<364>On September 24 Nethersole landed in England. The bitter tidings of the fall of Heidelberg had preceded him by four days. The new earls.James’s mind was distracted with other matters, and he had no immediate attention to bestow on so distasteful a subject. As if he had foreseen that it would be a long time before the clouds with which the sky was overcast would roll away, he had signalised by a grand creation of peers the breathing-time whilst the courier with the evil news was still on the way. Digby was rewarded for his many services with the earldom of Bristol. Doncaster was consoled for his late diplomatic failure with the earldom of Carlisle. Cranfield, snarling like a watch-dog over the Treasury, had quarrelled with Digby about his allowances before he started, till the harsh words “traitor’s blood,” and “pedlar’s blood,” flashed forth on either side, and had lately made an unprovoked attack upon Williams, bringing against him charges of malversation, which were proved to be utterly without foundation. Yet, cross-grained and ill-tempered as he was, his fidelity to his master’s interests was unimpeached, and he now stepped forth with the lofty title of Earl of Middlesex. When such promotions were in the air, the Villiers family could hardly be forgotten, and Buckingham’s brother-in-law, Fielding, was entitled to style himself Earl of Denbigh.
Serious as was the aspect of the times to ordinary Englishmen, there was high festivity at Court. Buckingham had just completed James at New Hall.the purchase of the splendid mansion of New Hall, in Essex, from the Earl of Sussex, and the King, who had gone down to take part in the revelries with <365>which the new owner entered into possession, ordered Nethersole not to speak of business till the festivities were over.
The delay, however, was not a long one. After a day or two the King removed to Hampton Court; and on the 27th Nethersole Buckingham declares for strong measures.had an interview with Buckingham, which gave him no less pleasure than surprise. The news from Heidelberg had rooted itself painfully, for the moment, in the shifting sands of the favourite’s imagination; and his voice was now to be heard amongst those raised most loudly for war. He was very confident, he said, that the King would now perform everything that he had promised. As for himself, he would use all the credit he had in hastening matters to a satisfactory conclusion, and it should not be his fault if he did not go in person to the wars. “Tell the Queen your mistress,” he added, that though I cannot undertake to do so much as the Duke of Brunswick hath done for her service, I will show my good will not to be behind him in affection.” Nor did Buckingham stand alone in his eager desire for war. Those who had hitherto favoured negotiation were now of one mind with Pembroke and Abbot in believing that the time for negotiation had passed by; and Weston’s arrival was eagerly expected, in order that a vigorous resolution might be taken when a fuller knowledge of the state of affairs at Brussels had been obtained.[560]
Whether Buckingham would now be more successful in forcing an energetic policy upon James than on those former occasions when Buckingham and the Prince.he had happened to be in a warlike mood, might well be doubted; but it was certain that he would have on his side the warm support of the Prince of Wales, and with the aid of the son he might not unreasonably hope to have at least a chance of conquering the reluctance of the father.
It was by his position far more than by his character that the Prince was likely to serve him. Charles had now Character of Charles.nearly completed his twenty-second year. To a superficial observer he was everything that a young prince should be. His bearing, unlike that of his father, was <366>graceful and dignified. His only blemish was the size of his tongue, which was too large for his mouth, and which, especially when he was excited, caused a difficulty of expression almost amounting to a stammer. In all bodily exercises, his supremacy was undoubted. No man in England could ride better than he. His fondness for hunting was such that James was heard to exclaim that by this he recognised him as his true and worthy son.[561] In the tennis-court and in the tilting-yard he surpassed all competitors. No one had so exquisite an ear for music, could look at a fine picture with greater appreciation of its merits, or could keep time more exactly when called upon to take part in a dance. Yet these, and such as these, were the smallest of his merits. Regular in his habits, his household was a model of economy. His own attire was such as in that age was regarded as a protest against the prevailing extravagance. His moral conduct was irreproachable; and it was observed that he blushed like a girl whenever an immodest word was uttered in his presence. Designing women, of the class which had preyed upon his brother Henry, found it expedient to pass him by, and laid their nets for more susceptible hearts than his.[562]
<367>Yet, in spite of all these excellencies keen-sighted observers, who were by no means blind to his merits, were not diposed to prophesy good of his future reign. In truth, his very virtues were a sign of weakness. He was born to be the idol of schoolmasters and the stumbling block of statesmen. His modesty and decorum were the result of sluggishness rather than of self-restraint. Uncertain in judgment, and hesitating in action, he clung fondly to the small proprieties of life, and to the narrow range of ideas which he had learned to hold with a tenacious grasp; whilst he was ever prone, like his unhappy brother-in-law, to seek refuge from the uncertainties of the present by a sudden plunge into rash and ill-considered action. With such a character, the education which he had received had been the worst possible. From his father he had never had a chance of acquiring a single lesson in the first virtue of a ruler — that love of truth which would keep his ear open to all assertions and to all complaints, in the hope of detecting something which it might be well for him to know. Nor was the injury which his mind thus received merely negative; for James, vague as his political theories were, was intolerant of contradiction, and his impatient dogmatism had early taught his son to conceal his thoughts in sheer diffidence of his own powers. To hold his tongue as long as possible, and then to say, not what he believed to be true, but what was likely to be pleasing, became his daily task, till he ceased to be capable of looking difficulties fully in the face. The next step upon the downward path was but too inviting. As each question rose before him for solution, his first thought was how it might best be evaded, and he usually took refuge either in a studied silence, or in some of those varied forms of equivocation which are usually supposed by weak minds not to be equivalent to falsehood.[563]
<368>Over such a character, Buckingham had found no difficulty in obtaining a thorough mastery. On the one condition of making Buckingham’s influence with him.a show of regarding his wishes as all-important, he was able to mould those wishes almost as he pleased. To the reticent, hesitating youth it was a relief to find some one who would take the lead in amusement and in action, who could make up his mind for him in a moment when he was himself plunged in hopeless uncertainty, and who possessed a fund of gaiety and light-heartedness which was never at fault.
For the Spanish marriage, or indeed for any other marriage, Charles had long cared but little, though he had openly declared himself His thoughts about the marriage.well satisfied with the provision made by his father for his future life. One of the feelings which he had retained from his childhood was a warm attachment to his sister; and it is by no means improbable that he had come to regard the match proposed for him mainly as the mode in which, as he was told, the restitution of the Palatinate might most easily be obtained. It was certainly hardly with a lover’s feelings that he consented at last to play a lover’s part. One day, after he had been paying compliments in public to a portrait of the Infanta, he turned to one of his confidential attendants as soon as he thought that his words would be unheard. “Were it not for the sin,” he said, “it would be well if princes could have two wives; one for reason of state, the other to please themselves.”[564]
At length, however, apparently after the dissolution of Parliament, a change seems to have taken place, partly, perhaps, because His promise to visit Madrid.his increasing years brought a growing desire for marriage, partly, no doubt, because what he looked upon as the factious proceedings of the House of Commons, threw him, together with his friend Buckingham, more than ever into the arms of Spain.
Accordingly, during the last months of Gondomar’s stay in England, the bonds between the Spanish embassy and the Prince of Wales were drawn more closely. It was one of the final triumphs of that ambassador, that he induced Charles not <369>only to admit Sir Thomas Savage, a known Roman Catholic, amongst the commissioners by whom his revenue was managed, but even to adopt this course after Savage had decidedly refused to take the oath of allegiance.[565] Before he left London, the ambassador had drawn from the Prince an offer to visit Madrid incognito, with two servants only, if, upon his own return to Spain, he should see fit to advise the step.[566]
That, in angling for this promise, Gondomar was influenced by the idea that, when once Charles was under the spell of Gondomar’s object.the Roman Catholic ceremonial, it would be easy to induce him to profess himself a convert to the religion of his bride, there can be no doubt whatever. Years before, when the marriage was first discussed, the suggestion that the Prince’s presence at Madrid might in this way be turned to account, had been made by the Spanish ambassador.[567] It afterwards formed the groundwork of the complaint against Buckingham that he had been a fellow-conspirator with the Spaniard in an attempt to turn away his master’s son from the Protestant faith; but it is almost inconceivable that he can seriously have entertained any such notion, though it is not impossible that just at that moment when what faith he had was trembling in the balance, when he was listening with one ear to his wife and his mother, and with his other ear to Laud, he may have uttered some rash words which cannot fairly be taken as affording a safe clue to his subsequent conduct. It can hardly be doubted that he looked upon the expedition as a bold dashing exploit, and that as such he represented it to Charles, who would naturally be captivated by the part which he would himself be called upon to play.
Since that conversation with Gondomar, however, much had <370>passed. As bad news came in from Brussels and from Heidelberg, Charles began to doubt whether his sister’s inheritance was Endymion Porter.to be regained by the aid of Spain, and he was heard complaining loudly of the tricks which the Spaniards had been playing.[568] It was under this impression of uncertainty that Buckingham’s last letter to Gondomar had been written,[569] and it was with the same feeling that the two young men determined, as soon as the fall of Heidelberg was known, that the next despatch should be carried by a confidential person who might be trusted with the delicate task of reminding Gondomar of the Prince’s promised journey, and of bringing back a faithful report of the language of the Spanish ministers.
The messenger selected for this purpose was Endymion Porter. By a strange destiny he had passed the early years of his life in Spain, in the service of Olivares.[570] He had afterwards returned to England, where he had attached himself to Buckingham, and had risen high in his favour. Report said that he had amassed a large fortune by the bribes for which he had sold his master’s goodwill.[571] He was now a gentleman of the Prince’s bedchamber, and was occasionally employed by Buckingham to conduct his Spanish correspondence.
This man had already, on September 18, written by Buckingham’s direction to Gondomar, to assure him that the Lord Admiral was His proposed mission.getting a fleet ready, and that ‘he intended to take his friend with him in secret, to bring back that beautiful angel.’[572] These words, almost the only ones in the letter which have been preserved, show that the intention of the Prince to visit Madrid accompanied by only two servants had been for the time abandoned. If the plan now proposed was not without elements of rashness, it was wisdom itself as compared with the wild scheme ultimately adopted. For if, as was evidently pre-supposed,[573] Buckingham was to sail <371>in command of the fleet which was to bring the Infanta home, he would certainly not leave England till the marriage articles had been finally agreed upon, and there would therefore be no danger that the Spaniards would be emboldened to raise their terms by the Prince’s presence at Madrid.
Whether James was at this time informed of the project or not, it is impossible to say.[574] It is at all events certain that the Privy Council Sept. 29.Deliberation on Weston’s report.knew nothing about the matter. On September 29, that body met to receive from Weston the report of his mission. After a long and anxious deliberation, extending over four days, it was decided that a direct summons should be addressed to the King of Spain. Summons to be addressed to Philip.Seventy days were to be allowed him to obtain from the Emperor the restitution of Heidelberg, and if during that time it should happen that either Mannheim or Frankenthal were taken, it was to be restored as well. Philip was also to engage that the negotiations for a general peace should be resumed on the basis laid down in the preceding winter, and to bind himself by an express stipulation that, if the Emperor refused to consent to these terms, he would order a Spanish army to take the field against him, or, at least, would give permission to an English force to march through Flanders into the Palatinate. If, within ten days after this resolution was laid before Philip, he had not given a favourable answer under his hand and seal, Bristol was to leave Madrid at once, and to declare the marriage treaty broken off.
The despatch[575] containing the demands thus put forward by the Council was entrusted to Porter,[576] and served well enough Warlike language at Court.to cover the secret mission with which he was charged. In a few weeks, therefore, James, unless he were sadly disappointed, would know what his position really was. Yet it is hardly likely that anyone except the King looked upon an armed alliance with Spain <372>against the Emperor as coming within the bounds of possibility. The language used in the Council breathed of war, and of war alone. An army of 30,000 or 40,000 men was to be ready in the spring to march into the Palatinate, under the command of the Prince of Wales. Parliament was to be summoned to meet in January, to vote the necessary supplies. Even Charles’s head was for the moment full of dreams of military glory. He would be the ruin of anyone, he was heard to say, who attempted to hinder the enterprise.[577]
Yet, in spite of the warlike din which was sounding in his ears, and in spite of the extravagant demands of the Pope and the Cardinals, Sept. 30.James writes to the Pope.James could not bear to relinquish his hopes of peace. Gage, he resolved, should at once return to Rome, bearing a letter in which, passing by in silence the foolish language which had been used about his own conversion, he adjured the Pope to employ his undoubted influence with the Catholic sovereigns to put a stop to the bloodshed by which Christendom was being desolated. “Your Holiness,” he wrote, “will perhaps marvel that we, differing from you in point of religion, should now first salute you with our letters. Howbeit, such is the trouble of our mind for these calamitous discords and bloodsheds, which for these late years by-past have so miserably rent the Christian world; and so great is our care and daily solicitude to stop the course of these growing evils betimes, so much as in us lies, as we could no longer abstain, considering that we all worship the same most blessed Trinity, nor hope for salvation by any other means than by the blood and merits of Our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, but breaking this silence to move your Holiness by these our letters, friendly and seriously, that you would be pleased together with us to put your hand to so pious a work, and so worthy of a Christian prince.”[578]
If James’s nerve and judgment had only equalled the excellence of his intentions, he would indeed have carved <373>out for himself an enduring monument amongst those of the benefactors of humanity. Yet, even as it was, it was well that, The King and the Pope.amidst the turmoil of the strife, a voice should be heard from England, to warn, however vainly, the Head of that Church which styles itself Catholic, not to debase his high office to the miserable work of stirring up the elements which fed the lurid flames of religious war.
On October 3 the despatch which Porter was to carry was placed in his hands, and he would have started on the following day October.Cottington’s arrival.if he had not been delayed by the unexpected arrival of Cottington, who had been recalled from his attendance upon the embassy at Madrid to enter upon his new duties as secretary to the Prince of Wales. As he had been specially detained in Spain till Bristol was able to obtain some certain intelligence of the progress of the marriage treaty, everyone was naturally eager to hear what he had to say.
It was not much that he was able to tell. Commissioners, amongst whom were Zuñiga and Gondomar, had been appointed to treat with Bristol, and they had loudly expressed their disapproval of the additions which had been made at Rome to the Articles, and had declared that the King of Spain would, without doubt, reduce his Holiness to reason.[579] In addition to the news which he brought, Cottington had with him a letter from Gondomar to the King, in which he expressed his hope to bring the Infanta with him in the spring, by which time all difficulties would be overcome. If it proved otherwise, he would come himself to England to confess his fault in having deceived his Majesty, and to offer himself as a sacrifice for the wrong which he had done.[580]
The Council, however, was unanimous in declaring that there was no ground for changing its resolution. James indeed was, as usual, Charles and Buckingham opposed to the King.inclined to hope for the best, and expressed an opinion that good might yet be expected from the Spanish overtures; but he soon found that he stood alone. Buckingham and the Prince led the cry for <374>active measures, and the Council voted as one man upon their side.[581]
It was a new position for James. Parliamentary opposition he could silence by a dissolution. The Council he could refuse to listen to. October 4.Bristol ordered to report his answer.But never before had his son and his favourite combined against him. For the present, however, he was able to maintain his tranquillity, for he had contrived to pospone the immediate solution of the difficulty as long as possible, by despatching a second courier on the 4th, with orders to Bristol not to come home in case of receiving an unsatisfactory reply, but simply to report the fact to England.[582] At the same time he told Porter to inform the ambassador that if he were hard pressed he might secretly consent to the extension of the age of the children’s education to nine years, though the limit was still to be stated in the public articles as having been fixed at seven.[583] In the meanwhile he took care to inform the Council that, till Porter’s return, no active steps were to be taken to form any alliance with the Continental Protestants.[584]
At last, on October 7, Porter was ready to start on the mission which, as was fondly hoped, would settle the question Porter leaves England.one way or another. As he left the royal presence, all the bystanders cried out with one voice, “Bring us war! bring us war!”[585]
Porter had not long been gone when news arrived that the vessel in which he He is delayed at Calais.crossed the Straits had been driven on shore in an attempt to enter Calais harbour in a storm, and that he had himself slipped as he was leaping into a boat, and had seriously injured his shoulder. <375>It would, therefore, be some days before he was able to continue his journey to Madrid.[586]
Immediately after Porter’s departure the King had returned to Royston, happy enough to be set free from the anxieties of business. To Buckingham’s eagerness for action.a request from the Council that he would at once give orders for the issuing of writs for a parliament, he returned a distinct refusal. He would do nothing, he said, till he heard again from Spain. Buckingham, as eager now for war as ten months before he had been eager to make war impossible, chafed under the delay. Why, he asked of his fellow-councillors, should not a fresh Benevolence be raised? Then it would be easy to lay in a store of arms and munitions, and to make all necessary preparations for the expected campaign. The councillors shook their heads at the proposal.[587] They all felt that in the present temper of the nation a Benevolence was impossible. In the autumn of 1620, and in the autumn of 1621, the King’s declarations had been received with universal enthusiasm; but no one believed in such declarations any longer. Rumours were abroad that Porter had been entrusted with some special message, and no one doubted for an instant that the result of that message would be to prolong the existing suspense. If the King’s object had been merely to send an ordinary despatch to Spain, why should he have selected Porter, of all other men, to perform the work of a common courier.[588]
If war there was to be, it was of evil omen that the thoughts of those who were likely to be entrusted with its management Negotiation with Mansfeld.turned once more in the direction of Mansfeld. According to his habitual practice, James was anxious to carry out his plans at the expense of others, and he actually had the effrontery to ask the Prince of Orange to keep Mansfeld and his troops in the pay of the States for a month after their engagement was at an end, in <376>order that, if Porter brought back an unsatisfactory reply, they might then be ready to enter the English service.[589]
This amazing request was, of course, met by a courteous but distinct refusal. The finances of the States-General were by no means prosperous, and Relief of Bergen-op-Zoom.they had just succeeded in achieving the object for the sake of which they had secured the adventurer’s services. At the approach of Maurice with Mansfeld in his train, Spinola had suddenly raised the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, and all further danger from the Spanish armies was at an end for the year. Nor was it only on land that Spain had failed to maintain her position. A large squadron, posted in the Straits of Gibraltar to destroy the Dutch fleet as it issued from the Mediterranean, had been compelled to allow the enemy to sail out in safety. About the same time, A Spanish fleet in the Channel.another large fleet of twenty-two galleons suddenly appeared on the English coast, eager to make havoc amongst the Dutch trading vessels which thronged the Channel. In the hope that a safe basis of operations might be gained, Coloma was instructed to demand shelter for his master’s ships in the English ports. This time he asked in vain. In the excitement caused by the loss of Heidelberg, James forgot his old design upon Holland, and the demand was peremptorily refused. In a day or two the mighty fleet which had terrified England with the prospect of a new armada, sailed back without striking a blow.[590] The misfortunes of Spain did not end here. The Mexico fleet was overtaken by a storm before it left the West Indies, and the damage suffered was so great as to cause the postponement of the voyage to another season. This winter the Spanish Treasury would have to do as best it might, without the annual influx of silver.
Such a combination of disasters was not without its influence upon the members of the Council of State at Madrid, rendering <377>them more than usually impatient of a policy which threatened to September.Zuñiga and the Council of State.prolong and enlarge the war in which Spain was engaged. It was therefore with surprise not unmingled with indignation, that they accidentally discovered that Zuñiga had been playing them false, and had been encouraging the Emperor in his design of bestowing Frederick’s Electorate upon Maximilian. Khevenhüller had recently received instructions to explain to Philip that the Emperor’s resolution was unalterable, and Zuñiga had again replied that the course proposed would be most agreeable to the King of Spain, though he doubted its practicability in the face of the opposition which was certain to arise. If the Imperial ambassador would promise to keep the whole affair a profound secret, he would be allowed to state his wishes before the King.
Not long after this conversation, Zuñiga was seized with a fever, and as he lay tossing on his sick-bed, he pointed out to an attendant Death of Zuñiga.a bundle of papers which were to be laid before the Council, amongst which had been placed by mistake the memorial to the Imperial Ambassador. When the mystery was thus unexpectedly revealed, those members of the Council who were opposed to his policy did not measure their words in reprobating the concealment which had been practised. It was thought that the harsh language then used had a serious effect upon his health. At all events from that moment he grew rapidly worse, and on September 27 he died.[591]
By the death of his uncle Zuñiga, Olivares obtained the virtual control of the government of Spain. Hitherto he had been Olivares succeeds to his position.content to be what Buckingham was in England, the channel through which the favours of the Crown were distributed. He now became the medium for all political communications between the King and the various councils by which the affairs of the Spanish monarchy were conducted. From henceforth it was by Olivares that the opinions of these consultative bodies were laid before Philip, and it was through his hands that the orders passed by which <378>such resolutions as proved acceptable were carried into execution. With a sovereign, who, like Philip, hated the very name of business, such a position was equivalent to the possession of Royal power. Olivares was now practically king of Spain, as Lerma had been king before him.
In many respects, the new minister was far superior to the avaricious favourite of Philip III. He had a ready tongue and a quick apprehension. His characterCaring little for pleasure and amusement, he turned his back upon everything that might stand in the way of his devotion to state affairs, excepting so far as he was required to join in the diversions of the King.[592] To bribes he was entirely inaccessible, and, in the opinion of those who were best able to judge, he was honestly desirous of doing good service to his king and country.[593] If he was incapable of rising to those heights from which a genial statesman, raised, like Bristol, above the passions and prejudices of the world, looks serenely down upon the strife of men, he was, at least within the limitations of his age and country, an intelligent and resolute politician. If there were many things which he did not see at all, he was at least able to see clearly whatever came within the sphere of his vision; and even if he had not been the favourite of his sovereign, he might have ruled the Spanish councils by virtue of that supremacy which the ancient proverb assigns to the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. Suddenly raised in youth to the direction of affairs, he had never had an opportunity of learning to estimate the weight of opposition which would be brought against him by men of other races and of other principles of action than his own. He was consequently, when by his uncle’s death he was brought face to face with the problems of actual politics, in a position not unlike that of a theoretical mathematician of recognised ability, who might be called upon to conduct the siege operations of an army in real warfare. It has frequently been taken for granted by those who have <379>judged only by the result, that the policy of Olivares was a and plans.warlike policy from the beginning. It was nothing of the sort. If there was any object for which he earnestly strove in order to heal the economical wounds of his country, it was peace, and especially peace with England. But he had clearly made up his mind that even war was to be preferred to national dishonour, whilst, on the other hand, he never arrived at anything like an accurate conception of the terms upon which peace was to be obtained. The limits of Protestantism, he imagined, could be driven back in Germany with the assent of the German Protestants; and the religion of England could be undermined and overthrown without wounding the susceptibilities of Englishmen. It was possible, he thought in his youthful ardour, to secure all the fruits of victory without the risks and anxieties of war.
The day before Zuñiga’s death, some days before Porter left England, the despatch which had been written in London on September 9 Bristol’s confidence.was placed in Bristol’s hands.[594] He immediately demanded an audience, to lay his master’s requirements before Philip. He wrote at once to Calvert that he would do everything in his power. For any want of fidelity in himself, he would ‘willingly undergo all blame and censure. But for the errors of other men, as the indirect course taken from Rome, or what was done in Germany,’ he could not be answerable. He understood that there were some in England who held him responsible for the success of the business. “I know,” he said, “I serve a wise and a just master, whom I have and ever will serve honestly and painfully. And I no way fear but to give him a good and an honest account both of myself and my proceedings. And, whereas it is objected that I have written over confidently of businesses, I write confidently of them still, if our own courses mar them not by taking alarms and altering our minds upon every accident.” He concluded by saying that the two months within which he was ordered to expect the conclusion of the marriage treaty, would hardly be sufficient for the purpose. Letters to Rome must be <380>written and answered, and he hoped to receive instructions not to break with Spain for a month, more or less.[595]
On October 3, Bristol, accompanied by Aston, was received by Olivares at the Escurial, with the most profuse expressions of good-will. October.Assurance given to Bristol.As soon as he had explained his master’s annoyance at the addition of new and unheard of demands to the original marriage articles, the Spanish minister assured him that the Pope should be brought to reason. Then passing to the larger question, he declared that the Emperor’s proceedings were entirely disapproved of at Madrid, and that, if it were necessary, Philip would come to James’s aid, and ‘would infallibly assist his Majesty with his forces.’ Being then introduced to the presence of the King, Bristol repeated his complaints. The same language was used by Philip which had previously been employed by his minister. According to Bristol’s report of the interview, ‘he expressed an earnest desire that the match should be concluded, and that therein no time should be lost. He utterly disliked the Emperor’s proceedings, and said he would procure his Majesty’s satisfaction, and when he could not obtain it otherwise, he was resolved to procure it by his arms.’
The very next day the ambassador was officially informed that the Pope’s resolutions upon the marriage articles would at once News of the capture of Heidelberg.be taken into consideration. But before anything could be done, news of the fall of Heidelberg reached Madrid, and Bristol, who saw in the intelligence an excellent opportunity for putting the Spanish professions to the test, at once wrote to Olivares requesting that the King’s garrisons in the Palatinate might be ordered to co-operate with Vere in maintaining Mannheim and Frankenthal against the Emperor.[596] To an assurance that a letter had been written to the Infanta Isabella, he replied that he had had enough of vague declarations of orders given, and that he should not be content unless the despatch were placed in his hands, to be sent by a courier of his own. He must be allowed to read it, in order that he might see whether it really contained instructions to the <381>Infanta to intervene by force if Tilly refused obedience. His resolute bearing was not without its effect. His demand was taken into consideration by the Council of State, and it was there unanimously resolved, ‘that, in case the Emperor should not condescend unto reason, this King should then assist his Majesty with his arms for the restitution of the Prince Palatine.’ Even this, however, was not sufficient for Bristol. He found that the Spaniards wished to interpret this resolution as referring to assistance to be given at some future time, and that they were proposing, so far as immediate action was concerned, to content themselves with what they called ‘earnest and pressing mediation.’ He told them plainly that he would not accept an answer in such terms. His demand was at once acceded to.[597] Letters were despatched immediately to the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria, urging them to the concessions required, whilst another letter, intended for the Infanta at Brussels, was entrusted to Bristol’s courier, so that the English ambassador might be able to assure himself that she was really directed, in case of Tilly’s refusal to raise the sieges of Mannheim and Frankenthal, to employ Spanish troops in support of the beleaguered garrisons.[598]
Nor was it only in Bristol’s presence that the Spanish Government drew back from the position which had been assumed by Zuñiga. Language used to the Emperor.Khevenhüller was distinctly told that whatever message had been carried by the friar Hyacintho must be understood at Vienna as it was interpreted by Oñate and the Infanta Isabella; <382>or, in other words, that the King of Spain would give no support, open or secret, to the transference of the Electorate. Philip, it was added, hoped that whatever was done would be done in agreement with the Princes assembled at Ratisbon. If his advice were not followed, no further assistance was to be expected from Spain.[599]
A year afterwards, the declaration made by Philip, that he would assist the King of England, if necessary even with his arms, was made the subject of grave complaint in England. The King of Spain, it was said, had engaged to compel the Emperor to restore the Palatinate to Frederick, and in refusing to fulfil his obligations he had violated his most solemn promises. It is, indeed, impossible to acquit Philip and Olivares of concealing their wishes and intentions. But it cannot be said that, in this matter at least, they were guilty of wilfully deceiving James. It was not the question of the ultimate disposal of the Palatinate which was now before them. It was the question of enforcing a suspension of arms in order to make room for subsequent negotiation. And that, for the moment at least, they were ready to fulfil their promises is evident from the language which they used in their despatches.
Of many things the Spanish ministers were grossly ignorant; but they saw clearly that the settlement of Germany was only possible Recall of Chichester.if it proceeded from Germany itself. If James could have understood this, it would have mattered little that the concessions made to Bristol had been wrung from the fears of Olivares against his secret wishes. Had he been able to send a minister to Ratisbon to announce that he had secured his son-in-law’s resolution to abide by the terms which had been offered in the preceding winter, he might perhaps have won over to the side of peace most of those who were present. Unless he could do this — if Frederick still cherished designs of continuing the war, or if he refused to make that submission which was considered by a great majority of the princes of Germany to be nothing more than the Emperor’s due — James had better wash his hands of the whole affair. <383>As usual, he preferred leaving the future to chance. On the first news of the fall of Heidelberg he had recalled Chichester to England. When the Assembly met, it would meet without the presence of a single representative either of Frederick or of James. If Oñate was there to counsel moderation on the part of Spain, it was not from him that a guarantee for the future good behaviour, or even for the present intentions, of the exiled Elector, could proceed. It would be left to Frederick’s enemies to proclaim his misdeeds, and judgment would go by default.
In the meanwhile the junta appointed to consider the marriage articles had been proceeding seriously with its work. Gondomar Discussion on the marriage articles.who, since Zuñiga’s death, was, without dispute, the ablest man among the commissioners, had been of opinion from the beginning that, in order to effect the conversion of England, it was unnecessary to resort to those startling demands which were regarded at Rome as indispensable. Under his influence, therefore, the junta lent itself without difficulty to Bristol’s suggestions, and the ambassador, finding that his objections to the requirements of the Cardinals were regarded with a favourable ear, was enabled to augur well of the result of the negotiation.[600]
Such was the position of affairs when, on the first day of November, Porter made his appearance at Madrid. The letter November.Porter at Madrid.which he brought for Gondomar from Buckingham was well received, and the bearer was assured that the prince would be welcome in Spain. To the demand for instant action in the Palatinate, it was less easy to obtain an answer. The King was away, hunting in the mountains, and for some days nothing could be done. Forgetting that he was a messenger, and not an ambassador, and fancying that Bristol was lukewarm in the business, Porter went straight to Olivares, and asked for an engagement that the Spanish forces in the Palatinate would give their support to Vere.
Such a demand, coming from such a man, roused all the <384>indignation which, in his conversations with Bristol, Olivares had His conversation with Olivares.so carefully suppressed. It was preposterous, he said, to ask the King of Spain to take arms against his uncle,[601] the Catholic League, and the House of Austria. “As for the marriage,” he ended by saying, “I know not what it means.”[602]
It was not long before the Spaniard repented the passionate outburst in which his secret feelings had been so openly laid bare. To Bristol’s inquiries, he answered coolly that Porter was not a public minister, and that it was unfit to entrust state secrets to such a man. A day or two afterwards, as if to repair his minister’s error, the King expressly reiterated to Aston his assurance that, if necessary, the aid of his armies should not be wanting in the Palatinate.[603]
It was now Bristol’s turn to test the intentions of the Spanish Court. On November 18, he presented a formal demand for Nov. 18.Bristol’s demands about the Palatinate.the restitution of the towns in the Palatinate, within seventy days. The summons, he soon found, was received with an universal outcry of disapprobation. The King of Spain, he was told, was as firmly resolved as ever to abide by the resolutions which he had taken. But to ask him to engage that Heidelberg and Mannheim should be restored within seventy days was a mere insult. “When these instructions were given you in England,” said one of the Spanish ministers to Bristol, “they must have been very angry.” In reporting what he heard to Calvert, the English ambassador expressed his opinion that the Spaniards still wished to give satisfaction to his master, but that they were ‘in great confusion how to answer to the particulars.’[604]
Bristol, in truth, was unwilling to acknowledge to himself <385>how untenable his position was becoming. His original policy of His position becoming untenable.an alliance between Spain and England, grounded upon mutual respect, and used for the benefit of European peace, had broken down completely when the Parliament of 1621 was dissolved. He had then warned James how thoroughly the conditions of his mediation had changed. England could no longer meet Spain upon equal terms. She must supplicate for peace now that she was no longer in a position to demand it. That in Spain there was a great dread of war, and above all, of war with England, he had every reason to know, and he believed that, partly by appealing to that feeling, partly, by holding out hopes that the marriage treaty would be accompanied by benefits to the English Catholics, he could still induce Spain to throw her weight into the scale of peace.
That this policy was a rational one under the circumstances few candid persons will deny. Its weak point was that it depended for success altogether upon the behaviour of Frederick and his allies. Unless James could so restrain the words and actions of his son-in-law as to make it evident to the world that the restoration of the Palatinate would not be the signal for a fresh war, leaving the Imperial forces to do all their work over again, it was ridiculous to expect that either Spain or the Emperor would consent to the terms proposed. Above all, it was most absurd that James, who had shown himself utterly unable to control his son-in-law’s proceedings, should now be urging the Spanish Government to sacrifice all its principles and interests, by taking up arms against its own allies in such a cause.
Between the hallucination of James, that the Spaniards would fight for the re-establishment of his son-in-law, and the hallucination of the Spaniards that the Protestants of Europe would look on unmoved whilst the heir of the Palatinate was being educated in the Roman Catholic faith, Bristol’s negotiation was in evil plight. Yet the mere fact that the Spaniards had promised at all to employ force for the preservation of the towns in the Palatinate from the Imperialist armies, is sufficient proof that if his master had been able to control events <386>upon the Protestant side, it was not at Madrid that any serious opposition would have been encountered.
A few days after Bristol’s demands were presented, news arrived that Mannheim had fallen into the hands of Tilly.
With a garrison of fourteen hundred men, Vere had found it impossible to defend the extensive fortifications of the place; and, October 28.Fall of Mannheim.after setting fire to the town, he had retired into the castle. Even there his troops were all too few for the work before them. Mansfeld had long before swept away the stores which had been laid up for the siege; and the blockade had been too strict to permit of the introduction of fresh supplies in sufficient quantity. Provisions and fuel were running short, and there was only powder enough to last for six or seven days. Hope of succour there was none, the German soldiers were beginning to talk of surrender, and Vere had every reason to suppose that they would refuse to stand to their guns. Under these circumstances, there was nothing to be done but to come to terms with the enemy, and a capitulation was accordingly signed which allowed the garrison to march out with the honours of war.[605]
Immediately after receiving the keys of the citadel, Tilly marched upon Frankenthal, the only place still occupied in Frederick’s name. Siege of Frankenthal.Advanced as the season was, he at once commenced the siege, in the hope of reducing the place before winter came. To a letter from Brussels, acquainting him that it was the King of Spain’s wish that he should leave the place untouched, he had replied with a blunt refusal to accept orders from anyone but the Emperor.
If the Infanta had now been prepared to carry out the orders which she had received from Madrid, she would at once have November.The Infanta’s refusal to relieve the garrison.given directions to the Spanish troops to break up the siege by force. But there were limits even to the power of a King of Spain. The Infanta informed her nephew that he had given orders which it was impossible to execute. The few Spanish troops left in the Palatinate were not sufficiently numerous to relieve the garrison of <387>Frankenthal; and even if this had not been the case, it was preposterous to imagine that Spain could ever be found fighting against the Catholic League. She hoped that his Majesty would use all good offices in favour of peace; but assuredly he could do nothing more.[606]
In truth, no one but James could ever have dreamed of anything else. It was his business to make peace desirable. At the head of the neutral Protestants of Germany his word would have been worth listening to; but it was mere fatuity to expect the Spaniards to extricate him from the difficulty into which his own indolence had brought him.
The Infanta’s letter, reaching Madrid at a time when Bristol was pressing for an answer to the demand which he had been Difficulties of the Spanish Ministers.instructed to make, was not calculated to diminish the hesitations of the Spanish ministers. Nor was their course rendered less difficult by the arrival of a despatch from Oñate, announcing that the Emperor was not to be moved from his design of conferring the Electorate upon Maximilian.[607] Evidently the problem of keeping on good terms with James and Ferdinand at the same time was becoming more insoluble every day.
It was not only from the side of foreign politics that danger was to be apprehended to the good understanding which The Infanta Maria.Olivares wished to establish between the Courts of London and Madrid. The Infanta Maria, whose hand was to be the pledge of its continuance, had now entered upon her seventeenth year. Her features were not beautiful, but the sweetness of her disposition found expression in her face, and her fair complexion and delicate white hands drew forth rapturous admiration from the contrast which they presented to the olive tints of the ladies by whom she was surrounded.[608] The mingled dignity and gentleness of her bearing <388>made her an especial favourite with her brother. Her life was moulded after the best type of the devotional piety of her Church. Two hours of every day she spent in prayer. Twice every week she confessed, and partook of the Holy Communion. Her chief delight was in meditating upon the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, and preparing lint for the use of the hospitals. The money which her brother allowed her to be spent at play, she carefully set aside for the relief of the poor.
Her character was as remarkable for its self-possession as for its gentleness. Excepting when she was in private amongst her ladies, her words were few; and though those who knew her well were aware that she felt unkindness deeply, she never betrayed her emotions by speaking harshly of those by whom she had been wronged. Anyone who hoped to afford her amusement by repeating the scandal and gossip of the Court, was soon taught, by visible tokens of her disapprobation, to avoid such subjects for the future. When she had once made up her mind where the path of duty lay, no temptation could induce her to swerve from it by a hair’s breadth. Nor was her physical courage less conspicuous than her moral firmness. At a Court entertainment given at Aranjuez, a fire broke out amongst the scaffolding which supported the benches upon which the spectators were seated. In an instant the whole place was in confusion. Amongst the screaming throng the Infanta alone retained her presence of mind. Calling Olivares to her help, that he might keep off the pressure of the crowd, she made her escape without quickening her usual pace.[609]
There were many positions in which such a woman could hardly have failed to pass a happy and a useful life; but it is certain that October.Her aversion to the marriage.no one could be less fitted to become the wife of a Protestant King, and the Queen of a Protestant nation. On the throne of England her life would be one continual martyrdom. Her own dislike of the marriage was undisguised, and her instinctive aversion was confirmed by the reiterated warnings of her confessor. A heretic, he told her, was worse than a devil. “What a <389>comfortable bedfellow you will have,” he said. “He who lies by your side, and who will be the father of your children, is certain to go to hell.”[610]
It was only lately, however, that she had taken any open step in the matter. Till recently, indeed, the marriage had hardly She remonstrates with her brother.been regarded at Court in a serious light. The case was now altered. A junta had been appointed to settle the articles of marriage with the English Ambassador, and although the Pope’s opinion had been given, it seemed likely that the junta, under Gondomar’s influence, would urge him to reconsider his determination. Under these circumstances the Infanta proceeded to plead her own cause with her brother. She found a powerful support in the Infanta[611] Margaret, the youngest daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II., who had retired from the world to a Carmelite nunnery at Madrid. This lady now put forth all her influence to induce the King to return to the scheme which had received his father’s approval,[612] to marry his sister to the Emperor’s son, the Archduke Ferdinand, and to satisfy the Prince of Wales with the hand of an archduchess.[613]
<390>The tears of the sister whom he was loth to sacrifice were of great weight with Philip; but she had powerful influences to contend against. Olivares, upon whose sanguine mind the hope of converting England was at this time exercising all its glamour, protested against the change; and Philip, under the eye of his favourite, made every effort to shake his sister’s resolution. The confessor was threatened with removal from his post if he did not change his language; and divines of less unbending severity were summoned to reason with the Infanta, and were instigated to paint in glowing colours the glorious and holy work of bringing back an apostate nation to the faith.
For a moment the unhappy girl gave way before the array of counsellors, and she told her brother that, in order to serve God and obey the King, she was ready to submit to anything.[614]
In a few days, however, this momentary phase of feeling had passed away. Her woman’s instinct told her that she had been November.The Infanta’s resolution.in the right, and that, with all their learning, the statesmen and divines had been in the wrong. She sent to Olivares to tell him that if he did not find some way to save her from the bitterness before her, she would cut the knot herself by taking refuge in a nunnery;[615] and when Philip returned from his hunting in November, he found himself besieged by all the weapons of feminine despair.
Philip was not proof against his sister’s misery. Upon the <391>political effect of the decision which he now took he scarcely Nov. 25.Philip’s letter to Olivares.bestowed a thought. It was his business to hunt boars and stags, or to display his ability in the tilt-yard; it was the business of Olivares and the Council of State to look after politics.
The letter in which he announced his intention to Olivares was very brief. “My father,” he wrote, “declared his mind at his death-bed concerning the match with England, which was never to make it; and your uncle’s intention, according to that, was ever to delay it; and you know likewise how averse my sister is to it. I think it now time that I should find a way out of it; wherefore I require you to find some other way to content the King of England, to whom I think myself much bound for his many expressions of friendship.”[616]
Such a letter as this would have been irresistible, even if the minister’s own opinions had remained unchanged; but Nov. 28.Olivares’ change of policy.during the last fortnight much had occurred to shake his determination. On the one hand, Bristol’s peremptory demand for immediate co-operation against the Emperor had been presented; on the other hand, it was now known at Madrid that Tilly had not paid the slightest attention to the Infanta’s remonstrances, and that nothing would induce the Emperor to postpone any longer the transference of the Electorate. Under these circumstances it was evident that it was necessary to reconsider those <392>wide-reaching plans which had a few weeks before seemed so easy of accomplishment, and the result was a memorial addressed by Olivares to the King, and laid before the Council of State for its approval.[617]
“Sir,” he began, “considering the present state of the treaty of marriage between Spain and England, and knowing certainly, His memorial.as I understand from the ministers who treated of the business in the time of our lord the King Philip III. — may he now be in glory, — that his meaning was never to effect it unless the Prince became a Catholic, but only with respect to the King of England to prolong the treaty, and the consideration of its articles, till it could obtain the conditions at which he aimed; and also to retain the amity of that king, which was desirable in every way, and especially on account of the affairs of Flanders and Germany and the obligation under which he has placed us as regards the latter; and suspecting likewise that your Majesty is of the same opinion, although you have made no demonstration of any such intention, yet founding my suspicions on the assurance which I have received that the Infanta Donna Maria has resolved to enter a nunnery the same day that your Majesty shall press her to make the marriage without the above-mentioned conditions, I have thought fit to present to your Majesty that which my zeal has suggested to me on this occasion, and which I consider will give great satisfaction to the King of Great Britain.”
The minister then proceeded to show that James was involved in two difficulties; the one that of the marriage; the other, that of the Palatinate; and that it was not to be supposed that, even if the marriage were effected, he would cease to require the restitution of his grandchildren. If, therefore, the Infanta were married before the other question was settled, his Majesty would find himself in a dilemma; for, argued Olivares with every show of reason on his side, “it will be necessary for you to declare against the Emperor and the Catholic League, a thing which even to hear, as a mere possibility, will offend your Majesty’s pious ears; or to declare yourself for the Emperor and the Catholic League, as certainly you <393>will, and to find yourself engaged in a war against the King of England, and your sister married to his son.” Any other supposition, he went on to say, was inadmissible. Neutrality would be out of the question. The King of England had made up his mind that he was to recover the Palatinate with the help of Spain; the Emperor, on the other hand, would not give way, at least as far as the Electorate was concerned. It was, therefore, by no means easy for Philip to escape from the situation in which he was placed; and, if something were not done at once, it would be impossible for him to extricate himself at all. Olivares ended by proposing once more the old plan which had found favour with Philip III. — the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Emperor’s daughter, and a Catholic education for Frederick’s eldest son at Vienna, with the prospect of the hand of an archduchess when he came of age. Thus everybody would be satisfied, and Europe would be at peace.[618]
Never before, in all probability, had so visionary a scheme been found side by side with such sturdy common sense. Character of the scheme.Olivares at least saw plainly that the great difficulty of the day was the German war, and that all questions about family alliances and the amelioration of the condition of the English Catholics were insignificant in comparison; yet, true Spaniard as he was, he could not rise, as Bristol had risen, to a position from which the two parties could be regarded with an equal eye. His own religion was to resume its due superiority almost without a struggle. Protestanism was not a religion at all; certainly not one for which anyone was likely to fight, excepting from selfish motives. All that was needed was to throw a little dust in the eyes of the princes. Let Frederick be persuaded that his son would regain the <394>inheritance of his family, and he would not stop to haggle over such a trifle as his education at a Roman Catholic Court. Let James be persuaded that his dynastic interests would be secured, and he would surely not trouble himself about religious changes in the Palatinate.
Utterly absurd as was Olivares’ estimate of the power of resistance which Protestantism still possessed, he was undoubtedly in the right in holding that, with all her antecedents, Spain could not separate herself from the Emperor. Yet, when his memorial was read in the Council of State, that body unanimously refused to endorse it.[619] Objecting to the path upon which Olivares was entering, as ultimately leading to war with England, the councillors were nevertheless incapable of striking out an antagonistic policy. With the instinct of weak men, they preferred blundering on in the old track, in the hope that some lucky accident would occur to set them free from the consequences of their long duplicity.
When Olivares met with opposition in the Council of State, he never allowed his displeasure to be seen. To all outward appearance Intrigues of Olivares.he gave way to its decision. It was in this spirit that he now set to work. Every public act was to be in accordance with the supposition that the marriage treaty was not to be abandoned. In consequence of this resolution, the negotiations with Bristol went on as before. The junta reported the result to the King, and the King formally expressed a satisfaction which he was far from feeling. Royal letters were written to the Spanish Ambassador at Rome, urging him to hasten the dispensation by every means in his power. These letters were allowed to fall into Bristol’s hands, so as to remove all possible doubt of Philip’s sincerity from his mind; but all this was only a solemn farce. On the day after his memorial was written, Olivares sent for Khevenhüller, and requested him to lay his plan before the Emperor.[620] Of that which to ordinary eyes constituted the main difficulty, Olivares had no fear at all; of the popular resistance which was certain to arise in England, he had simply no conception whatever; <395>nor did he even fancy that there would be any indignation aroused by the failure of the marriage treaty. The Pope had declared that without liberty of worship he would not grant the dispensation; and if there was any fear of his giving way, it would be easy to convey to him a private hint that the despatches from Madrid were not intended to be seriously regarded, and that if he wished to please the King of Spain, he must refuse the petitions which were presented by his ambassador.[621]
Such was the strange compound of audacity and cajolery with which the affairs of Spain were from henceforth to be conducted. In all seriousness, Gondomar went backwards and forwards between Bristol and the junta. At last, on <396>December 2, Bristol received what, as he supposed, was the December.The marriage articles amended.final resolution of the Spanish Government. On the question of the church in London, he was informed that the King of Spain was ready to give way, and to restrict its publicity to the household of the Infanta. But he was told that it was impossible to allow the ecclesiastics who were to attend her to be subject to the laws of England. If James pleased, he might have the option of banishing any one of them who might offend against his laws, and a private assurance would be given that if, in any very foul case, he chose to proceed to actual punishment, the King of Spain would wink at the violation of the article. With respect to the education of the children, James’s secret engagement to leave them in the hands of their mother till the age of nine would be accepted, though it was hoped that one more year would be added. The last point to be decided was the difficult one of the protection to be afforded to the English Catholics. What James had offered was a general promise that the penal laws should be mercifully administered, and that no one should suffer death for his religion. The least that the Pope had asked was that liberty of worship should be granted, and liberty of worship was understood at Rome to mean the free use of a public church in every English town.[622] Gondomar now proposed a middle course. Let James, he said, promise in general terms to avoid all persecution of the Catholics as long as they occasioned no scandal, or, in other words, let him consent to permit them the free exercise of their religion within the walls of their own houses. If he would do that, it would be unnecessary for the stipulation to be included in the marriage treaty. A letter containing the engagement, and signed by the King and the Prince of Wales, would be sufficient.
With this declaration Bristol professed himself so far satisfied that They are sent to Rome.he would gladly see the articles thus modified sent to Rome. Till he had received fresh instructions from home, it would be impossible for him to give a formal assent to the changes proposed; but he was <397>unwilling to cause any further delay. Promises were accordingly given to him that pressure should be put upon the Pope to induce him to accept the treaty as it now stood, and to give a final answer before the end of March or April. In the mean time, the questions relating to the Infanta’s portion and dowry might be discussed and settled, and the marriage might take place before the spring was at an end.[623]
With respect to the Palatinate, a less decisive answer was given. Everything, it was said, should be done to satisfy the King of England, but Answer about the Palatinate.it would be unseemly to call upon the Emperor to surrender the towns in the Palatinate at seventy days’ notice. Nor was it possible for the King to take any decided resolution till a reply had been received to his last despatch.[624]
Of all this Bristol was inclined to take a favourable view. He could not see, he said, how the Palatinate could be recovered Bristol recommends the adoption of the amended articles.without the aid of Spain, and it was ridiculous to suppose that Philip would send his sister, and 500,000l. as well, to a country with which, if he did not mean honestly about the Palatinate, he would certainly be at war in a very short time. The only real question, therefore, was whether the marriage was intended or not.
In expressing his belief that the Spanish Council of State was in earnest about the marriage, Bristol did not form his conclusions rashly. He had received good information of the language used by the members of that body at their sittings. He had seen their reports presented to the King, and he had also seen the notes written by Philip’s own hand, by which those proceedings were approved.[625] Was it possible to suppose, he might well argue, that a king would carry out a deception so systematically, not only with foreign ambassadors, but even <398>with his own ministers? And even if he did, what use would it be to him to trick the whole world, when he was certain to be unmasked in a few months at the latest?
Such arguments would have been sound enough, if Spanish statesmen had been governed by the rules which ordinarily influence human conduct. What it was impossible for Bristol to conceive was, that Gondomar, who was openly and honestly advocating the marriage, was under the delusion that the promised visit of the Prince of Wales would end in his conversion to the Catholic creed, and that Olivares, who was secretly opposing the marriage, was fully convinced that it was possible to break it off, and to obtain the education of the young Prince Palatine as a Catholic, without giving the slightest offence to James.
Accordingly, Gage, who had been sent to Madrid to watch the progress of the negotiation, was ordered to start at once for Rome, and Porter’s return.on December 13, Porter at last set out for England, carrying with him the amended articles, and a secret message from Gondomar, joyfully accepting the offer of a visit from the Prince.
On January 2, Porter arrived in England. On two of the alterations, that relating to the additional year for the education of the children, and 1623.January.The amendments accepted by the King.the more important one, which exempted the ecclesiastics of the Infanta’s household from secular jurisdiction, James had already given way on the first intimation from Bristol that these changes were desired in Spain.[626] No further difficulty was therefore made. James and Charles at once signed the articles, as well as a letter in which they engaged that Roman Catholics should no longer suffer persecution for their religion, or for taking part in its sacraments, so long as they abstained from giving scandal, and restricted the celebration of their rites to their own houses, and that they should also be excused from taking those oaths which were considered to be in contradiction with their religious belief. This letter, however, was to <399>be retained in Bristol’s hands till the dispensation had actually arrived.[627]
Whilst James and his son were thus signing away the independence of the English monarchy, his subjects were regarding 1622.Revels at the Temple.the proceedings of their sovereign with scarcely concealed disgust. This time it was reserved for the young lawyers of the Middle Temple to give utterance to the feelings which the preachers now hardly dared to mutter. At their Christmas supper, one of them, we are told, ‘took a cup of wine in one hand, and held his sword drawn in the other, and so began a health to the distressed Lady Elizabeth; and, having drunk, kissed the sword, and laying his hand upon it, took an oath to live and die in her service; then delivered the cup and sword to the next, and so the health and ceremony went round.’[628]
Such opposition would have been harmless enough if James had had any real understanding of the political situation. The sequestration of Frankenthal asked for. But the news which Porter had brought lulled him once more to sleep, and he was now ready, not merely, as Bristol advised him, to make use of the good offices of Spain for whatever they might be worth, but to give himself up blindly into the hands of the Spanish Government. He had already taken up warmly the plan for the sequestration of Frankenthal which he had denounced, a few months before, in no measured terms, and had been surprised to find that the Infanta was not quite so ready to accede to his wishes as she had been when the walls of Heidelberg and Mannheim were still guarded by his soldiers.[629] Accordingly he appealed directly to Philip. Tilly had broken up the siege on November 24, but the town was still blocked up by the troops of his lieutenant Pappenheim, and even if it were not assaulted by force, it would be compelled to surrender from want of provisions before the end of March.[630]
<400>In this matter, at least, James had hardly any choice. With the best will in the world it would be impossible for him to send an English army into the Palatinate before the end of March. His fault was, not that he advocated the sequestration of Frankenthal, but that he had allowed affairs to fall into such a deplorable state that nothing better could be done.
Yet even now news came from Germany which would have been grateful to anyone with a clear perception of the position of affairs. For it was now known that the Elector of Saxony, who in July had been thrown into the arms of the Emperor by Frederick’s ill-advised proceedings at Darmstadt, was beginning in October to doubt the wisdom of the course which he had been pursuing.
Ferdinand, elated with success, had thought that the time was come to take one more step in the reduction of Bohemia to October.Expulsion of the Lutheran clergy from Bohemia.his own religion. In the spring he had expelled the native Bohemian clergy from the country, and he now gave orders that the German Lutheran churches should be closed, and that the last of the Protestant clergy should be sent into exile. Against this the Elector of Saxony protested. Special promises, he said, had been made to him that Lutheranism should be left untouched in Bohemia. He was answered, that those promises had only been given on condition that the Bohemians made their submission peaceably. As, however, it was notorious that this had not been the case, Ferdinand had as much right as any other of the Princes of the Empire to provide as he pleased for the religious teaching of his subjects. The special arrangements made in Silesia by the Elector in the name of the Emperor would be respected, but no interference with the other states of the Austrian monarchy could be permitted.[631]
The theory which strained to the uttermost the rights of territorial sovereignty in matters of religion, had been too long State of the Palatinate.the basis of the whole political system in Germany to make it probable that John George would do more than make empty remonstrances against the persecution which <401>was setting in in Bohemia. But it was different with the Palatinate, which was not yet legally in the hands of a Catholic sovereign. Tilly’s first act after the surrender of Heidelberg had been to found a college for the Jesuits there, and it was not long before the churches were filled with Catholic priests. Unless something were done shortly, the Palatinate would be lost to Protestantism for ever.
Unfortunately, John George was no more likely than James to strike out a new and vigorous policy in accordance with the Difficult position of the neutral Protestants.altered circumstances of the time. Yet the difficulties which beset him in common with the other neutral Protestants, were not altogether of his own creation. In leaning to the side of Ferdinand, he had been defending the cause of order against anarchy. If he was to change his attitude and to defend the cause of the religious independence of the Protestant States against the Emperor, what assurance could he have that he was not bringing back the anarchy which he detested? Nor was this a mere theoretical question, as, long before the end of the year, Mansfeld, at the head of his free companies, was once more at his work of plunder and destruction within the limits of the Empire.
With the relief of Bergen-op-Zoom the need for Mansfeld’s services in the Netherlands had come to an end, and it was not likely that the States-General, Mansfeld discharged by the States.in the midst of their own financial necessities, would keep in pay an army which they no longer wanted, merely to suit the convenience of James. Mansfeld was accordingly discharged on October 27, and sent over the frontier to find support as best he could. An attempt upon the Bishopric of Münster brought him face to face with the enemy in superior force,[632] and he His proceedings in East Friesland.turned his steps towards East Friesland. To him it was a matter of perfect indifference that he had no cause of quarrel whatever with the unlucky Count of East Friesland or his subjects. It was enough for him that the country was rich in meadows and in herds of cattle, and that, surrounded as it was by morasses, it would form a natural <402>fortress from which he might issue to plunder the neighbouring territories at his pleasure. He at once sent to the Count to demand quarters for 15,000 men, a loan of 30,000 thalers, and the possession of Stickhausen, a strong fort on the Soest, which commanded the only road by which the country was accessible from the south.[633] Before an answer could arrive, he made himself master of the place; and in a few days his troops had spread over the whole country. The aged Count himself was placed under arrest with his whole family, and his money was confiscated for the use of the army. Heavy contributions were laid upon the landowners and farmers, whilst the soldiery were suffered to deal at their pleasure with the miserable inhabitants.[634]
Such were the proceedings of the man who, if James had listened to the unwise advice of the Prince of Orange, would have been He looks to France for aid.furnished with English gold, and sent to reconquer the Palatinate.[635] He was now looking to France for aid; for Louis had at last made peace with his Huguenot subjects, and it was understood that the French ministers were beginning to view with jealousy the increasing vigour of the House of Austria.
Meanwhile Frederick had once more returned to the Hague. Still floating aimlessly, like a cork on the tumbling waves, he was Frederick returns to the Hague.as irresolute and as impracticable as ever. His own wishes would have led him to give full support to Mansfeld, and to proclaim war to the knife against the Emperor and Spain; but he was absolutely penniless himself, and there were no signs that his father-in-law would support him in any such enterprise. In the midst of his sorrows, the news of the change in the Elector of Saxony’s feelings came like a gleam of sunshine across the watery sky; but Frederick never knew how to profit by his advantages when they came. He could not see that he must choose once for <403>all between anarchy and order, and that alliance with Mansfeld’s brigands and the hordes with which Bethlen Gabor was again proposing to sweep over the Empire,[636] was utterly incompatible with the friendship of John George, and of those unenthusiastic princes and populations who wished to see the Emperor powerful enough to put down with a strong hand such atrocities as those of which Mansfeld had recently been guilty in East Friesland.
Under these circumstances, the long letter which Frederick despatched to the Elector of Saxony was only calculated to produce 1623.January.Frederick’s letter to the Elector of Saxony.an effect the very opposite to that which he desired. Scarcely touching upon the catastrophe of Bohemia, he dwelt at length upon the wrongs which he had suffered at the hands of the Emperor. He had just been unjustly put to the ban, unheard and uncondemned. His towns had been seized and plundered; his subjects ruined, and debarred from the exercise of their religion. The Emperor and the League were not in earnest when they spoke of peace. Yet, much as he had been injured, he was ready, at the request of his father-in-law, to surrender his private pretensions. John George, he was certain, would acknowledge that the ban was utterly illegal, and would do his best to induce the Emperor to withdraw it and to issue a general amnesty. In that case, if not required to do anything contrary to his honour and his conscience, he would be prepared, as soon as he was perfectly restored to his lands and dignities, to acknowledge all due respect and obedience to the Emperor.[637]
That Frederick should have entertained such views of his rights and duties is not to be wondered at; but it is strange that Terms proposed by him unacceptable.he did not see that John George’s alliance was not to be won on such terms; for the question whether his submission was to be made before or after the grant of the amnesty, involved the whole matter at issue, not merely with Ferdinand, but also with the great majority of the Princes of the Empire. Before giving any <404>support to the injured Protestants of the Palatinate, the German neutrals wanted to know whether Frederick had renounced the right of making war upon any other prince who happened to displease him; and unless he could assure them on this point, he had small chance of obtaining a hearing wherever the right of private war was regarded as an intolerable nuisance. Nor was it only by reference to the existing political necessities of Germany that Frederick stands condemned, for he had distinctly promised his father-in-law to accept peace on the principles which he now repudiated, and he had never informed James that he had retracted his promise.
How fatal an enemy Frederick was to his own cause was now, not for the first time, to be seen. On November 14 1622.November.The assembly at Ratisbon.Ferdinand had reached Ratisbon, eager to force upon the assembly which he had summoned the acceptance of the act by which he had privately conferred the Electorate upon the Duke of Bavaria. The ill-treatment of the Bohemian Lutherans had robbed the gathering of its character as an impartial representative of the two religions. The Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg were present only by their ambassadors. The Dukes of Brunswick and Pomerania were not present at all. The only Protestant who appeared in person was the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt.
From an assembly thus constituted Frederick could hope for little favour. Yet scarcely had the Emperor announced his intention than 1623.January.Resistance to the Emperor.opposition arose on every side. It was not till January 20 that the answer of the assembly was delivered to him. Ferdinand’s treatment of Frederick was approved of; but he was nevertheless recommended to lay the question of his deposition before the Electoral College; and a strong opinion was expressed as to the impolicy of passing over his immediate relations in favour of Maximilian.
Such an answer from such a body leaves no doubt that the peace of Germany was in Frederick’s hands. If he had sent a representative to Ratisbon to offer any reasonable guarantees of his intention to keep the peace, he could by no possibility <405>have failed in carrying the assembly with him. But Frederick made no sign, and James, accustomed as he was to make the most lavish promises on behalf of his son-in-law, had, on a foolish punctilio, refused to allow Chichester even to appear at the assembly. Amongst the foreign ambassadors, Oñate stood alone in protesting against the transference of the Electorate.
As it was, the conflict of opinion was embittered by the obstinate firmness of the Emperor. On February 13 Ferdinand pronounced February.Transference of the Electorate.his final decision. Whenever Frederick thought proper to seek for pardon, he would gladly give ear to his request for restoration to his lands and territories; but he would never tolerate him again in the Electoral College. He would, however, content himself with limiting the Electorate which he was about to confer to the lifetime of Maximilian. In the meanwhile, the rights of Frederick’s children and relations should be subjected to judicial inquiry, in order that they might receive their due after the death of the Duke of Bavaria.
Two days afterwards, the Electorate was solemnly conferred upon Maximilian, in spite of the protests of the ambassadors of Spain, of Saxony, and of Brandenburg.[638]
The significance of the act which had thus been accomplished in spite of all opposition, could hardly be fully appreciated at the time. To those who witnessed it, it seemed an act of triumph, proclaiming Ferdinand’s ascendancy in the Empire. Of the six Electors who would now gather round his throne, two only would in future be Protestants. Yet, in reality, in the eyes of those who could penetrate beneath the surface, that day was of evil augury for the fortunes of the Empire. On it the seeds were sown which were to ripen to a bloody harvest at Leipzic and Lutzen. It was now that the first open blow was struck which was to dissipate the idea to which Ferdinand owed his strength,— the idea that his throne could ever become the fountain of justice and the centre of unity to a distracted nation. In his battle against turbulence and disorder, it was in the spirit of a partisan that he had <406>conquered; it was in the spirit of a partisan that he would maintain the high place which he had gained. Therefore it was that the work which has now been accomplished by the Hohenzollerns fell to pieces in the hands of the descendants of Rudolph of Hapsburg.
If either of the two remaining Protestant Electors had been men of energy and decision, something might yet have been done Weakness of Saxony and Brandenburg.to save the Empire from the obstinacy of Ferdinand and the pertinacity of Frederick. Unhappily both John George and George William were without earnestness of purpose or strength of will. They saw that they could not aid Ferdinand without countenancing the encroachments of the Catholic clergy. They saw that they could not aid Frederick without countenancing anarchy. After blustering for a few months they settled down lethargically into silence, well content if, as they fondly hoped, they could avert the ruin from their own dominions.
Utterly futile as was Frederick’s notion of reconquering his position by Mansfeld’s help, it was at least not so futile as James’s January.James proposes to Frederick the sequestration of Frankenthal.notion of reconquering it by the help of Spain. Already Frederick had been begging his father-in-law for a large sum of money to enable him to take Mansfeld into his pay, and had been protesting vigorously against the plan for the sequestration of Frankenthal.[639] At last, on January 23, James vouchsafed him an answer. He had now, he said, received information from the Infanta, that she was ready to accept the sequestration on his own terms, and that she would engage to restore it if the negotiations for a general peace should come to nothing. It was impossible to preserve the town in any other way. As for Mansfeld, he wanted 500,000l. a year, and such a sum was not to be found in the exchequer. He was sorry to discover that his son-in-law had been listening to bad advice, and was giving ear to projects which were not likely to bring him any good.[640]
Frederick was deeply annoyed by this letter. In his reply, <407>he recapitulated all the wrongs which he had suffered from the Emperor, and February.Reply of Frederick.expressed an opinion that it was immaterial whether Frankenthal fell into the hands of Tilly or into those of the Infanta. He was quite ready to do anything that his father-in-law wished; but he must say that, in his opinion, a very small force would suffice for the relief of Frankenthal. No one could be more desirous of peace than himself; but peace was to be best won by arms. He certainly did not expect 500,000l. a year, but he hoped to have some smaller sum allowed him.[641]
From two such men what hope of success could possibly be entertained? Frederick’s only notion of policy was by a succession of petty acts of brigandage to force the Emperor to beg his pardon for proscribing him. James’s only notion of policy was to sit still whilst Spain induced Ferdinand to re-admit the unrepentant Frederick to the Electorate. He was quite right, no doubt, in judging that it was useless to suppose that England was strong enough to overcome the resistance of Germany; but, in spite of his dissatisfaction with the incoherent schemes of his son-in-law, it never occurred to him to suggest that Frederick’s abdication in his son’s favour would be the shortest path to the pacification of Europe.
The only spot in the political horizon upon which the English opponents of the Spanish alliance could look with pleasure was January.Settlement of the East India disputes.the close of the long dispute with the Dutch Commissioners upon the East India trade. On January 25 an accord was signed, by which an indemnity, far less than was claimed, was assigned to the English Company,[642] and it was further agreed that the island of Pularoon, which had been seized by the Dutch soon after Courthope’s death, should be given back to its rightful possessors, and that the English should be allowed to erect a fort in the neighbourhood of the rising town of Batavia.[643] Such agreements, unhappily, were of little worth. It had taken many <408>weary hours of hot debate to wring these concessions from a few cool and wary diplomatists.[644] What chance was there that they would still the strife which was once more waxing loud amongst the rude mariners and the sturdy factors of the two great companies in the East? Proud of the vigour with which they had driven the Spaniards from those wealth-producing shores, of their own maritime superiority and commanding position, the servants of the Dutch company never ceased to look down upon the English as interlopers. A rooted feeling of hostility on the one side, and of distrust on the other, made all real confidence impossible. Under these circumstances, the treaty of 1619, and the accord of 1623, could only serve to aggravate the evil, by bringing into close commercial intercourse the rivals whom it would have been wise to keep at the greatest possible distance from one another.
James’s mode of dealing with the mercantile antagonism of the Netherlands was, in truth, an exact counterpart of his mode of Similarity of the religious and commercial policy of James.dealing with the religious antagonism of Spain. In both instances, in spite of occasional inconsistencies, he looked upon bloodshed and contention as a hateful and unnecessary concomitant of the prevailing differences. On both these points his views were rather in accordance with those which prevail in the nineteenth century than with those which found credence in the seventeenth. But, with characteristic thoughtlessness, he leapt far too hastily at the conclusion at which he was anxious to arrive. To prepare the way for toleration, in order that toleration might in its turn give way to religious liberty, would have been a task which might well have taxed the energies of the wisest of statesmen. To lay down a territorial limitation for the possessions of England in the East, which might in time have led to the acquisition by England of a fair share in the trade of the Indian Archipelago, would have been an achievement which would have adorned the annals of the most illustrious reign. By grasping at too much, James ruined his own cause. He began at the end instead of at the beginning. He sought, not <409>merely to put an end to the strife between the two religions, by a gradual relaxation of the penal laws, but to bring them face to face in the closest and most intimate alliance of which human nature is capable; and, in the same manner, instead of contenting himself with seeing that the English Company and the Dutch Company did not come to blows, he attempted to fuse them into one under the most unequal and irritating conditions. The foundations of his work were laid upon the shifting sands, and were ready to be swept away by the returning tide.
For the present, however, nothing could be further from James’s thoughts than the evil which was already knocking at the doors. Vere’s reception.The negotiations for the sequestration of Frankenthal were going gaily on, and Boischot, one of the Infanta’s commissioners at the conference at Brussels, was to come over to England to agree upon the terms of its surrender. As if all danger of war had been thereby averted, Vere was ordered to disband the soldiers of the late garrison of Mannheim, which he had brought with him as far as Holland.[645] He was himself received in England with a full acknowledgment of his Buckingham to fetch the Infanta.long and meritorious services.[646] At the same time, Chichester was honoured with a seat in the Privy Council.[647] Whilst, however, those who were the warmest advocates of a war policy were treated with respect, it was taken for granted that warlike preparations were entirely unnecessary. Orders were given to get ready a fleet of Conway secretary.ten ships to fetch the Infanta home, and it was publicly announced that Buckingham, as Lord High Admiral, was to command in person.[648] There can be no better evidence of the want of earnestness with which the dark and threatening future was regarded than is furnished by the choice of a secretary. Naunton had at last been dismissed from office, though he was consoled with the promise of a grant of land, <410>which was afterwards commuted for a pension of 1,000l. a year. This arrangement had first been made at the time when Buckingham had turned away from Spain; and he had then entreated for a respite on the ground that Lady Naunton was about to give birth to a child, and that she had in the preceding year been frightened into a miscarriage by a rumour that he was to lose his office. His prayer had been granted at the time; but the child was now born, and the father was able to tender his resignation without further anxiety. His successor was Sir Edward Conway, a man whose opinions, so far as he had any, had been usually supposed to be in favour of a close alliance with the Dutch. But it was soon understood at Court that he had in reality no opinions of his own. His thoughts as well as his words were at the bidding of the great favourite. In an age when complimentary expressions which in our time would justly be considered servile were nothing more than the accustomed phrases of polite society, Conway’s letters to Buckingham stood alone in the fulsome and cloying flattery with which they were imbued. He had attracted much attention, and had caused some amusement, by his efforts to fasten upon the favourite the title of “Your Excellency,” which had hitherto been unknown in England, and he afterwards scandalised grave statesmen, who were accustomed to regard the Crown as the oniy fountain of official honour, by addressing Buckingham as “his most gracious patron.” Yet it was not so much by such trifles as these, as by the agility with which his views changed with every shifting fancy of the great man to whom he owed his office, that his utter want of independence of character was shown. Not, indeed, that he was, in any sense of the word, a bad man. He was not one of those who acquire power by cringing to the great, in order that they may enjoy the satisfaction of trampling upon the small. He was neither extortionate nor harsh. All that was amiss with him was that he had no ideas of his own, and that he was impressed by nature with the profoundest admiration for any feather-brained courtier who happened to enjoy the favour of the King.
Such was the man who was at once admitted to the strictest intimacy by James and Buckingham. Calvert was to remain <411>in London, to write despatches, to confer with foreign ambassadors, and to attend to the details of business. Conway was to be the private and confidential secretary, to move about with the Court, to convey the wishes of the King to his more experienced colleague, and to jot down, in his own abominable scrawl, whatever information it might please James to entrust to his keeping.
It is, indeed, intelligible enough that James should have been unwilling to admit any one of moral or intellectual superiority The news from Spain.to his intimacy. Even Calvert, accustomed to obey orders as he was, could not avoid intimating that the time was come for a more decided policy in Germany;[649] and though the news from Madrid was decidedly favourable to the prospects of the marriage, it required all James’s supereminent power of shutting his eyes to the facts of the world around him not to see that, unless he could raise up a party in Germany for his son-in-law, all that Spain could do for him would be absolutely thrown away.
It was hardly possible that the day of disenchantment could be postponed much longer. If James succeeded in bringing the representatives of his son-in-law and of the Emperor to meet in a diplomatic encounter, even he might perhaps learn that diametrically opposite opinions are not to be reconciled by well-intended commonplaces; and then, if not before, he would discover how little good he was likely to derive from his connection with Spain. Yet, foolish as James’s policy was, there was a lower depth of folly to be disclosed. If the Spanish match and its accompanying advantages were a pure delusion, he had at least never projected anything so hopelessly insane as the scheme which had been gradually ripening in the mind of his favourite and his son.
End of the fourth volume.
[560] Nethersole to Carleton, Sept. 28, S. P. Holland.
[561] Relazione di G. Lando, Rel. Ven. Ingh. 263.
[562] Lando describes him (Rel. Ven. Ingh. 261,) as “O vincendo e domando, o non sentendo li moti del senso, non avendo assaggiati, che si sappia, certi giovanili piaceri, nè scoprendosi che sia stato rapito il suo amore, se non per qualche segno di poesia e ben virtuose apparenze, arrossendo anco come modesta donzella se sente a parlare di materia poco onesta. Onde le donne non lo tentano nè anche, come facevano col fratello, che tanto pregiava le bellezze, ed era seguitato e rubato da ognuna.”
In the face of this, it is impossible to pay any further attention to the vague gossip which Tillières thought worthy of a place in his despatches.
It is, however, well known that it is generally believed that Jeremy Taylor’s second wife was a natural daughter of Charles, born before this time. Against this story Lando’s evidence is of some weight, and it is certain that his opinion was shared by many others, as in a letter, addressed to Charles by Digby, on the 12th of August, 1621 (Clarendon State Papers, i., App. xvi.), there is mention of a wide-spread belief in Germany that the prince was physically incapacitated from ever becoming a father. The story rests upon family tradition, but anyone who reads <367>Heber’s Life of Taylor, will see that the traditions of that family were often vague, and sometimes incorrect. The lady, it seems, was very like Charles in personal appearance, and it is by no means improbable that some one may have accounted for the chance likeness in this way, and that in due course of time the story was accepted, if not by herself, at least by her children, who, in those days of Royalist enthusiasm, would feel a sort of pride in tracing their descent from the Royal Martyr.
[563] Rel. Ven. Ingh. 262.
[564] Rel. Ven. Ingh. 265.
[565] Gondomar to Philip IV., Jan. 21⁄31, 1622, Simancas MSS. 2518, fol. 20.
[566] “Este Principe me ha offrezido en mucha confiança y secreto que, si llegado yo á España le aconsejase que se vaya á poner en las manos de V. Magd. y á su disposicion, lo hará y llegará á Madrid yncognito con dos criados.” Gondomar to Philip IV., May 6⁄16, Simancas MSS. 2603, fol. 35.
[567] See Vol. II. p. 316.
[568] Valaresso to the Doge, Sept. 20⁄30, Venice MSS. Desp. Ingh.
[570] Interrogatories to be administered to Porter, 1627, Sherborne MSS. As these questions proceeded from Bristol, I can hardly be wrong in taking them as equivalent to assertions of fact.
[571] Rel. Ven. Ingh. 244.
[572] Interrogatories administered to Porter, 1627, Sherborne MSS.
[573] The plan was adopted immediately upon Porter’s return.
[574] The reasons for setting aside Clarendon’s story, at least in part, will be given later.
[575] The King to Bristol, Oct. 3, Cabala, 238.
[576] The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, Oct. 4⁄14, Add. MSS. 17,677 K, fol. 229.
[577] Nethersole to Elizabeth, Oct. 3, S. P. Holland. Salvetti’s News-Letter, Oct. 11⁄21. Message sent by Porter, Simancas MSS. 2849, fol. 84.
[578] The King to Gregory XV., Sept. 30, Cabala, 376.
[579] Bristol to the King, Sept. 13, S. P. Spain.
[580] Salvetti’s News-Letter, Oct. 11⁄21.
[581] The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, Oct. 10⁄20, Add. MSS. 17,677 K, fol. 234. Valaresso to the Doge, Oct. 11⁄21, Venice MSS.
[582] The King to Bristol, Oct. 4, Prynne’s Hidden Works of Darkness, 20.
[583] Calvert to Bristol, Oct. 14, ibid. 21.
[584] The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, Oct. 10⁄20, Add. MSS. 17,677 K, fol. 234.
[585] “Quando el Don Antonio Porter salia por el lugar, todos le gritaban — Traiganos guerra,— Traiganos guerra.” Message brought by Porter. Simancas MSS. 2849, fol. 48.
[586] Meade to Stuteville, Oct. 19, Harl. MSS. 389, fol. 243. Nethersole to Carleton, Oct. 18, S. P. Germany.
[587] Nethersole to Carleton, Oct. 24, S. P. Holland.
[588] Nethersole to Carleton, Oct. 18, S. P. Germany.
[589] Calvert to Carleton, Oct. 9, S. P. Holland. Calvert to Buckingham, Oct. 12, Harl. MSS. 1580, fol. 175.
[590] The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, Oct. 4⁄14, Add. MSS. 17,677 K, fol. 229. Salvetti’s News-Letter, Oct. 18⁄28.
[591] Khevenhüller, ix. 1780–1784.
[592] Relazione Venete, Spagna, i. 650.
[593] “Il fine delle sue intenzioni non credo che non sia il servizio del Rè.” “Il Conte Duca … non riceve doni, vuole il servizio del Rè.” Ibid. i. 653, 686.
[595] Bristol to Calvert, Sept. 28, 29, S. P. Spain.
[596] Bristol Memorial, Oct. 3, Bristol to Calvert, Oct. 8, S. P. Spain.
[597] Bristol to Calvert, Oct. 21, S. P. Spain.
[598] “Caso que los que governaren las dichas armas pongan alguna difficultad en el cumplimiento dello, V. A. les hará decir que, sinolo executaren, no permitirá otra cosa; y, si fuere necessario, mandará V. A. de la gente de guerra que por mi horden se entretiene en el Palatinado, que no solo tenga muy buena correspondencia con la que alli ay del Rey de la Gran Bretaña, pero que si conveniere se entreponga y procure que no recivia daño de otro; porque es justo se vea que de nuestra parte se hace esto, y todo lo que se puede.” Philip IV. to the Infanta Isabella, Oct. 19⁄29, S. P. Spain. The original is in the Archives at Brussels. It might be suspected that the instructions here given were countermanded by a secret despatch; but this is put out of the question by the Infanta’s reply of Nov. 6⁄16, Brussels MSS.
[599] Khevenhüller, ix. 1784.
[600] Bristol to Calvert, Oct. 21, S. P. Spain.
[601] The mother of Philip IV. was the Emperor’s sister.
[602] Bristol afterwards asserted that the phrase about the match had not been reported to him, ‘as far as he remembereth’ (Hardwicke State Papers, ii. 501); but it seems likely enough to have been said. Porter’s own story (S. P. Spain) was adopted by Buckingham in the narrative which he drew up for the Parliament of 1624.
[603] Hardwicke State Papers, i. 504.
[604] Bristol to Calvert, Nov. 26, S. P. Spain.
[605] Vere to Calvert, Oct. 30, S. P. Germany. Carleton to Calvert, Dec. 27, S. P. Holland.
[606] The Infanta Isabella to King Philip IV., Nov. 3⁄13, 6⁄16. Memoir for A. de Lossada, Brussels MSS.
[607] Ciriza to Philip IV., Nov. 15⁄25, Simancas MSS. 2507, fol. 21.
[608] Bristol to the Prince of Wales, Dec. 25, 1622; Feb. 22, 1623, S. P. Spain.
[609] Description of the Infanta, by Toby Matthew, June 28, 1623, S. P. Spain.
[610] Bristol to the King, Aug. 18, 1623, S. P. Spain.
[611] So termed at Madrid, though strictly speaking she should be called the Archduchess Margaret. Her mother was a Spanish Infanta.
[613] “Ho anco inteso per sicurissima via che scrive il Nontio di Spagna trattarsi in quella Corte nell apparenza molto alle secrette questo matrimonio con Inghilterra, et ch’era molto portato dal Conte di Codmar,” i.e. Gondomar, “dicendosi d’alcuni che seguira certo, et da altri che tutta era una fintione per addormentar Inghilterra, et che lui ne ha parlato secrettissamente con detto Conte, et con li ministri, accio che non si faccia senza la saputa del Pontefice, et così ne havea riportato parola et promessa;— che questa voce era arrivata sino all’ Infante, et che si dovesse presto preparar per quel Regno; la qual ne mostrava dispiacere, ma che era stata consolata dalla Contessa di Lemos, et dal Infante Cardinale, et da tutte le dame del Palazzo, essortandola ad andar allegramente;— che all’ Ambasciatore Inglese era stato promesso il vederla e visitarla, et che all’ officio lei mai rispose, tenendo sempre gli occhi in terra;— che l’Infante Discalza,” i.e. the Infanta Margaret, “insieme col Rè pur le hanno parlato di queste nozze, dicendole essa Discalza che le pensasse bene, poiche si trattava di lei sola; et che lei habbi detto al Rè che in <390>gratia non le lasciasse; onde persuadeva essa Discalza che, gia che si vede non mostrar questa figliuola inclinatione a quest nozze, ben sarà maritarla in Germania, et dar la figliuola dell’ Imperator ad Inghilterra, onde da questi concetti dubbiosi che si introducono si va argomentando che possino Spagnoli in fine, quando non possino far altro, et cavatone il frutto che desideranno, liberarsi dalla promessa col dir che la figliuola don vuole maritarsi in Inghilterra, et addonar a lei tutto.” — Zen to the Doge, Oct. 29⁄Nov. 8, Venice MSS. Desp. Roma.
[614] Corner to the Doge, Oct. 29⁄Nov. 8, Venice MSS. Desp. Spagna. Bristol to the King, Aug. 18, 1623, S. P. Spain.
[615] Francisco de Jesus, 48.
[616] This letter is only known from an English translation. It was afterwards shown to the Prince of Wales by Olivares; but he was not allowed to take a copy. The letter as printed here differs from that to be found in many collections. It is from a paper amongst the Spanish State Papers, in the Prince’s own handwriting, with interlineations and corrections which leave scarcely any doubt as to its being the original draft which Charles is said to have written down immediately after the interview. The letter as usually given (in Cabala for instance, p. 314,) is longer. The changes may have been added for the purpose of making it clearer to an English audience, as when “Your uncle” becomes “Your uncle Don Baltazar,” or they may have been simply added on further consideration. It is perfectly immaterial which view is adopted, as in all essential points the two letters agree. The question of the date will be discussed in a note to p. 393.
[617] Bristol to the King, Aug. 18, 1623, S. P. Spain.
[618] The date of this memorial is always given in the English translations as Nov. 8. But the original Spanish (Francisco de Jesus, 48) gives Dec. 8, that is to say, Nov. 28⁄Dec. 8, and this is confirmed by Bristol’s letter of Aug. 18, 1623. Evidently the translator altered the month from the new to the old style, and forgot to change the day. The same will hold good of Philip’s letter to which I have assigned the date of Nov. 25⁄Dec. 5, instead of Nov. 5⁄15. In the English copies all references to the Prince’s becoming a Catholic are omitted. Was this deliberate excision Charles’s work?
[619] Bristol to the King, Aug. 18, 1623, S. P. Spain.
[620] Khevenhüller, ix. 1789.
[621] “It is true that the Conde of Olivares, upon some scruple which the Infanta seemed to make to marry with a Prince of a different religion, but especially for that he feared that if the match with the Infanta should be made, and the business of the Palatinate not be compounded, they should hardly obtain their end of a peace, which they chiefly aim at, projected and thereupon wrote a kind of discourse, how much fitter it would be for this King taking a daughter of the Emperor’s to match her with the Prince, and thereby both to make an alliance, and to accommodate the troubles of Germany; and he proceeded so far in this conceit that privately he procured a commission from the Emperor to treat and conclude that match with me if occasion were offered. But when this discourse of his came to be seen in the Council of State, it was utterly disliked by all, and resolved that it should in no ways interrupt the going forward to a present conclusion of the match for the Infanta with me … And divers of the Council have told me that this discourse was upon a false ground, pre-supposing that neither the last king nor this intended to proceed in the match unless the Prince would turn Catholic, which point had long before been cleared, and the mistake merely grew out of this Conde of Olivares being absolutely new in the business.” — Bristol to the King, Aug. 18, 1623, S. P. Spain. Of course Bristol may have been misinformed, but I do not suppose he was. The difference of opinion between the Royal family and the ministers is corroborated by a despatch of the Venetian Ambassador at Rome, who says that he was informed by Cardinal Ludovisi that the marriage ‘sia molto consigliato dalli ministri, ma che pero gli parenti, et quelli del sangre, non lo consigliano, ma piutosti nel figliuolo dell Imperatore.’ Zen to the Doge, Jan. 11⁄21, 1623, Venice MSS. Desp. Roma. Though Olivares is not directly mentioned, there can be no doubt that he took the part of the Infanta, and it will be seen that, some time after this, he continued to be a warm advocate of the German marriage.
[622] Zen to the Doge, Dec. 28⁄Jan. 7, Venice MSS. Desp. Roma.
[623] Bristol to Calvert, Nov. 26, Nov. 28, Dec. 4; Bristol to the King, Dec. 10, S. P. Spain. The accommodation of the differences in religion. — Answer given to Bristol, Dec. 2⁄12. Prynne’s Hidden Works of Darkness, 22, 23.
[624] Verbal answer given to Bristol’s Memorial, S. P. Spain.
[625] Bristol to the King, Aug. 18, 1623, S. P. Spain.
[626] The King to Bristol, Nov. 24, 1622, Prynne’s Hidden Works of Darkness, 22.
[627] Calvert to Gage, Jan. 5, Prynne’s Hidden Works of Darkness, 25.
[628] Meade to Stuteville, Jan. 25, Harl. MSS. 389, fol. 274.
[629] Coloma to the King, Oct. 29⁄Nov. 8, Harl. MSS. 1583, fol. 305. De la Faille to Trumbull, Dec. 5⁄15, S. P. Germany.
[630] The King to Bristol, Jan. 7; Calvert to Bristol, Jan. 7, Prynne’s Hidden Works of Darkness, 27, 28.
[631] Londorp, ii. 630–653. Hurter, Gesch. Ferdinands II., ix. 213. Pescheck, Gegenreformation in Böhmen, ii. 36.
[632] Carleton to Calvert, Nov. 5, S. P. Holland.
[633] Carleton to Calvert, Nov. 18, S. P. Holland. Uetterodt’s Mansfeld, 525.
[634] Uetterodt’s Mansfeld, 526.
[635] The Prince of Orange to the King, Nov. 2⁄12, S. P. Holland.
[636] Chichester to Carleton, Nov. 25, S. P. Holland.
[637] Frederick to the Elector of Saxony, Jan. 12⁄22, Londorp, ii. 653.
[638] Hurter’s Geschichte Ferdinands II., ix. 152–180.
[639] Calvert to Carleton, Dec. 16, S. P. Holland.
[640] The King to Frederick, Jan. 22, ibid.
[641] Frederick to the King, Feb. 4⁄14, S. P. Holland.
[642] Add. MSS. 22,866, fol. 466 b.
[643] Bruce’s Annals of the East India Company, i. 235.
[644] Aerssen’s Journal. Aerssen’s Report. Add. MSS 22,864–65–66.
[645] Calvert to Calverton, Dec. 28, 1622; Carleton to Calvert, Jan. 17, 20, 1623, S. P. Holland.
[646] ——— to Meade, Jan. 31, Harl. MSS. 387, fol. 276; Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 10, S. P. Dom. cxxxviii. 23.
[647] Privy Council Register, Dec. 31, 1622.
[648] Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 4, S. P. Dom. cxxxvii. 5.
[649] Expressions to this effect are constantly occurring in his correspondence with Carleton, S. P. Holland. I may take this opportunity of stating that it is quite a mistake to suppose that, because Calvert afterwards became a Roman Catholic, he was ready to betray English interests into the hands of the Spaniards.