it produced a lever by which the German Protestant princes, more especially the Elector of Saxony, might be driven to throw in their lot with his own.
As yet John George of Saxony held aloof, hoping still that the Emperor would abandon the edict, and spare him, as a German prince, Storming of Magdeburg.the odious necessity of joining a foreign invader. Tilly, who had succeeded Wallenstein at the head of the Imperialist armies, was assailing Magdeburg, which had prematurely declared in favour of Gustavus. John George barred the way against the Swedish succours, and on May 10, the very day of the signature of the treaty between France and Bavaria, the city was taken by storm. Amidst blood and flame the citadel of North German Protestantism perished with a mighty destruction. The next day the cathedral alone stood untouched amidst the blackened ruins.
In all probability the fire was the work of a few desperate <180>citizens.[263] The whole Protestant world believed it to be the deliberate work of Tilly.
The future course of the war depended on the Elector of Saxony. John George had Position of the Elector of Saxony.placed himself at the head of a league which was ready to support the Emperor if only the Edict of Restitution were abandoned or even modified.
John George’s request received support in an unexpected quarter. Olivares deserves a place amongst the most tragic figures in history. He was not one of those blind guides who, like Charles of England, rush headlong into danger from sheer incapacity to discover its existence. No physician was ever more skilful in forming the diagnosis of physical disease than Olivares was in fathoming the diseases of the State. He was perfectly aware that Spain was sinking under the strain to which she was subjected. He never blinded himself to the absolute necessity of cutting short the demands upon the blood and treasure of the country. For all that, he knew well that he could not stay his hand. His shrewd words were never followed by wise deeds. The monarchy which he served was bound by its past history, and he was not the man to cut loose the ties. With the heroism of calm and impassive courage he guided Spain into the valley of death as wittingly as he who rode, at the head of the six hundred Englishmen, up to the muzzles of the guns of Balaclava.
The Spanish Government now gave wise counsel to the Emperor. Alliance with the May 18.Counsel of Olivares.Elector of Saxony against France and the Elector of Bavaria, on the basis of the suspension of the Edict of Restitution was the policy recommended by Olivares.[264] Ferdinand would not <181>listen. He insisted on the maintenance of the Edict. He spoke contemptuously of the Saxon armaments. John George was arrogantly bidden to dismiss his troops, and to submit to the head of the Empire.
With a whole world crashing about his ears, Ferdinand had no time to listen to the pleadings of the English ambassador. July.Anstruther turned to the Spanish ambassadors, urging upon them the wisdom of revoking the Edict, and satisfying the dispossessed princes. He got but little comfort Anstruther at Vienna.from them. “Acts,” he was told, “so solemnly done, upon mature deliberation, could not be undone or revoked without a world of difficulty.”[265]
Neither the King of Spain nor the Emperor would mould their policy in accordance with Charles’s wishes. They knew well that from him they had nothing to fear or to hope. Months had passed away, and the secret treaty against the Dutch March.Hamilton’s volunteers.had not been ratified in England. In March, Hamilton had been sent to Scotland to levy volunteers for Gustavus.[266] It was enough to irritate the Catholic Powers, not enough to compel their respect. Hamilton found that in Scotland, at least, the name of the half-hearted King was not a tower of strength. There was plenty of <182>enthusiasm for the Protestant cause, and many a younger son had already carried his stalwart arm and his ill-lined purse to the service of Gustavus. Four hundred men only could be induced to follow Hamilton’s standard.[267] Amongst the volunteers in Germany the vacillations of Charles formed a frequent topic of the rough soldiers’ talk around the camp fire or the mess table. To these hardy adventurers it was as incomprehensible as it was in more polished circles how the King of England could hope to regain his brother-in-law’s inheritance by negotiation.
Some of this talk came to the ears of Donald Mackay, Lord Reay, who commanded a regiment in the service of Gustavus. Either Lord Reay’s charge against Hamilton.in the mouths of his informants or in his own brain, the gossip of the camp assumed a formidable shape. He told a friend, Lord Ochiltree, that Hamilton never intended to go to Germany at all. He meant to rely on his levies, to seize the King, to execute Weston and the partisans of Spain, and to make himself King of Scotland, to the crown of which, after the descendants of James, he was the nearest heir. Ochiltree, who had reasons of his own for disliking Hamilton, passed the tale on to Weston.
Where Charles placed his confidence he placed it wholly. “He does not trust many,” wrote the Venetian ambassador, “and Charles disbelieves it.when he conceives a good opinion of anyone, he does not let it fall. He is accustomed to say that it is necessary to grant his favour to a single person, and to maintain him in it, as he would be attacked on all sides with calumny.”[268] His resolution to support Weston’s political authority did not stand in the way of his personal friendship with Weston’s enemies. Holland, Pembroke, and Hamilton were the constant companions of his leisure hours, and he was the last man to believe a slanderous accusation against one with whom Hamilton’s reception.he was in the habit of daily intercourse. When Hamilton returned from Scotland he received him with open arms. He told him of the charges which had <183>been brought against him, and insisted upon his sleeping in the same room with himself as the best evidence in his power to give of his entire disbelief in the alleged conspiracy.[269]
The accusers paid the penalty of their rashness. Ochiltree was put upon his trial at Edinburgh as a sower of sedition. Fate of the accusers.He was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, from which he was only liberated twenty years later by Cromwell. Lord Reay named David Ramsay, an officer in Hamilton’s service, as his informant. Ramsay denied the truth of the accusation, and as no sufficient evidence could be produced on either side, the two Scotchmen demanded the right of 1632.May 2.settling the question by combat. A Court of Chivalry was formed, and trial by combat was awarded. The King, however, interfered, and sent both parties to the Tower, till they consented to give securities against breach of the peace.[270]
Charles no sooner heard of Hamilton’s ill success in Scotland, than he gave him permission to try his fortune in England. In London 1631.June.Hamilton raises men in England.his drums attracted even fewer volunteers than in the Northern kingdom.[271] The experience of those who had gone forth at Charles’s bidding to the war in Germany was not encouraging. At Hamilton’s entreaty, the lords lieutenants of the counties were ordered to give every assistance in filling his ranks, pressing only excepted. There were always vagabonds and rogues enough in England, of whom the official people were anxious to be rid, and Hamilton, as Mansfeld had done before him, at last gathered round him a force of which the numbers were July 16.Sails to join Gustavus.more imposing than the quality. On July 16 he sailed from the Downs with 6,000 Englishmen. The Scottish levies had by this time reached 1,000, and with the whole force he started for the Baltic.[272]
It was probably the knowledge that Charles had given his <184>support to Hamilton which induced Richelieu to make overtures July 25.Fresh overtures from Richelieu.to Weston for the establishment of a better understanding between themselves. Weston replied, doubtless by his master’s direction, that no such understanding was possible unless France were honestly resolved to assist in the recovery of the Palatinate.[273]
There was something not very dissimilar in the position of the two ministers. Both of them were possessed of the fullest confidence of Richelieu and Weston.their respective Sovereigns. Both of them found their most vigorous assailants in the family circle of their Sovereigns. In France, the two Queens, Anne of Austria and Mary de Medicis, the wife and mother of Louis, joined with his only brother Gaston, Duke of Orleans, in an attempt to overthrow the Cardinal. It was an opposition directed not against the weak points of the Cardinal’s government, but against his strongest. If it had been successful, it would have substituted plunder and waste for orderly finance, the despotism of the aristocracy for the despotism of the King, and 1630.November.The Day of Dupes.subserviency to Spain for a national policy. In November 1630, the clique had almost succeeded in overthrowing Richelieu by taking advantage of a moment of weakness in the King. But Louis recovered himself in an instant, and the Day of Dupes, as it was called, left the Cardinal more firmly seated in power than before.[274]
Great as was the sullen indignation of all who had taken part in the plot, that of the Queen Mother was justly regarded as July.The Queen Mother escapes to the Netherlands.the most dangerous. She had once ruled France as Regent, and her proud spirit could ill brook the disgrace of being supplanted by one whom she had herself assisted to office. In February it was found necessary to place her in confinement at Compiègne. The next month the weak and cowardly Gaston fled across the frontier to the Duke of Lorraine, and in July Mary de Medicis herself escaped from her prison and took refuge in the Spanish Netherlands.
<185>It was no secret that the Queen Mother and Gaston would offer the aid of their influence in France to the Spanish Government. A gentleman had come from Gaston immediately after his flight, to urge Charles to make common cause with Spain and Lorraine against the detested Cardinal. Gerbier, who had lately gone to Brussels as Charles’s resident minister, was carried off his balance by the enthusiasm of the place. He retailed to his master all the tattle of the fugitive Queen; told how the lustful Cardinal had offered his hateful love to his master’s wife, and had attempted to poison her when he found his overtures rejected. The King of Spain, he said, had sent money to aid the good cause. There were to be levies in Alsace, in Lorraine, and the Spanish Netherlands. The Papal Nuncio, accompanied by the ambassadors of the Queen Mother’s sons-in-law, the King of Spain and the Duke of Savoy, was formally to adjure Louis to hear what his mother had to say in her own defence, and it was expected that Charles, as the third son-in-law, would follow the example.[275]
Charles had no inclination to take the part assigned to him by the Queen Mother. Still less was he willing to risk a war in order Aug. 8.Charles does not countenance her.to restore her to her country. Gaston, who talked of leading an army into France, asked for the loan of some English ships. His mother urged that Rochelle and Rhé were without fortifications and would easily be taken. She forgot that the names must sound somewhat ominously in the ears of her son-in-law.
The fact was that Spain was not quite so ready to assist her as she hoped. Olivares, with his usual good sense, had seen the arrival of the Queen in his master’s dominions with the greatest displeasure, and only wanted to be quit of her as soon as possible. He had no wish to add an open war with France to September.his other difficulties.[276]
The Queen Mother was growing impatient. Through Lord Chaworth, who was returning from Spa, she sent <186>a pressing message to Henrietta Maria, begging her to grant her a refuge in England.
Henrietta Maria had other motives than that of filial affection for supporting her mother’s demand. The strife between Quarrel between Henrietta Maria and Fontenay.the Cardinal and Mary de Medicis had found an echo in the English Court. Early in 1630 Chateauneuf had returned to France, to occupy the post of Keeper of the Seals. His successor, the Marquis of Fontenay-Mareuil, had come into collision with the Queen by insisting on the dismissal of her confessor.[277] By this time Chateauneuf had been drawn into the opposition against Richelieu by the influence of the bright eyes of the Duchess of Chevreuse, Chateauneuf’s intrigues.who was the soul of the Spanish party in France. His influence was strong with the Frenchmen and Frenchwomen who still remained in the Queen’s Court, and he placed himself at the head of an intrigue for the overthrow of Weston, who was led by his desire of peace to avoid an open breach with Richelieu. Chateauneuf’s chief instrument was the Chevalier de Jars, a witty adventurer, who chatted with the Queen and played tennis with the King. At last the contest between the Chevalier and the Ambassador broke out into an open scandal. Fontenay employed a housebreaker June.Theft of his correspondence.to enter the window of De Jars, and to carry off the cabinet in which his correspondence with Chateauneuf was contained. The Queen demanded justice. Fontenay declared proudly that he had a right to use any means he chose to discover the disloyal manœuvres of his master’s subjects, and Charles refused to press the matter further. He saw that there was a common bond between the intrigue against Richelieu and the intrigue against Weston, and, like Louis, he sustained his minister against his wife.
It was not a moment in which Charles was likely to listen to the Queen’s pleadings for her mother. He consented to send Sir William Balfour to the Low Countries on a complimentary mission to Mary de Medicis, but he shut up Lord Chaworth <187>for a few days in the Fleet, for presuming to bring a political Visit of the Queen Mother forbidden.message to the Queen without his sanction. Hesitating as he was in more important matters, he was unalterably firm in his resolution not to admit of a visit from his mother-in-law.[278]
Olivares might well strive to avoid a collision with France. Sooner or later it would be unavoidable. That huge Spanish monarchy, August.Difficulties of the Spanish monarchy.without geographical or political cohesion, was at once a menace to the weak and a prey to the strong. It had interests everywhere but at home, and at every point its interests were understood otherwise than they were understood at Madrid. At Brussels the Infanta Isabella and her ministers were giving encouragement to the French refugees in spite of Olivares. At Vienna the Emperor welcomed gladly the support of the Spanish Government, whilst he turned a deaf ear to its counsels.
Amongst those counsels, the recommendation to restore the Palatinate can hardly be seriously reckoned. Anstruther, September.Anstruther learns the Spanish demands.weary of delays at Vienna, applied to Quiroga, a friar in close connection with the Spanish embassy. The friar told him frankly that the King of Spain would not even surrender the towns garrisoned by his own troops for nothing. He must have either a general peace, or assistance against the Dutch. The statement was confirmed by the ambassadors themselves. They had no other instructions, they said, than a paper which had been shown to Cottington in Spain.[279]
What this paper was is not exactly known. It seems, however, to have been unsigned, and to have contained a proposal that the restitution of the Spanish part of the Palatinate should be conditional on the carrying out of the secret league against the Dutch.[280]
<188>The unsatisfactory nature of the news which reached Charles from Vienna induced him at last to open negotiations with Gustavus. Vane sent to Gustavus.Sir Henry Vane had long been designated for the mission, but it was not till the end of September that he was allowed to cross the sea. As a friend and dependent of Weston he could be trusted not to engage his master too precipitately in war; but so great had been the pressure put upon Charles to throw himself into the cause of Gustavus, that even Weston’s friends had thought it prudent to associate themselves with the popular cry. Parliament, they said, would soon be summoned in order to provide means for reinforcing Hamilton.[281]
When Vane landed in Holland on his way to Germany, shouts of victory rang in his ears. A Spanish attempt to land Sept. 7.The victory of Breitenfeld.a military force on the coast of Holland had been signally defeated. Almost at the same time news arrived that Tilly had been struck down by Gustavus at Breitenfeld.
Richelieu’s calculations had proved abortive. He had hoped to hold back Tilly from attacking the Swedes, through his influence with the Elector of Bavaria, whilst he launched Gustavus against the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria.[282] The refusal of Ferdinand to admit the slightest modification of the Edict of Restitution cleared away these diplomatic cobwebs. He ordered Tilly to attack the Elector of Saxony, and Tilly obeyed. John George, loth as he was to abandon his loyalty to the Empire, took his stand with Gustavus. Maximilian took his stand once more with Ferdinand. Catholic and Protestant were again fairly face to face.
The victory of Gustavus was complete. His success at <189>Breitenfeld decided once for all that North Germany was to be Character of the victory.essentially Protestant. The Edict of Restitution was swept away at a blow. Ferdinand’s system, like that of Charles, was one which rested on technical legality, and which took no account of the feelings and aspirations of the populations over which he ruled. Guarded by the most numerous and well-appointed armies which the world had seen since the days of the Roman Empire, that system had been dashed to the ground through its own inherent weakness. Could Charles hope to escape a like calamity? In Breitenfeld lay the promise of Marston Moor and Naseby — of the ruin of a cause which rested on traditionary claims in the face of the living demands of the present hour.
Gustavus pushed on for the Rhine to lay his hand on the Ecclesiastical States of the League, to gather round him the Gustavus on the Rhine.scattered forces of the Southern Protestants, and to drive home the wedge which he had struck in between France and Bavaria. Vane had hard work to come up with him. On November 6 he found him at Wurzburg. Nov. 6.Vane’s interview with him.He had been sent, he explained, to ‘treat of an alliance … the ground whereof was to be the restitution of both Palatinates and the liberty of Germany.’ Gustavus naturally inquired what help Charles purposed to give. If he would send him ten or twelve thousand men in the spring, and a large sum of money besides, he was ready to give the engagement he required. The German princes, he said, had made no stipulations for the Palatinate. It concerned his Majesty to look about him, for, unless he gave a Royal assistance, the proposal could not be entertained. Vane thought all this very unreasonable. “If this king,” he wrote, “gets the Palatinate, it will be hard fetching it out of his hands without satisfaction.” It would be far better to get it in a peaceable way by negotiation at Vienna.[283]
Few in England would have echoed Vane’s opinion. The news of Tilly’s defeat had been received with an outburst of <190>enthusiasm. Sir Symonds D’Ewes, the plodding antiquary, October.Enthusiasm in England.raised his head from his plea-rolls and genealogies to record how ‘the sole honour and glory of this victory, next under God — to whom the religious King of Sweden gave the only glory — redounded to the Swedes and Scots and other nations in the Evangelical army.’ By Gustavus, he added, ‘the bloody robbers, ravishers, and massacrers of Tilly’s army were not only executed, but infinite comfort afforded to the distressed and persecuted and oppressed Protestants in Germany, so as all men hoped he in the issue would assert fully both the true religion and the ancient liberties of Germany.’[284] Eliot, from his prison in the Tower, awoke to new delight. ‘If at once,’ he wrote, the whole world be not deluded, fortune and hope are met.’[285]
To Charles the great deliverance brought no pleasant thoughts. When the news reached England he was planning Charles offers to succour the Emperor.a closer alliance with the Emperor and Spain. The Abbot of Scaglia had come to England to revive the negotiation about the Palatinate. Weston and Cottington had already agreed with him that the Emperor should be allowed to levy 12,000 volunteers in England, and on October 7 the Abbot was able to write that Charles was ready to enter into a league with the Emperor and the King of Spain against their enemies in Germany, and to induce his brother-in-law to do the same as soon as justice was done him in respect to the Palatinate.[286]
Weeks passed away, and there was no sign that either Spain or the Emperor would pay any attention to these lavish offers. The friar, November.Hesitation of Charles.who had been in England in 1624 under the name of Francesco della Rota, returned to throw the blame upon Anstruther’s zeal for the interest of the King of Sweden. Then came bad news from Hamilton. His troops had melted away, as Mansfeld’s had melted away <191>before, and he had only 500 men left. Charles could not make up his mind December.Hamilton’s misfortunes.one way or another. He did not like to give up hope of an agreement witn the Emperor till he heard again from Spain. He was not ready to send reinforcements to Germany. He ordered Dorchester to write to Vane that ‘His Majesty felt Hamilton’s losses like a father of his people to whom their blood is precious,’ and he would Fresh rumours of a Parliament.risk no more of their lives.[287] Yet when Vane’s despatch announcing the offer of Gustavus arrived, it seemed incredible that Charles should reject it, if he really cared for the Palatinate. The rumours of an approaching meeting of Parliament acquired fresh consistency.[288] With the thought of a Parliament men’s minds turned instinctively to the prisoner in the Tower who would once more become a power in the land. A message, the purport of which is now unknown, was sent to Eliot from some persons about the Court. By popular rumour it was magnified into a visit paid to him by men high in place to bespeak his goodwill in the days when their doings were likely to be called in question. Their effect upon Eliot.Eliot knew better than to trust such rumours. He declined to answer the message he received. Yet he was by no means insensible to the critical position of affairs. In a sketch of the doings of the first Parliament of Charles which he drew up about this time, he spoke enthusiastically of Gustavus as ‘that person whom fortune and virtue had reserved for the wonder of the world.’ For himself he had no hope in this life. He knew better than Holland or Roe that no earthly consideration short of absolute necessity would induce Charles to summon another Parliament. Yet he never doubted that some day or other that necessity would arise. His historical sketch he named Negotium Posterorum. His own example and the example of those who had been his fellow-workers he <192>bequeathed to generations coming, nothing doubting that the spirit of England would not be extinguished for ever by the heavy weight of silence under which the voice of his country was smothered for a time.
If Eliot had little hope that his own voice would again be heard in Parliament, he could not deny himself the satisfaction of Eliot’s notes of a speech.setting down upon paper the thoughts which burned within him. If opportunity were by any strange freak of fortune to be allowed him, he would not be the counsellor of compromise. He held that the things which had been done were worse than all the misgovernment which had called forth the Petition of Right. “The one was an act of oppression against liberty and the laws; but the design of the other is to put at once a conclusion to the work of darkness, and to depress and ruin law and liberty itself. For it is not in any stream, in any branch or derivative of our freedom, in some one particular of the laws, but it is in the spring and fountain from whence all the streams flow, that the attempt has been made, not to trouble and corrupt it for a time only, but wholly to impeach its course, to make the fountain dry, to dam and stop it up for ever.” Parliament, he added, was the sanctuary of liberty, the guardian of ‘the rubrics of the law.’ In harmony with Parliament kings had ruled happily; in discord with Parliament success was impossible.[289]
Such was Eliot’s last word on politics, such was the standard which he set up round which his countrymen might gather. In him Eliot’s last political word.spoke the voice of a mighty nation, conscious of its powers and impatient of the tutelage under which it had been thrust. What if folly had mingled with wisdom in the last Parliamentary session? What if the leaders of the Commons, Eliot himself included, had been hasty and impatient where quietness and confidence would have been the higher wisdom? We at least have been admitted within the closed doors of Charles’s Cabinet. We at least have seen the value of that statesmanship to which he appealed as giving him a claim to guide the nation in its onward <193>course. There was no educative power in a ruler who set before himself low and poor objects, and who strove to gain those objects in the manner in which Charles was striving to recover the Palatinate. If there were errors and follies in the House of Commons, they were far exceeded by the errors and follies of the Court.
The time would come when Charles’s misgovernment would bear its appropriate fruit. The mass of men rise up against the consequences of misgovernment, not against misgovernment itself. Those who, like Eliot, see too clearly into the future, have to bear the burthen of the coming generations. The rumour which Dec. 21.Stricter imprisonment of Eliot.told of consultations with Eliot pointed him out for Charles’s vengeance. On December 21 came an order from the Council restraining access of persons of several conditions to Sir John Eliot. Nor was this all. “My lodgings,” he wrote on the 26th, “are removed, and I am now where candle-light may be suffered, but scarce fire.”[290] This, too, was in the cold Christmas weather. Here are no traces of that generosity with which Hamilton was welcomed home from Scotland. Charles could cling to the friend with whom he had associated from his youth up. It required some imagination to picture to himself the sufferings or the nobility of the man whom he had known but as an enemy, and had looked upon as a traitor to his beloved Buckingham.
Charles had no intention of allowing Eliot ever again to raise his voice in opposition. He called upon the Privy Council Charles’s reception of Gustavus’s demands.to advise him upon the means of satisfying the demands of Gustavus. There was but one answer to be made. If 200,000l. or 300,000l. were to be expended upon the German war, it would be necessary to summon Parliament. Such counsel found no favour with the King. The very mention of a Parliament, he said, was derogatory to his authority. The King of Sweden must be helped, but not in such a way as that. Any other plan, even if it presented greater difficulties, would be more opportune. The Council was thus driven back upon projects similar to those which had <194>ended in so signal a failure before the session of 1628. One proposed a general collection in the churches. Another thought that all pensions should be stopped, and the expenses of the Court cut down. Nothing serious could come of a discussion thus commenced.[291]
Those at Charles’s side who took an interest in the fortunes of German Protestantism were fast falling. Conway had died a year ago, and 1632.Feb. 15.Dorchester’s death.he had soon been followed by May. It was Dorchester’s turn now. On February 15 he died, ‘Christianly and manly,’ expressing, ‘as well in his latest words as in his life, that his affections were right to God, to his master, and the good cause.’ His master cared little for the good cause, and even amongst those who were not so indifferent, there were many who, as Roe said, were ready to ‘inquire curiously what the King of Sweden doth, and censure him for doing too much or too little, but who did not consider that they themselves were doing nothing.’
In his perpetual oscillation Charles was now tending, or thought he was tending, to the side of Gustavus. He was dissatisfied with Further negotiation with Gustavus.the coolness with which his overtures for a league had been received at Madrid.[292] Before the end of 1631 he had given permission to his brother-in-law to betake himself to Germany, and to place himself at the disposal of the Swedish king.[293] Then came fresh offers to Gustavus. But the negotiation was rapidly degenerating into a mere bargain, like those negotiations with Parliament and army which fifteen years later were to prove to the world that no political reconstruction was possible of which Charles was an element. Gustavus was as little to be bargained with as Cromwell. The constant harping upon the string of the Palatinate, to the disregard of larger objects, was an offence to him. How could he bind himself to the restitution of a province which France and Bavaria were leagued to keep? Was the great cause of the political and religious independence of <195>Germany to be postponed to make way for a petty dynastic interest? He was ready enough to do the best for the Palatinate that circumstances would permit. Charles wanted him to act as if the one question of pre-eminent importance to the world was the question whether an incapable and headstrong prince was to rule again over the dominions which he had inherited from his father. What hearty co-operation could there be between two men so differently constituted?
Gustavus had need to walk warily. In the midst of his triumphant progress, when all Protestant Europe was shouting applause, Gustavus and the French.he was weighing the difficulties before him — above all, the difficulties which were likely to arise from France. When he kept Christmas at Mentz, a French army was not far off. Richelieu had fallen upon the Duke of Lorraine, and had frustrated the hopes of Gaston and the Queen Mother. It was not, however, merely to crush the Duke of Lorraine that he had brought Louis with him. The Cardinal cherished hopes which were not as yet destined to be fulfilled. He hoped that the German princes and cities on the left bank of the Rhine — the Ecclesiastical Electorates especially — would take refuge from the storm of Protestant conquest beneath the lilied banner of France. The great German river would form the boundary, if not of French territory, at least of a French confederation, whilst Gustavus would be thrust on to the work for which Richelieu had originally destined him — the work of crushing the House of Austria for the benefit of France.
Richelieu’s schemes were premature. As yet the German princes showed no disposition to revolve as satellites round the throne at Paris. The Elector of Bavaria drew closer and closer to the Emperor. Before the end of January, Louis, sick and disappointed, hurried home from the army, leaving the affairs of Germany to be disposed of by Gustavus. He was not anxious to remain as a looker-on, when he had expected to step forth as the arbiter of Europe.[294]
<196>Involved as he was in a diplomatic struggle with France, Gustavus was Jan. 2.Further negotiations with Gustavus.not likely to bind himself as Charles desired that he should be bound, without securing the absolute co-operation of England in his great designs. He told Vane, with perfect frankness, of his difficulties. He thought it by no means improbable that March 1.Demands of Gustavus.by raising the Protestant standard he would bring upon himself a combined attack from France and Spain. He therefore asked for the aid of an English fleet to assure his communications from Sweden and his position on the Baltic coast. He asked, too, that if the Palatinate were recovered, the restored Elector should tolerate the Lutheran religion in it, and should place at his disposal the military strength of the country during the remainder of the war. Eight regiments of foot and 3,000 horse were to form Charles’s contingent, of which he was himself to have the absolute military direction. He would then do his best to recover for Frederick his lands and dignities, and if any towns in the Palatinate fell into his hands, he would at once place them in the hands of the Elector.
Charles, in short, was to have perfect confidence in Gustavus, and was to resign himself to the fusion of his own particular interest with Their reception in England.the larger interests of German Protestantism. The great majority of the Privy Council spoke strongly for the acceptance of these terms.[295] Charles would not hear of them. The request that in certain eventualities he should oppose the fleets of France and Spain seemed to him to be totally inadmissible. A league for general co-operation April 26.Charles’s counter-propositions.he did not need. By such a course he ‘must change his settled quiet state, or else desert that party to which he doth adhere.’ There were, however, ‘other two kinds of leagues, one of amity and alliance, the other of aid and assistance, and neither of these breaketh peace nor giveth just offence to any.’ For either of these he <197>was prepared. He would give Gustavus 10,000l. a month, in return for which the King of Sweden was to endeavour by all means possible, whether by arms or treaty, to ‘effect the restitution of the Palatinate, delivering up to the Elector the places in it which were recovered.’ As Charles omitted to stipulate that his contribution should continue for any definite number of years, he, in reality, bound himself to nothing beyond the first month’s contribution.[296]
Before Charles’s proposal reached Gustavus, the south of Germany was at the feet of the Swedish conqueror. On March 21 March.Fresh victories of Gustavus.he entered Nüremberg. On the 26th he was at Donauwörth. On April 4 he came up with Tilly on the Lech, and forced the passage of the river after a sharp fight, in which the veteran commander of the Imperialist forces was mortally wounded. Gustavus pressed on. He liberated Augsburg, and entered Munich in triumph.
The news of victory was received in England with indescribable emotion. It had come, wrote Roe, like rain in a dry May. “We will not Reception of the news in England.give the King of Sweden leave to conquer like a man by degrees nor human ways, but we look he should fight battles and take towns so fast as we read them in the Book of Joshua, whose example indeed he is.” The Papist, he added, hung his head like a bulrush. The offer of 10,000l. a month was not all which Gustavus had a right to expect, but ‘a wise Prince would accept of less than he wished to obtain.’[297]
In drawing near to Gustavus, Charles had March 10.Negotiations with France.taken some steps to draw near to Richelieu as well. On March 10 a treaty was arranged to put an end to the commercial disputes which had arisen with France since the peace. March 14.Four days afterwards, Charles’s ambassador, Sir Isaac Wake, presented to Louis a letter from his master, formally proposing a joint action in Germany. Like Gustavus, Louis had views and objects of his own which were not absolutely identical with those of Charles. <198>He was ready, he said, to do anything for Frederick which would not April.Richelieu and the Queen Mother’s party.tend to the ruin of the Catholics of Germany.[298] For the moment Richelieu had work enough to do at home. The party of Gaston and the Queen Mother caused him continual disquiet. He struck hard and pitilessly. Marillac, the political chief of the opposition, May.died in prison. His brother, a Marshal of France, perished on the scaffold. Gaston prepared an invasion from the Spanish Duchy of Luxemburg, whilst the Duke of Lorraine, eager to avenge his defeat of the previous summer, May 29.permitted Gaston’s troops to enter his territory. Richelieu treated the act as a declaration of war, entered Lorraine, and compelled the Duke to sign a treaty by which June 16.Richelieu overpowers Lorraine.he surrendered three of his strongest fortresses as a pledge of his enforced fidelity.[299] This time Richelieu’s hand stretched over Germany itself. The French at Ehrenbreitstein.The Elector of Treves, failing to obtain support from the Emperor, invoked French protection. The lilies of France floated over the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein.
Before commencing the attack upon Lorraine, Richelieu had thought fit to despatch the Marquis of St. Chaumont as a special envoy May.Mission of St. Chaumont.to prevent Charles from taking offence. He did not promise himself much from England; but if Spain should attack France, in consequence of its interference in Germany, it was just possible that Charles might be roused to give some kind of assistance. “Although,” wrote Louis in his instructions to St. Chaumont, “the English should not keep any of their promises, it is important to bring about some sort of union between the two crowns.” St. Chaumont was also charged to effect a reconciliation between the French ambassador, Fontenay, and Henrietta Maria, in order to bring the Queen’s influence to bear in the interest of France.[300]
<199>Charles received St. Chaumont coldly; talked about his good intentions, but went no farther. The Queen refused to be reconciled to Fontenay. He had done her no special injury, she said, but she did not like him.[301]
The views of those who advocated an alliance with Sweden, independently of France, may best be taken from an argument in its favour June 9.Roe’s political advice.forwarded by Roe to the Earl of Holland whilst St. Chaumont was still in England. Roe did not agree with those who feared danger from the ambition of Gustavus. “The King of Sweden,” he urged, “is not to be considered in his branches and fair plumes of one year’s prosperity, but in his root, and so he is not at all to be feared; and it hath been a false and a feigned suspicion in those who from his sudden growth have augured that he might prove dangerous to the public liberty. That kingdom of itself can do no more than Bœotia without Epaminondas. If this king had a foundation, ancient dependence, and a settled posterity, it were great wisdom to stay his career and limit it; but when we see he doth embrace more than he can hold, and is rather a torrent than a live spring, that all his glory and greatness depends upon his own virtue and life; and that in case of sure mortality it is certain that all this inundation will dry up and return to the first channel of moderation, it is mere folly to object him, mere malice and envy to make the seeming care of the future hinder that course of victory which God hath chosen by him, not to set up a new monarchy, but to temper the fury of tyranny and to restore the equality of just government.”
From France or Spain, Roe thought there was nothing to be hoped. Neither of these states cared for anything except the gratification of its own ambition, and they were therefore ‘best employed like millstones to grind themselves thin.’ The true alliance for England was with the Dutch. It was true that the States had been ungrateful and insolent; but they had not been kindly treated, and if the English Government would meet them in a friendly spirit, it would obtain their friendship <200>in return. “I confess,” he continued, “they abuse their liberty, deceive us in trade, cozen us of our money; but I cannot be angry with them that they prove cunning friends when we prove slothful and improvident of our own advantages. One settled treaty would at once stop all these breaches and limit them.”
Roe’s policy was an immediate alliance with Sweden and the Netherlands, with a view to a general Protestant alliance, to be independent of both the great Catholic monarchies. Roe, as was well known, was the candidate of the party opposed to Weston for the vacant secretaryship. Charles was not likely to give the post to one who held opinions so different from his own. Wake, who, if he had lived, would probably have been Dorchester’s successor,[302] had lately died of a sudden attack of fever. June 13.Windebank Secretary.The new Secretary was Francis Windebank, Clerk of the Council, a man utterly unknown in the world of politics; but he was an old friend of Laud, and Laud’s friend was not likely to frighten Weston by urging the King to a breach with the House of Austria. Roe concealed his disappointment as best he might. “That there is a new Secretary brought out of the dark,” he wrote to Elizabeth, “is no news; preferred by my Lord of London — not my Lord Mayor — whose sufficiency may be great for anything I know. In other things he is well spoken of, and if he please my master, he loves himself better than he ought that is displeased. These are the encouragements we receive that have laboured abroad; but for my own part I protest I envy not; I can make my own content as fit as a garment, and if the State be well I cannot be sick. We cannot say there is any faction in England. All goes one way, and I know not the wit of it.”[303]
Truly there was no faction in England. The voice of Parliament was silent. If words of opposition rose to the lips of private men Holland’s party.they were seldom expressed loudly enough to reach the Government. The party at Court, with Holland at its head, to which, for want of better support, Roe looked for help, had neither moral earnestness <201>nor intellectual power to recommend it. The taunts and allurements with which it sought to draw Charles to break with Weston have left scarcely an echo behind them. Their views must be sought in two plays in which Massinger made himself the exponent of a more daring foreign policy than that which was acceptable to Charles. In Believe as you List, licensed for the stage in January 1631, Massinger’s Believe as you List.the dramatist reproduced, under fictitious names, the refusal of Charles to grant assistance to his brother-in-law, and satirised the mastery which Weston himself — seduced, as it was alleged, by the gold of the Spanish ambassador — exercised over the mind of the King. Under the feigned name of Flaminius, the ambassador of Rome, Coloma is made to point out to Charles the material advantages of an inglorious peace:—
Know then, Rome,In her pious care that you may still increaseThe happiness you live on; and your subjects,Under the shadow of their own vines, eatThe fruits they yield them — their soft musical feastsContinuing, as they do yet, unaffrightedWith the harsh noise of war — entreats as lowAs her known power and majesty can descend,You would retain, with due equality,A willingness to preserve what she hath conqueredFrom change and innovation.
In the play the ambassador requires not merely the abandonment, but the actual surrender of Antiochus, who stands for Frederick. From this King Prusias, who stands for Charles, recoils.
Shall I, for your endsInfringe my princely word? or break the lawsOf hospitality? defeat myselfOf the certain honour to restore a kingUnto his own? and what you Romans haveExtorted and kept from him? Far be’t from me!I will not buy your amity at such loss.So it be to all after times rememberedI held it not sufficient to liveAs one born only for myself, and IDesire no other monument.
<202>This, Massinger would seem to say, is the real Charles, generous and high-minded. It is only the low, coarse-minded minister who stands in the way. Coloma points to Weston —
Here’s a man,The oracle of your kingdom, that can tell you,When there’s no probability it may beEffected, ’tis mere madness to attempt it.
Then comes a stinging comparison between the weakness of Bithynia and the strength of Rome, in other words, of England and Spain. The power of the former the ambassador allows —
Is not to be disputed, if weigh’d truly,With the petty kings, your neighbours; but when balancedWith the globes and sceptres of my mistress Rome,Will but — I spare comparisons, but you build onYour strength to justify the fact. Alas!It is a feeble reed, and leaning on itWill wound your hand much sooner than support you.You keep in pay, ’tis true, some peace-trained troops,Which awes your neighbours; but consider, whenOur eagles shall display their sail-stretched wings,Hovering o’er our legions, what defenceCan you expect from yours?
The ambassador has his way. The King, on the plea of ‘necessity of State,’ submits.
In The Maid of Honour, printed in 1632, and probably written in the beginning of that year, or in the end of the year before, 1632.The Maid of Honour.James I. and his dealings with the Palatinate are brought upon the stage, in order to censure, indirectly, Charles’s abandonment of Hamilton. Under the name of Roberto, King of Sicily, we see James arguing that he is not bound to support his ally if he made the first attack upon others. He had only engaged to send him support if he were himself attacked. Then, as if to draw attention to those parts of his father’s policy which Charles was imitating, the King is made to boast of his peaceful rule —
Let other monarchsContend to be made glorious by proud war,And with the blood of their poor subjects purchase<203>Increase of empire, and augment their caresIn keeping that which was by wrongs extorted,Gilding unjust invasions with the trimOf glorious conquests; we, that would be knownThe father of our people, in our studyAnd vigilance for their safety, must not changeTheir ploughshares into swords, and force them fromThe secure shade of their own vines, to beScorched with the flames of war; or, for our sportExpose their lives to ruin.
To this Bertolo answers in words which bear the impress of the fierce love of adventure and prowess which sways alternately with more peaceful energies the breasts of Englishmen.
Here are no mines of goldOr silver to enrich you: no worm spinsSilk in her womb, to make distinctionBetween you and a peasant in your habits:No fish lives near our shores whose blood can dyeScarlet or purple; all that we possessWith beasts we have in common: nature didDesign us to be warriors, and to break throughOur ring, the sea, by which we are environed,And we by force must fetch in what is wantingOr precious to us.
The King will hear nothing of his counsels. Think not, he answers,—
Think notOur counsel’s built upon so weak a baseAs to be overturned, or shaken withTempestuous winds of word. As I, my lord,Before resolved you, I will not engageMy person in this quarrel; neither pressMy subjects to maintain it; yet to shewMy rule is gentle, and that I have feelingO’ your master’s sufferings, and these gallants, wearyOf the happiness of peace, desire to tasteThe bitter sweets of war, we do consentThat, as adventurers and volunteers,No way compelled by us, they may make trialOf their boasted valours.
In another speech Charles himself is brought before us as <204>he appeared to those who were dissatisfied with the language which he had used to Hamilton.
’Tis well, and, but my grant in this, expect notAssistance from me. Govern as you pleaseThe province you make choice of; for, I vowBy all things sacred, if that thou miscarryIn this rash undertaking, I will hear itNo otherwise than as a sad disaster,Fallen on a stranger; nor will I esteemThat man my subject, who in thy extremeIn purse or person aids thee.[304]
So great was the strength of the feeling which gave rise to these two plays that even Weston himself bowed before it. In expectation of July.Jerome Weston’s mission.the reply of Gustavus, preparations were made for a more active intervention on the Continent. Jerome Weston, the Treasurer’s eldest son, was sent on a mission to France and Italy. He was to pave the way to a better understanding with France, and to urge Louis to a direct declaration for the restitution of the Palatinate. He was to say that Charles hoped that the French were by this time ‘sufficiently disabused’ of the notion that anything could be effected so long as attention was paid to the Aug. 10.‘interests of Bavaria.’ “The King,” wrote the Treasurer himself to his son, “hath left no way untried, nor lost any opportunity in uniting his counsels or aids with princes that be interested, as to the King of Sweden,[305] both by the Marquis of Hamilton and his ambassador, with large offers of monies and other kinds of aids, which we hear now by our ambassador are likely to be accepted, and that by this that friendship is concluded.”[306]
<205>Weston was not the man to speak so strongly unless he had believed that the alliance with Gustavus was practically concluded. It was Weston expects the alliance with Gustavus to be concluded.his first object to be on the winning side, and no man had better opportunities of ascertaining the direction in which his master was drifting. It was not long before he learned that he had over-estimated the pliancy of Gustavus. It might seem indeed that July.Gustavus opposed by Wallenstein.when the draft treaty from England was placed in Vane’s hands, the King of Sweden could no longer afford to despise any genuine offer of assistance. In the hour of supreme danger Wallenstein had been recalled to the command, and entrusted with unheard-of powers. His old veterans flocked round his standard at his call, and in a few weeks he was at the head of an imposing army. His first work was to manœuvre the Saxons out of Bohemia. Then he turned sharply round and pinned Gustavus to the defence of Nüremberg. Yet, July 19.Charles’s proposal rejected by Gustavus.even in his mortal duel with the great strategist, Gustavus would not hear of accepting Charles’s offers. Doubtless he had a keen recollection of the treatment to which Christian of Denmark had been subjected, and he may well have doubted whether Charles’s engagement to pay 10,000l. a month was in reality worth as many pence. At all events, he knew that Charles had refused him the naval aid for which he had asked, and had fixed no time during which the payment was to be continued. The aid now offered, he said, was useless, ‘and for the indefiniteness of the time it was against all form of proceeding in alliances.’ Charles’s overtures were absolutely rejected. Vane had nothing more to offer. Recall of Vane and Anstruther.He took his leave, and returned to England. Anstruther’s position at Vienna had already become untenable, and he, too, had been ordered home. To Charles’s unfeigned surprise, neither of the belligerents considered his alliance worth purchasing.[307]
Charles’s failure was one more illustration of the truth which Bacon was wont to urge upon James in his dealings with <206>his Parliaments. Success is to be had, not by sharp bargaining, but August.Failure of Charles’s diplomacy.by sympathy tempered by prudence. Of this system Roe was now the spokesman. “If his Majesty,” he wrote to Holland, “take not care of the King of Sweden, not so much by money, or that only, as by countenance and reputation of unity and colligation, though an enemy may beat him out of Germany, cold and jealous friends may undermine and undo him.” Very different was the thought of Sept. 29.Weston’s friends when the tidings came from Nüremberg. “You have given,” wrote Cottington to Vane, “great satisfaction to his Majesty, and to those his ministers by whom he manageth his foreign affairs. Through your wise and dexterous carriage of that great business you have saved his Majesty’s money and his honour, and yourself from any kind of blame, as I understand it.”[308]
Whether abstention from interference in Germany were wise or not, it was impossible to represent Charles’s diplomacy in a favourable light. Oct. 17.Silence imposed upon the gazettes.The public appetite for news had called forth swarms of pamphlets and gazettes, which told all who could read how Gustavus had forced the passage of the Lech, and how Maximilian, the oppressor of the Palatinate, had abandoned his own capital to the invader. The mere news that such successes had been achieved without the help of England would easily be regarded as a tacit reproach to Charles, and the authors of the gazettes were sternly bidden to refrain from ‘all printing and publishing of the same.’[309]
The Swedish king was not long to cross Charles’s path. If he was not defeated at Nüremberg, at least he had ceased to be victorious. Nov. 5.Gustavus and Frederick.In his train was the exiled Frederick, who had come to beg his inheritance of the disposer of power. Earlier in the year he had wearied the King of Sweden with his obstinate refusal to submit to reasonable conditions. Gustavus had not, however, given up hopes of numbering him as an active member of the great Protestant alliance. “I will let my brother of England know,” he said, <207>“that my intention is more generous towards the King of Bohemia than that I should have any mercenary dealing with him, as Vane would have me.”[310] The time was fast passing when words or acts of his would avail anything. Wallenstein had Nov. 6.Battle of Lützen and death of Gustavus.marched northwards and was ravaging Saxony. Gustavus hastened to the succour of his ally. On November 6 the victory of Lützen was won by the Swedish army; but the soul of that army expired on the field in the death of its heroic king.
In England the death of Gustavus was felt as keenly as if he had been a national commander. “Never,” wrote D’Ewes, “did one person’s death in Christendom bring so much sorrow to all true Protestant hearts,— not our godly Edward’s, the Sixth of that name, nor our late heroic and inestimable Prince Henry,— as did the King of Sweden’s at this present.” The general sorrow was not shared by Charles. He had already found out Charles proposes that Frederick shall lead the German Protestants.a successor to Gustavus in the helpless, headstrong Frederick. ‘I conceive hope,’ he said, ‘in God’s goodness, that as He hath taken away him whom he had exalted, so He may restore him whom he hath humbled.’ It was said of Henry VIII. that he knew a man when he saw him. It was evident that this quality had not descended to his successor. Charles at once despatched a messenger with 16,000l. in ready money to enable Frederick to levy an army of 10,000 men. He prepared to ask the Dutch to transfer to his brother-in-law the contribution which they had hitherto paid to Gustavus. Around the Elector Palatine, he hoped, would gather the German princes and the German cities, so ‘that the body which was kept together by the power and credit of the King of Sweden’ might ‘not by his death be dissolved and broken.’
Frederick never heard of the great expectations which had been conceived of him in England. A merciful fever snatched him away from Nov. 19.Frederick’s death.one more bitter disappointment. Thirteen days after Gustavus had fallen, the candle of his restless unsatisfied life died away in the socket at Bacharach, by the side of the eddying Rhine.
<208>The death of Gustavus and the death of Frederick were alike welcome to Weston and his clique. In their detestation of war Boast of material prosperity in England.there was nothing noble, no preference of higher objects to be gained in peace, no wise conception of international duties. To them material prosperity had become an idol, and the habit of regarding the accumulation of wealth as the sole test of greatness was accompanied by a contemptuous indifference for the trials and sorrows of other nations, of which the hot Protestant partisan of earlier days had never been guilty. Flatterers found their account in praising the skill with which Charles had preserved England from the scourge of war. The low and debased feeling which had been fostered by men in high places found full expression in the lines in which Carew, himself a royal cupbearer, commented on the death of the Swedish King:—
“Then let the Germans fear, if Caesar shallOn the United Princes rise and fall;But let us that in myrtle bowers sitUnder secure shades, use the benefitOf peace and plenty which the blessed handOf our good king gives this obdurate land.⋮Tourneys, masques, theatres better becomeOur halcyon days. What though the German drumBellow for freedom and revenge? The noiseConcerns not us, nor should divert our joys.”
Perish Europe, if only England may fiddle in safety! Already the sword was sharpening which should chastise the men by whom such things were said.
Charles’s first thought on receiving the news of the death of his brother-in-law was to solace his widowed sister. Laying aside Dec. 27.Elizabeth invited to England.for the moment his fear that her presence in England would serve as an encouragement to his own Puritans, he despatched Arundel to offer her a refuge at his Court. At first in her loneliness she was inclined to 1633.January.accept the offer; but she very soon changed her mind, and told Arundel that her duty to her family required her presence in Holland. It is probable that she <209>shrank from exchanging a dwelling-place amongst a sympathetic people for the daily annoyance of the companionship of a brother who promised so much and performed so little.[311]
With the death of Gustavus the question of the relations between England and France assumed increased importance. If, as was Growing importance of France.only too likely, jealousies broke out amongst the princes who had with difficulty been kept in harmony by the genius of the Swedish king, it would be absolutely necessary that Richelieu should take a more prominent part in the conflict than he had hitherto done. And at this time circumstances were occurring in the Netherlands which forced Charles to consider how his alliances would affect the national interests of England as well as how they would affect the dynastic interests of his family.
The weight of the war fell heavily upon the Spanish Netherlands. The King of Spain was no longer able to protect them as of old. 1632.Discontent in the Spanish Netherlands.Every year was now marked by some fresh defeat, and unless the course of the Prince of Orange could be stopped, the whole country would sooner or later be at his disposal. The nobility echoed the lamentations of the common people. The proud Belgian aristocracy complained that military and civil employments alike were in the hands of Castilians. Meetings were held, and in the spring of 1632 many of the nobles banded together and made overtures to Richelieu for assistance to enable them to shake off the authority of Spain. When Frederick Henry took the field, he found but cold resistance. May.Venloo and Roermonde quickly surrendered, and the Prince proceeded to lay siege to Maestricht. Count Henry de Bergh, a Netherlander who had been replaced by a Spaniard in the command of the army, passed over to the Dutch, and called upon his countrymen to free themselves from the foreign yoke.
In spite of the prevailing dissatisfaction, the country was not disposed to follow the interested counsels of a malcontent <210>nobility. It was afraid of being brought under the sway of the Dutch Calvinists. June.Feelings of the people towards Spain.It was equally afraid of incorporation with the French monarchy. The Belgians looked down with a well-grounded feeling of superiority upon a country where municipal liberties and the administration of justice itself were far less developed than in the old provinces of the House of Burgundy;[312] but though they did not wish for revolution, they wished to be rid of the intervention of Spaniards in their own internal affairs. Above all they wanted peace.
The wish was a natural one. Yet it was impossible that the provinces could remain attached to the Spanish monarchy without continuing to share its fortunes. They must shake off the yoke or submit to their fate.
The Infanta was obliged to temporise. In July she summoned the States-General to meet towards the end of August. Before July.The States-General summoned.the day of assembly came, the discontented nobles applied to Charles’s agent, Gerbier, to know if they could count on his master’s help. Charles was at first startled by the proposal. “Since,” he replied Aug. 4.The nobles ask for Charles’s support.to his minister, “I am in friendship with the King of Spain, it is against both honour and conscience to give him just cause of quarrel against me, I being not first provoked by him, and a juster he cannot have than Aug. 21.debauching of his subjects from their allegiance. But since I see a likelihood — almost a necessity — that his Flanders subjects must fall into some other king’s or State’s protection, and that I am offered, without the least intimation of mine, to have a share therein, the second consideration is that it were a great imprudence in me to let slip this occasion whereby I may both advantage myself and hinder the overflowing greatness of my neighbours, so that my resolution must depend upon the agreement of these two considerations.”[313]
It is no blame to Charles if, believing the overthrow of the <211>Spanish power in the Netherlands to be inevitable, he sought to September.Views of Charles.avert the absorption of the Provinces by France and the Dutch Republic. The establishment of an independent Belgian State would have best served the interests of England, and would have best served the real interests of the population. What was characteristic of Charles and his ministers was that they fancied that this could be effected with the concurrence of Spain, and that they did not see that in order to promote a settlement which would be distasteful to both the French and the Dutch, it would be necessary scrupulously to avoid any appearance of self-seeking on the part of England. At a conference held at the Lord Treasurer’s, it was resolved to offer the help of the navy to convey the Spanish soldiers home as soon as they were ready to evacuate the Low Countries, and to ask Philip to make over a large part of Flanders to Charles, to be held under the Spanish crown. The nobility were to be persuaded that the protection of England would be far more agreeable than that of the Dutch Republic. The English Church was as well ordered as their own, and there would be no risk of the introduction of a system under which every burgher might claim a share in the direction of the State.[314]
On August 14 Maestricht surrendered to the Dutch. On the 30th the session of the States-General was opened at Brussels. Aug. 30.The States-General at Brussels.They at once demanded permission to treat for a peace or truce with the Northern States without the intervention of the Executive Government, and this demand was accorded by the Infanta. At the same time the Prince of Orange The Dutch urge them to declare their independence.issued a manifesto promising the alliance of the Dutch States to the obedient Provinces if they would declare themselves independent of Spain. The Spanish troops would then be forced to quit the country, and the Brussels States would become the rulers of the Southern Provinces, as the Northern Provinces were governed by the States which assembled at the Hague.
Against this incitement to revolution the Brussels States stood firm. They would treat for a truce on the basis of the <212>arrangement of 1609, but they professed their intention to September.Refusal of the Brussels States.remain the subjects of the King of Spain. Their resolution seriously compromised the chances of an arrangement. Doubtless there were many in the Northern Provinces who were weary of war, and who would have welcomed a cessation of hostilities at almost any cost; but a large party, with Frederick Henry at its head, was by no means inclined to give way to peace or truce so long as the Spaniards retained a threatening position on their southern frontier. It was true that for five years the Dutch armies had been victorious. Grol, Hertogenbosch, Wesel, Venloo, Maestricht, had fallen in rapid succession; but the Spanish monarchy was not crushed. A few seasons of peace might enable it to restore its dilapidated finances and to reorganise its military resources.
With this divergency of feeling, it is not likely that an agreement would have been come to in any case, and it is therefore doubtful whether Oct. 22.Charles’s intervention.Charles could have intervened with good effect. The course which he actually took was pitiable. The tendency to intrigue which was rooted in his character had been growing during the last few years. His instructions to Boswell.He instructed Boswell, his minister at the Hague, to be present at the conferences between the deputies of the two States-General. He was to do his best, in an underhand way, to make any arrangement impossible. He was to press the Northern States to include the restoration of the Palatinate in the negotiation. He was to hold up to the Southern States the advantage which they would gain by an open trade with England, and to ‘show them what near and powerful protection they may have from his Majesty’s dominions to support them in their freedom and liberties, if they resolve to make themselves an entire and independent body; what indignity and prejudice they may suffer if they submit themselves to those neighbours upon unequal conditions, under whom neither their clergy, their nobility, nor their burghers can expect those honours, that profit, and that continual defence which from his Majesty, upon reasonable and equal terms, they may be assured of.’[315]
<213>Assuredly Charles did not stand alone amongst the rulers of the world in resorting to intrigue. Richelieu was quite as ready as he was to veil his intentions in a cloud of words and to cover his self-seeking with an appearance of disinterestedness; but, whilst Charles had absolutely no perception of the facts of the world, Richelieu surpassed all his contemporaries, except Gustavus, in the skill with which he mastered events by adapting his course to the currents of opinion around him. He had just brought to a close the long internal struggle with the French aristocracy. Gaston had at last summoned up courage, and had crossed the French border to make his way to the South, where Montmorency, the dashing cavalier, the flower of the French nobility, was ready to rise at his bidding. On Aug. 31.Defeat of Montmorency.the field of Castelnaudary that conflict was brought to an issue. Richelieu stood up for national unity and religious toleration against those who would have made France their prey, who would have stooped their heads to the foreigner abroad, and re-lighted the flames of civil war at home. The better side prevailed. The gay chivalry which followed the banner of the insurgents was no match for the steady discipline of the Royal army. Montmorency bowed his head as a traitor on the scaffold, whilst Gaston slunk home, like a poltroon as he was, to accept a contemptuous pardon from his brother.
Richelieu was thus at liberty to turn his attention abroad. He did not build his hopes much upon the oscillations of the States of Brussels. Richelieu seeks a Dutch alliance.Charles might dream of thrusting the wedge of English power into Flanders by the expenditure of a few soft words. Richelieu knew that strength was to be found amongst the burgher counsellors of the Hague and the tried veterans who had reduced the proud citadel of Maestricht to surrender. If the obedient Provinces chose to throw off the yoke of Spain, it would be easy to satisfy them on all secondary points. If not, an alliance with the independent States against Spain was the policy imposed by circumstances upon France.
By the middle of November, Charles had learned that he had no prospect of effecting his object with the assent of Spain. <214>He had directly asked for the surrender of Dunkirk, or of some other November.Charles demands Dunkirk.strong place in Flanders, as the price of his co-operation. The Spanish Government was not yet reduced to extremities, and returned a peremptory refusal.[316]
Charles then turned to France. This time he held language which, if he had been strong enough to support his words by action, His overtures to France.would have been worthy of an English Sovereign. Jerome Weston, who was at the French Court, was directed to assure Louis that, though the King of England was ready to concur in any step for the liberation of the discontented Provinces from Spain, he would not hear of the increase of Dutch or French territory at their expense. He had ‘better reason to maintain the Spaniards there than to let the French in.’ At the same time the Lord Treasurer was profuse in his expressions of attachment to Richelieu, and in his assurances of a wish to see France and England united on the great questions of the day, the recovery of the Palatinate being naturally included.[317]
Two days after these instructions were sent, the Deputies from the States-General of both fractions of the Netherlands met at the Hague. Nov. 24.The negotiations at the Hague.Before the end of the year, it was evident to all that the negotiation would end in nothing. The Southern States persisted in regarding themselves as the subjects of the King of Spain. The Northern States were unwilling to come to terms unless the King of Spain’s authority were declared to be at an end. The negotiation dragged on, neither party being willing to give up hope of a satisfactory conclusion; but no clear-sighted bystander could think it at all likely that such a conclusion would be reached.
Richelieu, at all events, saw plainly how matters stood. On January 3 he instructed Charnacé, the French Ambassador at the Hague, to offer to the Dutch increased subsidies and a <215>military force. If Richelieu could succeed in establishing 1633.Jan. 3.Richelieu’s offers to the Dutch.French influence in Germany, he would be ready to engage in open war with Spain, with the object of effecting a partition of the Spanish Netherlands between France and the States-General.[318]
Charles could not make up his mind what to do. In November he had instructed Jerome Weston to protest against The partition discussed in England.such a partition. There was, however, a large party at his Court which regarded the scheme with favour, though no one in England had any knowledge that the proposal had actually been made. If, it was argued, the Dutch frontier became conterminous with the French, the Dutch would speedily become as jealous of France as they had hitherto been of Spain. Necessity would thus drive them into the arms of England, and they would be forced to make concessions to English commerce as the price of political support. To these representations Charles was for a moment inclined to give ear. Even Cottington declaimed on the approaching downfall of the Spanish monarchy;[319] and Weston, either because he thought it prudent to agree with his master, or because, as Philip’s agent, Necolalde, fancied, the Spanish Government had not bribed him highly enough, talked in the same strain. Jan. 16.Charles, however, soon repented of his momentary weakness. Necolalde had an interview with him, and won him back to his old jealousy of France and the States.[320]
Charles was now engaged in a fresh diplomatic intervention in Germany. His nephew, Charles Lewis, the eldest surviving Anstruther’s mission to Germany.son of Frederick and Elizabeth, was a boy of fourteen. Anstruther was ordered to betake himself to the Chancellor Oxenstjerna, who had succeeded to the conduct of affairs after the death of Gustavus. He was to offer assistance in money, though, if possible, he was to promise a sum smaller than the 10,000l. a month which had been proposed to <216>the late King. In return he was to ask that the Swedes and the German princes should acknowledge the right of Charles’s nephew, and should at once make over to him the strong places which they had conquered in the Palatinate.[321] Jerome Weston was directed to ask the French Government to support this demand, and to join if necessary in carrying on the war in Germany. He was to add with respect to the Low Countries a repetition of the message which he had conveyed in November. He was to say ‘that if they shall agree to erect those interjacent countries into free and independent States, his Majesty will give no interruption. But if they pretend to share or divide them without any consideration of his Majesty’s interests, he will to his uttermost oppose them.’[322]
How far Charles was guided by Weston in this determination it is difficult to say. At all events it was quite in accordance with Feb. 17.Weston created Earl of Portland.Weston’s character to keep an eye upon the dangers likely to arise from the increase of the material forces of his opponents, without any comprehension of the moral and spiritual movements by which the world was pervaded. Charles seized this moment to testify his approbation of the Treasurer’s services. He conferred upon him an earldom, a dignity which he dispensed with a far more sparing hand than his father had been accustomed to do. From henceforward his favourite minister would be known as the Earl of Portland.
When Jerome Weston, now by his father’s promotion Lord Weston, returned to England in March, he brought with him Richelieu’s terms. March.Terms brought by Lord Weston from France.They were very different from those which had been expected by Charles. The French asked for a defensive alliance against the House of Austria. In other words Charles was to bind himself to protect France from a Spanish attack in the impending war, and to put an end to the assistance which he had given to Spain by convoying money and men to the Flemish ports. Louis, in return, would assist in recovering <217>from the Spaniards any part of the Palatinate which might be in their hands.[323]
The discrepancy between the two Governments was thus plainly brought to light. Charles expected the King of France to make Discrepancy between the two Governments.war for the recovery of the Palatinate, and to refrain from satisfying his ambition whenever his objects might clash with English interests. Richelieu asked Charles to take some part, if it were but a subordinate one, in his meditated attack upon Spain. With a prince more resolute and more powerful than Charles, such a divergency of view would probably soon have led to open war. But Richelieu knew his man. He was prodigal of assurances of good-will, and was firmly resolved to give no unnecessary offence. He knew well that Charles’s threats would end in words. The busy diplomacy of the English Government had been absolutely wasted, and it was not likely that failure in the past would be compensated by success in the future.
If Richelieu had a political interest in maintaining friendly relations with the English Government he had also a personal interest in A letter of the Queen’s seized by Lord Weston.maintaining friendly relations with the Lord Treasurer. The enemies of both were still in close correspondence with one another. On his return through France Lord Weston had met an English messenger bearing a packet addressed in Holland’s hand to a French minister. The fact was enough to awaken suspicion in a Weston, and using the privilege of an ambassador he opened the parcel. Inside he found a cyphered letter from Holland, and another letter from the Queen, which he did not attempt to read. He brought both back to England, and placed them in Charles’s hands.
The letters proved harmless. Richelieu had discovered that Chateauneuf and his instrument, De Jars, both of whom were now in France, had joined in the never-ceasing intrigues against him, and had sent them both to prison. According to the most consistent accounts, Henrietta Maria’s letter was written to <218>intercede in their favour.[324] If Chateauneuf was the enemy of Richelieu now, he had been Portland’s enemy before, and Charles, who looked with well-founded suspicion upon the clique with which his wife was surrounded, warmly declared his approbation of Weston’s conduct, and, guessing what was likely to follow ordered him to refuse any challenge which might be sent him.
The King’s prevision was justified by the event. The whole of the Queen’s Court took up their mistress’s quarrel. Holland challenged Weston. April.Weston is challenged.Charles interfered with decision, and ordered Holland, who sent the challenge, and Henry Jermyn, who carried it, to be placed in confinement. The Queen’s followers turned savagely upon Weston. Only a coward, they said, would accept a duel, and then give notice of it. The gallant young Lord Fielding, Denbigh’s son, who was just about to marry Weston’s sister, stepped forward to vindicate the honour of the family into which he was about to enter, and challenged George Goring as the noisiest of the offenders. Once more the King interfered, and stopped the duel. A new way was then discovered of showing dislike of the Lord Treasurer. Crowds of persons of every degree flocked to the house in which Holland was confined, to express their sympathy, till this, too, was angrily stopped by Charles. Holland was then summoned before the Star Chamber. It was commonly believed that he would hardly escape without the loss of his offices. But Charles could not resist the tears and entreaties of his wife. The birth of the Prince of Wales in 1630 had been followed in 1631 by the birth of the daughter who was one day to bring William of Orange into the world. The Queen was now looking forward to becoming a mother again, and Charles was too tender a husband to deal harshly with her preferences at such a time. Holland escaped with a reprimand from the Lord Keeper, delivered in the Privy Council.[325]
A common danger drew Richelieu and Portland together. <219>The Cardinal had seized from De Jars a correspondence in which the intrigues of some of the Queen’s Court against the Treasurer were unveiled. He sent the compromising letters to England, that Understanding between Richelieu and Portland.Portland might have evidence before him that was attacked by those who sought to effect a change in the government of France.[326] In this way Richelieu hoped to secure an ally against the suggestions of the Queen on behalf of her mother, which were in reality suggestions made in the interests of Spain.
[242] Vane to Dorchester, Nov. 20; The King to Vane, Jan. 5; Vane to Dorchester, Feb. 4, S. P. Holland.
[243] Dorchester to Cottington, Jan. 10, S. P. Spain.
[244] Soranzo’s despatch, Oct. 23⁄Nov. 2, Venice MSS.
[245] The Spanish Government had been urging the sending of these ambassadors in order to find some means of accommodation. Philip IV. to Aytona, July 6⁄16, 1629, Add. MSS. 28,474, fol. 184.
[246] Cottington to Dorchester, Jan. 29, S. P. Spain.
[247] The King to Cottington, Feb. 14; Gerbier to Cottington, Feb. 17, ibid.
[248] Sainsbury’s Rubens, 147.
[249] Cottington to Dorchester, March 3; Dorchester to Cottington, March 21; The King to Cottington, April 7, S. P. Spain. Dorchester’s answer to Coloma, April 5⁄15; Coloma to Olivares, April 7⁄17, Simancas MSS. 2519.
[250] Consulta of Olivares and Oñate, Jan. 2⁄12, 1631 (misdated 1632), Simancas MSS. 2520.
[251] Rojas to Cottington, May 11⁄21. Philip IV. to the King, May 15⁄25, Simancas MSS. 2574.
[252] Dorchester to Vane, Aug. 16, S. P. Holland. Undated secret negotiation in S. P. France, dated approximately by a letter from Montague to Richelieu, Aug. 11⁄21, Aff. Étr. xliv. 96. Salvetti’s News-Letters, Sept. 13⁄23.
[253] Salvetti’s News-Letters, Aug. 31⁄Sept. 10.
[254] Soranzo’s despatch, June 16⁄26, Venice MSS.
[255] Salvetti’s News-Letters, Dec. 10, 17⁄20, 27.
[256] Soranzo’s despatch, Dec. 10⁄20, Venice MSS.
[257] Vane to the King, Jan. 14, S. P. Sweden.
[258] Secret Treaty, Jan. 2⁄12, Clar. S. P. i. 49. Drafts of this treaty, as well as the treaty itself, are at Simancas. Dorchester refers to a different document altogether in Clar. S. P. 11, App. xxxiv.
[259] Memorial, Feb. 19, S. P. Spain.
[260] Joachimi to the States-General, April 6, Add. MSS. 17,677 N. fol. 163.
[261] The King to Anstruther, March 21, S. P. Germany.
[262] Roe to Elizabeth, March 22, ibid. Hamilton subsequently received a grant of 15,015l.
[263] Wittich, Magdeburg, Gustav Adolf, und Tilly.
[264] “Mucho conviene en el estado presente de las cosas en que el movimiento contra la casa de Austria es casi universal que el Emperador mire por si y ponga el hombro a su propria defensa y conservacion por todos los medios permetidos á la religion Catholica que se pudieren disponer, y siendo cierto que el mundo tiene hoi al Duque de Baviera por el enemigo mayor de la casa de Austria, y el que mas va machinando su ruin con ligas y negociaciones secretas (quando no lo sea) es licito al Emperador <181>hazer un partido por el daño que despues seria irreparable. El camino es quietar y dar satisfacion al Duque de Saxonia a condicion de que con sus armas y poder, y con el de sus parciales asista al Emperador contra qualesquier enemigos suyos publicos y secretos; y esto no parece difficil de encaminar, per ser el de Saxonia Principe constante y que se mueve tarde y se halla obligado de la casa de Austria, y siendo hoi el edicto de la restitucion de los bienes ecclesiasticos la causa porque se inquieta, en la qual persiste el Emperador llevado du su zelo, o persuadido de los que con pretexto de piedad quieren irritar contra el a los hereges, es facil y justo suspender la execucion del edicto a mejor sazon, y grangear al Duque de Saxonia y sus confederados, y asegurar con el la propria defensa, y estorvar una guerra de religion en el imperio, que si comienza a creer sera de gravisimos daños á la causa Catholica.” Philip IV. to Cadereyta, May 18⁄28, Simancas MSS. 2547.
[265] Anstruther to Dorchester, July 5, S. P. Germany.
[266] Articles by the King of Sweden, May 31, 1631. Articles by Hamilton, March 1, 1631. Burnet, Memoirs of Hamilton, 7.
[267] Beaulieu to Puckering, May 25, Court and Times, ii. 1 2.
[268] Soranzo’s despatch, Jan. 8⁄18, Venice MSS.
[269] Burnet, 13.
[270] State Trials, iii. 425–520.
[271] Salvetti’s News-Letters, June 24⁄July 4.
[272] Salvetti’s News-Letters, July 1, 15⁄11, 25. Dorchester to Carleton, June 22, S. P. Holland.
[273] Wake to Weston, July 25. Weston to Wake, Aug. 14, S. P. France.
[274] For the relations between the King and Richelieu, see Topin, Louis XIII. et Richelieu.
[275] Dorchester to Wake, March 30, S. P. Savoy. Gerbier to Weston, June 29; Gerbier to the King, July 1, 11, 30, S. P. Flanders.
[276] Henrard, Marie de Médicis dans les Pays Bas, 99.
[277] Salvetti’s News-Letters, June 10, 17⁄20, 27. Fontenay to Richelieu, May 26⁄June 5, June. Aff. Étr. xliv. 274, 276.
[278] Gerbier’s despatches, Aug. and Sept., S. P. Flanders. Soranzo’s despatches, Aug. 19⁄29, Sept. 9⁄19, Sept. 23⁄Oct. 3, Oct. 7⁄17, Venice MSS.
[279] Vane, the younger, to Sir H. Vane, Sept. 13, S. P. Germany.
[280] A comparison of the extract from Dorchester’s letter printed in Clar. S. P. ii. App. xxxiv. with Olivares’ Consulta of Nov. 10⁄20 (Simancas MSS. <188>2519) makes this probable. The paper was certainly not the secret treaty itself, as it is described by Olivares as unsigned. Ranke (Engl. transl. ii. 22) seems to confound ‘the paper given to Lord Cottington’ with the secret treaty.
[281] Soranzo’s despatches, Aug. 19⁄29, Sept. 9⁄19, Venice MSS.
[282] It is clear from Wake’s despatches (S. P. France) that Richelieu expected that Tilly would leave Gustavus alone. I must leave it to German inquirers to clear up the secret history of Maximilian’s conduct in this year.
[283] Vane to Dorchester, Nov. 12, S. P. Germany.
[284] D’Ewes, Autobiography, ii. 59, 60.
[285] Eliot to Luke, Oct. 3. Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 438.
[286] Consulta on the Abbot of Scaglia’s despatches, Nov. 10⁄20, Simancas MSS. 2519.
[287] Joachimi to the States-General, Dec. 3, Add. MSS. 17,677. N. fol. 243. Soranzo’s despatch, Dec. 2⁄12, Venice MSS. Dorchester to Anstruther, Nov. 29, S. P. Germany. Dorchester to Vane, Dec. 19, S. P. Sweden.
[288] Roe to Hepburn, Dec. 12, S. P. Dom. cciv. 34.
[289] Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 445.
[290] Forster, Sir J. Eliot, ii. 448.
[291] Soranzo’s despatch, Dec. 30⁄Jan. 9, Venice MSS.
[292] Salvetti’s News-Letters, Feb. 17⁄27.
[293] Dorchester to Vane, Dec. 31, S. P. Sweden.
[294] Wake’s despatches (S. P. France) contain minute information on all this, and show the tone prevailing from day to day in the French camp.
[295] Soranzo’s despatch, Feb. 3⁄13, March 30⁄April 9, Venice MSS. Salvetti’s News-Letters, March 16⁄26.
[296] Articles, April 26. Coke to Vane, May 2, S. P. Sweden.
[297] Roe to Horwood, May 28, S. P. Dom. ccxvi. 92.
[298] Wake to Coke (?) March 11. Wake to Weston, March 16. Treaty signed, March 19, S. P. France.
[299] Instructions to St. Chaumont, May 16⁄26, Aff. Étr. xlv. 215.
[300] Ibid.
[301] Fontenay to Richelieu, May 30⁄June 9. St. Chaumont to Richelieu, May (?) Aff. Étr. xlv. 111, 112.
[302] Gussoni’s despatch, March 2⁄12, June 8⁄18, Venice MSS.
[303] Roe to Elizabeth, July 1, S. P. Germany.
[304] See a paper on The political element in Massinger in the Contemporary Review for Aug. 1876. It had been previously read before the New Shakspere Society, when Professor Hales pointed out that the suggestion in Believe as you List (iii. 1), that Antiochus should fly to Parthia, to Egypt, or to ‘the Batavian,’ is evidence that Massinger’s thoughts were travelling in the direction which I had assumed.
[305] The MS. is a copy, and perhaps some words have been accidentally omitted.
[306] Instructions to Jerome Weston, July 24. Weston to Jerome Weston, Aug. 10, S. P. France.
[307] Vane to Coke, July 19, S. P. Sweden. Curtius to Vane, Sept. 14, S. P. Holland.
[308] Cottington to Vane, Sept. 29, S. P. Dom. ccxxiii. 56.
[309] Council Register, Oct. 17.
[310] Durie to Roe, Nov. 11, S. P. Germany.
[311] Gussoni’s despatch, Dec. 7, 21⁄17, 31, Feb. 1⁄11, Venice MSS. Goring to ——— (?) Jan. 5, S. P. Holland.
[312] See on all this M. Henrard’s book, Marie de Médicis dans les Pays Bas.
[313] Gerbier to the King, Aug. 4. The King to Gerbier, Aug. 21, Hardwicke S. P. ii. 55, 79.
[314] Conference at the Lord Treasurer’s, S. P. Flanders.
[315] Instructions to Boswell, Oct. 22, S. P. Holland.
[316] Windebank’s Notes, Clar. S. P. i. 61. Salvetti’s News-Letters, Sept. 23, Nov. 30⁄Oct. 3, Dec. 10.
[317] Coke to Weston, Nov. 22, S. P. France. Fontenay to Father Joseph, Nov. 17. Fontenay to Richelieu, Nov. 26, Aff. Étr. xlv. 143, 145.
[318] Richelieu to Charnacé, Avenel, Lettres de Richelieu, iv. 421.
[319] Intercepted letters of Necolalde to Olivares, Dec. 26⁄Jan. 5, Jan. 9⁄19, Aff. Étr. xlv. 166, 176.
[320] Necolalde to Olivares, Jan. 23⁄Feb. 2, Simancas MSS. 2520.
[321] Anstruther’s instructions, Dec., S. P. Germany.
[322] Coke to J. Weston, Jan. 22, S. P. France.
[323] Draft Treaty, March. Memoir of Fontenay, April 16, Aff. Étr, xlv. 222, 223, 235.
[324] Brasser to the States-General, Add. MSS. 17,677 O. fol. 41.
[325] Kilvert to Lambe, April 4. Noy to Windebank, April 11. Act of Council, April 13, S. P. Dom. ccxxxvi. 14, 43, 47. Council Register, April 5. Fontenay to Bouthillier, April 14, Aff. Étr. xlv. 229.
[326] Memoir for Boutard, Aff. Étr. xlv. 336.