<272>The new year opened under unpropitious auspices. There were few who did not acknowledge with a sigh that the times were evil, and that The new year.reformation was slow in coming. “I am ready to depart,” said the dying Sir Henry Saville, “the rather that having lived in good times, I foresee worse.”[404] The dissolution of Parliament fell like a blight upon all who had fancied that England was to be an instrument for good in Europe. Buckingham’s passionate self-will, it seemed, was to rule supreme, so far at least as he was anything more than an unsuspecting tool in the hands of Gondomar.
One success alone was wanting to crown the diplomatic career of the Spanish ambassador. He had, as everyone but James knew, Gondomar’s plan for breaking the blockade of the Flemish ports.made active interference in the Palatinate impossible. It would be a master-stroke of policy if he could embroil England with the Republic of the Netherlands. He had watched with pleasure the preparations which James was making in defence of what he called his honour in the narrow seas, and had constantly urged him to lose no time in breaking the Dutch blockade of the Flemish harbours. Nor was he content with trusting to the uncertain activity of James. Some English merchants, careless of public opinion, had proposed to allow the ambassador to hire from them eight or ten ships ready manned, to be employed in opening the ports. James at once gave his consent; and Gondomar, to whom anything was acceptable <273>which would bring Englishmen into collision with the Dutch, threw himself heartily into the scheme. He had, however, forgotten to ask the consent of the English people. Not a sailor would agree to serve on board his vessels, and in the end he was compelled to abandon the design.[405]
Yet, if he was baffled here, Gondomar had still reason to hope that his work would be done by James. The Dutch Commissioners, November.The Dutch Commissioners in England.whose coming had been so long expected, arrived at last in November. After some delay a negotiation was opened for the restitution of the value of the English goods which had been seized in the East. The Commissioners professed their readiness to make good the losses of the East India Company; but as the articles in question had been brought to Europe by Dutch vessels, they claimed to make a deduction of 130l. per last for freight. By the English negotiators the justice of the demand was acknowledged in principle; but the amount claimed was pronounced to be exorbitant: 25l., or at most 28l., it was said, was the usual payment. 1622.February.They were, however, ready, for the sake of peace, to go as far as 35l. The Dutch refused to abate a penny of their original demand, and, for the time at least, the negotiations were broken off.[406]
That James should have been deeply annoyed by the exorbitant pretensions of the Dutch, was only natural; but it showed January.Proposed attack upon the Netherlands.little perception of the relative value of the objects for which he was striving, that he should, at this critical moment, have revived the project for a joint attack by England and Spain upon the territories of the Republic. Yet there can be no doubt that before the month of January was at an end, Digby had received <274>instructions to bring forward such a proposal at Madrid as soon as the marriage treaty was concluded.[407]
It would, however, be long before that period arrived; and in the meanwhile more legitimate efforts might be made to obtain redress. Attempt to seize two Dutch ships.When James’s ill-feeling was at its height, news came that two Dutch ships returning from the East had been seen passing Plymouth. Orders were accordingly given to Oxford, who had been appointed to the command of the fleet in the narrow seas, and who had hurried down to Dover to take the command, charging him to do his best to intercept them. But Oxford was either unlucky, or had no heart in the business, and the vessels found their way safely into a Dutch port.[408]
Unsuccessful as the attempt had been, it was not without effect upon the Commissioners. They had no wish to see their East India ships running the gauntlet of a hostile squadron, and they wrote to the Hague, asking permission to March.Capture of a third ship.yield the point at issue. Their request was at once granted. No sooner had the answer arrived, than they went through the form of demanding an audience of James, and of assuring him that they withdrew their pretensions, in deference to his superior wisdom. They were just in time. Scarcely had the concession been made when news arrived that a Dutch East Indiaman had been captured in the Channel by two ships of the royal navy. Fortunately, James was now again in a good humour. He told Oxford recalled.the Commissioners that their ship had been taken by mistake; that it should be immediately restored; that he had recalled the Earl of Oxford; and that he wished <275>for nothing better than to be on good terms with the Republic.[409]
The negotiations with the Dutch were at once resumed. The recall of Oxford was received with enthusiastic demonstrations of joy, not because he was himself hostile to the Dutch, but because he was known to be under orders to act against them. So deeply had the hatred of Spain penetrated that amongst those whose faces were beaming with delight were to be seen merchants who had suffered considerably from the unprovoked attacks of the Dutch in the East.[410]
Yet it was from no friendly feeling towards the Netherlands that James had decided upon recalling Oxford. Gondomar had long been pleading for the removal of a commander whom he had represented as a great Puritan, and a pensioner of Holland.
Oxford was probably not a pensioner of Holland, and it is certain that, excepting in the political sense of the word, he was not a Puritan; but His imprisonment.he detested Spain from the bottom of his heart, and he at least knew well to whose influence his recall was to be ascribed. He was not a man to measure his words. England, he was heard to say, was altogether ruined. They had a King who had placed his ecclesiastical supremacy in the hands of the Pope, and his temporal supremacy in the hands of the King of Spain. James was now nothing better than Philip’s viceroy. This violent language was soon reported at Whitehall. The Earl was immediately sent to the Tower, and James talked of bringing him to trial for high treason, and of cutting off his head.[411]
Whilst still at large, Oxford had found an opportunity of <276>showing that his contempt for the King extended to the favourite. Marriage of Elizabeth Norris.Early in the preceding year it had been rumoured that a bargain had been struck, in accordance with which a young gentleman of the bedchamber named Wray, who had managed to secure the goodwill of Buckingham, was to marry Elizabeth Norris, the daughter and heiress of the newly-created Earl of Berkshire. Time passed away, and a new arrangement was made. The young lady was now to be the wife of Christopher Villiers, whose previous wooing had ended in grievous disappointment. The match appeared to be the more advantageous as her father had recently committed suicide, and had left her in actual possession of his estates. As usual, however, the very name of Buckingham’s brother as a suitor was received with every mark of disapprobation by the lady to whom his addresses were paid. Elizabeth Norris, it would seem, had not cared much for Wray; but anything was better than to become the wife of Christopher Villiers. One morning she slipped away from the house of the Earl of Montgomery, under whose charge she was living, and before anyone had time to interfere, was married to her last year’s lover. Oxford, it was said, was privy to the plot; and it was in his house that the young couple took refuge as soon as the wedding was over.
James was very angry; but all that he could do was to turn Wray out of his place in the bedchamber, and to leave the unlucky wooer to console himself as best he might. Another member of the great house, Sir William Fielding, the plain country gentleman who had had the good luck to marry Buckingham’s sister in the days of her poverty, had in 1620 been raised to the peerage as Baron Fielding. He was now to be known by the higher title of Viscount Fielding, and had lately, by Cranfield’s resignation, become Master of the Wardrobe.[412]
Whilst the doors of the peerage were thus flung open to Buckingham’s relations, the favourite continued to measure all public business by the scale of his personal interests and antipathies. Not long after Bacon’s return to <277>Gorhambury, in the preceding summer, he had received an intimation that 1621.Bacon at Gorhambury.his great patron was desirous of purchasing the remainder of his lease of York House. The proposal, Buckingham may well have thought, was not likely to October.Question of the sale of York House.meet with a refusal; for the house was too large to be any longer suitable for Bacon in his straitened circumstances, and any other man in his position would have been only too glad to rid himself of the incumbrance. But Bacon, as was so often the case when any question of expenditure was mooted, allowed his feelings to get the better of his reason. The house had been his father’s; there he had been born, and there he wished to die. His wife liked the place, and he could not turn her out of doors.[413] Buckingham was highly incensed at the rebuff; yet he did not break out openly into a passion. He preferred putting himself ostentatiously forward as Bacon’s protector. At his intercession the Bacon’s fine remitted.heavy parliamentary fine of 40,000l. was made over to trustees of Bacon’s own nomination.[414] A few days later, the virtual remission of the fine was He receives a general pardon.followed by a general pardon, which, though the penalties imposed by Parliament were excepted from its operation, left him free from any further molestation on account of irregularities committed during his official career;[415] and this pardon was obtained by Bacon in spite of the opposition of Williams, who was naturally anxious, on the eve of the reassembling of Parliament, not to give offence to the House of Commons.
Buckingham probably still hoped to carry his point by a mixture of friendliness and severity. But is not allowed to live in London.He knew well that the clause in Bacon’s sentence which prohibited him from coming within twelve miles of the Court was most distasteful to him. At Gorhambury the cold <278>blasts of winter were far too keen for his enfeebled constitution, and he was now earnestly pleading for the extension of a temporary permission to visit London which had recently been accorded to him. In this, however, Buckingham, as he soon found, would give him no help. He would not even see him. Bacon might keep the lease of York House in his hands, if he pleased, but he should not live under its roof.
For the time, indeed, there were special reasons for refusing Bacon’s request. Whilst Parliament was sitting, James might well fear that the late Chancellor’s presence in London would ‘be a general distaste to the whole state’; but with the dissolution, this objection fell to the ground, without affecting Buckingham’s resolution in the slightest degree.
Luckily for Bacon, an opportunity presented itself, which enabled him, in some measure, to soothe the wounded vanity of the favourite. 1622.January.The bargain for York House.Lennox wrote to ask for the house. Bacon replied that he was determined not to part with it to anyone; and that, if there were no other obstacle in the way, he owed it to Buckingham not to dispose of it to any other than himself.
The compliment was well aimed. Buckingham wrote at once to say that he should be sorry to prevent him from dealing February.as he pleased with his own property. As soon as it was possible, he would move his Majesty to relax the restriction upon his place of abode. As for himself, he was already provided with another house.
Still, however, Bacon was left without permission to return to London, which he so anxiously expected. At last, after some weeks, March.he was told that he might come as far as Highgate. Sackville, who was acting in the matter as Bacon’s friend, expostulated with Buckingham on the restriction. “Sir Edward,” was the answer, “however you play a good friend’s part for my Lord St. Alban, yet I must tell you I have not been well used by him.” It finally came out that Cranfield wanted the house, and that Buckingham intended him to have it. “If York House were gone,” wrote Sackville to Bacon, “the town were yours.” Bacon bowed to necessity, gave up the lease, and obtained in return permission to come <279>to London as soon as he pleased.[416] It was not to Cranfield, however, that the house was surrendered. Buckingham did not lose much time in getting it into his own possession, and he continued to occupy it during the remainder of his life. Already, however, before the bargain was struck, the favourite had, for a time, taken up his quarters at Wallingford House, which he Buckingham’s reconciliation with the Howards.had purchased from Lord Wallingford.[417] He was now again on thoroughly good terms with the Howards. Suffolk’s second son was created Viscount Andover; and, after an imprisonment of six years, Somerset and his wife were released from the Tower, and allowed to come forth into a world which had almost forgotten their former greatness.[418]
There was something more than a personal reconciliation in these advances made by the favourite to the family which, three years before, he had crushed down with an unsparing hand. The Howards were all, more or less, in close connection with the Catholics, and in his vexation with the House of Commons and with the Court of the exiled Frederick, Buckingham, with his usual impetuosity, was, for the time being, a zealous protector of the Catholics. Nor was this all. Those who were admitted to his confidence were well aware that it was by no means impossible that before many months elapsed he would himself be a declared member of the Church of Rome. For the moment he was peculiarly susceptible to domestic influences. His wife’s conversion, in spite of the eloquence of Williams, had been merely nominal, and his mother had recently been giving ear to the persuasions of a Jesuit, who was generally known by the assumed name of Fisher.[419] Lady Buckingham, in truth, was made of the very stuff to be easily moulded by a Jesuit’s hand. Without the slightest wish to become either wiser or better, she was looking <280>about for a religion to make her comfortable, and in an infallible Church which would save her the trouble of thinking she found exactly what she wanted.
At what time this selfish and unprincipled woman first gave ear to Fisher’s soothing strains is uncertain; but on January 3 Confirmation of Buckingham and his family.a comedy was played which we shall hardly be wrong in ascribing to the King’s remonstrances. Accompanied by two or three courtiers, by his wife and mother, by his sister, Lady Fielding, and his sister-in-law, Lady Purbeck, January.by one kinswoman whom Lady Buckingham had just married to Serjeant Ashley, and by another kinswoman whom she was anxious to marry to anyone who might present himself with a long purse, Buckingham went in state to dine with the Bishop of London. Before dinner was served the whole party betook themselves to the chapel, to receive the rite of confirmation.[420] Such a demonstration Conference between Fisher and White.could have but little influence on the waverers, and, as a last resource, it was suggested that it would he well to invite the Jesuit to discuss with some Protestant divine the main questions at issue between the Churches. Dr. White, one of the Royal chaplains, was accordingly selected for the purpose, and conferences were held on several occasions, in the presence of the King, the Lord Keeper, the Marquis, the Marchioness, and the Countess of Buckingham. James himself entered into the strife, and produced nine questions, which he called upon the Jesuit to answer.
As far as Buckingham’s mother was concerned, it was soon evident that any discussion of particular doctrines would be absolutely thrown away. She considered, she said, ‘that it was not for her, or any unlearned person, to take upon them to judge of particulars.’ She wished to depend ‘upon the judgment of the true Church.’ All that she required was to be informed in which direction to look for the ‘continual, infallible, visible Church.’[421]
<281>To the issue thus taken, Laud was called upon to reply instead of White. It was not without reason that, in after years, May 24.Conference between Fisher and Laud.he recurred with satisfaction to the part which he took on this occasion. For a moment we may well forget the harsh and rugged disciplinarian in the argument which he that day poured forth. He pointed those who were seeking for truth to the Scriptures and the creeds. Beyond these, he would admit of no infallibility, of no irreversible decision. To him declarations of general Councils were like Acts of Parliament. They were to be accepted for the sake of order, but they were to be always open to further investigation, always liable to be repealed, if proved by argument to be faulty. Upon Lady Buckingham this reasoning was utterly thrown away. Could she be saved in the Church of Rome? was the question which rose to her lips as the disputants closed the discussion. Laud could not say that it was impossible. Could she be saved, she then demanded, in the Protestant faith. “Upon my soul,” replied Fisher, “there is but one saving faith, and that is the Roman.”[422] Such an answer was decisive with one who was seeking, not for truth, but for safety. For some time she continued to conceal her resolution, and even received the Sacrament publicly in the Royal Chapel; but before the summer was at an end, she announced that she had changed her religion, and was in consequence ordered to abstain from presenting herself at Court.[423]
Buckingham himself was more tractable. Thirty years later, if he had lived so long, he might perhaps have followed Laud and Buckingham.his mother’s example; but he had not yet reached the age when men of his stamp become seriously alarmed for the safety of that soul the purity of which they have done so little to guard. His choice was soon made. He professed his satisfaction with Laud’s arguments. He even went so far as to offer to lay bare before him the secrets of his heart, and to look to him on all occasions of difficulty for that assistance which in Catholic lands a penitent is accustomed to <282>expect from his confessor.[424] No doubt, amidst much bad advice, Laud may frequently have whispered good counsel into the favourite’s ear; but of what avail would be the wisest admonitions so long as the man remained the same giddy, self-seeking, passionate upstart that he had ever been?
The religious opinions of Buckingham and his mother were of importance only to themselves; but Laud’s reasoning Laud’s opinions on religious liberty.cannot be safely passed over by anyone who desires to trace the progress of opinion. It is true that he had no thought of conceding to individuals the right to promulgate independent doctrines, and that the liberty of which he was the champion was not likely to be of much practical use. The notion that truth would be advanced by men who, for the sake of order, were ready to acquiesce temporarily in the decrees of the last general council, and who were contented to urge their objections in a quiet, respectful way, in the mere hope that some day or other another general council, better informed than the last, would meet to adopt their suggestions, was an idea which could only have commended itself to one who was better acquainted with books than with men. From the fierce revolt against falsehood and wrongdoing which arms the champions of truth against the overlying weight of prejudice, and from the dust and din which accompany the hammers clanging upon the anvil on which the pure gold of a new thought is beaten out into forms of usefulness and beauty, Laud instinctively recoiled. Yet it was no light thing that one to whom disorder was so hateful, should have strenuously raised his voice against the doctrine which declares that it is the duty of the individual to submit his conscience without question to the authoritative decrees of an ecclesiastical organization.
In no better way can justice be done to Laud’s intellectual position than by comparing it with that which had been assumed by M. A. De Dominis.a man whose actions were, about this time, attracting considerable attention in England. Marco Antonio De Dominis was a native of Dalmatia. He had been <283>educated by the Jesuits at Padua; but his active mind was little suited for the unreasoning submission required by the statutes of his order, and he quickly turned aside in search of a more independent life. His abilities and industry soon 1602.Becomes Archbishop of Spalatro.brought him preferment, and in 1602, he became Archbishop of Spalatro, and primate of his native province. Three years afterwards, when the dispute between Paul V. and the Venetian Republic broke out, he took the warmest interest in the resistance made to the Pope’s attack upon the criminal jurisdiction of the state over the clergy. With the miserable compromise by which Venice virtually surrendered its rights, he was, no doubt, deeply dissatisfied, for 1605.Takes interest in the dispute between Venice and the Pope.it was not in his nature to be swayed by mere considerations of policy. Plunging deep into the foundations of the controversy, he set himself to master the history and the constitution of the early Church; and, after long and anxious study, he came to the conclusion that successive Popes had been guilty not merely of encroaching upon the temporal jurisdiction of the states of Europe, but of the far more heinous crime of adding new and unwarrantable articles to the creed of the Church. Before him, as he pursued his investigations, arose that splendid vision which has dazzled the eyes of so many well-meaning and pious inquirers — the vision of a Church without either a visible head or internal disputes, of a Church governed by an aristocracy of virtuous and learned prelates, welcoming free discussion, but never coming to a wrong conclusion, and repressing the vagaries of error, not by the dungeon or the stake, but by the solemn force of unanswerable reasoning.
At last, in 1616, De Dominis had prepared for publication at least a part of the great work in which his principles were to be set forth; but 1616.His visit to England.he soon found that he could never hope to obtain a hearing in any corner of Catholic Europe. In England he knew that an episcopal Church was to be found, which, at least in its external organization, answered to the ideal which he had formed; and he had learned, from his conversations with Wotton’s chaplain, the <284>large-hearted and gentle Bedell, to hope that he would there find a welcome for his ideas. He therefore made up his mind to seek a refuge in England.
It was in no spirit of humility that the Archbishop of Spalatro set foot upon our shores. To an abundant measure of learning, he added all a scholar’s vanity and ignorance of the world. Where popes and churches had missed the road, he alone saw clearly. To him England was no more than the fulcrum which would enable him to overturn the whole system of Papal religion. Let his book once be published, and Christendom, recognising its errors, would bow its head before his teaching. Once more would be seen upon earth the spectacle of an undivided Church, in which the Pope would find no place.
As far as his personal reception was concerned, his highest expectations can hardly fail to have been satisfied. Never before His reception.had an archbishop sought refuge in England after forswearing the errors of the Church of Rome. Crowds flocked round him, eager to catch a sight of the illustrious convert. Court was paid to him by the highest in the land. Prelates and peers vied in offering him costly gifts. The Archbishop of Canterbury received him into his house till he was otherwise provided for. James gave him a hearty welcome, and presented him to the Mastership of the Savoy and the Deanery of Windsor, two preferments which brought him in an income of 400l. a year.[425]
In a short time, however, the popular enthusiasm died away. De Dominis was at liberty to prosecute his studies His growing dissatisfaction.without impediment, and to publish successive volumes amidst the compliments of the learned; but it was in vain that he looked for the slightest sign of readiness on the part either of the Church of England or of the Church of Rome to submit to his arbitration. Equally displeasing to his personal vanity was the dissatisfaction which <285>was aroused by his ignorance of English habits. His income, though it was quite sufficient in those days to maintain an unmarried man in luxury, did not equal his desires. One day, therefore, he took the unusual course of presenting himself to a living in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor. At another time he attempted to take advantage of a flaw in a lease, so as to get a tenant’s house into his own hands. He next made the discovery that the leases of the Savoy lands were legally forfeited to the King, and he proposed to James to proceed against the tenants, and to restore the institution to its original purpose as a hospital for travellers. James, who knew well enough what the English feeling was on the subject of ecclesiastical property in lay hands, refused to listen to him for an instant. “You are a stranger here,” was his curt reply; “leave things as you found them.”
Such stories as these, told with considerable exaggeration,[426] were certain to detract from whatever popularity the Archbishop yet retained. At last he fancied that an opportunity had arrived of gaining the position to which he believed himself entitled. He heard that the Archbishopric of York was vacant, and he hastened down to Theobalds to beg James to give him the second dignity in the English Church. To his mortification, he was told that Archbishop Matthew was still living, and that no foreigner would be permitted to occupy an English bishopric. De Dominis was not long in learning that his blunder had been one to bring upon him special ridicule; for it was well known to everyone but himself that the old archbishop was accustomed from time to time to spread rumours of his own death, in order to enjoy the excitement caused amongst the crowd of suitors who were eager to step into his place.
Bitterly as these disappointments must have been felt by a man so convinced of his own importance, there were causes of a very different nature at work to render his position irksome. The English Church was by no means that which his imagination <286>had depicted. Upon his arrival he had been warmly welcomed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and by those amongst the clergy who His views of the Church of England.shared Abbot’s admiration for the Calvinistic theology. When they heard him denouncing the Romish Babylon, and comparing the Pope to Pharaoh, they were ready to applaud him to the echo; but with these men he had nothing in common excepting his dislike of the Papal supremacy. His ideas were, in the main, those of Laud; yet between him and Laud there was a great gulf which neither could pass over. Both believed that the Church of England and the Church of Rome were branches of one Catholic Church. Both looked hopefully to the power of argument, and appealed to the decision of a general council. But Laud, the child of the English Reformation, was contented if he could persuade himself that he was living in a society which held the doctrines current in the primitive Church, whilst his desire for the reunion of a general council was little more than a pious wish entertained because it was necessary for the completion of his intellectual conception, but not likely to exercise any practical effect upon his conduct. In the mind of De Dominis, the pupil of the Jesuits, the necessity of a visible Church unity was foremost. In despair of effecting his object in England, 1622.He purposes to return to Rome.he once more turned his eyes to Rome. Paul V. was dead, and the new Pope, Gregory XV., who had been his friend in youth, might perhaps be induced to reform the Church, and to allow free discussion on controverted points, or might even be brought to acknowledge that the Churches of Rome and England were already portions of one undivided Church. It would then be easy for the Pope to give his approbation to the Book of Common Prayer, and to explain satisfactorily those practices which were most repulsive to Protestants.
In the midst of these meditations De Dominis heard that Gregory had expressed his readiness to welcome him to Rome, and He announces his intentions.he at once made up his mind to accept the offer. On January 16, 1622, he announced his intention to the King. James was exceedingly angry, especially as a rumour had sprung up that De Dominis was to go on a <287>special mission from himself, in order to reconcile England with the Pope. Yet he contented himself with sending to inquire the motives of his conduct. He himself refused to see him, and, after allowing him time to make any explanations he wished, ordered him to leave the kingdom within twenty days.[427]
Before he left England he received a visit from Bishop Morton, who did what he could to dissuade him from his design. Morton’s remonstrance.“Do you think,” said De Dominis, “that the Pope and the Cardinals are devils, so that they cannot be converted?” “No,” replied Morton; “neither do I think that you are God, to be able to convert them.”[428]
On his return, the stray sheep was welcomed back into the fold with every mark of respect. At Brussels he was received by De Dominis returns to Rome.the Papal Nuncio into the bosom of the Church. In his journey through Italy his vanity, for some time unused to adulation, was tickled by the long train of horses and carriages placed at his disposal by the Pope, and by the friendly greetings which met him on every side.[429]
Again the scene changed. Within a few months after his arrival at Rome, the death of Gregory left him without a protector. His imprisonment and death.The new Pope handed him over to the tender mercies of the Inquisition. The man who had started from England buoyant with hope and confidence was thrown into prison, and condemned to the uncongenial task of refuting his own arguments. On the whole, he appears to have behaved with honesty. Where his own opinions had changed he made no difficulty in stating, for the use of others, the considerations by which he had been influenced; but nothing would induce him to sign the decrees of the <288>Council of Trent, or to surrender his favourite doctrine of the His posthumous condemnation.essential unity of the Churches of Rome and England. After his death he was declared guilty of heresy, and his body was burned by order of the Inquisition.[430]
Such a man was not likely to meet with anything but obloquy. Men who could agree upon nothing else, combined to speak of him as being utterly without any religious principles whatever. Two years after he left England, Sir Edward Sackville visited him in his dark and confined prison. “My Lord of Spalatro,” he said tauntingly, “you have a dark lodging; it was not so with you in England. There you had at Windsor as good a prospect by land as was in all the country; and at the Savoy you had the best prospect upon the water that was in all the city.” “I have forgot those things,” was the calm reply; “here I can best contemplate the Kingdom of Heaven.” “Do you think,” said Sackville, after he had left the prison, to the Rector of the English College, “that this man is employed in the contemplation of heaven?” “I think nothing less,” answered the priest, “for he was a malcontent knave when he fled from us, a railing knave while he lived with you, and a motley, parti-coloured knave now he is come again.”[431]
The answer of the Rector was evidently inspired by party-spirit. That, given by Andrewes, soon after De Dominis arrived in England, His character.to some one who asked whether he were a Protestant or no, was far more pertinent. “I know not,” said the Bishop, “but he is a detestant of divers opinions of the Church of Rome.”[432] Ignorant how small a part of religious life is to be found in the logical scaffolding on which it rests, and how thoroughly masses of men are moulded by popular feeling, he thought that it was possible by softening asperities of opinion, and by explaining away the harshness of doctrine, to form a common belief which all Christian men might agree to hold. As Rome and England alternately repelled his presumption, his mind <289>was filled with detestation at their refusal to settle down upon the Procrustean bed which his own imagination had fashioned. His vacillations and inconsistencies were more apparent than real. In the main, his opinions remained unchanged, and he died impressed with the same delusion which had led him astray in life.
The fate of De Dominis is a standing warning to those dreamers who count a union between the Churches of Rome and of England Question of toleration.to be amongst the possibilities of the future; but that such a dream should have been entertained at all was one amongst many symptoms that a new mode of regarding religious questions was taking possession of the minds of men. The age did not need a restoration of unity either by explaining away the distinctive differences of the two creeds, or by the forcible conversion or extermination of the members of either. What was needed was a change of system which would enable Catholic and Protestant to live together in peace, and to trust to argument and not to the sword for the extension of their opinions.
Such a change was yet far distant; but much had been already done to limit the difficulties of the future. In spite of Religious minorities.what was passing in Germany, one half of Europe was no longer banded together in confederacy against the other. Catholic states and Protestant states had found it possible to exist side by side without mutual recrimination. The question now was narrowed to the amelioration of the position of religious minorities in the various countries. Of still greater importance was the change in the point of view from which these difficulties were regarded. Every year there was an increase in the number of those who, if they desired the suppression of the adverse religion, desired it not because its opinions were untrue, but because its existence was incompatible with civil government.
It was in this light that the position of the English Catholics had been viewed by Pym. If only they could keep aloof The English Catholics.a few years from political combinations which were distasteful to the English nation, and, above all, if they could resist the compromising assistance of the Spanish <290>Ambassador, they might look forward with assurance to a speedy alleviation of the pressure which weighed so heavily upon them.
The condition of the French Protestants, far better in appearance, was in reality less hopeful than that of the English Catholics. By The French Protestants.the Edict of Nantes, liberty of conscience was accorded to them in every part of France. Liberty of worship was permitted in the houses of 3,500 gentlemen, and in a large number of towns, whilst the right of maintaining Protestant garrisons in certain strong places was conceded to them as a security against the encroachments of the Catholic nobility.
The last clause was perhaps necessary, but it was full of danger for the future, since it offered a strong temptation to the Protestant body 1621.The civil war in France.to form themselves into an independent community, and to throw themselves in the way of the organization of the monarchy. At last, in the spring of 1621, civil war, long expected, broke out once more. Whilst the more trusted leaders of the Reformed Churches were proclaiming the necessity of submission to the Crown, in spite of present grievances and future fears, the Protestants of the towns, with their clergy at their head, had persisted in maintaining, in the face of the Government, the right of holding an illegal assembly at Rochelle. They had sadly miscalculated their power. Taking the King with him, Luynes swept down upon Protestant France. One town after another Quarrel between Herbert and Luynes.fell before him, and he was in the full career of conquest when Sir Edward Herbert presented himself with an offer of mediation in his master’s name. He was treated with studied insolence. “What,” said Luynes, “has the King your master to do with our actions? Why does he meddle with our affairs?” After some altercation, Luynes burst out into a passion. “By God,” he said, “if you were not an ambassador I would treat you in another fashion.” Herbert, who was one of the most noted duellists in Europe, laid his hand upon his sword. “If I am an ambassador,” he replied, “I am also a gentleman, and there is that here which would make you an answer.” After such a <291>scene, James had hardly any choice but to recall his ambassador.[433] It would have been well if he had also desisted from any further attempt to mediate in the quarrel, and had opened his eyes to the fact that, by rousing the national susceptibilities of the French, he was doing the greatest possible injury to the cause which he meant to serve.
This, however, was not James’s opinion. Laying all the blame upon Herbert’s personal conduct, he despatched Doncaster upon Doncaster’s mission.a special mission to plead the cause of peace. Personally the selection was a good one. Always a warm partisan of France, Doncaster was more likely than anyone else to obtain a courteous answer to his propositions. Yet it was probably fortunate for him that, shortly after his arrival in France, he was prevented by an attack of fever October 17.from demanding an audience. When at last he was sufficiently recovered to carry on the negotiation, the Royal forces had been checked in their career of victory. The old Huguenot spirit had been roused at last, and the southern Protestants were standing at bay behind the walls of Montauban. Doncaster was accordingly told that the King was ready to show mercy to the rebels, and to give assurance that no attack should be made upon their religious liberties, if they would only consent to make submission to him as their Sovereign.[434]
Five days after this reply was given the siege of Montauban was raised, and Death of Luynes.it seemed possible that Luynes’s failure to take the place would render him more conciliatory. In less than six weeks, however, the all-powerful favourite died, and whatever hopes of peace had been entertained were suddenly blasted. Louis 1622.Doncaster’s return.fell for the time into the hands of the party which was bent upon continuing the war, and Doncaster, finding his efforts thwarted on every side, returned to England to give an account of his failure.
Even this amount of humiliation was not sufficient for James. <292>Doncaster, he resolved, must go back, to France. His was, indeed, April.He goes back to France.a thankless task. By the French ministers he was received with all courtesy; but he was plainly told that it did not stand with their master’s honour to allow a foreign sovereign to mediate in their internal disputes. June.He returns to England.On June 22, therefore, he took his leave without having effected anything whatever.[435] Sir Edward Herbert was ordered to return to Paris, the death of Luynes having removed the obstacle in the way of his career.
There still remained a practical question awaiting the decision of James. During the winter, commissioners from Rochelle Deputies from Rochelle.had been received by him with civility. He had given them permission to export provisions and munitions of war, and he had authorised the bishops to order a collection in all the churches in aid of the French Protestants who had taken refuge in England.[436] The Rochellese, however, were not content with assistance of this moderate kind. The Channel swarmed with their privateers, and every week July.some fresh prize belonging to French owners was brought into an English port. For some time the French ambassador, Tillières, remonstrated in vain. At last the Council received his complaints, and promised that redress should be given.[437] Orders were issued to seize the prizes which had been brought into English harbours, and restore them to their owners. Such orders, however, were not always executed with punctuality. The sympathies of the inhabitants of the ports were all on the side of the privateers, and it not unfrequently happened that a Rochellese captain was able to sell his booty at Plymouth or Dover, before the magistrates chose to open their eyes to his presence.[438]
<293>By the mere force of inertness James had come to the wise conclusion that it would be better not to interfere in France. Unhappily Affairs of Germany.it needed very different qualities to bring him to a right judgment with respect to the war in Germany. In no sense could the German quarrel be considered as a merely internal dispute. Not only were the various states of which the Empire was composed possessed of rights which almost elevated them to the position of independent sovereignties, but the interference of Spain had raised a question which all European Governments were interested in solving.
Yet, after all, different as might be the mode in which a wise statesman would have dealt with the two countries, his principle of action Interference and non-interference.would have been the same. In both France and Germany it would be necessary to avoid the slightest appearance of compromising civil order by the protection given to religious liberty. In France interference was unwise because it would only serve to perpetuate anarchy. In Germany it would be wise in so far as it could be made use of to make anarchy impossible.
It was this thought by which Digby’s policy had been inspired. What difficulties he had met with from Maximilian’s Digby’s policy.ambition and from Frederick’s self-will have been already told. When he returned to England in the autumn his game was all but ruined. One chance alone remained. If James, putting himself at the head of the nation, could force Spain and the League to respect his power, and could at the same time compel his son-in-law to offer solid guarantees that he would from henceforth refrain from breaking the peace of the Empire, all might yet be well.
With the dissolution of Parliament this last chance was thrown away. Mere words would not go far to reassure the peaceful populations of Germany, or to inspire Ferdinand with the belief that his enemy could be safely entrusted with power, or to crush in Frederick’s bosom that ill-timed elation which the slightest breath of success was certain to quicken into life.
How completely his cause was lost was the last thing which James was likely to perceive. “I will govern,” he said <294>triumphantly, “according to the good of the common weal, James’s self-confidence.but not according to the common will.”[439] Yet, as he looked upon Germany, he might well have despaired; everything there was in confusion. Mansfeld had hardly 1621.December.The armies in the Palatinate.reached the Palatinate when Tilly and the Bavarians, following hard upon his heels, planted themselves securely in that fertile plain which stretches from the forest-clad slopes of the Odenwald to the banks of the Rhine. Mansfeld was in want of money and supplies, but he had never far to look for plunder. The Bishopric of Strasburg, and the Austrian lands in Alsace, provided quarters for his famished troops.[440] Next spring, he gave out, he would not stand alone. The air was full of rumours. The Margrave of Baden, it was said, was arming, and would soon have more than 20,000 men under arms. The Duke of Würtemberg would bring 8,000 into the field. Christian of Brunswick, with 5,000 horse, was harrying the lands of the Bishop of Paderborn, and would swoop down upon the Palatinate as soon as the fine weather appeared.[441] Such numbers would far exceed any force that Tilly could bring against them, and James was easily persuaded that no great effort on his part was needed.
Yet at least he would do something. Immediately upon the adjournment of the Houses, he had announced his intention of An English force to be levied.sending 8,000 foot, and 1,600 horse, to take part in the war. The Commons, he thought, would be willing to grant the necessary supplies, when they met again in February.[442]
The dissolution followed, and all hope of a Parliamentary grant was laid aside. By a fresh stretch of the prerogative the imposition on wine was doubled, and an extraordinary payment of ninepence in the pound was laid upon all commodities imported by aliens.[443] Recourse, too, was once more had to a <295>Benevolence. Wealthy men were again summoned, as they had been 1622.January.The Impositions and the Benevolence.summoned in 1614, from every part of England, and were ordered, in the presence of the Council, to name the sum at which they were willing to be rated. The justices of assize, the magistrates of the counties and the boroughs, were ordered to push on the contribution, and to certify to the Government the names of those who were hanging back. One nobleman, Lord Saye, who in the late Parliament had begun his long career of pertinacious opposition to arbitrary power, was committed to the Fleet for daring to advise his neighbours to keep their money in their pockets.[444] At first, even Digby believed, or assumed to believe, that the King would obtain more from these irregular contributions than Parliament would have been likely to give him.[445] As the weeks passed on, it became evident that the result of the appeal would be far from equalling the expectations which had been formed. At Court it had been supposed that 200,000l. would be obtained with ease.[446] Nine months passed away, and little more than 77,000l. had been paid into the Exchequer, a sum which, in the course of the winter, was raised to 88,000l., and which, even then, scarcely exceeded in amount the single subsidy which the Commons had been ready to vote for the mere maintenance of Mansfeld’s army for two or three months.[447]
Nor was it only amongst those who were called upon to pay heavily towards the Benevolence that maledictions were Unpopularity of James.pronounced against James. Here and there angry words bubbling up to the surface testified to the suppressed feeling of indignation which was seething below. A year before, the prevailing dissatisfaction had vented itself upon Gondomar. It was now directed against the King. In January, ‘a servant to one Mr. Byng, a lawyer,’ was stretched <296>upon the rack ‘for saying that there would be a rebellion.’[448] In February, ‘a simple fellow’ was condemned to a traitor’s death for declaring that, though he was ready to spill his blood for the King if he maintained religion, he would be the first to cut his throat if he failed therein.[449] A week later, James was driven to the necessity of summoning the bishops, in order to protest in their presence that he was sincere in his desire to maintain the established religion.[450]
Nowhere is the change, which had in three short years come over the popular feeling, portrayed more vividly than in a “Tom Tell-Truth.”coarse and scurrilous libel which, under the name of “Tom Tell-Truth,” was passed in manuscript from hand to hand. James, said the writer, might, if he pleased, style himself Defender of the Faith; but it was the faith of the Papists, not the true faith, that was defended by him. He might be head of the Church, but it was of the Church dormant, certainly not of the Church militant or triumphant. For one health drunk to the King there were ten glasses emptied to the success of his daughter and her husband. It was well known that he allowed Gondomar to become master of the secrets of his cabinet with the help of a golden key. Whilst he was calmly looking on, Spain had become undisputed master of the West Indies, and the Dutch, ‘the very pedlars whom we ourselves set up for our own use,’ had become masters of the East Indies. The Protestants of the Continent had been left without a protector. The Deputies of Rochelle had been neglected. Nothing had been done for the Palatinate. The Papists were supreme in Europe. In the meanwhile, the writer broadly hinted, James was frittering away his time, not merely in reckless jollity, but even in the indulgence of the most hideous vices of which human nature in its utmost depravity is capable.
Such was the explanation which many were now ready to give to that which they had hitherto passed by as mere folly. The coarseness of James’s language, the rudeness of his <297>merriment, the indecency of his doting fondness for Buckingham, were readily interpreted in the worst sense by men who were only too glad to believe the foulest charges against the sovereign whom they despised.[451]
Less startling from the nature of the utterance, but even more alarming, on account of the quarter from which the attack proceeded, April.Knight’s sermon.was a sermon preached on April 14, in the very midst of the loyal University of Oxford. The preacher, a young man named Knight, took for his subject the persecution of Elijah by Ahab, and declared it to be his opinion that it was ‘lawful for subjects when harassed on the score of religion to take arms against their Prince in their own defence.’ When called to account by the Vice-Chancellor for the language which he had used, he replied that he had derived his opinions from a book written by Pareus, the Professor of Divinity at Heidelberg, and that he had also on his side the still higher authority of his Majesty, who, if he was rightly informed, was about to assist the French Protestants against their sovereign. Knight was accordingly sent up to London, where he repeated his defence before the Council. He was by them committed to the Gatehouse, where he remained for two years, and was at last released on the score of his youth at the intercession of Williams, whose voice was always raised on the side of mercy.
James next proceeded, as he fancied, to strike at the root of the evil. The libraries and the booksellers’ shops were Burning of Pareus’s Commentaries.searched for Pareus’s Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans. One heap of the books thus collected was consumed at Oxford. At Cambridge and in London June 6.the curiosity of the multitude was amused by similar bonfires. A few days later the obnoxious opinions June 25.were solemnly repudiated by the University of Oxford. For the future none were to be allowed to take a degree who refused to swear ‘that they do not only <298>at present condemn and detest the proposition above mentioned, but that they shall always continue of the same opinion.’[452]
In the original work of Pareus, the passage from which the condemned propositions were taken followed upon a long and Nature of his argument.sustained argument against the Pope’s jurisdiction over princes. It was an argument, however, which, if left to stand alone, would have exposed the writer to a crushing retort. “What!” some Jesuits might well have answered, “do you mean to say that kings and princes are to be subjected to no control whatever? May they change the laws and religion of their subjects at their pleasure? May they commit murder with impunity?” The answer of Pareus to this objection was singularly moderate. If a king, he said, should with his own hands make an attack like a common robber upon one of his subjects, he who is so treated may lawfully defend his own person from injury. Against religious and political tyranny only two remedies may be adopted. The clergy may point out to a notorious tyrant that he is breaking the laws of God and man, and, if he refuses to change his conduct, may cut him off by excommunication from the communion of the Church. Although neither the clergy nor private persons may draw the sword against their Prince, subordinate magistrates may take such measures as are necessary to defend the country against horrible oppression, and, if security cannot otherwise be obtained, may even resist and depose their sovereign.
Such language, translated into the equivalent phrases of modern times, would not now be considered very appalling. The liberty of speech and the legality of national resistance have, in England at least, long been counted amongst the commonplaces of politics; but in the beginning of the seventeenth century they had a dangerous sound; and it is no wonder that the King, who had just dismissed his Parliament in anger, and was scheming for a marriage which would, in all probability, give him a Roman Catholic grandson, should have been unwilling to listen to such reasoning with patience.
<299>Had the University of Oxford contented herself with answering the arguments of Pareus, it would have been well enough. What she did was to present four propositions in a garbled form[453] to her students, and to require them to swear that they would never adopt them at any future time. Such an act was as injudicious as it was tyrannical. If men were to swear that they would disbelieve the arguments of Pareus, it was, perhaps, as well that they should not read them. James, accordingly, Interference with Oxford studies.wrote to the Vice-Chancellor, when he first heard of Knight’s sermon, directing him to take care ‘that those who designed to make divinity their profession should chiefly apply themselves to the study of the Holy Scriptures, of the Councils and Fathers, and the ancient schoolmen; but, as for the moderns, whether Jesuits or Puritans, they should wholly decline reading their works.’[454]
If James could have succeeded in putting an end to the war in Germany, he would have had little need to trouble himself Terms offered and accepted by Frederick.with the attacks of libellers or reasoners at home. As far as he was concerned, indeed, there were no signs of despondency. In the preceding November he had at last laid before Frederick categorically the terms on which he was willing to render him assistance. “The Count Palatine,” he had demanded, “shall, for himself and his son, wholly renounce and acquit all pretence of right and claim unto the crown of Bohemia, and the incorporated countries thereof. He shall from henceforward yield all constant due devotion unto the Imperial Majesty, as do other obedient <300>Princes, Electors of the Empire. He shall, upon his knee, crave pardon of the Imperial Majesty. He shall not hereafter, any manner of way, either unfittingly carry or demean himself towards the Imperial Majesty, or disturb his kingdoms or countries. He shall upon reasonable conditions reconcile himself with other his neighbour princes and states of the Empire, and hold good friendship with them; and shall really do all other like things as is above contained, and that shall be reasonable or necessary.”[455]
The terms thus laid down contained, indeed, all that the most impartial arbitrator could suggest. On the one hand, they denied to Frederick the right of private war, and they placed him in a position of inferiority towards the Chief of the Empire, to which the Princes of Germany had long been unaccustomed. On the other hand, they set a decided barrier to the encroachments of the Roman Catholic Church upon Protestant soil. Unhappily it was something more than wise suggestions that were needed to quench the flames of the German conflagration. Each party professed to be anxious for peace; but, in his heart, Frederick would be contented with nothing short of the position of an independent sovereign; and, in his heart, Ferdinand would be contented with nothing short of the predominance of his Church. It is true that Frederick, not without allowing his dissatisfaction to be plainly seen, accepted his father-in-law’s terms,[456] and that the Emperor expressed his determination to send an ambassador to Brussels, in order to treat with James for a suspension of arms, to be followed by negotiations for a general pacification.[457]
About this time James was encouraged to take too favourable a view of the prospects of his mediation, by the sight of a The intercepted despatches.bundle of despatches from Vienna to Madrid, which had not many weeks before fallen into the hands of Mansfeld. From these letters it appeared, indeed, that there could be no longer the slightest doubt of Ferdinand’s <301>resolution to transfer the Electorate; but it also appeared that he anticipated the resistance of the Spanish Government to his scheme. James was, therefore, right in calculating on the help which it was possible for him to derive from Spain. Where he was wrong was in supposing that he could count upon Spanish aid one moment after he had ceased to inspire the Court of Madrid with a belief in his intention of actually mingling in the strife.
With the assurances which reached him from Spain James was perfectly content. What mattered it, he thought, if Frederick and Ferdinand should prove recalcitrant, if only Philip were on his side. He accordingly ordered Weston to repair to Brussels as soon as the conference was opened by the Infanta, in order to settle the conditions for the suspension of arms. At the same time he fancied that he was giving a great proof of his vigour by authorising Vere to take the command of the royal troops in the Palatinate, as soon as money could be found to pay them.[458]
In truth, it was the want of money, far more than the want of men, which was likely to be the stumbling-block in his path. In truth, it was the want of money, far more than the want of men, which was likely to be the stumbling-block in his path. Frederick’s troops, even if they would, could not now carry on the war otherwise than as brigands. Without any basis of operations other than the ruined and exhausted Palatinate — without money and without supplies — what could they do but throw themselves, in search of livelihood, upon one Catholic district after another? War in those days was terrible enough, at its best, and deeds of blood and shame weigh heavily upon the memory of the Catholic armies. But neither Spaniards nor Bavarians were forced to order their movements in accordance with the sheer necessity of plundering. They were tolerably paid, and their commissariat was, at least to some extent, provided for. To their leaders war was not a necessity, and if the order for recall was given, there would be no difficulty in enforcing its execution.Frederick’s troops, even if they would, could not now carry on the war otherwise than as brigands. Without any basis of operations other than the ruined and exhausted Palatinate — without money and without supplies — what could they do but throw themselves, in search of livelihood, upon one Catholic district after another? War in those days was terrible enough, at its best, and deeds of blood and shame weigh heavily upon the memory of the Catholic armies. But neither Spaniards nor Bavarians were forced to order their movements in accordance with the sheer necessity of plundering. They were tolerably paid, and their commissariat was, at least to some extent, provided for. To their leaders war was not a necessity, and if the order for recall was given, there would be no difficulty in enforcing its execution.
Of the sentiments which prevailed in Mansfeld’s camp we happen to possess evidence in a letter which was at this time <302>written by one of his officers. “The Bishopric of Spires,” he said, “is ours. We are plundering at our ease. Our general does not wish for a treaty, or for peace. He laughs at the enemy. March.Mansfeld in Alsace.All his thoughts are fixed upon the collection of money, of soldiers, and of provisions. When the spring comes, he hopes to have fifty thousand men under arms. With this object he employs the strangest means of levying money. The Union has promised to bring into the field a force equal to ours. Knyphausen and the nobility of the Palatinate are proposing, with the aid of the Landgrave of Hesse, to attack the territories of the priests, and to pillage them thoroughly before they retire. By this diversion the enemy will be compelled to divide his forces. If we come across a great square cap, we will take care to make it pay a wonderful ransom.” The letter ended by pointing out the ease with which the territories of Spires, Worms, Mentz, and Alsace might be cut up into principalities for the conquerors.[459]
Whilst Mansfeld was thus plundering the lands upon the Upper Rhine, another adventurer was making havoc of the Westphalian Bishoprics. Christian, Christian of Brunswick.the brother of the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was the nephew of the late Queen Anne. At the age of seventeen he had been appointed Bishop or Administrator of Halberstadt, by one of those arrangements which were frequently employed by the heads of Protestant Houses, whenever they wished to provide for their relations at the expense of the ecclesiastical domains in their neighbourhood. The title assumed by him was purely nominal, and there was nothing episcopal about him, excepting his claim to enjoy the revenues of the see — a claim which, as it was not under the guarantee of the Peace of Augsburg, he would hardly be able to maintain in the face of a decisive victory of the Imperialists in the Palatinate. As the cousin of the exiled Queen of Bohemia, he affected to put himself forward as her special champion. He carried in his cap a glove, which she had once dropped, under which he bore the motto, “All <303>for God and her.” Against the ecclesiastical principalities he vowed a special hatred. Wherever he came the churches were sacked, and the silver images were coined into pieces bearing the inscription, “God’s friend, and the enemy of the priests.” Fire and desolation marked his track, and the hovel of the peasant and the home of the citizen were regarded as lawful prey by the bands of ruffians in the eyes of whose commander it was the worst of crimes to live under a bishop’s rule.
Such were the commanders into whose hands the fortunes of German Protestantism had fallen. Ferdinand and Maximilian were Prospects of a truce.not so far wrong when they spoke of peace as hopeless, excepting by a vigorous prosecution of the war. “I understand,” wrote Vere, in language which might well have startled James out of the fool’s paradise in which he was living, “by a chief officer of the Count Mansfeld, that he believes that there will be a truce, and is so much troubled at it, that he says it is intended to undo him, and is, therefore, resolved withal not to lay down his arms.”[460] About the same time a letter reached James from Mansfeld himself. He was ready, he said, to be included in the negotiations for peace; but it must be remembered that his master owed him no less than four million florins, and that there was not the slightest chance that he would ever be able to pay him. He therefore expected that Haguenau, an Austrian town in Alsace, which he had lately taken, should be made over to him in full possession.[461]
It was evident that the time had passed when James could interfere with advantage. With his exchequer filled with Chichester’s mission.parliamentary subsidies, he might have exercised some influence over Mansfeld and Christian. But who was the King of England, that his mere word should check the career of these needy adventurers? The deadly combat between anarchy and despotism must be fought out now to the end. James’s attempts to carry on war were as <304>futile as his attempts at diplomatic success. Already the ten thousand men whom he had proposed to levy for the Palatinate were melting into air. Chichester, indeed, whose splendid services in Ireland deserved a better fate, had been dragged from his retirement, and ordered to betake himself to Heidelberg, that he might exercise a general supervision over his master’s interests.[462] It was with no good-will that he prepared for the bootless errand. He would rather, he said, give 500l. to the Benevolence than go.[463] His excuses were not admitted. March 20, the day on which Digby left London for Madrid, was fixed for him to set out, carrying with him the sum which would be needed for the supply of the intended army. March 20 arrived, but Chichester was still detained. The Benevolence came in slowly, and the money was not to be had.[464] To hasten the payment, recourse was had to harsh and extreme measures. Several persons who had refused to contribute were told that they must make up their minds to accompany Chichester to the Palatinate. Amongst these, an aged citizen, who had formerly been a cheesemonger, was informed that his services would be needed to supply the army with cheese.[465] Yet so little did the threats of the Council effect, that March and April passed away before Chichester was enabled to set out.
On April 3, Ferdinand’s ambassador, the Count of Schwarzenberg, arrived in England.[466] James was overjoyed at seeing him. April.Schwarzenberg in England.The Palatinate, he declared, would soon be restored. Spain was putting forth all its influence in favour of peace; and, in spite of the Duke of Bavaria, the Emperor would be forced to submit.[467] Schwarzenberg’s immediate mission was, however, one of mere compliment. He had to inform James that, after the suspension of arms had been <305>concluded, the Emperor would open negotiations for a general peace at Brussels, Cologne, or Frankfort. After remaining a few days in London, he proceeded to Brussels in order to take part in the conference which was soon to commence.
Yet, short as his visit was, he was not left in ignorance of the light in which his master’s proceedings were popularly Winniffe’s sermon.regarded in England. Dr. Winniffe, one of the Prince’s chaplains, preaching on the ‘lusts which war against the soul,’ took the opportunity of illustrating the attack of the devil upon the soul by the attack of Spinola upon the Palatinate. The bold preacher was at once committed to the Tower, from which he was soon afterwards set free at Schwarzenberg’s request.[468]
So well satisfied was James with the position of affairs that he ostentatiously granted permission to Gondomar to levy one English regiments for Spain.regiment in England, and another in Scotland, for the Spanish service, under the command of Lord Vaux and the Earl of Argyle. The employment was popular amongst the Catholics, and in a few days the whole number required was ready to cross the sea.[469]
Both at this time and at a later period it was the settled conviction of the English people that Ferdinand was not in earnest in his desire for peace; and if it is meant by this, that he had no desire for a peace to which Frederick would have been willing to submit, the charge is undoubtedly correct. He had made up his mind to the transference of the Electorate as an act to which he was bound by his promise to Maximilian, and by his duty to the interests of the Catholic Church, and he therefore took good care to warn the Infanta that she was by no means to allow any question upon this point to be raised at Brussels. With regard to the restitution of Frederick’s hereditary dominions, he had, in all probability, not come to any definite conclusion. As far as it is possible to discover his intentions from his private correspondence, it would seem that <306>if Frederick had been willing to submit to his terms, to engage to give guarantees that he would abstain from hostilities for the future, and to accept the subordinate position which the old constitutional theory allotted to the Princes of the Empire, he would willingly have given way. On the other hand, in common with all reasonable men at the time, he had a strong opinion that Frederick would do nothing of the sort, and he sometimes expressed himself as if he was resolved upon continuing the war whatever might happen.
In the meanwhile, however, Mansfeld was playing his old game in Alsace. With all gravity he was negotiating with Raville, March.Mansfeld’s intrigues.an emissary from Brussels, an engagement by which he promised to change sides for the consideration of a large sum of money for his troops, and of high honours for himself; purposing all the while, as he informed Vere, ‘to keep off that side from further levies by the hope they have of his turning unto them.’[470]
From Mansfeld’s mode of carrying on war, Vere at least expected but little good. “His means,” he wrote, on April 1, “Military prospects.grow here so short that he can subsist very little longer in these parts. Whither he will direct himself is to himself, I believe, most uncertain; but most conceive it must be where he may find least opposition.”[471]
It was a dangerous policy in the face of the enemy whom he was now to confront. Tilly’s soldiers, indeed, were not the Tilly in the Palatinate.orderly and inoffensive warriors which it has pleased partisan writers to represent them. They, too, knew full well how to burn villages and to cut the throats of innocent peasants; but in comparison with the hordes who followed Mansfeld’s banner, their discipline was perfect. Tolerably paid, and with supplies from the rear at their disposal, the Bavarian army was under no necessity of roaming about in search of plunder. Nor was its commander a man who was likely to march ‘where there was least opposition.’ Thoroughly convinced of the goodness of the cause for which he was fighting, <307>Tilly united to those military qualities which raised him to a place amongst the most consummate generals of the age a rare single-mindedness and honesty of purpose. Believing that the cause of order and peace was entrusted to his keeping, he had devoted his life to the suppression of that anarchy which was in his eyes the worst of crimes. Yet, if his bearing was firm, he did not underrate the strength of his opponents. To the April.His military position.south of the post which he had taken up between the Odenwald and the Rhine lay the two strong fortresses Heidelberg and Mannheim, whilst the western side of the great river was guarded by Frankenthal. Behind these positions Mansfeld could operate in security, having the bishopric of Spires and the Austrian lands in Alsace at his mercy. Beyond the Main, Christian of Brunswick, who had been repulsed in the winter, was again gathering his forces and hanging upon his rear. If the States of the dissolved Union should listen, as was by no means unlikely, to Mansfeld’s voice — if Baden, Würtemberg, Hesse-Cassel, and the Protestant towns should spring to arms — the forces which could be brought against him would be overwhelming.[472] To make matters worse, he was by no means certain of the cordial co-operation of his Spanish allies. Ever since the prospect of a suspension of arms had been opened, Cordova, acting no doubt by instructions from Brussels, had been turning a deaf ear to the demands for aid which had been addressed to him by the Bavarian commander.
Against these dangers Tilly was able to oppose his own military skill, a well-disciplined army, and the advantages of a central position. Moral and political question at issue.Yet all this would have availed him nothing but for the moral superiority of his cause. Nowhere in Germany could the slightest enthusiasm for Frederick be discovered. In the Protestant States men might fear the consequences of a Catholic victory, but they feared disorder and organised plunder more. The authority which Ferdinand would exercise might be a stern <308>one; the religion which would fellow in its train might be utterly unacceptable; but the immediate danger did not lie there. The pretensions of Frederick to meddle with Bohemia had never yet been publicly renounced, and it was felt that those pretensions carried with them the germs of an interminable war. Protestants who had long grumbled against the interference of the Emperor in religious disputes shrank from giving support to an opposition which proclaimed no law but that of the strongest, and to a prince who had collected round his standard a band of hungry adventurers, who were utterly unable to support themselves except by pillaging their neighbours. The price which Germany was called upon to pay for ridding itself of the Imperial authority may well have seemed too high. From henceforth, if Frederick were victorious, every petty prince would know that if he wished for honour and distinction, he had nothing to do but to gather round him a band of hardy ruffians, and to live at his ease amidst the despair of plundered citizens and the agony of burning towns.
To all this Frederick was as blind as ever. He could not see that the one hope for his cause lay in the possibility of disentangling the prospects of Protestantism from the progress of anarchy. If he could do this a mightier Union than that which had sunk ingloriously the year before would arise to support him. The great Protestant States of the North would stand forward as one man to defend the cause of religious independence and political order. With a war such as that which was being waged by Mansfeld and Christian, they would have nothing to do.
To the hopeful predictions which reached him from time to time from Mansfeld’s camp, Frederick’s ears were ever open. Frederick goes to the Palatinate.Now that so great an army was gathered round his standard, he thought it was time to show himself in the field. Issuing a manifesto calling the princes of Germany to arms,[473] he suddenly left the Hague. Making his way across France in disguise, he unexpectedly appeared, on April 2, in Mansfeld’s camp at Germersheim. He found <309>the commander in earnest conversation with Raville, and apparently about to conclude a convention which would have placed his whole army at the Infanta’s disposal. Mansfeld, as he had probably intended from the beginning, announced to the astonished emissary that all negotiations must now be at an end.
James had given a hearty consent to the journey of his son-in-law, under the impression that he would be able to exercise Frederick and Mansfeld.authority over Mansfeld, and would forbid him from hindering the prospects of the conference by any attack upon the neighbouring States. Yet to suppose that Frederick could do anything of the sort was to misunderstand utterly the character of the man, and the conditions under which Mansfeld’s army could be maintained. Frederick’s first words upon his arrival at Germersheim had shown how little he thought of anything but war. “I will have nothing to do with a suspension of arms,” he said, turning to Raville as he spoke, “for that will be my ruin. I must have either a good peace or a good war.”[474] Nor did he want allies. The Margrave of Baden rose at his summons, and the combined forces marched to attack Tilly, who had already opened the campaign by a series of assaults upon the smaller posts by which Heidelberg was surrounded.
If Frederick had been at the head of a well-disciplined and well-commanded force, such a step would have been the best for him to take. Mansfeld takes the field.His subjects were being butchered almost before his eyes,[475] and it was certain that he would have a better chance of being listened to in the approaching negotiations if he could present himself as undisputed master in his own dominions. It was not long before the unhappy prince was taught by bitter experience what was the meaning of making war with Mansfeld in <310>command. His first operations, indeed, were crowned with success. Near Wiesloch April 17.Combat at Wiesloch.the united Protestant army fell upon the Bavarians, and inflicted a severe loss upon the enemy. Tilly, retreating to Wimpfen on the Neckar, called upon Cordova for assistance, and in the face of so imminent a danger he did not call in vain. Yet though, in spite of the junction of the Imperialist commanders, Frederick’s forces were still more numerous than the enemy, he was unable to profit by this advantage. There was no unity of action in his camp. The Margrave proposed that the enemy should be kept in check till the arrival of Christian enabled them to overwhelm him by sheer force of numbers. To this plan Mansfeld was unwilling or unable to accede. For an army such as his it was a physical impossibility to occupy the same position for more than one or two days without starvation. In spite of all remonstrances, he marched away, with the intention of seizing the passage over the Neckar at Ladenburg, after which he would make a sudden swoop upon Cordova’s bridge over the Rhine at Oppenheim. The Margrave remained at Wimpfen, to make head against the enemy as best he might.
As might have been expected, Tilly profited by the opportunity. Gathering all his strength, April 26.The battle of Wimpfen.he fell upon the troops which had been deserted by Mansfeld. On the evening of April 26, the Margrave of Baden was flying in headlong rout from the battle-field of Wimpfen.
In the meanwhile Mansfeld had taken Ladenburg, but he had done nothing more. Cordova, he heard, had, immediately after the battle, Retreat of Mansfeld.marched straight for Oppenheim, and in that quarter nothing was to be effected. On the day of the battle there had been no more than two days’ provisions in Mansfeld’s camp. He had, therefore, now no choice before him but to beat a hasty retreat from the Palatinate, even if he had not been desirous to transfer his army to Alsace for reasons of his own. For he already looked upon Haguenau as a place destined to be the capital of the principality, to which he hoped to entitle himself by the sword, and he knew that siege had been laid to it by the Emperor’s brother, the Archduke Leopold, who, rash and incompetent as <311>he was, was always better pleased to be at the head of an army than to preside in episcopal vestments in the cathedrals of Strasburg or Passau, of which sees an unwelcome fate had condemned him to call himself the Bishop. It was seldom, however, that his military efforts were crowned with success, and on this occasion he was only just in time to fly in hot haste before Mansfeld’s superior forces.[476]
On April 23, three days before the rout at Wimpfen, Weston set out for Brussels. The temper in which he entered upon April 23.Weston sets out for Brussels.his embassy was only too likely to bring with it grievous disappointment; for he seems to have expected that, because he was himself sincerely desirous of peace, all difficulties would give way before him. Yet he ought to have known that the position of the Infanta was by no means an easy one. Fully empowered by the Emperor to negotiate the suspension of arms, and for the present, whatever her ulterior objects might be, enlisted in favour of the success of the negotiations, she could not fail to perceive that the news from the Palatinate was not favourable to peace. She had just heard of Frederick’s arrival, of the rash words in which he had explained to Raville that he would not hear of a suspension of arms, and of his junction with the Margrave of Baden. She wrote despairingly to Philip, that before the negotiations could come to an agreement a whole year would have passed away.[477]
A preliminary difficulty about the form in which the Emperor’s authority to treat was couched, was soon got over, upon May.Opening of the negotiations.a promise made by the Infanta’s ministers that a document, drawn up in proper form, should be forthcoming before the consultations were brought to an end. When it came to Weston’s turn to produce his powers, a more formidable obstacle presented itself. He had brought with him an assurance from James that he would take care that his son-in-law conformed to his wishes; but from <312>Frederick himself he could not produce a line; still less could he show that he had authority to make any engagement on behalf of either Mansfeld or Christian; and whatever might be the nominal position of those commanders, no one at Brussels doubted for an instant that they were practically their own masters.[478] At last, on May 16, Weston was allowed to despatch a courier to the Palatinate, to request that Frederick and his generals would send representatives, to give him their advice at the conference. By this means he fondly hoped all obstacles would be overcome.[479]
Whilst Weston was struggling to disentangle the diplomatic web, Frederick had gone through many changes of opinion. In truth, Frederick’s difficulties.the dilemma into which he had brought himself, was one which admitted of no escape. Without either money or supplies, it was impossible for him to keep together an army in sufficient numbers to defeat the enemy. It was equally impossible for him to support his army without ravaging the neighbouring territories. It would be well with him if he could drive Tilly back to Bavaria. It would also be well with him if he could sign a peace which would enable him to disband his troops. A mere suspension of arms, which would oblige him to keep his forces together, but which would not enable him to feed them, was fraught with disaster. “A truce,” he wrote to James, before he heard of the defeat of his ally at Wimpfen, “will be my utter ruin. The enemy will supply his army with food and money. We are in a ruined country, and we have no mines in the West Indies to fall back upon.”[480] Even the bad news that followed did not alter his opinion.[481] At last a sharp letter from James, coming simultaneously with Mansfeld’s determination to abandon the attack upon Oppenheim, shook his resolution. On May 3 he wrote <313>to assure his father-in-law that he was now ready to consent to a truce for a month.[482]
This mood did not last long. On the 18th, he met the Margrave of Baden at Spires, who assured him that, in spite of his defeat, His warlike tendencies.he was still able to bring 7,000 men into the field. A fresh bargain was struck between them, and Frederick promised to agree to no terms without the consent of the Margrave. Christian was known to be at last approaching the Main, and it was settled that the two armies should again combine in order to effect a junction with the newcomers.
The day after this agreement had been made Weston’s despatch arrived. Frederick coolly answered that he was now under an engagement to the Margrave, and that till the opinion of his ally had been taken, he could say nothing about the conference at Brussels.[483]
On the evening of the 22nd, the whole force marched out of Mannheim. The next morning the troops were before the gates of Darmstadt. His attack upon Darmstadt.Unable to resist, the Landgrave Louis invited the leaders into the town, where he entertained them hospitably, whilst the soldiers without were driving off the cattle from the fields, and plundering the houses of his subjects. As a Lutheran, who had warmly taken the Emperor’s part, he was especially obnoxious to Frederick. He now tendered the advice that it would be well to submit to the Emperor; but Frederick was in no humour to think of yielding. He was now, he said, at the head of a powerful army. His language to the Landgrave.He would have nothing to do with submission. His quarrel was not with the Emperor in his imperial capacity. He had only to do with an Archduke of Austria. If he was to have a peace, the arrears of his soldiers’ pay must be satisfied; the Electoral dignity and <314>the whole of the Palatinate must be restored; the privileges and religion of the Bohemians must be guaranteed afresh.[484]
Such words proceeding from a conqueror thundering at the gates of Munich or Vienna would have been in their place. Coming from Frederick, they were most disastrous to the cause of which he had made himself the champion. We can fancy the grim smile of scorn with which they would be received in every Catholic town in Europe. The proscribed prince, it would be said, was incorrigible. This, then, was the meaning of the negotiation opened at Brussels, and of the promise to accept the decision of his father-in-law. If he was so elated by the capture of an undefended town, as to talk of re-opening the question of the government of Bohemia, what security could there possibly be that, if he were re-instated in his hereditary dominions, he would not use the power thus conceded to him for a renewed aggression upon his neighbours?
Frederick did not stop here. The Landgrave of Darmstadt had a fortified post at Russelheim, which commanded a Imprisonment of the Landgrave.passage over the Main. He was now ordered to place it in the hands of his importunate guest. Unable to resist, Louis sought safety in flight. His movements were soon discovered, and he was captured, and brought back to the town. Frederick, and his instigator, Mansfeld, soon found that they had gained but little by their violence. Turning to bay, the Landgrave refused to comply with their demands, and was carried off as a prisoner when the army marched towards the Main.
In spite of Louis’s refusal, Mansfeld directed his course towards Russelheim, hoping to overawe the commander of so Mansfeld’s retreat.small a post. The man, however, proved staunch to his duty, and Mansfeld turned aside towards Aschaffenburg, searching for a passage across the broad river which divided him from Christian. He had not gone far before bitter news was brought. Tilly had received a strong reinforcement, and was on the watch to intercept him. The next moment the great army of which Frederick had spoken <315>so boastfully was in full retreat. Its rearguard was attacked near Lorsch, and suffered some loss; but the remainder of the force contrived to find an inglorious shelter behind the walls of Mannheim.[485]
At the moment of the fatal raid upon the Landgrave, what little chance of an accommodation still remained melted into the air. May 30.Frederick’s cause.After all that had passed, it was perhaps a light thing for Frederick that the Emperor or the Duke of Bavaria should steel their hearts against him. It was the last hope of summoning Protestant Germany to his aid which he had dashed aside. In the beginning of May, there had been signs that the neutral states were alarmed at the progress of the Imperialists. The Duke of Würtemberg had offered his mediation; the King of Denmark had sent a fresh embassy to plead the cause of the proscribed Elector; and, what was more significant still, the Elector of Saxony himself had written to Ferdinand, to urge him to a complete restitution of all that Frederick had ever possessed.[486] The imprisonment of the Landgrave of Darmstadt, and the rash words which Frederick had uttered about Bohemia, put an end to these well-meant efforts. The King of Denmark and the Duke of Würtemberg submitted to the rebuff which had become inevitable; and, before two months were over, John George was giving his warmest approval to the Emperor’s scheme of transferring the Electorate to Maximilian.[487]
The day before Frederick’s return to Mannheim, Chichester arrived from England.[488] After long waiting he brought with him such money as the Benevolence had afforded; and he had instructions to require Frederick to remain within the Palatinate, and to abstain for the future from any aggression upon the territories of his neighbours.
To Chichester’s military eye nothing could be more <316>deplorable than the aspect of the troops which he saw defiling past. The long train of baggage, and the crowds of wretched women who had been dragged or enticed from their devastated homes, did not bode well for the future operations of the army. It was ‘ill disciplined,’ he wrote, ‘and ill armed.’ As for the skirmish at Lorsch, ‘considering the advantages which the enemy had, and the assurance which they had to give an absolute defeat, I hold it for a very happy and honourable day for the King.’[489]
For some time Chichester pleaded in vain with Frederick. The army was again about to retire into Alsace, and the unhappy prince June.He attempts to negotiate an armistice.refused to remain in the Palatinate alone. A letter from Weston, however, changed the current of his thoughts. The Infanta, it seemed, had consented to request Chichester to negotiate a short armistice, in order to give time for the discussion of the arrangements for a permanent suspension of hostilities, and had written to Cordova and Tilly asking them to accept the terms proposed by him. To an armistice thus demanded, Mansfeld was willing to agree; for he had no longer any hope of beating Tilly in the field, and he supposed that the Infanta would still be ready to buy off his opposition at his own price. Frederick, who was now entirely in Mansfeld’s hands, turned round once more. He was ready, he said, to consent to an armistice for three weeks. The troops would be able, for so short a time, to shift for themselves, without leaving the Palatinate. He would himself send an agent to Brussels and his allies would do the same.[490]
Chichester next turned to the Imperial commanders. The moment was ill chosen to talk of an armistice. Provoked by Its rejection by Tilly.the attack upon Darmstadt, they were little inclined to halt in their career of victory. Nor were better reasons wanting to hold them back from accepting the proposal of the English ambassador. At last Christian, laden with the plunder of the Westphalian Bishoprics, was drawing <317>near. It was not even pretended that he had agreed to suspend hostilities, and they had no wish to see him effecting a successful junction with Mansfeld. Cordova, accordingly, taking advantage of a phrase in the Infanta’s letter by which the granting of the armistice was made conditional on the military situation, answered that he could do nothing without the consent of the other commanders, and prudently omitted to forward the letter which had been intended for Tilly.[491] Tilly’s course was thus made plain before him. He had heard nothing, he said, from the Infanta; and without an express order from the Emperor he could do nothing. He should, however, be glad to be informed where the troops of Mansfeld and Christian could find quarters which would enable them to abstain from attacking the Emperor’s allies, and what assurance could be given that they would observe an armistice if it were agreed upon.[492]
Of the treatment to which he was subjected, Chichester complained bitterly; but in his calmer moments he could not deny that Chichester’s opinion of Frederick’s forces.Tilly’s doubts were not unreasonable. “I observe,” he wrote to Calvert, on June 11, “so much of the armies of the Margrave of Baden, and of the Count Mansfeld, which I have seen, and of their ill discipline and order, that I must conceive that kingdom and principality for which they shall fight to be in great danger and hazard. The Duke of Brunswick’s, it is said, is not much better governed, and how can it be better, or otherwise, where men are raised out of the scum of the people, by princes who have no dominion over them, nor power, for want of pay, to punish them, nor means to reward them, living only upon rapine and spoil, as they do? I pray God to preserve the Duke of Brunswick and his forces; for if they receive a blow, as I have cause to doubt, all that is left to the Prince within the Palatinate will be in danger. His towns are ill-victualled, his garrisons weak, and the soldier discontented, his weekly pay being so small, by <318>raising of the value of money, that it can hardly buy him bread to sustain nature. These and other miseries which I daily behold with grief, together with the strange carriage of the Emperor’s chiefs since the receipt of the Infanta’s letters, make me to doubt the good success of our part by arms. I pray God it was otherwise.”[493]
Already, the day before these prescient words were written, the blow which Chichester feared had fallen upon Christian. June 10.Battle of Höchst.Rapidly marching upon Aschaffenburg, the combined forces of Tilly and Cordova had crossed the Main, at the very spot at which Mansfeld had hoped to pass the river a few days before. Wheeling to the left, they took their way with all speed along the further bank. At Höchst they found Christian utterly unprepared for the attack. After a short struggle, his troops were driven in headlong rout across the stream. Gathering together the scattered remnants of his beaten army, he contrived to make his way to Mansfeld at Mannheim.[494]
Frederick was in evil plight. Twenty-five thousand men were still collected round him; but with such an army he could Frederick disheartened.neither wage war nor make peace. The Margrave of Baden was the first to slink away without a word, leaving his troops to extricate themselves from their difficulties as best they could.[495] Mansfeld and Christian were in haste to be gone, far away from the terrible sword of Tilly. Whilst they remained at Mannheim, their troops had consumed the provisions which had been laid up for the garrison, and there was nothing but starvation before them if they remained.
Chichester saw clearly that, if peace was to be had at all, Frederick must be separated from the adventurers into whose hands He determines to leave the Palatinate.he had fallen. He begged him, therefore, to stay behind at Mannheim. Finding that his reasoning was without effect, he produced an indignant letter which James had written on the first news of his son-in-law’s <319>refusal to take part in the conference at Brussels.[496] It was all to no purpose. Frederick was resolved to go. If his father-in-law, he said, knew the state in which he was, he would not press him to remain. He was ready to submit to the treaty. He would do no hostile act; but his person was not safe at Mannheim. If the King did not like him to accompany the army, he would go to Switzerland. On the 13th, he rode out of Mannheim with the troops of Mansfeld and Christian on their retreat to Alsace.[497]
Never again was Frederick to look upon his native soil till he returned in the train of a mightier deliverer, to find himself, in victory as in defeat, a mere helpless waif upon the current. He was not wholly selfish or unprincipled. His weak and unstable nature had been stirred to its shallow depths by the passions of his age; but his mind was of that temper that everything seemed easy to him which was yet to be undertaken, and every obstacle seemed insuperable when he was brought face to face with its difficulties. It was his sad destiny never to see anything as it really was, and never to count any enterprise impossible till he was called upon to engage in it. The popular commonplaces about German liberty and religious freedom were ever on his lips, whilst he never for a moment thought it worth his while to test their meaning, or to ask himself how far they represented valuable ideas, or how far they had been encrusted with notions and opinions which were altogether destructive and indefensible. Even now, after all his past experience, he could not discern that, whatever his countrymen might be ready to do in future days after they had felt the full weight of the Emperor’s yoke, they were not yet prepared to cast down the imperial edifice which, time-worn and shattered as it was, was yet their only shelter against high-handed injustice and never-ending strife. The strength of Ferdinand and Maximilian lay in the position which they occupied as supporters of order, and as champions of national unity. The rash appropriation of the Bohemian crown, the <320>refusal to acknowledge the consequences of defeat, and above all, the employment of Mansfeld and his freebooters, had left Frederick without a reputable friend in the Empire.
From such a spectacle it is well to turn for a moment to the calm devotion of the English commander. No man Vere’s position.knew better than Vere how hopeless his military position was. Yet it was not of the overwhelming forces of the enemy that he complained the most. During the days which Frederick had spent at Mannheim, that unhappy prince had continued to see with Mansfeld’s eyes and to hear with Mansfeld’s ears. To Vere, who was ready to sacrifice everything in his cause, he refused even the courtesy of a seat in the council of war.[498] Of his plans and desires he left him in as complete ignorance as the meanest soldier in the camp. And now when, with the help of the money which Chichester had brought, Vere was able to fill up the ranks of his garrisons, the same evil influence met him at every turn. Mansfeld’s men had consumed the provisions on which he had depended to carry him through the siege. “If we be attempted,” he wrote despairingly to Carleton, “I shall doubt very much of the event. Besides, Count Mansfeld hath taken a great part of our serviceable men from us, and put the most poor in their places that ever I saw.”[499] It could not well be otherwise. Licence to rove unheeded in quest of fresh stores of plunder, was the bait by which Mansfeld attracted round him his demoralised soldiery. Hard blows for the sake of a prince who himself refused to share the dangers to which his followers were exposed, were all that Vere could offer.
The crisis seemed to be rapidly approaching. On June 20, seven days after Frederick turned his back upon Mannheim, Siege of Heidelberg begun and interrupted.Tilly appeared before Heidelberg, and shots were exchanged with the garrison. To Chichester’s demand that he should refrain from attacking a town held by the troops of the King of Great Britain, he returned a curt answer, that he should not change his plans without an express order from the Emperor. This time, however, the <321>danger passed away. The Imperialist commanders came to the conclusion that as long as Mansfeld was at large, it would be dangerous to undertake the siege. It was always possible that the adventurer might recross the Rhine, and make a dash at the unplundered homesteads of the great Bavarian plain. Tilly, therefore, marched southwards to bar the way, leaving Cordova to make the return of the enemy into the Palatinate impossible. Cordova’s ravages.The Spaniard did his work with pitiless severity. From behind the walls of Mannheim, Chichester, fretting under the enforced inaction, was able to trace his progress by the rolling flames which sprung aloft from the villages which had once been the happy homes of a contented peasantry. If Mansfeld should attempt to return he would find nothing but a blackened wilderness, unable to supply food to his army for a single day.[500]
To the peasant, who saw the result of his lifelong toil drifting away amidst smoke and flame, it mattered little whether Discussion at Brussels about the powers;his ruin was to be ascribed to Cordova or to Mansfeld. To all who were looking anxiously into the future, it made a great difference whether these atrocities were committed with a definite military object or not. When that object had been attained, Cordova’s ravages would cease, whilst the evil deeds of Mansfeld’s bands would never come to an end as long as his army remained in existence. When, on June 15, the conferences were re-opened at Brussels, Weston soon discovered that his position was changed for the worse. The letter of credence which he now produced from Frederick was at once rejected, and formal powers, as binding as those which had by this time been received from the Emperor, were demanded by the Infanta’s commissioners. It was in vain that Weston stood up for the sufficiency of his master’s guarantee. His arguments, he found, had little weight with men who knew that Frederick, in his conversation at Darmstadt, had flung his promises to the winds, and had positively declared that he had no intention of submitting to the Emperor at all. A fresh <322>difficulty, which arose from the probability that if Frederick consented to sign the powers required, he would insist upon styling himself King of Bohemia, was got over by an agreement that James should issue a fresh commission, and that it should be sent to his son-in-law, to be confirmed by the simple signature — Frederick. At the same time it was agreed that Mansfeld and Christian should be asked to send special powers, binding themselves to submit to the arrangements made at Brussels.[501] As there would be some delay in obtaining the fresh commission from England, Weston took advantage of the courier who carried these demands, to ask Frederick to send full powers at once, which, even if they were rejected on account of the title used by him, would at least serve to show that he was in earnest in submitting to the negotiation in progress.
The next few days only served to bring out more clearly the real difficulties of the case. Christian of Brunswick had and about the disbanding of Mansfeld’s troops.held back from taking any part in the conferences whatever. Mansfeld had sent a Captain Weiss to consult with Weston, with instructions to ask not only for a pardon for himself and his followers, and for permission to retain the places which he held in the Empire till the conclusion of the final treaty of peace, but also for a considerable sum of money, to enable him to disband his troops. This last request was justly considered as exorbitant by Pecquius. “They who have employed the Count,” he said to Weston, “ought to satisfy his demand for money.” Nor was it only from the difficulty of treating with such a commander Despair of the Infanta.as Mansfeld that the Infanta began to despair of the success of her efforts at mediation. Every letter which reached her from Vienna conveyed a fresh assurance of Ferdinand’s resolution to deprive Frederick of the Electorate, whatever he might do about the territory; and an objection made, at the request of the Imperial ambassador, to the use of the word “Elector” in James’s commission, had been met by <323>an announcement from Weston, that his master required the restitution of the honours as well as of the patrimony of his son-in-law.[502]
To no one did the pretensions advanced on both sides give greater disquietude than to the Infanta. On the one hand, she insisted on rejecting Mansfeld’s demand for money; on the other hand, she wrote to Oñate, begging him to urge the Emperor to desist from his design, and to tell him plainly that if he refused to do so, he must give up all hope of peace.
It was in the midst of this entanglement that news arrived from Alsace, which, for a time, seemed likely to extricate the Frederick in Alsace.English negotiator from his difficulty. A few weeks’ experience in Mansfeld’s camp was beginning to tell even upon Frederick. It was evidently not by aimless wandering in pursuit of booty that the Palatinate would be recovered. When Weston’s demand for powers reached him on June 28, he was in no mood to raise any further obstacle. The next day His complaints of the army.he forwarded to Brussels two copies of the document required, one with, and the other without the only seal which he possessed — the seal of the Kingdom of Bohemia. In a letter to Chichester, which was written on the same day, he bitterly complained of his position. “I hope,” he wrote, “that the excesses committed here will not be imputed to me. I am very sorry to see them, and I wish for nothing better than to be away from them.” The day before he had expressed himself in stronger terms. “As for this army,” he said, “it has committed great disorders. I think there are men in it who are possessed of the devil, and who take a pleasure in setting fire to everything. I should be very glad to leave them. There ought to be some difference made between friend and enemy; but these people ruin both alike.”[503] <324>Yet, what to do, Frederick hardly knew. At first he talked of July.He dismisses it from his service.returning to Mannheim; but this plan he surrendered in the face of Mansfeld’s objections, and he finally determined to take refuge with the Duke of Bouillon at Sedan. On July 3, therefore, he left the army, after issuing a proclamation by which he dismissed the troops from his service, assigning as a motive his inability to find means to pay them. As far as he was concerned, the garrisons which still held out in Heidelberg, in Mannheim, and in Frankenthal, were left to their fate.
[404] Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 16, 1622, S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 101.
[405] Philip IV. to the Infanta Isabella, Nov. 23⁄Dec. 3, 1621, Brussels MSS.; Salvetti’s News-Letters, Jan. 25⁄Feb. 4, Feb. 1⁄11. Gondomar to Philip IV., Jan. 21⁄31, Simancas MSS. 2518, fol. 20. The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, Feb. 11⁄21, Add. MSS. 17,677 K. fol. 192.
[406] The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, Feb. 11⁄21, Add. MSS. 17,677 K. fol. 192; Council Register, Feb. 9.
[407] The fourth point of his instructions, wrote Gondomar to Philip IV. on Jan. 21⁄31, “es tratar con V. Magd. de la reducion de las provincias de Olanda, y hazer para esto muy estrecha liga offensiva y deffensiva, dandole V. Magd. algo á este Rey desta empeñada.” The statement is corroborated by frequent cautious allusions in Digby’s despatches, and by a paper of instructions to him and to Buckingham, which will be mentioned in its proper place.
[408] Salvetti’s News-Letters, Feb. 1, 15⁄11, 25.
[409] The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, Feb. 11⁄21, March 19⁄29, March 29⁄April 8, Add. MSS. 17,677 K. fol. 192, 195, 204. Calvert to Carleton, Feb. 7, March 6, 24, April 3. Carleton to Calvert, March 9, S. P. Holland. Salvetti’s News-Letter, March 15⁄25.
[410] Salvetti’s News-Letter, March 22⁄April 1.
[411] Gondomar to Philip IV., May 6⁄16, Simancas MSS. 2603, fol. 35.
[412] Chamberlain to Carleton, March 30. Locke to Carleton, March 30. S. P. Dom. cxxviii. 96, 97.
[413] Buckingham to Bacon, Oct. 12 (?), 1621. Lennox to Bacon, Jan. 29. Bacon to Lennox, Jan. 30 (?), 1622. Bacon’s Letters and Life, vii. 305, 326, 327.
[414] Grant to Hutton and others, Oct. 14, 1621. Patent Rolls, 19 Jac. I., Part 16.
[415] Pardon, October 17, 1621. Patent Rolls, 19 Jac. I., Part 16.
[416] Bacon’s Letters and Life, vii. 304–347.
[417] Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 19, S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 35. Indenture between Wallingford and Buckingham, May 27, Close Rolls, 20 Jac. I., Part 27. The price given was 3,000l.
[418] Commission to Sir A. Apsley, Jan. 17, S. P. Grant Book, p. 340.
[419] His real name was Percy.
[420] Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 4, S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 8.
[421] Conference with Fisher, Laud’s Works, ii. 2. See also Preface, ix.–xii.
[422] Conference with Fisher, Laud’s Works, ii. 359–413.
[423] Chamberlain to Carleton, June 8, 22, Sept. 25, S. P. Dom. cxxxi. 24, 53, cxxxii. 24.
[424] Laud’s Diary, June 15, 16, Works, iii. 139.
[425] Goodman’s Statement (Court of King James, i. 340) is confirmed by the allegation of De Dominis himself, in a letter to the King (Feb. 16, 1622, S. P. Dom. cxxviii. 103, xiii.), and must therefore be accepted in preference to Hacket’s calculation of 800l.
[426] The original story about the Savoy, for instance, is evidently the one which I have adopted from Goodman (i. 344). In Fuller it assumes a much worse character.
[427] The account given by Fuller (v. 504–530) is evidently prejudiced. See testimony of Cosin (De Transubstantiatione, cap. 2, § 7), and Goodman as cited above. His own words are the best indication of his character, and the narrative of the transactions immediately preceding his departure (S. P. Dom. cxxviii. 103) is especially useful as indicative of his opinions. That Gondomar had anything to do with the Archbishop’s return to Rome, is very doubtful. It is hardly compatible with the narrative above referred to.
[428] Hacket’s Life of Williams, 102.
[429] Dalrymple, 145.
[430] Hacket, 103. Cosin, De Transubstantiatione, cap. 2, § 7.
[431] Hacket, 104.
[432] Bacon’s Apophthegms, Works, vii. 159.
[433] Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Herbert to the King, July 31. Doncaster to the King, Aug. 1, 1621, S. P. France.
[434] Doncaster to Calvert, Oct. 26, 1621, S. P. France.
[435] Doncaster to Calvert, June 26, 1622, S. P. France.
[436] The Deputies to Calvert, Aug. 24⁄Sept. 3. Doncaster to Calvert, Oct. 26. Order in Council, Oct. 12, S. P. France.
[437] Remonstrances of Tillières, S. P. France, 1621, 1622, passim.
[438] Mayor of Rye to Calvert, May 1. The Council to Zouch, May 4. Vivian to the Council, May 17. Fulnetby to Zouch, May 17. Petition of R. Dure, May (?). The Council to Zouch, July 11. S. P. Dom. cxxx. 1, 16, 91, 92, 134, cxxxii. 28.
[439] Mead to Stuteville, Feb. 2, Harl. MSS. 389, fol. 140.
[440] Vere to Carleton, Dec. 20, 1621, S. P. Holland.
[441] Vere to Carleton, Dec. 27, 1621, Ibid.
[442] Nethersole to Carleton, Dec. 20, Ibid. Digby to Frederick, Dec. 30, Collectio Camerariana, xlviii. 92. Royal Library, Munich.
[443] Council Register, Jan. 12. Locke to Carleton, Jan. 23. S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 40.
[444] Council Register, June 6. Salvetti’s News-Letter, June 7. Southampton, on the other hand, urged on the payment. Southampton to the Council, May 5, S. P. Dom. cxxx. 19.
[445] Digby to Doncaster, Jan. 31, Egerton MSS. 2595, fol. 30.
[446] Council Register, Feb. 4, March 31. Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 19. Locke to Carleton, Feb. 16, March 2. S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 35, 102; cxxviii. 9. Salvetti’s News-Letters, Jan. 18⁄28, Jan. 25⁄Feb. 4, Feb. 15⁄25, Feb. 26⁄March 8.
[447] Receipt Books of the Exchequer.
[448] Locke to Carleton, Jan. 12, S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 136.
[449] J. Nicholas to E. Nicholas, Feb. 26, S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 133.
[450] Inclosure dated March 8, in a letter from Mead to Stuteville, March 16. Harl. MSS. 389, fol. 157.
[451] Tillières’ Letters, given by Raumer, are frequently appealed to as conveying evidence against James; but the letter of Jan. 14⁄24 shows that no fact could be proved against him.
[452] Collier’s Ecclesiastical History, vii. 434. Hacket, 88. Wood, Hist. et Ant. Univ. Ox. i. 327.
[453] The first proposition as condemned at Oxford is as follows:— “Episcopi et pastores magistratus suos impios aut injustos, si contumaces sint, possunt et debent de consensu Ecclesiæ Satanæ tradere donec resipiscant.” Wood, Hist. et Ant. Univ. Ox. i. 327. In Pareus’s Commentary, 1349, it stands thus:— “Episcopi et pastores magistratibus suis impiis aut injustis possunt ac debent resistere, non vi aut gladio, sed verbo Dei, arguendo eorum notoriam impietatem aut injustitiam, et ad officium juxta verbum Dei et juxta leges faciendum eos cohortando, contumaces vero de consensu Ecclesiæ etiam Satanæ tradendo, donec resipiscant.”
[454] Extract from the King’s letter, April 24. Collier’s Eccl. Hist. vii. 435.
[455] The King to Ferdinand II., Nov. 12, 1621, Cabala, 239.
[456] Frederick to the King, Nov. 25, S. P. Germany.
[457] Ferdinand II. to the King, Jan. 4, 1622, Cabala, 241. Ferdinand II. to the Infanta Isabella, Jan. 3, Brussels MSS.
[458] Commission to Vere, Feb. 16, S. P. Germany.
[459] I have omitted portions of the letter. The whole will be found in Villermont’s Tilly, i. 160.
[460] Vere to Calvert, March 15, S. P. Germany.
[461] Mansfeld to the King, March, S. P. Germany. Misplaced amongst the papers of 1623.
[462] Locke to Carleton, Jan. 19, S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 36.
[463] Locke to Carleton, Feb. 4, S. P. Dom. cxxvii. 67.
[464] Salvetti’s News-Letters, Feb. 15⁄25, March 8⁄18. Calvert to Carleton, March 24, S. P. Holland.
[465] Mead to Stuteville, Feb. 2, Harl. MSS. 389, fol. 140. Chamberlain to Carleton, March 30, S. P. Dom. cxxviii. 96.
[466] Calvert to Carleton, April 3, S. P. Holland.
[467] Salvetti’s News-Letter, April 5⁄15.
[468] ——— to Meade, April 12, Harl. MSS. 389, fol. 168.
[469] Locke to Carleton, April 6, 20, S. P. Dom. cxxix. 7, 50. Salvetti’s News-Letters, April 5⁄15, 12⁄22.
[470] Vere to Calvert, March 15, S. P. Germany.
[471] Vere to Calvert, April 1, ibid.
[472] See the calculations of Maximilian in his letter to the Emperor, Jan. 16⁄26, Hurter, Gesch. Ferdinands II. ix. 633.
[473] Theatrum Europæum, i. 622.
[474] The Infanta Isabella to Philip IV., April 21⁄May 1, Brussels MSS.
[475] Theatrum Europæum, i. 621. “At one place taken by Tilly, we hear that half the citizens were also slain; the rest for the most part wounded to death. Many women and children were also slain. The women did great hurt by throwing of hot scalding water.” Advertisement, April 19, S. P. Germany.
[476] Nethersole to Calvert, April 26, 29, May 5. Narrative by the Margrave of Baden, April. Wrenham to ———, May 6, S. P. Germany.
[477] The Infanta Isabella to Philip IV., April 21⁄May 1, Brussels MSS.
[478] Weston to Calvert, May 15, S. P. Flanders.
[479] Weston to Nethersole, May 16, S. P. Germany. Weston’s Report, fol. 2, Inner Temple MSS. vol. 48.
[480] Frederick to the King, April 25⁄May 5, S. P. Germany.
[481] Vere and Nethersole to Calvert, June 11, S. P. Germany.
[482] Nethersole to Carleton, May 2; Frederick to the King, May 3⁄13, S. P. Germany.
[483] Nethersole to Weston, May 22; Nethersole to Calvert, May 22, S. P. Germany.
[484] The Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt to the Elector of Mentz, May 29, S. P. Germany.
[485] Nethersole to Calvert, May 27, June 2, S. P. Germany. Vere to Carleton, June 2, S. P. Holland.
[486] The Elector of Saxony to the Emperor, May 4, Londorp, ii. 605.
[487] Hohenzollern to the Emperor, July 8⁄18, Khevenhüller, ix. 1763.
[488] Vere to Carleton, June 2, S. P. Holland.
[489] Chichester to the King; Chichester to Carleton, June 2, S. P. Germany.
[490] Chichester to Weston, June 5; Chichester to the King, June 6, S. P. Germany.
[491] Weston’s Report, fol. 4 b, Inner Temple MSS. vol. 48. Weston to Calvert, June 22, S. P. Germany.
[492] Tilly to Chichester, June 8⁄18; Chichester to the King, June 11, S. P. Germany.
[493] Chichester to Calvert, June 11, S. P. Germany.
[494] Vere to Calvert, June 11; Nethersole to Calvert, June 18, S. P. Germany.
[495] Chichester to Weston, June 22, S. P. Germany.
[496] The King to Frederick, June 3, Add. MSS. 12,485, fol. 133 b. The King to Chichester, June 3, Sherborne MSS.
[497] Chichester to the King, June 23, S. P. Germany.
[498] Vere to Carleton, June 11, S. P. Holland.
[499] Vere to Carleton, June 24, S. P. Germany.
[500] Chichester to Carleton, June 26, July 10, 22. Tilly to Chichester, June 25⁄July 5, S. P. Germany.
[501] Weston to Calvert, June 22, S. P. Germany. Narrative of the Conference, June 24⁄July 4, Brussels MSS.
[502] Weston to Calvert, June 30, S. P. Germany. The Infanta Isabella to Philip IV., Brussels MSS.
[503] Frederick to Chichester, June 28, S. P. Germany. The following extract from a letter from Frederick to his wife will be found misplaced amongst the Holland State Papers of December, 1622. It is evidently the decypher of part of a paragraph in cypher from a letter written about this time, the first clause being imperfect:— “Le disordre parmy la soldatesque <324>qui pilloit tout sans respect ny difference avec autres inormitez, il estoit a craindre que l’ennemie le poursuivant il serait forcé a se retirer en Lorain, et nos soldats y faire autant d’insolences commes ils ont accoutumé, ainsois je ferois sans nulle utilité plus d’ennemis, et estoit a craindre une mutination, a faute d’argent et vivres. Mansfeld a desiré que le Roi de Boheme le licentia et donnast permission de chercher autre part condition, menant toutes les officieres. Je luy ay donné cela par escrit, n’ayant aucun moyen de les entretenir. Il dit me pouvoir plus servir par diversion; le Due de Brunswic a bien bonne intention, si le Prince d’Orange luy pouvoit envoyer quelqu’un pour l’assister de bon conseil.”