large and rich Spanish ships to escape him, and sail into the bay, where they afterward (when he had effected his landing) did him great mischief with their ordnance.* A sudden attack on the shipping at Cadiz and Port Santa Maria could hardly have failed even now, but the land admiral preferred taking ships by land-perhaps he meant to take and plunder Cadiz, as Essex had done-and disembarking his troops, he took the paltry fort of Puntal. Then he moved towards the bridge which connects the Isla de Leon with the continent, to cut of the communication. No enemy was seen on this short march; but, in the wine-cellars of the country, which were broken open and plundered, a foe was found which has ever been more dangerous to undisciplined English troops than bullets and pikes. The men got drunk, and became unmanageable; and if the Spaniards had known their condition, they might, at one moment, have cut them to pieces. Lord Wimbledon, as the best thing he could do, led them back to the ships, leaving some hundreds of stragglers to fall under the knives of the enraged peasantry. There still remained the hope of intercepting the Plate fleet, but an infectious disease broke out in my Lord Delaware's ship, and in consequence of an insane order given by Wimbledon, that the sick should be distributed into the healthy ships, the malady was spread exceedingly. After beating about for eighteen days with a dreadful mortality on board, and without a glimpse of the fleet from the New World, Wimbledon resolved to carry his dirtied, dishonoured flag home again, "which was done in a confused manner, and without any observance of sea orders." The Plate fleet, which had been hugging the Barbary coast, appeared off the coast of Spain two or three days after his departure, and got safely into Cadiz. And while he was master of those seas a fleet of fifty sail of Brazil men got safe into Lisbon, with four of the richest caracks that ever came from the Indies. With the troops and crews dreadfully reduced, with sickness in every ship, and without a single prize of the least value, Wimbledon arrived at Plymouth, to be hissed and hooted by the indignant people. This sorry and unsuccessful return of an expedition which had cost him so much was a grievous blow to Charles, who, however, betrayed no vindictive temper, being even averse to call the leaders of it to a court-martial; but, as the popular outcry was tremendous, he set on foot an examination in the privy council. Then the Earl of Essex and other officers attributed the failure to the incapacity of the commander-in-chief; and he attributed it to their jealousy and insubordination. But Wimbledon told Buckingham that the command had been forced upon him, against his judgment, by himself and the king, and that he had foretold to his majesty all that would happen ; "and," added he, " had it not been for my obe

"Tis thought," says Howell, who had many friends with the expedition," that they (the seven ships) being rich, would have defrayed well near the charge of our fleet.'

dience to his majesty and my good affection to your excellency, I would rather have been torn in pieces than to have gone with so many ignorant and malicious people." He complained grievously of his exclusion from his majesty's presence, and of the course pursued in the privy council. After a time, the examinations were stopped, and then renewed, to the great vexation of Wimbledon, who repeated his accusations against his colonels and officers. "I have been your excellency's officer," said he, " in as difficult and miserable an action as ever any one hath undertaken, and with as little assistance as ever any one had. For many of those that should have assisted me were more careful in betraying me than in forwarding his majesty's service." He then implored the ' favourite to carry him through, and obtain for him the honour of kissing the hand of his sovereign lord the king, concluding with these words: "All power is in your lordship's hands, whether you will uphold me in my cause or no, or let me be ruinated for want of it; so that I can say no more, but that, if I suffer, I shall be your excellency's martyr."* Buckingham did uphold him, and, in the end, neither commander-in-chief nor Essex with the subordinates was punished, it being agreed to attribute the failure of the expedition to Providence.+

As Buckingham's plan for enriching his master with the produce of the Spaniards' mines of Mexico and Peru had thus failed, the favourite undertook to go over to the Dutch, and raise money by pawning the crown jewels and plate; and to the Hague he went, taking with him those articles and the Earl of Holland, who is said to have governed him as much as he governed the king. He raised some 300,000l. among the money-lenders; drew closer the treaty of alliance with the States; and negotiated with other Protestant powers, which sent their agents to treat with him. From the Hague he would have proceeded to Paris, but his amorous impudence had given much disgust there, and Richelieu informed him that his return to that capital could not be suffered. This message, added to some preceding circumstance almost entirely personal to Buckingham, had the effect of giving an entirely new direction to the policy of England. In his wrath, Buckingham would at once have undone what he had done only a few months before. His friend Holland and Sir Dudley Carleton, who went to Paris in his stead, were instructed to demand the immediate restitution of the English ships which had been lent to Louis, and to tell that king that he ought to make peace with his Protestant subjects, with whom they the ambassadors were to open a secret correspondence, giving them assurance that the king of England would assist them,

Letters to the Duke of Buckingham, in Cabala.

+ Wimbledon's charge against the Earl of Essex was grave and direct" He may give your excellency many thanks," said he to Buckingham, "that his lordship is not called into question for letting pass some of the king of Spain's ships that offered him fight, which would have been the chief service, having instructions not to let any fly or break out without fighting with them."

and asking them what force they could raise in case of Charles's declaring war against Louis. For the present, Richelieu was enabled to conjure the storm, but he was obliged to submit to several indignities and breaches of treaty on the part of the English court.

Apart from any consideration of religion, Charles had conceived a violent dislike of the Frenchmen and priests that had come over with his young wife; and, if the truth is told of them, they must have been a most intriguing and troublesome crew. Henrietta Maria, naturally enough, took the part of her countrymen and ghostly comforters, and this led to frequent quarrels with her husband. Charles reported all his conjugal troubles to Buckingham, and Buckingham did all he could to provoke fresh ones. The favourite was not only jealous of the influence of the young queen, but also disgusted with her whole nation; and he was still further incensed against her by some accidental, or probably intentional, slights which she put upon his intriguing and insolent mother. One day the unmanly minion entered her apartment in a great passion, and, after some rude expostulation, told her she should repent it. Her majesty answering with some quickness, he told her insolently that there had been queens in England who had lost their heads. "And," continues Clarendon, "it was universally known that, during Buckingham's life, the queen never had any credit with the king with reference to any public affairs, and so could not divert the resolution of making a war with France." On the 20th of November Charles wrote from Hampton Court

to inform Steenie that he had fully made up his mind to cashier all the Monsers (Messieurs), and send them back to France. In his not very royal letter he talks of their making plots with his own subjects, and attempts to steal away his wife; of their maliciousness in making and fomenting discontents in his wife; and he desires the favourite to let him know, with all the speed he can, whether he likes this course or not, as he would put nothing of this in execution until he heard from him. "But I am resolute," continued the king; "it must be done, and that shortly." On the same day, however, when his passion cooled, he wrote another letter to the favourite, telling him that the thing must be done with management and delicacy. "You must, therefore," says Charles, "advertise my mother-in-law that I must remove all those instruments that are the causes of unkindness between her daughter and me, few or none of the servants being free of this fault in one kind or other; therefore I would be glad that she might find a means to make themselves suitors to be gone if this be not, I hope there can be no exceptions taken at me to follow the example of Spain and Savoy in this particular." The favourite was then on the continent, and had not as yet received the interdict of the cardinal. He was thinking of a gay visit to Paris, and therefore, as it appears, he begged his master to be patient under his domestic grievances. Some time after Charles writes to him that his "wife begins to mend her manners." "I know not," adds his majesty, "how long it will continue, for they say

Hardwicke State Papers.

it is by advice; but the best of all is, they say the Monsieurs desire to return home; I will not say this is certain, for you know nothing that they say can be so. His doubt was not unfounded; the Frenchmen would not ask to go. When Buckingham returned, full of rage, from the continent, violent quarrels began anew on this score. It was thought that the queen's servants would refuse to take the oath of allegiance, and it was tendered to them as a means of getting rid of them, but they all took it except the priests.

The

searched castles and manor-houses as if there had been a new gunpowder-plot; and many an irritating scene occurred, not without a mixture of the ridiculous and farcical. The deputy-lieutenant of Northamptonshire, with two other worthy knights, and a Mr. Knightly, a very zealous actor in this line, went to the house of Mrs. Vaux, a Catholic lady, and mother of Lord Vaux, to search for martial munition. They found his lordship in the mansion, and, according to the official accounts, civilly acquainted him and his mother with the object of their visit. His lordship and the old lady respectfully consented to the search, which was duly performed, and no arms found. But, in conclusion, a younger brother of Lord Vaux got heated at this invasion of the domestic sanctuary, which possibly was not conducted so civilly as was represented, and he said that they gave to the recusants the worst usage they could, except they should cut their throats; and he swore, with divers oaths, that he wished it were come to that. zealous Mr. Knightly told the irritated young man that there were divers statutes against the recusants which they were not troubled withal. This, young Vaux denied. Knightly then quoted the statute which imposed a fine of 201. per month for non-attendance at church, and further informed him that there was a late statute against swearing, which put a penalty of twelve pence upon every oath, and intimated that he must exact that from him; to which Mr. Vaux gave an answer with ill and scornful words. Then Knightly asked Mrs. Vaux and the Lord Vaux to pay for Mr. Vaux's oaths; and, upon their refusal, he charged the constable to distrain so much of Mr. Vaux's goods as would satisfy three shillings, and give that to the poor, according to the statute. Here Lord Vaux lost patience, and, taking Knightly aside, he told him that if he found him in another place he would call him to account for this behaviour. Knightly boldly replied that his lordship knew where he lived. Lord Vaux then went into the hall, followed by one of the knights, but Knightly, also, would follow; upon which his lordship thrust him out by the shoulder, telling him that now he had done his office he might be gone. Knightly turned again to the hall, saying that he had not done, and that he might search more if he chose. Lord Vaux gave him a good blow on the face, and they scuffled together till they were parted. But Lord Vaux hit Mr. Knightly's man (probably the constable) with a cudgel, broke his head, and knocked him down. Whereupon the deputy lieutenants, with the rest, fearing further inconveniency, withdrew, and lodged their complaint, which was heard before the king and council. Lord Vaux was presently committed prisoner to the Warden of the Fleet, and his cause remitted to the despotic Star Chamber.*

Notwithstanding his open declaration to the council that he abhorred the name of parliament, Charles saw that he must inevitably meet that body again, and that soon. Whatever sums had been borrowed abroad by Buckingham, or extorted at home under the privy seal, were absorbed by arrears, and all things were at a stand-still for want of money. In his own complaints against the French attendants we do not find any great stress laid upon their religion, but he knew very well that their faith and open practice of it were their real crimes in the eyes of his people, and that nothing was so likely to put the House of Commons into better humour as a rude expulsion of the entire court of his queen, men and women, priests and laymen; but, partly perhaps out of tenderness to his wife, partly out of a desire to avoid going to extremities with the French government while he was so poor, he hesitated long ere he would resort to that measure. Leaving the French for the present, he sought to gratify the intolerance of the Commons and the people by persecuting and annoying the English-born Catholics, in doing which he broke the treaty of matrimony, to which he had so solemnly sworn. No doubt he was the more ready to revive the old statutes against recusants, because they offered a source of revenue, in the shape of fines and forfeits, which had been very productive during the two preceding reigns. He issued orders to his Protestant magistrates to hunt up the game, and he appointed a commission to levy fines on the Catholics: he commanded, by proclamations, the immediate return of all English children and youths that were studying in Catholic seminaries on the continent, and the instant departure out of England of all priests and missionaries. He also resolved, by the advice of his council, to disarm all the popish lords. In the execution of this order, which implied an odious searching of men's houses, great care was taken to give no offence to the family and connexions of the favourite, who, mother and all, were known or suspected Catholics. "In the disarming of the lords recusants," writes Carlisle, himself suspected of being a papist, "there was as much respect had of some who have relation to your lordship as you yourself would desire." But upon other noble families who had no such relationship with the favourite, the blow fell with unmitigated severity. The magistrates, their spies, and the fanatics

• Hardwicke State Papers.

Letter to Buckingham, in Hardwicke Papers.

Then

The French court remonstrated upon this fresh persecution, and reminded Charles of his treaty

Letter from Secretary Conway to Buckingham, in Hardwicke State Papers.

and his oath; but this only piqued him, without effecting any change in favour of the recusants.

Having thus done something for popularity, the king devised how he might clear the House of Commons of some of its most obnoxious members, and he hit upon an artifice which was singularly transparent and bungling. Persons acting as

sheriffs could not sit in parliament, and, therefore, when the judges presented the list of sheriffs for the ensuing year, he struck out seven names, and wrote in their places those of Sir Edward Coke, Sir Thomas Wentworth, Sir Francis Seymour, Sir Robert Philips, Sir Grey Palmer, Sir William Fleetwood, and Mr. Edward Alford, seven members who had given him the most trouble in the late parliament, and who were all resolute in their intention of impeaching the favourite.*

A. D. 1626. The opening of the session was fixed for the 6th of February. The king was to have been crowned at Christmas, but for several reasons-we believe the want of money may have been the principal-that ceremony was not performed till the 2nd of February. There were several things too striking to be omitted, which occurred in the ceremonial of this great Thursday. The queen, as a Catholic, was neither crowned nor present in the Abbey. They offered to have a place fitted up for her, but she preferred occupying a window of a room at the palace gate, whence she might see them go and return without witnessing the religious ceremonies, which she had been taught to consider as heretical and damnable. It is mentioned by a careful relater of small things, that while her majesty stood at the window looking on the procession, her French ladies were frisking and dancing in the room. An important part was played in the Abbey by Laud, now Bishop of St. David's, Prebendary of Westminster, and on the high road to greater promotions, being much distinguished and favoured both by Buckingham and Charles. Buckingham was lord constable for the day in ascending the steps to the throne he took the right hand of the king, and offered his left to his majesty, who, putting it by with his right hand, helped up the duke, saying to him, with a smiling countenance, "I have as much need to help you, as you to assist me." When the archbishop presented Charles, bare-headed, to the people, proclaiming, in an audible voice, "My masters and friends, I am here come to present unto you your king, King Charles, to whom the crown of his ancestors and predecessors is now devolved by lineal right, and he himself come hither to be settled in that throne which God and his birth have appointed for him; and therefore I desire you, by your general acclamation, to testify your consent and willingness thereunto," the people preserved a dead silence, and not one word followed the primate's adjura

The great lawyer, after vexing the government with other legal points, maintained that, though a sheriff could not be returned for his shire, he might yet sit for some other shire or borough; and Coke actually got himself elected for the county of Norfolk. He did not, however, take his seat, though he was permitted to enjoy the other privileges of a member of parliament.

tion, till my Lord Arundel, the Earl Marshal, told them they should cry out "God save King Charles!" upon which there followed a little shouting. The unction,-the anointing of the king's naked shoulders, arms, hands, and head,— things most abominable in the eyes of the Puritans, and ridiculous in the eyes of many other men, was all done behind a traverse or screen, and was performed by Archbishop Abbot, who, notwithstanding the absolution he had obtained from King James, was still suspected as being uncanonical and irregular, from his unfortunate killing of a man while hunting. Laud made several alterations in the usual service, and composed an entirely new prayer, which went to establish a closer union than ever between king and bishops, and to give great offence to the Puritans. "It was,' says a courtly knight, "one of the most punctual coronations since the Conquest.' It may have been this, but it was assuredly one of the dullest or the least honoured by the spontaneous joy of the nation. The fact is, Charles's sayings had gone abroad; and he was suspected in politics, in religion, and in everything else.

Four days after his coronation he opened the session of parliament,* with a very short speech, telling them he was no orator, but desired to be known by his actions, not by his words, and referring them to the Lord Keeper, who would explain the business for which he had called them together. Bishop Williams, the man that was a diocese in himself, the ready-witted Williams, who had saved Buckingham at his crisis, who had rendered many secret services, was no longer Lord Keeper. He had quarrelled with the favourite at or immediately after the Oxford session; he had ventured to tell him "that he was engaged with the Earl of Pembroke to labour in the redress of the people's grievances, and was resolved to stand upon his own legs," and of course the bishop had fallen. The present Lord Keeper was Sir Thomas Coventry, the son of a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and a thorough-bred lawyer, who had gone through the grades of recorder of London, solicitorgeneral, and king's attorney. But if he knew law better than Bishop Williams, he was equally ready to stretch the royal prerogative as far as ever that base time-server had done. In his opening speech, to which the king had especially referred them, Coventry told the parliament, "If we consider aright, and think of that incomparable distance between the supreme height and majesty of a mighty monarch and the submissive awe and lowliness of loyal subjects, we cannot but receive exceeding comfort and contentment in the frame and constitution of this highest court, wherein not only the prelates, nobles, and grandees, but the commons of all degrees, have their part; and wherein that high majesty doth descend to admit, or rather to invite, the humblest of his subjects to conference and counsel with him." But the Commons had

It is said that, at the opening of the session, one-half of the members of the Commons had not arrived from the country.

never been less disposed to listen to such language or submit to such pretensions. They had again met with a resolute will to canvass grievances and to punish the favourite of majesty; and dividing themselves into sections, and appointing standing committees, they proceeded to work fearlessly. Guided by the force without, by the zealous feelings of the people, and following in many particular instances their own inward conviction, they began again with the question of religion, and insisted on sharpening still more the legal sword against Papists. These champions of civil liberty would allow no freedom of conscience; and they invited their countrymen to aid them in a detestable system of denunciation and espionage. Dr. Montague, who had given bail in 2000/. for his book, was supported at court by Bishop Laud, who endeavoured to make the king and the favourite stand by him in parliament; but they had agreed to leave the chaplain to his fate, which probably would have been a hard one if the Commons had not left Montague to fall upon Buckingham himself, and by so doing induced the king to close their labours. In the very first week of the session a speech was made "somewhat eagerly, aiming at, but not naming the duke; but it was not applauded nor seemingly liked by the House."* But this discouragement was merely given to some over-hasty orator: they were preparing a regular attack, and wished not for petty skirmishes. Their committee of grievances drew up an account of sixteen capital abuses, all fatal to the liberties of the people. Among these were the old curse of purveyance, and the new practice of levying the duties of tonnage and poundage without consent of parliament; monopolies; great prodigality and malversation on the part of the ministry. They traced all these evils, all the disgraces sustained by the English flag by land and sea, and all other wrongs and misfortunes, to the great delinquent." The king, anticipating their resolves, sent a message to the Commons, in which he chose to overlook the precedents of Bacon and Middlesex, and the notorious fact that he himself, as Prince of Wales, had joined Buckingham in procuring Middlesex's impeachment. "I must let you know," said he, "that I will not allow any of my servants to be questioned amongst you, much less such as are of eminent place and near unto me. The old question was, what shall be done to the man whom the king shall honour; but now it hath been the labour of some to seek what may be done against him whom the king thinks fit to honour. I see you especially aim at the Duke of Buckingham. I wonder what hath so altered your affection towards him. I do well remember his favour with you in the last parliament of my father's time. . . . What he hath done since to alter and change your minds I wot not, but can assure you he hath not meddled or done anything concerning the public or commonwealth but by special directions and appointment, and as

• Meade.

my servant. . . . . I wish you would hasten my supply, or else it will be worse for yourselves; for, if any ill happen, I shall be the last shall feel it."

But the Commons maintained that it was "the ancient, constant, and undoubted right and usage of parliaments to question and complain of all persons, of what degree soever, found dangerous to the commonwealth in abusing the power and trust committed to them by the sovereign:" they stopped the question of supplies,-they proceeded more vigorously than before against the favourite,and, not having as yet got ready their direct testimony, they voted, almost by acclamation, that common fame was a good ground of proceeding, either by inquiry, or presenting the complaint to the king or lords. Instead of taking warning, Charles sent down the lord keeper to rate them for their presumption, and to require the punishment of two members who had given him offence by insolent discourses in the House,-to tell them that it was his majesty's express and final commandment that they should yield obedience and cease this unparliamentary inquisition, and that if they complied not they might expect to be dissolved. There were some few court members who entertained the constitutional heresy that parliaments existed only by sufferance, and that they were things that might be made or unmade at the will of the sovereign. Sir Dudley Carleton, who, as a diplomatist, had travelled a great deal in the despotic states of the continent, drew a frightful but scarcely exaggerated picture of the misery of the people there. He could scarcely have found a better argument in favour of the determined struggle the Commons were making to check that despotism which was established elsewhere, and was the cause of the people's misery and abjectness; but, with an obliquity of vision scarcely conceivable in a welleducated gentleman, he saw in it an argument for the court. "He cautioned them not to make the king out of love with parliaments, by encroaching on his prerogative; for in his messages he had told them that he must then use new councils. In all Christian kingdoms there were parliaments anciently, till the monarchs, seeing their turbulent spirits, stood upon their prerogatives, and overthrew them all except with us. In foreign countries the people look not like ours, with store of flesh on their backs, but like ghosts, being nothing but skin and bones, with some thin cover to their nakedness, and wearing wooden shoes on their feet-a misery beyond expression, and that we are yet free from; and let us not lose the repute of a free-born nation by our turbulency in parliament." And that there might be no possibility of a mistake as to the king's real sentiment, or his absolute way of expressing it, Charles himself again addressed them, bidding them remember that parliaments were altogether in his power for their calling, sitting, or dissolution, and that therefore as he should find the fruits of them good or evil, they were to be or not to be. The Commons,

• Rushworth.