17—
Peace

The toils from which Charles expected to free himself included war as well as Parliament. He had realized at last the limitations imposed by his finances and without Buckingham his grandiose conceptions of foreign policy shrank to practical size. Already he was considering both French and Spanish peace proposals.

It had long been apparent that the French war was of no help to the Palatinate and that England could be of no assistance to the Huguenots. At the same time France under Cardinal Richelieu was preparing to stand against both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire and sought the neutrality, or better still the assistance, of the English fleet. The Venetian Republic had its own reasons for requiring peace between France, who could protect it against the Empire on land, and England, who could protect it against Spain at sea. The merchant classes of all three countries, who were losing money heavily in the disruption of trade which accompanied hostilities, were strong advocates of peace, while Charles himself would benefit from the increased customs revenue that would accrue from the free flow of merchandise. The efforts of the French and Venetian Ambassadors were backed by courtiers like the Earl of Holland who were pro-French in their sympathies, by ministers who knew the financial necessity of peace, and by the Queen herself, who ardently wished her husband and her brother to be reconciled.

Henrietta-Maria was, indeed, truly happy for the first time since she came to England. In spite of the war Charles sent to France for wine and fruit for her^[1] and he now talked to her of public affairs as well as of the trivia of everyday life — not that she enjoyed affairs of state but she no longer felt excluded. It was noted that the King was always with her, that he loved her dearly, and that his satisfaction over her pregnancy defied exaggeration. Their master and mistress, wrote one

of the Carey sons to Carlisle, were 'at such a degree of kindness as he would imagine him a wooer again, and her gladder to receive his caresses than he to make them'. Charles celebrated her birthday by riding at the ring in truly chivalrous fashion, instituting himself her champion and taking the ring upon his sword in her honour. The Venetian Ambassador decided that the Queen's influence would grow and that he should ingratiate himself with her.^[2] Their happiness was clouded by the tragic news from The Hague early in 1629 of the fatal accident to Elizabeth's eldest son, the young Prince Frederick Henry. He had been with his father on the Haarlem Mere off Amsterdam when the weather suddenly deteriorated and their boat was rammed by a larger vessel in thick fog. The Elector was saved but the boy, who had just passed his fifteenth birthday, was found the next day, frozen to the mast to which he had been clinging in the icy weather. Charles put his Court into mourning for the nephew he had never seen, he sent Sir Robert Carey to the stricken parents, and tried to cheer Elizabeth by letter.^[3]

When a peace treaty between France and England was signed at Suza on 14 April 1629 the French made no claim for special treatment for Catholics in England, while the English were silent on the question of the Huguenots. Henrietta-Maria took part of the credit to herself and on May 10 came by river from Greenwich to Somerset House where a Te Deum was to be sung to mark the end of hostilities. As she eagerly rose to disembark the impact of the barge on the landing stage made her stumble backwards. She was tired on her return to Greenwich and was startled by two dogs fighting near her. Whatever the reason she fell into premature labour two days later and became critically ill. Madame Peronne, the famous French accoucheuse who was to have come from France, had not arrived; nor had Dr Mayerne, the royal physician. A local midwife was hurriedly summoned but the responsibility was too great and she swooned away in the royal bedchamber. The doctor in charge was left to do his best with a difficult breach delivery. Charles was distraught. He remained by his wife's beside begging the doctor to save her life regardless of the child. On the morning of the 13th Henrietta-Maria gave birth to a son, who lived for only a few hours. She herself rallied, fortified by her husband's devotion and her own buoyant spirit. It was unfortunate that Charles had to fight off her religious advisers in an anti-room to ensure the child's baptism by William Laud in the Anglican faith. The baby was buried that night in Westminster Abbey, close to his grandfather, the funeral service being spoken by Laud.^[4]

It was hard that after four years of marriage an heir should be born only to die immediately. But premature birth and death were too common to be regarded as a tragedy, even by the parents. Henrietta Maria's condition was the more alarming. As Charles had said when he begged the doctor to save her life, he would rather save the mould than the cast. But this was not the chief reason for his anxiety. The possibility of losing the wife he had treated so perfunctorily, and only recently learned to love, made him aware of the depth of his feeling for her, and as they resumed their normal life together Charles's affection appeared even greater than before. He kissed his wife repeatedly in public. 'You do not see that in Turin . . . Nor in Paris either!' he exclaimed, referring to the marriages of her sister and her brother. So difficult did he find it to tear himself away from her that some of his Councillors complained of his inaccessibility and he laughingly told her he wished she could accompany him to the Council Table! She went to Tunbridge Wells to complete her recovery, but so dependent had they become upon one another that she cut short her stay and rushed back towards London to be met half-way by a husband who, similarly, could not bear the separation.

So little was religion now a bar between them that, as her second pregnancy advanced, she would sometimes lie late in bed and Charles would scold her for not hearing mass before noon. So little did she care for public affairs at this time that even the efforts of the Marquis de Chateauneuf, the new French Ambassador, could not move her into the world of intrigue and, instead of drawing England into an alliance against Spain, as he had hoped, he was obliged to watch her amorous exchanges with a husband who thought she could do no wrong. Even her extravagances Charles treated lightly: after all, his mother had been extravagant. 'She is a bad housekeeper' was all that he would say, complacently. Henrietta's mother, fearing that badly-sprung English coaches had caused the miscarriage, sent her a wheelchair, in which she might make short excursions, and a little locket and chain for good luck. 'God be thanked', Charles wrote to his mother-in-law in acknowledging the gift, 'she is so careful of herself that I need exert no other authority than that of love.' Madame Peronne was again booked for a confinement.^[5]

The Court was already reflecting the King's tastes. Pictures from the Mantuan collection were still arriving, carefully packed and shipped by his agents and Ambassadors. All over Europe and the Near East

ambassadors, friends, and agents were seeking out pictures and other art treasures for his collections and those of his courtiers. Artists and art-lovers were beginning to flock to Whitehall. In 1626 Buckingham had invited the Pisan, Orazio Gentileschi, to England; he painted ceilings at York House and Greenwich Palace as well as many canvases. Not least of his attractions was his daughter, Artemisia, who accompanied him and herself painted several pictures. Charles made much of the Gentileschis. He also enjoyed the work of Gerard Honthorst, who arrived in England in 1628 and painted a large portrait group of Buckingham and his family shortly before the Duke's death. The poets, dramatists and men of letters were so numerous they were almost taken for granted by a Court where Sir Henry Wotton, John Suckling, Edmund Waller and a dozen more were normal contacts, while in the City the old master, Ben Jonson, continued to regail the younger poets at his London tavern until his death in 1638. Robert Herrick visiting the capital from his west-country vicarage, Richard Lovelace turning charming verses with his friends at Oxford, the young John Milton beginning to use his talent for words and imagery at Cambridge — all were part of the cultured and pleasant world in which Charles had moved all his life. That they clustered more thickly now was a tribute to himself and his Court. Among much that was ephemeral Charles recognized the enduring worth of some of their work and he acquired the 1635 edition of Donne's collected poems. But he enjoyed the playwrights most of all and particularly, perhaps, Beaumont and Fletcher. He had seen The Knight of the Burning Pestle as a young man; it exactly matched his sense of humour and the two dramatists were much in demand at his Court. He possessed a collected edition of their plays and, as he loved to do, made a list of the titles with his own hand.

It was particularly pleasant when Peter Paul Rubens came to the English Court as the accredited representative of Spain. It was not unusual to use an artist as diplomat and, indeed, diplomats were frequently amateur artists and art collectors. Charles and Buckingham had frequently employed Balthazar Gerbier — artist, architect, inventor, collector, dealer, and curator of Buckingham's art collection at York House — on their diplomatic missions. Sir Dudley Carleton who, before he became Secretary of State, was Ambassador first at Venice and later at The Hague, was painstaking agent for Charles and others, using his position at Venice to search out antiquities and works of art. He himself was an enthusiastic collector, particularly of Vene-

tian paintings, and he did much to bring their vogue into England. Sir Henry Wotton, sometime Ambassador at Venice, was equally assiduous as diplomat and art collector.

Rubens was in a class apart and was well known to Charles as a painter of the first rank. He was a Flemish Catholic, owing political allegiance directly to the Hapsburg Regents of Flanders and through them to Spain. Early in his career he had been used by the Duke of Mantua to take costly presents to Philip III of Spain and while in Madrid had painted the equestrian portrait of the Duke of Lerma which Charles had seen during his visit. His studio in Antwerp was famous for his own paintings and for the pupils he gathered round him. One of these, Anthony van Dyck, had already visited England briefly, but was now travelling in Italy. Rubens continued to mix art with diplomacy and business with both, and in 1621 had negotiated with Sir Dudley Carleton for the sale of a large canvas depicting a lion hunt for Charles's gallery. Charles possessed at that time only one painting by Rubens, an early work depicting Judith and Holofernes which he felt did little credit to the master's skill, and he was anxious for a more mature canvas. But the first picture sent was basically by a pupil of Rubens and, although allegedly gone over carefully by the master himself, was not acceptable to Charles, who found in it little evidence of the artist's own hand. As Rubens was at the same time executing a life-sized canvas of a lion hunt for Lord Digby on behalf of the Marquis of Hamilton he was probably pressed for time, but the real reason for the scant respect shown to the Prince's perception seems to have been money. He would have charged twice as much, Rubens told Carleton, for a picture entirely by his own hand. He nevertheless agreed to paint one for Charles.

Carleton himself was more fortunate. He had himself made an impressive collection of antiquities, including statues, torsoes, heads, urns and bas-reliefs and these he exchanged with Rubens, who wanted them for the large villa he had built outside Antwerp, in return for several of the artists' own canvases. About the same time Marie de Medici, the Queen Mother of France, asked Rubens to design and paint the panels for her new palace at the Luxembourg outside Paris and in 1625 the artist's twenty-five pictures depicting her early life were unveiled at a wedding feast to celebrate the proxy marriage of her daughter to Charles. While Rubens was in Paris to instal the canvases he met Buckingham and Gerbier, who were there to conduct Henrietta-Maria to England. He had time to draw the Duke's likeness

in preparation for an equestrian portrait which was commissioned, and there was also a certain amount of diplomatic exchange in which Rubens stressed the advantages of peace with Spain.

Rubens and Gerbier continued these exchanges over the next few years and there was a superficial friendship between Rubens and the Duke. But the artist-diplomat had not formed a high opinion of Buckingham, thinking he was 'heading for the precipice' and that when he considered his 'caprice' and 'arrogance' he 'pitied the young king who, through false counsel, was needlessly throwing himself and his kingdom into war'. Nevertheless Rubens, who had possibly tired of his antiquities and whose style of life required a great deal of money, was quite prepared to sell them to Buckingham together with paintings by Italian and North European masters. It was an imposing acquisition for the Duke but Rubens prided himself on the fact that he kept back the gem of his collection, 'a divine cameo', a head of Octavius Augustus in white on a background of sardonyx with a garland of laurel in high relief. It was, wrote Rubens, 'of workmanship so exquisite that I do not recall ever having seen the like'.

But art and diplomacy were still hand in glove and the sale covered increased diplomatic activity between Rubens and Gerbier. An attempt of the two agents to meet at Calais without arousing suspicion did not succeed and Rubens kicked his heels vainly for three weeks. But early in January 1628 the two men met in Paris and late in February Gerbier was able to put Rubens in direct touch with Buckingham under cover of the art sale. Throughout the year the agents met in various cities of the United Provinces and by the spring of 1629 Charles was indicating that he would be pleased to deal with Rubens as plenipotentiary without waiting for the exchange of regular envoys with Spain. Charles had, indeed, every reason for wishing to meet Rubens and Cottington's statement, 'The King is well satisfied, not only because of Rubens's mission, but also because he wishes to know a person of such merit', was no doubt inspired. The despatch of Cottington himself to Madrid as Ambassador in August further indicated Charles's willingness to treat.

These diplomatic exchanges were as well known to Christian of Denmark as the actual treaty of peace with France and, angrily, he himself made peace with the Emperor at Lubeck on 12 May 1629. What else could he do? He had been fed with promises too long. Whatever his feelings towards his favourite sister's daughter, he received back his hereditary possessions that had been lost in the

fighting and retired from the war. This was a help to the Anglo–Spanish peace negotiations. The gallant Gustavus of Sweden continued his course. Charles did all he could, allowing Gustavus to levy one regiment of volunteers in England, another in Scotland. He permitted the Dutch — who had no alternative but to continue the war, for to cease fighting meant to cease to exist — to take English soldiers into their service.

Rubens arrived in London on 3 June 1629, and stayed with Balthazar Gerbier. It was less than three months after the dissolution of Parliament, less than two months after the treaty with France. He found, on the one hand, a peace party which was partly Hispanophile, to some extent Catholic, and wholly devoted to retrenchment. On the other hand, there was an anti-Spanish group, activated by the French and Venetian Ambassadors, who wished the English alliance with France to be cemented into an alliance against Spain. This was a Puritan and opposition group, but was in no sense a war party. However much religion cut across Englishmen's allegiance at this time, very few people wanted war, and Charles could count on support for his peace policy.

The day after his arrival Rubens was summoned to Greenwich where he talked a long time with the King. Charles emphasized, as he had always done, that neither his faith, conscience, nor honour would permit him to enter into any agreement with Spain without the restitution of the Palatinate. He added, however, that since he knew it was not in Spain's power to hand over the entire Palatinate, he would be content if the King of Spain would give up his garrison towns. Rubens, though not a trained diplomat, pointed out that such a gesture did not rest with Spain alone, since she held only some of the Palatine garrisons and that if she vacated these the Emperor and the Catholic League would immediately take possession. Charles brushed the argument aside with such impatience that Rubens feared the breaking off of negotiations; yet when he said as much to Weston and Cottington they told him the King had been too hasty and that the Privy Council would not endorse such a stand. Rubens remarked that 'Whereas in other courts negotiations begin with the ministers and finish with the royal word and signature, here they begin with the king and end with the ministers.' He felt that he was negotiating on two levels and remarked sadly that he was 'very apprehensive as to the stability of the English temperament'.

He did not understand, as Charles's ministers now did, that it was

necessary for Charles to say and to believe that he was acting in the interests of the Palatinate. Thus he told the Venetian Ambassador in August, when Rubens had been two months at Court, that his interests in Germany could not be exaggerated, that he kept his attention fixed there and was determined to do all in his power for the relief of his sister.^[6] Though his European commitments had fallen to pieces, and while he was actually negotiating for peace with Spain, Charles was making the same speech he had made at intervals over the years. Rubens, not at first realizing this, was understandably puzzled at the seeming difference between the King's heroic sentiments and the terms of the treaty his ministers seemed about to conclude. Later he jumped to the opposite conclusion, assuming that Charles in his heart desired a simple treaty with Spain and 'cursed the day when the Palatinate was forced upon his attention'. This may have been true at one level of Charles's consciousness, yet his affection for his sister and his determination not to relinquish his efforts on her behalf were real at another level, and resulted in the series of great self-deceptions that started in Spain at the time of the Spanish marriage negotiations. A Spanish marriage, a war against Spain, the relief of Rochelle, and now, once again, friendship with Spain, would somehow, by some alchemy, re-form the Palatinate out of the melting pot of European war so that he could restore it to his sister. His subconscious might have added: to restore it as Henry would have done.

His practical French wife knew better than he did that he was play-acting and, though she herself was traditionally opposed to a Spanish alliance, she accepted the inevitable. She would express her opinion now and then, but on the whole she was too taken up with her private life and her second pregnancy to make much of a stand. One morning, indeed, when Charles indicated the extent of his worry by sending her a white hair he had discovered on his head, she could not resist sending back word that Spain would give him many more before they consented to restore the Palatinate!^[7]

While his diplomatic negotiations continued Rubens also had the opportunity to see at first hand the art collection of which he had heard. With Rudolph II's great collection at the Hradschin Palace in Prague broken up and plundered during the course of the war, and the Mantuan collection largely in Charles's own hands, this was, indeed, apart from the Spanish, perhaps the most impressive collection in Europe, and Charles himself was probably the best informed of princes, as well as the best judge of a canvas. As Rubens examined the

Tintorettos, the Caravaggios, the Raphaels, he had never, he exclaimed, seen in one place so many fine pictures! He remarked, particularly, on 'the marvels of the cabinet of his Majesty' where Charles kept some of his choicest pieces. He told Charles of the Raphael cartoons — The Acts of the Apostles  — which Pope Leo X had sent to Flanders as models for the tapestries he required for the Vatican. They had been retained by the weavers as pledge for payment and were stored at Brussels. Rubens advised their purchase, but it was not until 1630, with his help, that Charles acquired them and sent them to his own tapestry works at Mortlake.

Rubens was impressed, also, by the collections, particularly the statues, of the Earl of Arundel, by the Greek and Latin inscriptions published with commentaries by John Selden, by the fine antiquarian library of Sir Robert Cotton, and by the superb collection of works of art made by Buckingham, which his widow kept intact at York House. He was hardly less enthusiastic about the hospitality he received and by the state in which some of the King's ministers lived. Cottington, for example, entertained Rubens at his country house at Hanwell in Middlesex where, wrote the artist, he lived 'the life of a prince, with every imaginable luxury'. Rubens enjoyed London. He portrayed Charles and Henrietta-Maria as St George and the Princess in a big landscape he painted showing the Thames as he saw it from his window in Gerbier's house. He depicted Gerbier's children in the great canvas The Blessings of Peace which symbolized his mission. He gave both pictures to Charles — indubitably by his hand and perhaps to make up for that first endeavour of the King to secure a mature Rubens. He also gave a self-portrait to Charles — the only monarch he had so honoured; and he agreed to design and execute a series of paintings in commemoration of James I for the ceiling of Inigo Jones's Banqueting Hall in Whitehall. He found Charles himself no mean draughtsman and went over some of his sketches with help and advice. Charles, for his part, knighted the painter with his own hand at Whitehall on 3 March 1630 afterwards presenting him with the jewelled sword which had been used for the ceremony, a diamond-studded hat-band, and a ring from the royal finger.^[8]

They were happy days for Henrietta. She wore always her mother's locket and her pregnancy proceeded normally, her only anxiety being the fate of her midwife and her dwarf, who were captured by pirates in the Channel when coming to England. An appropriate ransom, and perhaps some element of gallantry, secured

their release. The anxiety of Elizabeth and Frederick waiting in Holland was less easily assuaged, and they could scarcely believe the news of the negotiations in England. Frederick broke into sobs in front of Sir Henry Vane; Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes, declared her faith in Charles's old promise, and refused to believe that he would ever consider a treaty that did not include the full restitution of the Palatinate. She, like her sister-in-law, was pregnant. Henrietta's child was born on May 29, a large, healthy, very dark, and not at all beautiful boy who was christened Charles. A little girl, who was to be Elizabeth's last child, was born on October 13 and christened Sophie; she was a lively and pretty baby whose line was destined to take over the throne of England from her Stuart cousins. The christening of the two infants could not have been more dissimilar.

Charles was christened in the public chapel at St James's Palace on 27 June 1630. Turkish carpets covered the floors, there was rich damask on the altar and on the stairways, crimson taffeta curtains hung on the walls. Mary, Marchioness of Hamilton, carried the baby, wrapped in ermine, from the nursery to the chapel, preceded by the Aldermen of London in scarlet gowns, the peers, heralds, pursuivants, Gentlemen ushers and the deputy godparents. Laud read the prayers, a choir with two organs sang the Lord's Prayer. As the onlookers in the two galleries along each wall watched, Laud baptized the baby according to the Book of Common Prayer, the heralds recited the infant's titles, Laud preached the sermon, and led prayers for the King, the Queen, and baby Prince. The godparents had not been a difficult choice. Religion apart, Charles wanted his sister and her husband to share in his happiness and their consent gave general satisfaction. But politically, as well as for his wife's sake, he had to ask her brother, the King of France, and her mother, the dowager Queen, to sponsor the baby. He hoped, indeed, that none of them would be present at the christening, partly because he preferred a quiet ceremony, partly on grounds of expense: a French contingent, particularly, would cost more than he could afford. In the event Louis, on religious grounds, declined to sponsor the child, the Queen Mother felt it impolitic to come, and the Duchess of Richmond stood proxy for the Palatines, giving the baby a jewel worth £7000. Charles gave £1000 to Madame Peronne and appropriate presents all round. Henrietta-Maria was enormously proud of her big, ugly baby. 'He is so ugly that I am ashamed of him', she wrote to Madame de Saint-Georges, 'but his size and fatness supply the want of beauty. He is so

fat and so tall, that he is taken for a year old, and he is only 4 months: his teeth are already beginning to come: I will send you his portrait as soon as he is a little fairer.'^[9]

Meantime the diplomatic activity heralded by Rubens's visit ran its course and the Treaty of Madrid between Spain and England was signed by Cottington in Madrid on 5 November 1630. The King of Spain promised to do his best for the recovery of the Palatinate, Charles promised to mediate with the Dutch with a view to ending their resistance to Spain. French hopes of a union with England against Spain were dashed and England stood as uncommitted in Europe as she had done after James's treaty with Spain in 1604 — which, indeed, the new treaty much resembled. The Spain that thus held out the hand of friendship was less belligerent and weaker than the Spain that Charles had known in the previous decade, the fears of earlier years had died down and there was little open opposition to the treaty in England even if there was not much general enthusiasm — except, perhaps from the mercantile classes. Charles wrote affectionately to Elizabeth, assuring her he would always remain a good brother. Elizabeth was now able to take the news of the treaty calmly while her husband remarked that he supposed the King of England could not make war upon everybody. The wheel had come full circle. James's peace policy had prevailed. But his dream of heading a Protestant League in Europe lay in ashes, while his daughter and her family remained the visible sign of that failure. For Charles the spectre was always there. Not so much for the sake of religion; to lead a Protestant crusade was never his ambition. But the failure of his relationship with Elizabeth was ineradicable. The extent of his concern, and the lengths to which he was prepared to go, are indicated by the secret treaty he allowed Cottington to sign on 2 January 1631, by which he agreed to make war upon the Dutch and to partition the Netherlands with Spain in return for a nebulous offer of support in recovering the Palatinate. The terms were obviously unacceptable and Charles never ratified the engagement; but neither was Cottington reprimanded. On the contrary, he brought home £80,000 worth of Spanish silver bullion to the converted into Bills of Exchange payable in Brussels for the maintenance of the Spanish troops who were holding down the Dutch. Silver in hand in return for promises to pay so delighted Charles that he immediately raised Cottington to the peerage as Baron Cottington of Hanworth in Middlesex on 10 July 1631.

But there were other things for Charles to think about. He now

had a son who was the first male heir born to a reigning English monarch since the time of Henry VIII. The baby, moreover, whereas Charles himself was by birth a Scot, had been born on English soil: in the third generation the Stuart line had established itself in unimpeachable legitimacy and 'Englishness'. Henrietta-Maria's nationality did not affect this aspect of the situation. But her religion did; there was considerable unconcealed dismay at a half-Popish heir who would take precedence over the offspring of the Protestant Elizabeth, and the bonfires celebrating the birth of Prince Charles owed as much to obligation as to spontaneous joy. It was all the more necessary for Charles to show that the Prince would be brought up in the Protestant faith. He made one mistake in putting the baby in charge of the Countess of Roxburgh, a Scottish Catholic who, as Jane Drummond, had been one of his mother's closest friends and whose appointment would have pleased his wife. But he soon placated Protestant opinion by replacing her with the Countess of Dorset, the wife of the Queen's Lord Chamberlain, of unquestionable Protestant family.

He was, according to his lights, practising conciliation both at home and abroad and he had few misgivings for the future as family life opened up before him.