had performed, whereby his majesty concluded he was not popular:" but he presently confessed that he had good cause to suspect the duke of late, and, as he had no servant of his own that would venture to accuse him, he desired Don Francisco and the Spanish ambassadors to procure him some grounds for a charge, and then he would quickly take a course with him. And, to complete this strange but characteristic scheme, he afterwards sent Padre Maestro, a Jesuit, to renew his request that these foreigners would find the materials for an accusation against his favourite! These thoughts so wrought upon the king that his countenance fell suddenly, he mused much in silence, and entertained the prince and duke with mystical and broken speeches. Charles and Buckingham were thrown into consternation, which was increased a morning or two after, when the king prepared to take coach for Windsor, ordering his son to accompany him and the duke to remain behind. As the king was stepping into the carriage, Buckingham, with tears in his eyes, implored to know how he had offended his good and gracious master, vowing, by the name of his Saviour, that if he knew what he was charged with he would clear himself, or confess it if true. James did not satisfy him, but drove off with the prince, crying or blubbering all the way to Windsor, and saying that he was the unhappiest man alive to be forsaken by those that were dearest to him. Both Charles and the duke suspected the quarter whence this storm had been blown, but they were wholly in the dark as to particulars, and knew not what course to steer. The duke, forlorn, retired to Wallingford House in a state of confusion and distraction, and threw himself upon a couch, where he lay like one dead or stupified. In this state he was found by Williams, the Lord Bishop of Lincoln and Lord Keeper, who told him that he could bring him out of that sorrow, and that he verily believed God's directing hand was in it to have stirred up his grace to advance him so that he might be able to do him service at this pinch. The fact was, Williams had got possession of the whole secret. The Spanish secretary Carondolet* kept an English mistress, and this woman had been for some time in the pay of my Lord Bishop the Keeper, who recompensed her bountifully. The meretrix, though she lived in Mark Lane, is said to have had a deal of courtly wit, so much that the poor secretary could keep no secret from her which she had a mind to know. She put into Williams's hands the rough draft of the paper which had been presented to the king, and gave him notice at the same time of an English Catholic priest living in Drury Lane, whom her lover loved above all other priests, not excepting even his own confessor. My Lord Keeper presently seized this man,-a dead man by the statutes, and Carondolet, as was expected, hastened to intercede for his friend. He obtained the priest's liberty, but it was at the price of the entire secret, which had been more than half

The secretary was not a native Spaniard, but a jovial Walloon.

revealed before. And now Williams told the reviving duke to make haste to Windsor before supper time, to communicate with the prince, to whom he had given a memorial in answer to the charges contained in the paper which the Spaniards had given the king;* and he further advised the duke to " duke to "deport himself with all amiable addresses," and not stir from his majesty day nor night. The duke, who had not had wit to help himself, followed the bishop's advice, and, at a seasonable moment, the bishop's memorial was presented to the king, backed by the remarks and arguments of Charles. James read the paper deliberately, stopping many times and saying, "Well, very well." At last he tenderly embraced both Charles and Buckingham, sorrowing much that he should have wronged them with a jealousy fomented by the Spanish traitors. "I ask no more from you,' said James, "but that you tell me who is your engineer that struck the sparks out of the flint to light the candle." The prince stood mute: the duke vowed that he knew not the author of the paper. "Well," said James, "I have a good nostril, and will answer mine own question; my Keeper had the main finger in it. I dare swear he bolted the flour and made it up into paste."* All this, of course, passed among the trio, but, when the king consulted with others, or took counsel from reflection, he resolved to draw up a set of interrogatories, and to examine the members of his council upon their oaths. Charles surreptitiously obtained possession of a copy of the interrogatories, which he enclosed to Buckingham in the following memorable letter:—

Steenie,-I send you here inclosed the interrogatories that the king thinks fit should be asked concerning the malicious accusations of the Spanish ambassador. As for the way, my father is resolved (if you do not gainsay it, and show reason to the contrary) to take the oaths himself, and to make secretary Calvert, and the chancellor of the exchequer, to take the examination in writing under their hands that are examined; thus much is by the king's command. Now, for my opinion, it is this-that you can incur no danger in this but by opposing the king's proceedings in it, to make him suspect that you have spoken somewhat that you are unwilling he should hear of; for I cannot think that any man is so mad as to call his own head in question, by making a lie against you, when all the world knows me to be your true friend; and, if they tell but the truth, I know they can say but what the king knows that you have avowed to all the world, which is, that you think, as I do, that the continuance of these treaties with Spain might breed us much mischief; wherefore my advice to you is, that you do not oppose, or show yourself discontented at, the king's course herein, for I think

it will be so far from doing you hurt, that it will make you trample under your feet those few poor rascals that are your enemies. Now, sweetheart, if you think I am mistaken in my judgment in this, let me know what I can do in this, or anything else, to serve thee."*

If there had not been something to conceal, Charles would not have written this letter, nor would Buckingham have been afraid of the king's design. Without seeing the epistle, the counsellors were perfectly well aware of the close union between the duke and the heir to the throne, of the resolution Charles had expressed on other occasions to consider the duke's enemies as his own, and of the declining health of James, who was prematurely old and sickly. Therefore, when the king swore them all upon the bible, in the council-chamber, to speak the truth, they one and all declared that they❘ were ignorant of any sinister designs-that they believed the duke to be one of the most faithful of servants, &c. Buckingham, thus exonerated, complained and fell sick, or feigned sickness. The king then asked the Spanish ambassadors for the names of the Englishmen who had given them their information: Ynoiosa demanded a private audience. This greatly alarmed Charles and Buckingham, who, not without difficulty, made the king refuse to see him, and refer him to one of his ministers. Upon this the Spaniard quitted the kingdom, and returned to Madrid, where he reasserted all that had been laid down in the memorial presented by Carondolet. James maintained that he had maliciously accused his only son and his favourite minister, and had then refused to produce his proofs. But the king acted under fear and the painful conviction that he was too old and helpless to overthrow the dominion which Charles and the duke had agreed to divide between them, and the minister was no longer his favourite. Indeed, some short time before this crisis, he had entertained a notion such as few other men were capable of-to make his peace with his old minion, the Earl of Somerset, and to place that convicted murderer once more at the head of the nation. Perhaps he hoped that the man's crimes might be forgotten; and certainly many persons had long been complaining that the government of Buckingham was incomparably worse than that of his predecessor. By means of a third party+ Somerset opened a communication with the king, and dwelt at length, and with some ability, on the misconduct of Buckingham. From a letter which has recently been brought to light, it should appear that Somerset acted in concert with the Spanish ambassadors, or with an English party that maintained, like those diplomatists, that James was little better than a prisoner, and that the prince was wholly guided by Buckingham, who, in all things, had shown himself a rash, heady young man, a novice in the managing of business. duke," says this letter, "doth so much presume upon his favour, that he contemneth all men, as Hardwicke State Papers.

"The

The medium of communication may have been the Earl of Kelly, who secretly introduced Carondolet to the king.

VOL. III.

knowing that those who are obedient to his highness will also subject themselves to his will.”* Buckingham himself, though probably ignorant of Somerset's movements, felt that he had lost the good will of his old master; but this only made him cling the closer to his son, who would soon be king, and to his recently found popularity in parliament and in the country, as the determined enemy of the Spaniards and all papists. While James trembled, and talked of the blessedness of peace, his son and the duke, in his name and with the concurrence of parliament, attended to the raising of troops and the concluding of alliances against the house of Austria, for the humbling of Spain, and for the recovery of the Palatinate. "This spring gave birth to four brave regiments of foot (a new apparition in the English horizon), 1500 in a regiment, which were raised and transported into Holland under four gallant colonels, the Earls of Oxford, Southampton, and Essex, and the Lord Willoughby." The Dutch were already at war with their old enemies, the Spaniards, who had invaded their territory under the command of the great Italian General Spinola; and the United Provinces, which had done their best by means of ambassadors and secret agents to break the Spanish match, and encourage Buckingham to come to a rupture with Spain, gladly concluded a treaty which promised

them assistance.

A fearful tragedy, enacted on a small island in the Eastern Ocean, should have seemed likely to make this Dutch alliance unpopular with the English people. Ever since the conclusion of the long truce at the Hague the Dutch had been colonizing and trading on a most extensive scale in the seas of India and China. Among other islands they possessed Amboyna, one of the Molucca, or Spice, Islands, which they had taken from the Portuguese. They pretended not only an absolute sovereignty over this island part of which continued to be occupied for some years by independent natives—but also an exclusive right to the spice trade in all that Archipelago. Their friends and allies, the English, soon became desirous of sharing in this profitable trade; they sent some ships to obtain cloves from the natives, and in 1612 the East India Company formed a little settlement at Cambello, in Amboyna, from which they were forced to retire two years after. In 1619 a treaty was concluded in London, by which the English thought themselves entitled to share in the trade; but the Dutch settlers and the local government were jealous in the extreme, and they had recently seized Captain Gabriel Towerson and nine Englishmen, with nine poor Japanese, and one Portuguese, charged them. with a conspiracy to surprise the garrison and expel the Dutch from Amboyna, tortured them till they confessed what was an impossibility or a flitting dream of madness, and then cut off their heads or strangled them.

The news of this atrocious proceeding reached England just at the moment that Buckingham was preparing to assist the Dutch in their own country. The English court made formal remonstrances; the States apologised and promised redress; and the massacre of Amboyna, as it was called by the people, was lost sight of for a time. Though it was the high notion of Buckingham to make this a war of religion, it was found necessary to include in the league the Catholic states of France, Savoy, and Venice, who were led on by their jealousy of the House of Austria. After the Dutch, the Protestant powers that contracted were Denmark, Sweden, and some of the German states, who all required subsidies in English money. The first object to be achieved was the expulsion of the Spaniards from the Netherlands, and of the Spaniards, Austrians, and Bavarians from the Palatinate. The result of the campaign, as far as the English were engaged, may be told in a few words of shame and disgrace. The six thousand men already in Holland acted as auxiliaries to the Dutch army commanded by Prince Maurice of Orange, who soon felt himself overmatched by Spinola. The Italian took Breda before the Prince's eyes. Maurice moved upon the castle of Antwerp, which, he was informed, had been left with a weak garrison; and he was so confident of taking it, that he would have none but the Dutch with him. Here also he failed. "And so, with some few little bickerings of small parties of horse, betwixt two entrenched armies, the whole summer was shuffled away;" and, winter approaching, Prince Maurice retired to winter-quarters. The prince died at the Hague; the Earl of Southampton and other English officers returned home to England. During the summer, Count Mansfeldt, one of the former heroes of the Palatinate war, was employed in raising mercenaries on the continent, and in the autumn he embarked from Zealand to procure English money and English troops which had been promised him. The ship which bore him was wrecked; the English captain and crew were drowned; but Mansfeldt, with some of his followers, escaped in the long boat and got safe to England. There was at least one person here who wished the waves had swallowed him-and this was King James, who for some time would not admit the adventurer to an audience. But, in the end, Mansfeldt obtained the promise of 20,000/. per month, and of the command of twelve thousand Englishmen, who were to be levied by press. These pressed men when raised were fitter to march through Coventry than to retrieve the somewhat tarnished honour of the British arms. time was allowed to train and discipline them; they were marched to Dover (where several of them

No

and eight ships riding before it well manned, whereof two were above 1200 tons apiece; besides, the Dutch had two other castles in the same island; and what probability could there be (if the plot were as plain as their malicious tongues could make it) that so weak a force should attempt upon so many, having men enough in the ships and castles to have devoured the attempters ?"-Wilson.

were hanged), and then hurried on board ship. The court had negotiated for their passage through a part of France, but when they appeared off Calais they were refused a landing. Mansfeldt thence led them to the island of Zealand, where the Dutch were scarcely more willing to receive them than the French had been. The authorities affirmed, that if they landed they would cause a famine in the towns, as no previous arrangement of any kind had been made, nor notice given; and while these cool-blooded gentlemen deliberated, the troops, cooped up in small, miserable transports, began to perish of sickness. This was another barbarous proceeding on the part of a people who had owed so much to this country, and it was carefully registered with the massacre at Amboyna in the memory of the English. When, at last, Mansfeldt reached the Rhine and the border of the Palatinate, he found that more than one-half of his army was gone, and that it would be impossible for him to undertake any offensive operations.

While these events were in progress, nay, even before the warlike note was sounded, and before the Spanish match was actually broken off, a new matrimonial treaty was set on foot with France for the hand of Louis's sister, Henrietta Maria. Some time before Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the resident ambassador, was assured by the favourite De Luynes, that if there were any overture made for such a match, it should be received with all honour and affection. An overture was made; and it was thought fit, for the concluding of the match, that the Earl of Carlisle and Lord Kensington-created on the occasion Earl of Holland-should be sent as ambassadors extraordinary to France. It was in this embassy that Hay displayed all his pomp and extravagance; but though a sensualist and a solemn fop, the Scottish Earl of Carlisle was destitute neither of abilities nor spirit. But he had to measure himself against one of the most wonderful of men the incomparably crafty and resolute Cardinal Richelieu, who had now established a sort of dictatorship over both the court and the nation, and who was at once a ruthless tyrant and a benefactor to France. Richelieu, who was most eager to defeat Charles's Spanish match, was all obsequiousness till it was absolutely broken off, and then he "stood upon his tip-toes," resolving not to abate a jot of the articles of religion, and of liberty to the Catholics in England, which had been agreed upon with Spain, and to have the fullest assurances that these articles should be faithfully observed. This was excessively inconvenient to King James and Prince Charles, who only six months before had both solemnly vowed that they would never tolerate the Papists. In fact, when the proposal was made, they were permitting a fresh persecution of the recusants. James, however, signed a private paper, promising favour to the Catholics, without which the pope would not grant the dispensation.†

Life of Lord Herbert.

+ Lord Nithsdale, a Catholic, was sent to Rome to make promises and compliments to the pope, in the name of King James and his son. There is a letter from Buckingham to his lordship, urging him

66

Carlisle presented this document, and endeavoured to convince Richelieu and his colleagues that it was security enough. "But," say they, we did sing a song to the deaf, for they would not endure to hear of it." "In the next place," continue these diplomatists, we offered the same to be signed by his highness (Prince Charles) and a secretary of state, wherein we pretended to come home to their own asking; but this would not serve the turn neither." Carlisle made a good stand, and would have bartered a toleration in England for French troops to be sent into the Palatinate. He repeated words which they had used at the first opening of the negotiation-" Give us priests," said the cardinal, " and we will give you colonels." "Give us pomp and ceremony to content the pope," said another," and we will throw ourselves wholly in your interests." Yes," said the chancellor, we will espouse all your interests as if they were our own." They confessed to these expressions, but pretended that they had already done enough in joining the league. Carlisle made several good struggles, but he was badly supported, and seems never to have known the real and full intentions of his court, or how far he might go in procuring advantages for the king's daughter, when the demand of them might impede or defeat the obtaining of a wife for the king's son. Secretary Conway, whose instructions and dispatches seem to have been dictated entirely by Charles and Buckingham, became very obscure or ambiguous, so that "sometimes he so cautiously and prudently involved his meaning in a close and covered style that forced their lordships (Carlisle and Holland) to assemble their wits together to pick it out.

After some negotiation, Richelieu consented to the écrit secret, as it was styled in French diplomacy, and Carlisle dropped the question of the French army for the Palatinate. The secret promise imported that James, upon the faith and word of a king, in contemplation of the marriage of his dearest son, and of Madame, sister of his most Christian majesty, would permit all his Roman Catholic subjects to enjoy greater franchise and freedom of religion than they would have enjoyed in virtue of any articles of the Spanish treaty of marriage, without molestation in their persons, or properties, or conscience, provided that they rendered the obedience due by true and faithful subjects to their king, who would never exact from

"

to use dispatch. The duke tells him that his majesty has prorogued parliament, so that the exorbitaut or ungentle motions might be stayed, and his majesty enabled to proceed in those passages of favour, grace, and goodness, which he had promised for the ease of the Roman Catholics, not merely in contemplation of that incompar able lady (Henrietta Maria), but as a desire worth the cherishing, to make a beginning of a straighter correspondence between "him that you went to (ie. the Pope) than could be hoped for these many years past. Besides," continues Buckingham, you may be pleased to lay before him I forbear to name (wanting a cypher) the obligation which must fall upon the prince in a thing which, though it be to them but a circumstance of time, yet is to him an essential favour, being passionately in love; and amongst princes and generous spirits, things themselves take not so much as the manner they are done with: therefore, I conjure you as a work of more consequence than can at the first view be conceived, to use all possible diligences, that where you are there be used no delays nor interruptions to hinder the speedy dispatching of the dispensation, which work I hope will not be hard."-Sir Henry Ellis.

• Hardwicke State Papers.

them any oath contrary to their religion. This paper was duly signed in November, by James, by Charles, and by a secretary of state; and a copy of the engagement was signed by Carlisle and Holland. The marriage treaty was signed and ratified by the solemn oaths of King James and King Louis. But even after this the French ministers raised a fresh objection. They represented that the secret promise was conceived in general or vague terms, and they demanded that James should specify the favours he intended. Carlisle was indignant, and recommended a resistance to this demand, telling Buckingham that he was convinced it would be given up without any injury to the match, if firmness were displayed on the part of the English court. But he demanded firmness from the weak-dignity from the debased. James and his son feared to try the temper of Richelieu and the queen-mother, and they submitted to the specification of the three following articles-1. That all Catholics in prison for their religion since the rising of parliament should be set free. 2. That all fines levied on them since that period should be repaid. 3. That, for the future, they might freely exercise their own worship in private. There was another incident of a very different kind, which occurred during the latter part of these negotiations, to the great alarm of James. The Huguenots, or "those of the religion," as they were called in France, had received harsh treatment from Louis: Soubise, who was now at their head, and who at one time had maintained very friendly relations with some members of the English government, seized upon the island of Rhé, near Rochelle, fortified it, fitted out some ships, and proclaimed that he would not lay down. his arms till he obtained a better security for the observation of the public faith and the edicts granting toleration to French Protestants. Carlisle declared this proceeding to be unadvised, unseasonable, shameful; the French court agreed to believe that the English Protestants had nothing to do with the movement, which ought in no way to alter the resolutions Louis had taken for the public good, nor the particular promises he had made to the king of England; and the lively Henrietta Maria prepared for her removal to England. Her portion was fixed at eight hundred thousand crowns; a small sum compared with the dower which had been promised with the Infanta.

But James did not live to see the arrival either of the money or of the long-sought daughter-inlaw. His health had long been breaking under the united influences of anxiety, fear, full-feeding, and continual use of sweet wines; and he returned to Theobalds from his last hunting party with a disease which the doctors called a tertian ague. But it should appear that he had also the worst kind of gout upon him. He had always entertained a great aversion to medicine and physicians, but at this extremity all the court doctors were called in. While they were in attendance, Buckingham's mother presented herself with an infallible

remedy, in the shape of a plaster and a posset, which she had proeured from one Remington, a quack, living in Essex, where, it was said, he had cured many agues. It should appear that the plaster was applied and the drink given contrary to the advice of the physicians. They may have produced irritation and done mischief; but we cannot believe that they were the cause of the death of James, or even intended to hasten his end, On the fourteenth day of his illness, being Sunday, the 27th of March, he sent before day-break for the prince, who rose out of his bed and went to him in his night-gown. The king seemed to have some earnest thing to say to him, and so endeavoured to raise himself upon his pillow; but his spirits were That is, the 8th of April, N. S.

*

so spent that he had not strength to make his words audible. He lingered for a few hours, and then "went to his last rest, upon the day of rest, presently after sermon was done."* James was in his fifty-ninth year, and he had been twenty-two years king of England. As soon as the breath was out of his body the privy-council, or all the members of it that were at Theobalds, assembled, and in less than a quarter of an hour King Charles was proclaimed at Theobalds court-gate by Sir Edward Zouch, knight-marshal.†

Howell.

+ That excellent letter-writer, James Howell, who was at Theobalds, tells us that the knight-marshal proclaimed Prince Charles, the rightful and dubitable heir, to be king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland; but he was set right by Mr. Secretary Con way, and then said, indubitable heir.

A.D. 1625.-On the afternoon of Monday, the 28th of March, Charles took coach at Theobalds with the Duke of Buckingham, and came to Whitehall. On the same day he was proclaimed at Whitehall-gate and in Cheapside, in the midst of a sad shower of rain; and the weather was thought suitable to the condition in which he found the kingdom. A few days after, the plague broke out in Whitechapel, whence it extended its ravages to every part of London. It was said to be even a

worse plague than that which raged at the time of his father's coronation. Charles re-appointed the council and the officers of government, making scarcely any change. Buckingham stood forward more powerful and vain-glorious than ever. There was, however, some change for the better at court; the fools, and buffoons, and other familiars of James were dismissed, the courtiers were required to be attentive to religion, and modest and quiet in their demeanour, and they generally became, if