PART I—
THE PRINCE

1—
Duke of Albany

In the year 1600 the affairs of the royal house of Scotland were of absorbing interest to all concerned in the English succession. Queen Elizabeth I had occupied the throne of England for forty-two years, she was sixty-seven years old and childless. Of possible successors James VI of Scotland was favoured by most of those likely to have any influence in the matter. Nothing was said openly, and Elizabeth would not name her successor, but as the new century dawned an elaborate information service was in operation between Scotland and England in which the ceaseless troubles of the turbulent Scottish Court and the ups and downs of James's marriage featured prominently. Thus on 20 November 1600, George Nicolson, the English Ambassador to Scotland, wrote from Edinburgh to Sir Robert Cecil, the English Secretary of State, with a series of important announcements:

On Monday last the King rode to the Queen to Dunfermline and returned yesternight. They never loved better. This night at 11 of the clock the Queen was delivered of a son and word thereof this night at about 3 hours brought to the King. Whereon the King this morning is gone to the Queen and 3 pieces of ordnance shot by this castle in joy of the same.

The Earl and his brother were yesterday hanged on the gibbet in the Market Place here and after quartered by the hangman.

James VI of Scotland was then in his thirty-fifth year; his wife was Anne of Denmark, aged twenty-five, to whom he had been married for eleven years. The baby, their second son and third surviving child of the four who had been born to them, was the future Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

James's delight was seemingly unfeigned and he found the day of the birth particularly auspicious. 'I first saw my wife', he exclaimed

when brought the news, 'on the 19th November on the coast of Norway. She bore my son Henry on the 19th February, my daughter Elizabeth on the 19th August, and now she has given birth at Dunfermline to my second son on the anniversary of the day on which we first saw each other . . . I myself', he added, was 'born on the 19th June'. John Murray, who brought him the news, was rewarded with £16 of Scots money.

James's relief at the ending of the 'Gowrie conspiracy' may have played some part in his joy, for the quartered carcasses that swung on their gibbets in Edinburgh, Stirling and Perth were those of the Earl of Gowrie and his brother, Alexander Ruthven. Gowrie's so-called 'conspiracy' remains a mystery and the degree of Anne's attachment to Alexander Ruthven is uncertain, though she was certainly fond of his sister, Beatrix, who was one of her ladies-in-waiting. Rumours, however, had persisted and only four days before the birth of Charles it was reported that there was 'no good agreement, but rather an open Diffidence between the King of Scots and his Wife', and that many were 'of opinion, that the Discovery of Some Affection between her and the Earle of Gowry's brother . . . was the truest Cause and Motife of all that Tragedy'.

Whatever the truth, it was an ugly episode. The brothers had been killed three months previously in an affray at the Earl's own house instigated, it was rumoured, by James himself. Beatrix Ruthven had been removed from the Queen's service and Anne's third child, a little girl of two, had died at about the same time. Expunging the name of Ruthven 'for ever' and quartering the two bodies was ordered by the Scottish Parliament on 18 November, the day before the Queen's delivery. Such pre-natal disturbance added to the normal uncertainty of birth and survival in the seventeenth century; the new baby was weak and sickly and his mother very ill. James's ebullience was out of tune with the reality at Dunfermline Castle as hasty arrangements were made to baptize the child should it die that night.^[1]

In the event Anne recovered and it was again reported on 5 December that 'the King and Queen agree exceeding well'. The baby survived to be given a grander christening on Tuesday December 23 by David Lindsay, Bishop of Ross, in the royal chapel at Holyrood House. His godfathers were the Huguenot Prince de Rohan and his brother Monsieur (later Duke of) Soubise, who were visiting the capital; the godmothers were the Countess of Mar and the Countess of Huntley. The Prince, in a gown of lawn and wrapped in cloth of gold,

was carried to the chapel by the Prince de Rohan. Behind them Lord Livingstone bore the baby's robe of royal purple velvet lined with damask, and there followed the Prince's Dames of Honour with the Lord President bearing his crown ducal. As trumpets sounded the procession made its way to the chapel where the King awaited them. The baby, who was held during the service by the Countess of Huntley beneath a magnificent silken pall which had been elaborately worked in gold and silver by his grandmother Mary, Queen of Scots, was baptized Charles. The King then bestowed on him the title of Duke of Albany, traditionally attached to the second son of the King of Scotland, and the heralds proclaimed him Lord of Ardmonoche, Earl of Ross, and Marquis of Ormonde. Celebrations and feasting continued over Christmas, James conferred knighthoods and peerages in his son's honour, while cannon sounded in salute and £100 was thrown to the populace.

Although the Queen received a handsome gift from the King in the form of a New Year's jewel for his 'dearest bedfellow', she did not attend the official christening of Charles but remained at Dunfermline, nursing her resentment and planning, some said, to punish those who had poisoned the King's mind against her. Beatrix Ruthven was not allowed back to her service, though Anne helped her secretly with clothes and money. Six months later Cecil's intelligence was informing him that the Queen of Scotland was scheming to recall one of the exiled Scottish lords, the Earl of Bothwell, to stir up trouble at home, while correspondents in England were writing that the death of Gowrie would be revenged.^[2]

James VI of Scotland was the only child of Mary, Queen of Scots, by Henry Darnley, thus inheriting, in double line, the Tudor blood of Henry VII, for Margaret Tudor was the grandmother of both Mary and Darnley — unless, indeed, as some suggested, his mother's Italian secretary, David Rizzio, was his father. But undoubtedly James inherited through his mother the French blood of the Guises and the Stuart blood of the kings of Scotland, while through Darnley he would have been closely related to the families of Angus, of Lennox, and of Douglas. To this mixed heritage was added the Norse and German lineage of James's Danish Queen. Anne was the youngest daughter of Frederick II of Denmark and Norway and of Sophia of Mecklenberg. Of her two brothers the elder had succeeded to the throne as Christian IV at the age of eleven shortly before her marriage;

her younger brother was the Duke of Holst. Anne was not quite fifteen years old when she was brought home to Scotland by James himself, who had been attracted by the fair young beauty whom he saw in a miniature sent from Denmark. The Court and the commercial interests of Scotland favoured the match, for Denmark was a Protestant country, it was not involved in foreign wars or alliances, and its trading connections with Scotland were long-established and beneficial. James's enthusiasm was such that, in somewhat uncharacteristic fashion, he had himself sailed from Scotland to fetch his bride when storms delayed her passage. They were married in Oslo on 23 November 1589, in considerable pomp, but storms again bedevilled their voyage to Scotland. James attributed the inclement weather to black magic, in which at that time he profoundly believed, and the return of the King with his bride in May 1590 was sullied by the trials, torture, and execution of alleged witches.

Anne's Nordic fairness of hair and skin, her slim and graceful figure, gave her a greater beauty in youth than her later portraits imply, and James had her miniature set in one of the green, enamelled heads of his own Order of the Thistle. She was lively and good-natured and at first James and his Court had reason to be pleased with her. But the mounting expenses of her household brought criticism from the Scottish lords, while Anne, a Lutheran, grew tired of Presbyterian austerity. Inevitably she was caught up in the wild and bitter feuding of the Scottish nobility, she was too young to discriminate, and her judgment was not good. It was also inevitable that there should have been rumours, other than those attached to young Ruthven. She 'had a great number of gallants, both in Scotland and England', it was said. But of contemporary stories, apart from the Gowrie affair, the chief is that which concerned the young and bonny Earl of Moray, who was savagely murdered by Huntley in one of the internecine feuds of the Scottish nobility:

He was a braw callant
And he rade at the glove;
And the bonnie Earl o' Murray,
Oh! he was the Queen's luve.

No details of the affair survive. Anne was sixteen at the time, had been in Scotland for only a year and had as yet no children. There is a similarity in the affairs of Moray and Gowrie in that in each case a man, whose name was associated with the Queen, met violent death

in circumstances never fully explained. Another story, which can probably be discounted, is the confidential whispering, long after, of Bedy, a Dane, that he was the natural father of Charles.^[3] Whether or not there was truth in any of these rumours, James could always be counted on to cover up for his wife. He treated her always with firm and affectionate good sense. Whatever his suspicions he would not have dirty linen washed in public. He had determined to accept Charles as his own son and it cannot be doubted that he was prepared to shield the boy from such indignities as he himself suffered when he was shouted after in Edinburgh streets as 'Jimmy Davidson'.

Against Anne's wishes, but following the custom of the time, their eldest child Henry, a healthy boy born at Stirling Castle on 19 February 1594, had been placed in the care of the family of the Earl of Mar. Elizabeth, another healthy child, was born two years later in Falkland Castle, Fifeshire, and was taken into the family of Lord Livingstone, Earl of Linlithgow. Whatever Anne's intentions with Charles — and she showed much open affection to the sickly little boy — there was an added reason in his very infirmity to put him into the care of a trusted guardian. The people chosen to bring him up were Alexander Seton, Lord Fyvie, later Lord Chancellor of Scotland and Duke of Dunfermline, and his wife. Their Roman Catholic sympathies would, James hoped, act as a counter-balance to the Presbyterianism of Mar, placate Anne, and at the same time conciliate the Catholics in England whose support was necessary if his dreams of the English throne were to come true. Dunfermline Castle, the place of Charles's birth and his mother's favourite residence, was the young prince's home for the first three and a half years of his life. It was somewhat gloomy, it was fifteen miles from Edinburgh, but the air was healthier than in the capital and it was outside the rough-and-tumble of the Court. Dame Margaret Stewart, Lady Ochiltrie, was in direct charge of the baby until he was two years old, his 'rokker' (his nurse) was Marioun Hepburn, while Jeane Drummond, third daughter of Lord Drummond and second wife of Robert Ker, first Earl of Roxburgh, was his first governess.

An apochryphal story told in Dunfermline indicates that the King and Queen were there together one night when Marioun Hepburn was heard screaming. 'Hout! tout! What's the matter w'ye, nursie?', cried James, springing out of bed and rushing into the nursery. An old man had appeared in the baby's room and thrown a dark cloak over the child as he lay sleeping in his cradle: 'I'm feared it was the thing

that's na canny', gasped the terrified nurse. James interpreted the incident in his own way. 'Gin he ever be king', he said, 'there'll be nae gude a' his reign. The deil has cusen his cloak ower him already'.^[4]

When the momentous news reached Edinburgh that Elizabeth I had died and that the succession had been offered to James VI of Scotland, the King left for England without his family. The Queen was pregnant and the King's haste was such that he could neither wait to make careful arrangements for the journey nor visit his children before he left. But he sent nine-year old Henry a copy of his book, the Basilikon Doron , which had just been given its first public printing, together with a well-expressed warning against pride in his new position as heir to the English throne: 'a King's sonne and heire was ye before, and no maire ar ye yett'. He left on 5 April 1603, after a tender, public parting from his wife. Anne, with her eldest son at Stirling, her daughter at Linlithgow, and little Prince Charles sick of a fever at Dunfermline, was so distraught that she fell ill and miscarried, writing wildly to James that he was paying no regard to her birth as the daughter of a king. James, in spite of his new responsibilities, was all solicitude and replied with dignity: 'I thank God, I carrie that love and respecte unto you, quhich . . . I ought to do to my wyfe and mother of my children; but not for that ye are a King's daughter for quhither ye waire a King's or a cook's dauchter, ye must be all alike to me, being once my wyfe.'^[5] Shortly afterwards he allowed Anne to follow him and she left with Prince Henry on June 2, leaving Elizabeth to follow with her guardians.

Charles had necessarily to stay behind. His general weakness was such that at two-and-a-half he could neither walk nor talk, and his fever persisted. By the end of April, however, Lord Fyvie was able to report to the King and Queen that the fever had abated, though the little boy was still not sleeping well at night. Nevertheless, Lord Fyvie said, 'the greate weaknesse off his bodie, after so lang and hevie seikness, is meikill suppliet be the might and strength off his spirit and minde'. A little later he wrote that the boy 'althocht zit weake in bodie, is beginnand to speik suim words'. He was already wearing coats of white satin, and of yellow satin with white sleeves, he had a scarlet coat and matching hose of French serge, and before he was two he had been given a velvet belt with a dagger at the side. The undersized, delicate little boy, with his mother's pale hair and light complexion, had to rely more even than is usual at two years old upon the help and

society of adults, but he played with dolls and soft toys, and he had a rocking horse and a little propelling chair with wheels which helped to strengthen his legs.^[6] While rarely alone, it is likely that he was lonely after his family had gone to England.

James was already taking further advice. In spite of the cares and distractions of his new office he sought out a medical officer he could trust — one with recommendations from both Sir Robert Cecil and Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury — and just over a year after his departure from Scotland signed a warrant to Dr Henry Atkins for 50/a day to attend Duke Charles in Scotland and to bring him to England. The doctor was allowed £100 for the provision of drugs and was to be accompanied by an apothecary, Edward Phillips.

Dr Atkins first saw Charles in one of the great rooms of Dunfermline Castle on the evening of 12 May 1604. The Prince was with Dame Margaret Stewart, who was helping him to walk, for he could still neither stand nor walk unaided. He was not lacking in spirit or guile, however, and was precocious enough to avoid a medical examination that evening by calling for music and himself joining in by imitating the instruments 'with the sound of the trew tune with his high tender voice'. But an examination next day could not be avoided and the doctor reported to the King that the chief trouble was in Charles's joints, the knees, hips and ankles being loose and not yet closed or knit together. He was troubled with scurvy and suffering at the time of Dr Atkins's examination from a looseness of the bowels and a great thirst. His attendants attributed the former, at least, to the fact that he had 'some great teeth breeding'; the thirst could similarly be attributable to a high temperature caused by teething. But the doctor could not confirm this because Charles refused to allow anyone to touch his gums.

About this time Charles had another visitor, Sir Robert Carey, who had brought the momentous news to James of his accession to the English throne. Carey, not an ill-natured man, but a busybody anxious to further his own interests, was thinking of following up his services to the father by services to the son, and he was prompted by more than mere interest when he took stock of the young Prince and decided he was 'a very weake child'. But Dr Atkins soon reported a considerable improvement and there seemed no reason why he should not come south to join his family. The journey was planned with the greatest care and on 17 July 1604 the cavalcade started. Charles himself travelled in a litter with his faithful nurse, Marioun Hepburn,

in attendance, accompanied by Lord and Lady Fyvie, in whose overall charge he would remain until his father had made alternative arrangements. He was escorted by servants and attendants, by a troop of horse, and by trumpeters to herald his coming.

James was at Theobalds in Hertfordshire when he learned that the party had crossed the border and that Charles had set foot for the first time on English soil. The ubiquitous Robert Carey secured the task of escorting the cavalcade to Court, meeting them at Bishop's Auckland. They came via York, Worksop, Wollaton in Nottinghamshire, and Leicester. At Easton Neston, near Towcester in Northamptonshire, the seat of Sir George Fermor, Charles met his parents. Dr Atkins, who had continued to forward his reports during the journey, had pronounced Charles to be in good health with his physical weakness much improved. James showed his gratitude by appointing the doctor one of his physicians-in-ordinary and conveying to him an estate in Surrey with deer to stock it. Charles, however, never showed Atkins favour, although he lived on for twelve years into Charles's own reign. There was, perhaps, some lingering resentment at the examinations he had had to undergo, or, more likely, a feeling that Dr Atkins had, in fact, done less for him than he was able, later, to do for himself, and had exaggerated for his own credit the progress which Charles had made while under his care.

Certainly it was no sturdy child whom Dr Atkins delivered to his parents. Robert Carey recounts how many great ladies came to see the boy with the hope of being granted the influential position of his care. But, said Carey, 'when they did see how weake a child he was, and not likely to live, their hearts were downe, and none of them was desireous to take charge of him.' Nevertheless Carey and his wife, a redoubtable woman, thought they could manage it, and when the Fyvies returned to Scotland towards Michaelmas 1604 the Queen asked Lady Carey to take over the care and keeping of the Duke. 'Those who wished mee no good', said Carey wryly, 'were glad of it, thinking that if the Duke should die in our charge . . . then it would not be thought fitt that wee should remaine in court after.' In the New Year, after making public testimony that the Fyvies had 'carefully and discreetly' governed his son and 'delivered him . . . in . . . good and sound estate', James, on 8 February 1605, gave Carey his official appointment: 'As we have made choice of your wife . . . to have the charge of our second son', he wrote to Sir Robert, 'you will also be tied to residence about our son [and] we authorise you to take charge of

his family and see things well ordered about his person.' When, at the end of the year, old Marioun Hepburn, weighed down by her years and the unaccustomed life of the capital, returned home with £100 and a promise of £200 to come, the last link with the old life was severed.

When Charles was put officially in the Carey's charge, a little after his fourth birthday, 'he was not able to go', according to Sir Robert, 'nor scant stand alone, he was so weake in his jointes, and especially his ankles, insomuch as many feared they were out of joint'. A contemporary wrote that 'he was exceedingly feeble in his lower parts, his legs growing not erect, but rapandous and embowed, whereby he was unapt for exercises of activity'. Carey's account does not accord with Dr Atkins's report that Charles could walk up and down a room before he left Dunfermline. In each case self-interest must be taken into account. But Charles's legs were weak enough for the King to want him put in iron boots to strengthen his joints and make walking easier. Lady Carey strenuously opposed the idea and had her way, though Charles wore boots made of Spanish leather and brass, which were more helpful to his weak ankles than ordinary boots or shoes.

It is possible that Charles was suffering from rickets. He was a weak baby at birth and a diet deficiency would have emphasized the symptoms. The description of his limbs, the looseness of the joints, the lack of growth, and the presence of infantile scurvy bear this out. So does the somewhat large head, slightly flattened at the back, which is noticeable in early portraits. Rickets was prevalent in the British Isles in the early seventeenth century and was, indeed, known as 'the English disease'. It was not given a more specific name until 1620 when, as John Aubrey narrates, 'one Ricketts of Newberye, a Practitioner in Physick, was excellent at curing Children with swoln heads, and small legges: and . . . He being so famous for the cure of it, they called the Disease the Ricketts'. Rickets is associated with diet deficiency and lack of sunlight. A child brought up in Dunfermline Castle might well have been deprived of sunlight but a prince's diet would hardly be intentionally deficient, though his food might well have lacked the essential elements of healthy growth. Assuming the normal Scottish custom was followed, Charles was weaned at about a year old, his nourishment until then depending upon the quality of the milk of his wet nurse. After that he was put on a diet of milk or whey thickened with flour, since milk itself was considered merely baby's food, and thereafter rapidly accustomed to broths and bread. It was

basically a cereal diet, lacking phosphorus in readily assimilable amounts, with little butter or egg yolk, virtually no vegetables or fruit, and with a deficiency therefore in vitamins D and C which encouraged infantile scurvy. At the same time an excess of carbohydrates promoted a rapid growth in physique out of proportion to the process of calcification, with a resultant weakness in bone structure.^[7] It is interesting that James showed symptoms similar, but not so pronounced. James's legs remained somewhat bowed all through his life (though this may have been associated with constant horse-riding) and some of his early portraits, like those of Charles, show the type of head associated with rickets; some of the portraits of Charles's elder brother Henry show the same head-flattening.

As a more efficient alternative to iron boots, the Careys took Charles to 'an Artist for strengthening Limbs, and straitning crooked Bodies', one Edward Stutfeyld, 'a practitioner in bone settinge', licensed to practise in 1602 by the Barber Surgeons of London. Charles slowly grew stronger and as he did so his own determination aided his development. Day after day he was on his horse, riding, tilting, jumping. But he remained short in stature and his legs, it seems, failed to grow to their full length, bearing out the analysis that calcification had set in too early. Judging from his armour in the Tower of London he was never more than 5¢ 4¢¢ tall. In an age when people as a whole were less tall than now this was not particularly short. But Charles was always anxious to appear taller than he was and his portraits are so contrived. A slight shortness, a little bowing of the legs, and the hurried walk of the man with short legs — 'when he walked on Foot', wrote a contemporary, 'he rather trotted than paced, he went so fast' — all that remained of his infantile weakness.

Like his walking, Charles's speech came slowly and with difficulty. He stammered until the end of his life, the effort to form words giving a hesitancy to his speech which could be accounted deliberation, slow-wittedness, or surliness. At one time his father wanted to help by cutting the string beneath his tongue but, again, Lady Carey's influence prevailed. Charles practised talking with pebbles in his mouth but found this no help, preferring the careful formulation of words in his head before pronouncing them.^[8] Only at the supreme moment of his life, on trial at Westminster Hall, did his hesitation of speech leave him. Heredity, pre-natal disturbance, childhood worries, the anxiety of physical infirmity, all could have played their part. What tales were told in the nursery of the backward,

difficult child is unknown: his father born shortly after the murder of Rizzio, his grandfather blown up at Kirk-o'Fields, his grandmother beheaded by the English, the Gowrie conspiracy associated with his own birth — all make stories which lose nothing in the telling and whose effect on a weak and imaginative boy could have been profound. Perhaps in Charles's case his mother's delegation of her role, though customary, caused more than ordinary deprivation. But Charles had a strong spirit, as Lord Fyvie had assured his father in 1603. His mother called it obstinacy, and frequently reproved him. So did the astrologer, Lilly, who spoke of Charles in his infancy as being 'very wilful and obstinate'. Though it would be strange, indeed, if such an unfortunate heritage as Charles's, coupled with physical weakness, did not bring difficulties of temperament and temper, yet the Careys, throughout their long association with Charles, made no complaint and Marioun Hepburn showed a more than ordinary devotion and affection to her charge which hardly accords with the description of him as a perverse and wilful little boy.

When he came to London Charles was established close to his parents in the Palace of Whitehall in apartments which had been occupied by Henry, who now moved to nearby St James's Palace. Charles was acutely conscious of his radiant elder brother and of his enchanting sister, Elizabeth, who was in the care of Lord and Lady Harington at Coombe Abbey, two-and-a-half miles north of Coventry. Elizabeth adored the life of the Court and whenever her parents permitted came to apartments near the Cockpit within the complex of Whitehall Palace. Charles became accustomed to a general movement in which Henry went to Nonesuch and to Richmond, and his mother went to Hampton Court, where she found the air fresher than in London, or to the old Palace of Placentia at Greenwich, while the King himself was already showing the passion for hunting which took him increasingly away from London to Theobalds or Royston or to some hunting lodge where the sport was good.

Of the experiences that affected Charles directly the most important was his creation as Duke of York, the customary title of the second son of the King of England, during the Twelfth Night celebrations of 1605. He had just turned four years old and had been in England for less than a year. The day before the ceremony he was invested as Knight of the Bath in company with eleven other nobles of the King's choice. On both occasions he was carried by an attendant.

After the official inauguration there was a public dinner in the Great Chamber, one table for the little Duke of York and his attendant Earls, another for his fellow Knights of the Bath. That evening there was a great masque in the old Elizabethan Banqueting House, one of the last functions to be held there, attended by the King and the Court, resplendent with foreign dignitaries, and graced by Charles's uncle, the Duke of Holst, who it was noted was 'a lusty reveller'. The performance was The Masque of Blackness , notable for the collaboration of Ben Jonson as author and Inigo Jones as choreographer. An idle remark of Queen Anne's that she would like to appear on the stage as a blackamoor had been taken seriously by Jonson who depicted his principal characters as daughters of Niger who sat, the Queen included, in a great scalloped-out sea shell with their faces and their arms up to the elbow blackened. That evening, as usual after such performances, there was a magnificent banquet in the Great Chamber 'which was so furiously assaulted' by the hungry audience — and this, again, was not unusual — 'that down went Table and Tresses before one bit was touched'.^[9]

Queen Anne found in the masque the action and display that appealed to her. On her journey south she had been entertained at Althorpe, the home of Sir Robert Spencer, with a fairy masque written specially for the occasion by Ben Jonson, and under her patronage such simple revels were directed into more elaborate and formal channels. The development of the masque itself was due almost entirely to the astounding ingenuity of Inigo Jones. He took the big step of abandoning the dispersed platforms of earlier entertainments and concentrating his action on a single stage where he organized an astonishing series of scenic changes by means of mechanical devices and subtelties in lighting that amazed and delighted his audiences. For nearly forty years, through the reigns of James and Charles, Inigo Jones, with a variety of authors, contrived to keep the masque at the centre of Court life.

The masque was a Court entertainment, devised for and performed by the Court. But plays and professional players were also popular and the theatre played a larger part in Court life than under Elizabeth. James took over the Lord Chamberlain's Men of Elizabeth as The King's Servants, and the Queen and each of their children had a seperate company of players. These and other companies produced a veritable stream of entertainment, particularly over Christmas and the New Year. No fewer than seventeen plays by Shakespeare were

performed before King James, often in the presence of his children; they included Othello, King Lear, The Tempest and Henry V. The Merchant of Venice was played twice at the King's command. In the festive season of 1609/10 as many as twenty-four plays were acted before the King and Queen and their family. The children, in addition, would sometimes watch plays on their own in the Cockpit, which was reserved largely for younger people, where child companies like the Children of Paul's performed.

At the same time literary men not only came to Court, they filled Court office; men like Sir Henry Wotton, Edward Herbert, Sir John Harrington, Sir John Davies and Fulke Greville were the normal contacts of Court life. So were the books they wrote and talked about. John Donne was a friend of the King's — though rather for his theology than for his poetry; Sir Robert Aytoun, the Scottish poet, was secretary to the Queen; Samuel Daniel, and John Florio the translator of Montaigne, were her grooms of the chamber. Chapman, the translator of Homer; Joseph Hall, the satirist; Tom Coryat, writer of highly coloured travel books; Joshua Sylvester, lyric poet and translator were all attached to the household of Prince Henry. Florio was his tutor, both Michael Drayton and Samuel Daniel were under his patronage. Raleigh's History of the World , Florio's Montaigne , the Authorized version of the Bible, Shelton's translation of Don Quixote were all produced during Charles's adolescence. Francis Bacon was prominent in Court and government, Thomas Campion and Henry Wotton were writing lyrics in praise of Princess Elizabeth. James's own library was considerable and he wrote prose and poetry himself, using Charles as transcriber. Anne was found of music and all the children learned to sing and to play as well as to dance. Painting and drawing figured naturally in their lives both as an art to be cultivated and in the practical necessity of having their likenesses recorded by a Mytens or a Van Somer. Though much of James's Court may be condemned — and was condemned by both his sons — as extravagant and profligate, it brought literature and the arts to Charles in a natural and undemanding way.

2—
Duke of York

Life as Duke of York was not much different from before, except that Charles learned to sign his letters York, with a big, curving letter Y. But at Whitehall he was in much closer contact with the outside world than at Dunfermline and there were many children in the circle of the Court where he moved. They played games such as Rise pig, and go; One penny, follow me; I pray, my Lord, give me a course in your park . They played Ducks and Drakes with stones. Just before his fifth birthday occurred a plot which he was old enough to know about, even if not to understand: his father and the whole of the Parliament House, not far from his own residence, were to be blown sky-high by gunpowder placed in the vaults, his brother was to be killed, his sister was to be captured and proclaimed queen. His own fate was uncertain, but one of his serving women, Agnes Foster, was involved. If the religious motivation of the Gunpowder Plot meant little to him he knew that Guy Fawkes himself was hanged and he was impressed by his father's emotional embrace as he cried out that he had been saved by his child's innocence!

More immediately exciting was the fact that about the same time Charles had a permanent tutor of his own. Thomas Murray was a Presbyterian Scot of mild character who held his beliefs moderately, though firmly. He was one of the many young men who had sat at the feet of Andrew Melville, the Scottish Presbyterian teacher and controversialist, and had been attached to the Court of James in Scotland. Like many others he came south with the King on his accession to the English throne. Murray was a classical scholar who wrote Latin verses which were well regarded, he was conscientious and, above all, he kept aloof from the competition of Court life. No one could have been better suited to guide the education of the young Duke at this time and he won, and kept, the confidence of both James and Charles. There

followed shortly afterwards into Charles's circle Murray's nephew, Will Murray, a bright, extroverted boy, about the same age as Charles. They took lessons together and, in spite of their different temperaments, formed a lifelong friendship.

James was closely concerned with his children's education. When they were small he advised them in a charming letter 'to keep up their dancing privately, though they whistle and sing to one another for music'.^[1] He not only wrote to them but expected letters in return in Latin and French as well as English. He took care in choosing tutors whether for drawing, dancing, music, tennis, riding, fencing or formal study. He wrote books on statecraft for his sons' edification and helped to train them in the theological disputation which he valued. Jonson praised him in one of the masques: 'You are an honest, good man, and have care of your bairns!'. Charles's physical weakness encouraged a bent for study and, following his father's example, theology and the classics played a considerable part in his early education. Encouraged by Murray, Charles, like all his family, became an enthusiastic letter-writer. Even before he could write fluently, he would sign with a wavering Charles or York the letters Murray wrote for him. One of the earliest letters — and this was written by Charles himself — was to his father: 'Sweete, Sweete Father', it reads, 'i learne to decline substantives and adjectives, give me your blessing, I thank you for my best man, your loving sone York'.

While Charles learned enough to satisfy his father he knew also how to express some of the hero-worship he felt for his brother. In what is probably his earliest extant letter, written by his tutor but signed Charles, he pours out all the affection, the desire to give, of normal young children. He will keep and cherish for ever a letter that Henry has sent him: 'I will keep it better than all my graith'. He will give Henry anything that he has: 'I will send my pistolles by Maister Newton, I will give anie thing that I have to yow; both my horss, and my books, and my pieces, and my cross bowes, or anie thing that yow would haive. Good Brother loove me, and I shall ever loove and serve yow.' It is clear that Charles's backwardness had not deprived him of any of the normal appurtenances of a young prince. It is also clear that he had normal boy's wish to show off. 'Pleas your H', he writes a little later, 'I doe keepe your haires in breath (and I have very good sport). I doe wish the King and you might see it.'^[2]

Prince Henry, six years older than Charles, was, by common consent, a prince of much excellence. Physically he was all that a

prince should be — of middle height (some 5¢ 8¢ ), broad-shouldered, straight-limbed, strong and well-made. His hair was auburn, frown marks on his forehead accompanied a touch of pride about the mouth. If the description of 'a piercing grave Eye . . . a most gracious smile, with a terrible Frown', smacks of the courtier's conventional language, it remains true that his portraits show a very handsome youth of strong character. Some people said he resembled his mother, others his sister. One portrait, at least, shows a face not unlike that of Charles. The early development of the two brothers, however, could not have been more different. While Charles was attending the osteopath, Henry would spend a couple of hours on study and the rest of the day on the heroic pastimes of chivalry — running at the ring, tossing the pike, vaulting, fencing, archery, as well as tennis and golf and, above all, riding. His physical energy was boundless and he would tire his companions long before he became weary himself.

If not academic in the strict sense, Henry had interests over many fields. He listened attentively to sermons, sought discussions with scholars, and welcomed travellers and visitors from abroad with avidity. He was particularly concerned about the possibility of a north-west passage to India and was 'Protector' of the Company of Discoverers of the North-West Passage, incorporated in 1612. At the same time he had a gravity of disposition that was repelled by the extravagances of his father's Court. Within the bounds of a prince's life he followed a routine that was austere in the extreme. Even after he was created Prince of Wales at the age of sixteen he continued, testified his treasurer, 'in his own frugal Courses, suffering almost nothing to pass in his House, or other Affairs, which he himself did not oversee'. He liked plain clothes. Having worn a suit of Welsh frieze for a considerable time and being told it was too mean for him, that even a rich suit should not be worn so long, his answer was that he was not ashamed of his country cloth and wished it would last for ever. Both his treasurer and the French Ambassador independently reported his determination. He 'pushes what he undertakes', said the latter, 'with such zeal, as gives success to it'.

Henry's mildness of manner and his gravity are frequently mentioned. He disliked swearing and would never swear himself or take God's name in vain saying 'he knew no Game worthy of an Oath'. Boxes were placed in his various houses where any who swore would be required to pay forfeit for the benefit of the poor. He never omitted prayers before dinner and supper. He would never break his word.

Some of these characteristics are at variance with the picture of the popular, extrovert Prince, a second Prince Hal, so often given. It is likely, indeed, that the developing conscience of adolescence produced an ambivalence which combined the charming athletic extrovert with the serious-minded heir to the throne. That he possessed the rare quality we term 'charisma' there can be little doubt. He had, said a contemporary to whom the modern word was unknown, 'a certain kind of extraordinary unspeakable excellence'.^[3]

In spite, or it may be because of his virtues, there was something in Prince Henry that offended his father; perhaps a too obvious reflection on the laxity of the Court, perhaps a too strong insistence on arranging his own affairs in his own way. But none of this affected the devotion of his brother and sister. With Elizabeth he formed a rare friendship. She and Henry wrote regularly to each other when apart and rode daily together when they were near. Henry also expended thought and care on his delicate younger brother, not only giving up his apartments in Whitehall for Charles but lending him horses, allowing him to use his stables, and keeping always a watchful eye on his household. Charles repaid him with affection and hero-worship. Elizabeth was allowed to come to Court for the Christmas and New Year celebrations of 1607/8, when she was eleven, after which she spent some time in and near Whitehall near her parents and her brothers. Here, again, there was an excellence of form and character which not only brought to her feet the young courtiers and poets of her father's Court but won friendship and lasting admiration. As Wotton wrote,

You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your numbers than your light;
You common people of the skies,
What are you when the Moon shall rise?

Close within the circle in which Charles grew up was his father's cousin, Lady Arabella Stuart. By descent she had a claim to the English throne not far inferior to James's own; by her birth and upbringing in England her claim was superior, had she cared to use it. Already a rumoured romance with William Seymour of the Howard line (himself a possible rival to the throne) had been sternly broken by Elizabeth, and shortly after James's succession Arabella was coupled with a plot by Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh to supplant James

himself. Cobham and Raleigh were condemned to death but reprieved to imprisonment in the Tower. To Lady Arabella James was prepared to be gentle; she was welcomed into the family and, although she had little money, she became a well-known figure at Court. She was a strange, fey, feckless creature, her life warped by the heredity that brought her close to the throne, her willpower sapped by the two strong-willed women in whose care she had been brought up — her aunt and her redoubtable grandmother, Bess of Hardwicke. Lasting happiness was thwarted by the impossibility of any marriage whose issue might endanger the succession. It is likely, indeed, that her earlier suspected romance had been a real love affair and that she was nursing a broken heart. At all events, no question of her marriage arose to trouble James until 1610, when she was thirty-five years old. Again it was the Howards who were involved, her suitor being another William Seymour, some twelve years her junior. In spite of warnings, they secretly married and James angrily sent them both to the Tower. They contrived to escape, Arabella in man's costume, but their plans miscarried. Seymour reached France but Arabella was captured in the Channel and brought back to captivity. Sick and distraught she pined away in the Tower a life which had been sad and unfruitful through no fault of her own.

Robert Carr, fellow Scotsman and royal favourite — the page who had run beside James's coach on the journey to London in 1603 and who became Viscount Rochester in 1611 — was another figure familiar to Charles. There were the families of Howard and Essex, in particular the beautiful Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, who Henry was said to admire. Seemingly everywhere was the little, gnome-like figure of Robert Cecil, created Earl of Salisbury in 1605, whom Charles soon realized was indispensable to his father's business. Salisbury was one link with Queen Elizabeth. Francis Bacon, Salisbury's cousin, was another. He sat for Ipswich in James's first Parliament and became Attorney General in 1613. The great age of the Sea Dogs and the defeat of the Spanish Armada was linked to the present by no less a person than the colourful Sir Walter Raleigh, whose life was already a legend — casting his cloak for Queen Elizabeth to walk on, buccaneering with Drake and Hawkins, routing the Spaniard, settling Virginia in the New World in the name of the Virgin Queen, seeking gold on the Orinoco, smoking tobacco first brought from America by Drake, making presents to his friends of tobacco pipes with silver bowls, cultivating the curious, new potato

crop on his estates in Youghal in Ireland. With all this, he was cultured, widely read and entertaining. 'None but my father', exclaimed Henry referring to Raleigh's imprisonment, 'could keep such a bird in such a cage!' Raleigh admired Henry and dedicated his History of the World , which he began in the Tower, to the Prince.

Charles was naturally concerned in the intimate details of family life — the birth of a sister, Mary, in April 1605; of another sister, Sophia, on 25 June 1607 and her funeral the following day; the death of Princess Mary later in the year. On 18 July 1606 he stood with Elizabeth on the waterfront of Greenwich Palace to welcome his uncle, Christian IV of Denmark, though he did not join the party which went to view the fleet in August. It was perhaps fortunate that he was not at the notorious party at Theobalds when James and Christian and most of their guests became completely drunk and the entertainment devised by the unfortunate Earl of Salisbury ended in disarray as guests collapsed, spilling their food and drink over themselves and each other as well as upon the floor and the furniture.^[4]

It was a happy family in 1609 when Elizabeth was at Kew in a house of Lord Harington's, Charles at Whitehall, and Henry at Hampton Court. Elizabeth and Henry rode together for a couple of hours each day, they all went to a new shopping centre in the Strand which James called 'Britain's Bourse'. In June of the following year Charles watched with his mother and sister at the watergate at Whitehall as, with great acclaim, Henry arrived by river from Richmond for his inauguration as Prince of Wales. Later Charles sat to observe the ceremony in a special box with his sister, with Lady Arabella — one of her last happy moments with the family — and more than twenty other little boys and girls — 'a very goodly sight', it was said, 'to behold so many little infants of such noble parentage, about the age of nine or ten years'. The ceremony itself was performed in the presence of the assembled Commons and of the Peers of the realm, who marched in order of their rank clad in their rich robes, the climax coming when the Earls of Nottingham and Northampton led the Prince to the throne where he kneeled upon the uppermost step while his patent was read by the Earl of Salisbury. His robes, sword and other regalia were put upon him by the lords who carried them, but the King, taking his son by the hand and kissing him, himself delivered the crown, the staff, the ring and the patent. The King dined that day privately in his chamber, but the Prince of Wales was served in the great hall with the honours of a king.

The following day the customary masque was performed. It was again written by Samuel Daniel, who was proving more accommodating to the ambitious scenic schemes of Inigo Jones than the irascible Ben. In Tethys Festival the nine-year-old Charles played his first major role. The Queen played Tethys, Elizabeth the Nymph of Thames, Arabella the Nymph of Trent, ladies of the Court the presiding spirits of other rivers. The scene was a port or haven in which the sea moved gently up and down with many ships riding at anchor. Zephirus appeared within a ring of eight nymphs representing fountains and flanked by two tritons. The little figure, in a short robe of green satin embroidered with golden flowers, with silver wings, a garland of coloured flowers on his golden head, a magnificant bracelet of gold set with rich stones, the gift of his mother, on his bare arm, was the Duke of York. The little girls danced round him. The circle was broken, Charles was given a sword by one of the tritons, he advanced and presented it to his brother, after which he took his place again within the circle of dancers.^[5] It was a moment of great pride to the boy. Later in the year they all went to the launching of the Prince Royal , a ship whose construction by Phineas Pett they had all, and particularly Henry, followed with intense interest. The launching was unsuccessful, the ship remaining stuck in the slips, and the family returned home. But Prince Henry showed typical determination in returning in the early hours of the following morning to catch the tide at the flood, and saw her successfully afloat.

There is a abundant evidence that by this time Charles had conquered his physical infirmity, even if he was not robust. Horses were bought for him, saddlers employed, he played tennis, his dancing and singing lessons continued. On 13 May 1611 he was created Knight of the Garter at Windsor with Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Robert, Viscount Rochester, in a colourful ceremony that made a deep impression upon him.^[6] He was getting plenty of air and exercise and his diet now provided abundant protein as well as bread, beer and wine. Breakfast consisted of two kinds of bread, with mutton, chicken and beer. For dinner he was offered a choice of three kinds of bread, ten kinds of poultry or meat, with a sweet to follow and beer or wine to drink. There was a similar choice for supper. On a fish day fish replaced some, but not all, of the meat and poultry. Between meals the Duke was offered beer and bread. Milk and butter appeared but sparingly, a small amount being budgeted for the whole day. Eggs appeared not at all, but old recipes indicate that they were used freely

in cooking. It may be assumed that fruit was plentiful. James's love of fruit was notorious — he was suffering from a surfeit of grapes when they went to the launching of the Prince Royal . Vegetables may simply not have been thought worth mentioning: they certainly do not figure on the menus of the Duke of York, though they were grown in abundance in market gardens round the capital.^[7]

But, notwithstanding his physical development, Charles was becoming more the scholar than Henry. About the time that his brother was being created Prince of Wales and Charles was dancing in Tethys Festival , his father was paying over £60 for Charles's books and Charles himself was going through the forms of a public disputation in theology. He was now more frequently with his father than Henry was. He accompanied him to the University of Oxford and when only eleven years old was nominated as Chancellor of Cambridge University — to the annoyance of James who felt that the Duke of York should not be in a position which was subject to competition. The nomination was withdrawn. Henry, recognizing his brother's ability, one day placed the Archbishop of Canterbury's hat, which was lying on a table during an audience with the King, upon his brother's head, saying he would one day make Charles his Archbishop. Charles was furious, snatching the cap from his head and stamping it underfoot.^[8] But Henry continued to be an ideal elder brother, and teasing was accompanied by the care first evinced when he gave up his lodging in Whitehall to Charles. He considered it necessary to protect the boy from the disorders of Court life and when he himself was away gave authority to Carey and Thomas Murray to repress any abuses in Duke Charles's household. Charles continued to respond with the greatest affection. 'Most loving Brother', he wrote on 14 March 1611, 'I long to see you, and hope that you will return shortly, therefore I have presumed to wreat these few lynes to You that I may rest in your favour and ever bee thought Your H. most loving brother and obedient servant.'^[9]

Charles's relationship with his mother was close and deeply affectionate. In planning and participating in the masques they were much together, but Charles also came to know the less happy side of her life and marriage. In a Court where the King, with his favourites, his hunting, his didacticism, was paramount, Anne had a diminishing role to play. For one who was 'naturally bold and enterprising', as the Duke of Sully expressed it, this was hard to bear. Although she was Jonson's 'Queen and Huntress chaste and fair' she could not keep up

with the King's increasing passion for the chase: 'whensoever your sport and other occasions will suffer you come hither', she once wrote to him sadly, 'you shall be very welcome'. She concluded the letter by 'desyreing to be excused for thus troubling of you in tyme of your sport'.^[10] She carefully cultivated her appearance and would wear dresses cut low at the neck and shoulders to display her white skin. There are few accounts of further amours . The assertion of Lord Herbert of Cherbury that she cast loving eyes on him is suspect; he was wont to suppose that all women did the same. All accounts agree on her kindness and 'affability'. The Venetian Ambassador found her 'passionately attached' to Charles and to her brother, Christian. In the lighthearted banter they employed she called Charles her 'little servant' and he called her his 'worthy mistress'. When she was ill he wrote to her with gentle raillery and a boy's sense of humour, saying that he was sorry for her illness for many reasons but 'especially because it is troublesome to you, and has deprived me of your most comfortable sight, and of many good dinners, the which I hope by God's grace shortly to enjoy'. And, he adds, 'it may be I shall give you some good recipe, which either shall heal you or make you laugh'. 'Kissing in all humility your most sacred hands', he concludes, 'Your Majesty's most humble and obedient servant, Charles.'^[11] He was also fond of his two uncles, particularly of Christian. When, some years later, he heard a rumour of Christian's death, he was very melancholy and would not for some time open the letter which he imagined brought him the news.

When Charles was nearly eleven his household became entirely masculine. The Careys figured less prominently in its control and Lady Carey resumed her old position in the Queen's household. Henry wished a nominee of his own to take the important post of Chief Gentleman of the Bedchamber in his brother's new establishment, leaving the control of the privy purse to Sir Robert Carey. But Carey knew the importance of the Bedchamber post so close to the Prince's person, and in securing it for himself was more than a match even for Prince Henry. There is no reason to believe that Charles ever resented this kindly but self-centred busybody, and he continued to treat him with favour. Among new friends who entered his service at this time was Sir James Fullerton, a Presbyterian Scot who had come to England with James. He had quickly made his way at the English Court and, despite an eye for his own advancement, proved a reliable member of the Prince's Household, serving him faithfully for many years.

Shortly after these important developments Charles was affected by an event of a quite different kind when the body of Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought from Peterborough to a magnificent tomb at Westminster. A public ceremony was considered inadvisable and the hearse was transported through London after dark. But the dead Queen's 'translucent passage in the night', with the light shining from multitudes of torches, with the tapers by her tomb smoking 'like an offertory' were more impressive, more moving, than any traditional memorial service. Her burial in Westminster Abbey brought his grandmother and her execution closer to Charles than ever before; she was released from the aura of legend and took her place within his family.

3—
Heir Apparent

Charles's father, although he did not achieve the full union with Scotland which he desired, was nevertheless King of England as well as of Scotland. As such, he had a wider responsibility than before and his relations with Europe assumed a correspondingly greater significance. It was no easy role that James was called upon to play. France and Spain were poised in continued rivalry. The states of central Europe were held loosely together in a federation termed the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Peoples. The role of Emperor, which in theory was elective, had since 1437 fallen upon a member of the House of Hapsburg, a family which, by marriage and by conquest, constituted a further power grouping in Europe. Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Lombardy and the Kingdom of Naples, as well as the Empire itself and vast overseas territories in the New World all fell within the ambit of the Hapsburg, who were fervently Catholic themselves and expected religious conformity within the territories they controlled. The Reformation had complicated the situation as Lutheranism was followed by Calvinism and the forces of the counter-Reformation were marshalled by the Jesuits. Within the Empire a Protestant Union had been formed in 1608, followed by a Catholic League in the following year. Outside the Empire, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and a powerful minority in France were for the reformed religion, though not always for the same reforms; Spain and the rest of France were Catholic. It was a Spanish king, Philip II, whom a generation of Englishmen had fought under Elizabeth for the glory of God and the Queen, and whose Armada they had defeated in 1588.

James inherited this war from Elizabeth, though its momentum had been lost and in the new generation that was growing up the spirit of the Sea Dogs was dormant. He himself was not of the temperament

to awaken patriotic fervour. He preferred to see himself as a peacemaker and one of his immediate aims was to come to terms with Spain. At the same time he was attracted to the role of leader of a Protestant Europe, and his chief problem in foreign affairs was how to combine the two roles. His natural allies were the Dutch, who were still fighting doggedly for their independence from Spain. James had to achieve peace with Spain without appearing to desert these fellow Protestants. It was a situation he felt he could deal with by holding a balance as he had done between warring families in Scotland. The peace with Spain, which he concluded in 1604, and a twelve-year truce between Spain and the Northern Provinces of Holland were good beginnings. Judicious marriages for his children would, James felt, confirm his position as arbiter of Europe.

On the Catholic side the daughters of Tuscany, Savoy, France and Spain were all considered for Prince Henry. The dowry from Tuscany would be large. Savoy was geographically important in commanding the Alpine passes from France to Italy, and the Princess was beautiful. A French Princess would bring a good dowry and politically the union was commendable. The prospect of a Spanish match, delayed for years on religious grounds, petered out in one of the policy shifts of the European kaleidoscope when the Infanta married the young French King Louis XIII whose sister, in turn, married the heir to the Spanish throne. The poor Prince Henry could only murmur: 'My part, which is to be in love with any of them, is not yet at hand.'

Elizabeth was being no less urgently considered for marriage. The son of the Duke of Savoy, brother-in-law to Philip of Spain, was suggested from the English side. Even Philip III of Spain, a widower, put himself forward. Anne was delighted at the glittering prospect of the Spanish throne for her daughter but James's mind was at this time fixed upon a Protestant match. The Elector Palatine of the Rhine, frequently known as the Palsgrave, leader of the Protestant Union and first secular Prince in Germany, was the suitor he had in mind. The Palatinate, with its capital at Heidelberg on the Neckar, was wealthy, so Elizabeth's dowry need not be large. Though the Upper Palatinate was comparatively poor the Lower Palatinate was a beautiful land of wooded hills and fertile valleys, watered by the Rhine and the Neckar, enriched by the wine-growing district between the Moselle, the Saar and the Rhine. The Palatine Electorate was hereditary in the German family of Wittelsbach, while the mother of Elizabeth's proposed bridegroom was the daughter of William the Silent of the Dutch

House of Orange. So, although Anne might mock her daughter as Goody Palsgrave, it was, in reality, marriage into a not undistinguished family and life at a Court both wealthy and cultivated, which were proposed for Elizabeth.

Nor was the marriage merely one of expediency. The Palsgrave was Elizabeth's own age, handsome, athletic, of a winning personality, and generous, his chief defect being a gentleness of character which led to indecision and bouts of depression. He could not fail to love Elizabeth. For her part she loved him on sight and they remained devoted to each other through the years of stress and tragedy that lay ahead. Prince Henry favoured the match, not only because of its Protestant basis but because he was happy to see his sister married to one so personable. But when Frederick arrived in England in October 1612 Prince Henry was unwell. He was met at Gravesend by the Duke of Lennox and other courtiers and at the watergate at Whitehall it was the Duke of York, now nearly twelve years old, who greeted him and conducted him to the Great Chamber where the King awaited him.

Henry attempted to throw himself into the betrothal celebrations but his face grew thinner and he became more melancholy. He seemed to believe that by strenuous exercise he could avert his illness. He swam in the river, he played violent tennis with Frederick, he walked by night. But the sickness and the pains in his head grew more severe and he took to his bed. He ate fruit and vomited. The doctors were puzzled, prescribed various treatments to no avail. On 1 November his parents, his brother and sister and the Elector were admitted one at a time to his bedside. It was the last time Charles saw his brother. Delirium set it, the doctors spoke of infection and would allow no one to come near him. Sir Walter Raleigh from the Tower sent a potion which, after testing, was given to the Prince but there was no improvement. Elizabeth, disguised as a country girl, tried several times to gain admittance to Henry but was recognized and turned back. He died on 6 November 1612 in the nineteenth year of his age, calling his sister's name. As wedding plans gave way to funeral preparations James himself became ill and Charles was called upon to take responsibility. Over-exercise, swimming by night or when over-heated, a surfeit of fruit, were among the reasons for Henry's death suggested by his stunned and stricken friends and family. Even poisoning was not ruled out. An heir to the throne as forthright, uncompromising, and staunchly Protestant as Henry was bound to make enemies, and the names of Rochester, King's favourite, and the

Roman Catholic Northampton were whispered. Incredibly the King himself, because of some known resentment to Henry, featured in some of the darker stories that were circulating. Later, typhoid fever was suspected to have been the cause of Henry's death. More recently it has been thought that he died of porphyria, a rare disease from which his grandmother, Mary, and his father might also have suffered.

As mourning for Henry spread over the country and into Europe, Charles, not yet twelve years old, had to stifle his incredulous grief and for a whole month devote himself to the funeral preparations. The King himself was too distraught to take charge. Tradition and protocol had to be followed and the harrowing procedure of royal burial could spare no one. Long after the doctors had opened the body and head and reported upon the condition of the organs, Henry's coffin remained in his black-draped bedchamber at St James's Palace. There it was watched by relays of ten servants, day and night, for four weeks while, according to custom, his effigy was made and placed on top of the coffin apparelled as he had been at his inauguration as Prince of Wales, with a crown on his head, his George, the insignia of the Garter, round his neck, and his golden staff in his right hand.

It took four hours to marshall the procession which set out at ten o'clock in the morning of December 7 for Westminster Abbey. The funeral chariot was drawn by eight black horses, there were 2000 mourners in black, while a multitude of all sorts of ages and degrees followed the hearse and lined the streets. Prince Charles was on foot as chief mourner, supported by the Lord Privy Seal and the Duke of Lennox and followed by the Elector Palatine and members of his suite. At the Abbey the funeral sermon was preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the text 'But ye shall die as a Man, and ye Princes shall fall like others.'^[1]

With these words still in his ears Charles had now to shoulder the duties attendant upon his sister's wedding, as well as the wider responsibilities of heir to the throne. The betrothal ceremony had been held in November, before the funeral, the Princess in black for her brother, but the wedding had been postponed for three months. Longer delay was hardly possible. There was, indeed, already complaint at the cost of keeping the Palsgrave and his retinue in England. So, on Valentine's Day, 14 February 1613, Elizabeth and Frederick, both sixteen years old, were married amid considerable pomp and entertainment, though 'the sad countenance of many did sufficiently show that her

invaluable brother's death could not yet be forgotten'. Fireworks figured prominently in the entertainments. On the 10th the representation of a dragon with St George on horseback, and other set-pieces, were 'reasonably well performed'. On the 11th the more ambitious attempt to show a fight on the river between Turkish and English ships was said by a spectator to 'come short of expectations,' but it was sufficiently realistic for several terrible injuries to eyes and limbs to be suffered by the operators.

Charles did all that his brother would have done, showing how completely he had conquered his physical weakness as he rode, hunted, and played tennis with Frederick in the weeks before the wedding. On the wedding day itself he, as a 'young bachelor', escorted his sister on her right hand while the Earl of Northampton, as an 'old bachelor', took her left. Elizabeth was in white, her golden hair loosely stranded over her shoulders and interlaced with gold, pearls and diamonds. On her head was a matchless golden crown adorned with diamonds and other precious stones 'so thicke beset, that they stood like shining pinnacles, upon her amber coloured hair'. The twelve attendants who held her train were also in white and so adorned with jewels 'that her passage looked like a milky way'. The handsome bridegroom in a white satin suit, richly set with pearls and gold, was a fitting counterpart. The King was in black, with a priceless diamond in his hat, the Queen in white satin, embroidered and jewelled. The inevitable masque that evening was written by Thomas Campion and produced by Inigo Jones. One spectator, at least, found it long and tedious, commendable only for its extravagance. The wasting Arabella in the Tower had brought four new gowns and begged that she might attend the wedding of the girl she had known since her childhood. But James, who had once been all kindness, could also be very cruel, and she was denied. Two years later she was dead.

The next day was passed in sports in the tiltyard in all of which Charles excelled: in running at the ring the Palsgrave took the ring twice upon his sword, James thrice, and Charles succeeded four times. That night further masquing was intended, this time provided by Sir Francis Bacon and members of the Inner Temple. The masquers came up from the City by river prepared to depict the marriage of Thames and Rhine but they got no further than the privy stairs. The hall was crammed full, ladies in their monstrous farthingales blocked the passage of all who wanted to get in or out, the King was sleepy and bad-tempered and told Bacon 'he had no edge' for further entertain-

ment. Bacon entreated him to consider the disgrace to the masquers if they were sent away. 'It will bury them quick', he said. 'It will bury me quick if I go on', was the terse reply, 'for I can last no longer.' The masquers were sent away but James asked them to come again the following Saturday. Meanwhile an Order was hurriedly made that no lady should be admitted to any festivity in a farthingale.

The cost to the public and private purse of death and marriage was considerable, and the Exchequer was debited in 1613 with £76,738 for Henry's funeral and Elizabeth's wedding. This did not include her marriage portion of £40,000. Only one item for the year was larger — and that was the £120,000 spent on the interest on and repayment of loans. At the same time a private citizen like Lord Montague spent £1500 on his daughters' clothes for the wedding. The Palsgrave, not to be outdone, gave munificent presents all round, Charles receiving a rapier and a pair of spurs set with diamonds.^[2]

The King, Queen and Prince Charles escorted Elizabeth and Frederick to Rochester, where James and Anne turned back to the capital. Charles intended to see his sister embarked at Margate in the Prince Royal , the ship so closely associated with Henry. But at Canterbury he was recalled by the King, who wanted his presence at St George's feast, the annual celebration of the Knights of the Garter. It was the last time he saw his sister. In spite of plans often made for journeys home, a growing family and political uncertainties never allowed the Princess to return until long after her parents were dead and the bleakness of events had killed both her husband and her brother.

James had allied himself to the European Protestants through his daughter's marriage and his own treaty of mutual agreement with the Protestant Union which he signed shortly before the wedding. Just after the marriage Frederick, at James's instigation, signed a similar treaty with the States General of the Dutch Republic, and James also engineered a peace between Denmark and Norway, thus removing a source of tension in the anti-Hapsburg forces. As the next step he could see himself lining up with a great Catholic power and cementing in his own person a powerful alliance between Protestant and Catholic. His thoughts at first turned to France and a marriage between Prince Charles and the Princess Christina, sister to the young King Louis XIII. But his versatile and impressionable mind was soon off on another tack. In May 1613 there arrived in England as Spanish

Ambassador Diego Sarmiento de Acuna, later Count of Gondomar, a man who was hampered by no sentiments of toleration or dreams of alliance between rival religions but was governed by the singleminded purpose of winning England to the Catholic faith. He knew, as the whole country knew, that there had always been a core of powerful Catholic families in England, as well as many others who put a face upon conformity while practising their religion in secret. But Gondomar grossly over-estimated their numbers, while the ease with which he thought England could be converted to the Catholic faith was out of touch with reality.

Yet in personal relations Gondomar was astute. When he arrived in England the situation was not favourable to him, yet against all the odds he not only managed to relieve the tension between Spain and England but was soon on intimate terms with the King of England himself. Gondomar patiently and painstakingly familiarized himself with the English scene — 'None knoweth so well the length of our foot', it was said — and was not above the distribution of largesse in the right quarter nor the exercise of his dignified Spanish charm where appropriate. Above all, he had just that blend of sophistry and learning which delighted James, and he could add a touch of humour in the King's own vein to their increasingly frequent and lengthening discourses. To James, the Spanish Ambassador was a decided asset, particularly since their thoughts were running in the same direction: but whereas for James a Spanish marriage for Prince Charles would strengthen the balance in Europe between Catholic and Protestant, Gondomar's intention was the conversion of the Prince and the nurturing of his children in the Catholic faith as a preliminary to the conversion of the whole country. Though Gondomar made his aspirations crystal-clear in secret despatches to the Spanish Court, James, as they talked, knew nothing of them. Still less did the subject of their discussions, Prince Charles himself.^[3]

Charles was now more alone than at any time since coming to London. After Elizabeth's departure he fell ill. Believing the stories that Henry had been poisoned, he refused all medicines and his attendants feared his death. Not so his mother, who exclaimed in exasperation that he would not die but would live to plague three kingdoms by his wilfulness! Charles continued to believe to the end of his life that his brother had been poisoned.^[4] Reports of his appearance at this time indicate depression and debility. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who was

visiting England, noted him as being 'not of a strong constitution'. Gondomar wrote of him as 'a sweet and gentle child', a description hardly indicating robust good health. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, a notable observer of Court and Parliament, remarked that he was 'so young and sickly, as the thought of their enjoying him did nothing at all alienate or mollify the people's mourning' at the death of Henry. A portrait of Charles in his thirteenth year has all the delicacy of ill-health which these accounts indicate. It shows a child's face still, unsure and unassertive, at variance with the roles of chief mourner and bridesman he had so recently played with adult dignity.^[5] The protective respite of illness was, indeed, necessary. Since Henry's death Charles had been swept along by events in which he had a leading part to play. Only now was there leisure to consider the longer and more exacting role he must undertake. He had overcome physical disability to the extent that in athletics he was more than adequate and continued to improve. In intellectual attainments he was above average. He understood Greek and Latin, his familiarity with French, Spanish and Italian later gave him fluency in all three languages. He was well read in history and divinity, he had a knowledge of mathematics and was not unskilled in drawing and painting, in dancing and music. Like Henry, he enjoyed the society and conversation of travellers and scholars, being naturally a good listener. But he was slow, and his stammer hampered him. Because he took a long time to reach a conclusion he was all the more tenacious in holding it when reached, and the taint of obstinacy was the result.

Like his brother, Charles was part Puritan, part Renaissance Prince. He took his devotions seriously, he led a life which, in contrast to that of his parents and of the Court, was orderly. The pleasure he took in assembling and enlarging the collection of coins, medals, paintings and objets d'art which Henry had bequeathed him fitted well with this side of his character. At the same time, like the Renaissance Prince, he had a wider interest in works of art in general, and the collections of his later life were based upon the interest which began at this time. Among those who had been in the service of Henry and who now came to serve Charles was Abraham van der Doort, one of a family of Dutch craftsmen with a specialized knowledge of coins and medals. When van der Doort later described and catalogued Charles's collections he included sixteen little Florentine statues in bronze which Henry had bequeathed to his brother. The largest, 'Diana with a greyhound', measured 1¢ 9¢ ; the smallest, 'a little Flora in her

draperies', was no more than 3 1/2" high.^[6] With such small pieces Charles's art collections began.

Again like a Renaissance Prince and like his brother, Charles was intensely interested in military affairs. He read and possessed the Civil and Military Aphorisms of Guicciardini , and allowed his own portrait of 1613 to appear as frontispiece to the English translation published by Robert Dallington in that year. His own leather-bound copy of this edition was elaborately ornamented in gold and stamped with his initials and the royal arms.^[7] Dallington, of Geddington in Northamptonshire, a man 'exact in his observations' and 'of excellent wit and judgment', had been a schoolmaster in Norfolk until he saved enough to support himself on the Continent, after which he published books on his travels—the Survey of Tuscany in 1605, the View of France in the following year. Both books were eminently readable and typical of the time in their mixture of geography, history and travel. It was characteristic of Prince Henry's interest in foreign lands and traveller's conversation that he took Dallington into his own household, and characteristic of Charles that, after Henry's death, he welcomed Dallington, as he did van der Doort, into his own service.

Guicciardini's Aphorisms had been much discussed by Henry and his circle. Indeed, the very translation was for the Prince's benefit and the dedication of the published work would undoubtedly have been his. In the event it was dedicated to the 'High and Mightie Charles, Prince of Great Britain'. 'All eyes are upon you . . . men looke upon your worthy Brother in your princely selfe; holding you the true inheritor of his vertues as of his fortunes. . . . So shall you like a great and high Steward . . . perfect the account you are to make, to your King and to your countrey.' In the boy of thirteen, whose diffident portrait adorned the book, pride mingled with apprehension. Nor were the civil maxims of Guicciardini likely to give him confidence. Guicciardini was a friend of Machiavelli and his work shows the same insistence upon the good of the state, as interpreted by the ruler, and the same justification of means to achieve that end. The notion that there could be a line drawn between private and public conduct and that a Prince, like Janus, needed two faces, made a deep impression on Charles: for a prince 'to be overt in expressing his nature, or free in venting his purpose, is a thing of dangerous consequence'; he 'that weareth his heart in his fore-head, and is of an overt and transparent nature, through whose words, as through cristall, ye may see into every corner of his thoughtes: That man is fitter for a table of good-

fellowship, then a Councell table'; 'upon the Theater of public imployment either in peace or warre, the actors must of necessity weare vizardes, and change them in evarie Scene'; the object must always be 'the generall good and safetie of a State', though to achieve it 'men cannot alwaies arrive by plaine pathes and beaten waies. Wherefore a Prince may pretend a desire of friendshippe with the weaker, when he meanes, and must, contract it with the stronger.' This was not good fare for an impressionable boy struggling to keep up with the exaggerated expectations of those around him.

Dallington remained in Charles's service for ten years, joining Murray and the group which served as counterweight to courtiers like Carey and Fullerton. Murray was at the centre of this group and his influence was considerable. His position about the Prince could easily have been used as a path to preferment for himself and others but, although he was 'much courted', he continued to keep outside the Court circle and even the gossips had to admit his integrity. It was probably through Murray that Charles made contacts with urbane intellectuals like Dudley Carleton and Kenelm Digby, who sent books to the young Prince and added to his art collections, and with soldiers serving in the Netherlands like Sir Edward Cecil and Sir Horace Vere, who encouraged his interest in military strategy.

Early in 1616 Cecil wrote to Murray that he had found a set of model engines of war and artillery, sufficient for a model army, which he recommended as fitting study for the Prince, 'showing by demonstration rather than theory the verie practice of everie thinge, either defensive or offensive'. They were valued at £1000. The Prince was very interested but the money was not easy to find and it was not until July that, with the help of the financier Philip Burlamachi, Murray made a first payment of £250 and the 'warlike' and 'curious wrought engines' were brought over by a Dutchman, who set them up in St James's Palace before a delighted Charles, who insisted on keeping the man to explain in detail the working of each of the models. Shortly afterwards he asked for, and was sent, a book explaining their use. In the following year more models and 'designs of the army and camp', in which the models could operate against a suitable background, arrived from Dudley Carleton. The Dutch were well versed in these 'war games' and the Prince of Orange, himself a well-known enthusiast, added to Charles's collection by sending some ordnance, whose operation had to be kept secret.^[8] Operating his models was an abiding interest for Charles and in later life he would retire for hours to

his 'model house'. Perhaps he learned more of military strategy there than from Guicciardini's Aphorisms .

A third grouping round Charles in these formative years consisted of his chaplain and others concerned in his religious upbringing. In 1613, on the Easter Monday following his sister's departure, he was confirmed in Whitehall Chapel by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr James Montague. So worldly a bishop might have been considered a strange choice for the occasion. Yet Montague's advancement to the see of Bath and Wells had been in the nature of a reward for helping James to write a pamphlet against Rome and he was now engaged in editing James's collected works. Charles was prepared for confirmation by his chaplain, Dr George Hakewill, one of two 'sober divines' who were appointed immediately after Henry's death to protect the Prince from High Church doctrine. Anne was rumoured to be close to the Church of Rome and the Protestant interests at Court were determined that no risks should be taken with the heir to the throne. Hakewill was learned and zealous as well as showing considerable adroitness. In the pamphlet he wrote for Charles on The Ancient Ecclesiastical Practice of Confirmation , for example, he contrived both to support bishops as descended from the Apostles and to offer words of approbation to presbyters and deacons. He was less than dexterous, nevertheless, in attempting to instruct the twelve-year-old boy. He preached no fewer than twelve sermons before Charles on the 101st Psalm, all of which were long and dull, covering when printed some 335 pages. Again the dedication was to the Prince: 'we may by God's help one day promise to our selves another Charlemaine, or rather the perfections of all the Edwards and Henries and James your renowned projenitors united in one Charles'. The intimidating unction of the dedication was balanced by advice which, if trite, was yet more fitting to a Prince's chaplain: 'you will valew Soveraignetie, not by impunity of doing evill, but power of doing good'. Hakewill also brought to Charles's notice in a practical way a current intellectual controversy. Godfrey Goodman, who would become Bishop of Gloucester in 1624, had propounded in his Fall of Man the widely held view that man, and indeed the world itself, were slowly decaying. Hakewill opposed this belief and the preparation of his reply, which was published in 1627, took place within the Prince's circle.

The other 'sober divine' placed near Charles after the death of Henry was Dr Richard Senhouse, formerly chaplain to the Earl of Bedford and now Rector of Cheam in Surrey. Senhouse was used to

'wakening men's consciences' with his quill, but it was as a 'master preacher', possessing 'royaltie of speech' that he was best known. Of friends of his own age, it was little Will Murray who was closest at this time to the Prince. He resembled Charles in remaining short of stature; like Charles he was receptive to the artistic influences of the Court; like Charles he had come from Scotland, though somewhat later, and his Scottish accent influenced Charles's own way of speaking as, with growing confidence, the words began to come more freely.

4—
The Heritage

Charles was created Duke of Cornwall immediately after the death of Henry so that he might receive the royalties and rents pertaining to the Duchy. His investiture as Prince of Wales was delayed, partly for reasons of expense, partly out of sorrow for Henry, and partly, so some said, because James had chafed at Henry's independence and would not have the reins loose so early on his brother.^[1] But whatever his own inclinations, and however tight the control, the heir to the throne could not stand outside Court life. There he was sure to encounter the King's favourites, foremost amongst whom was still Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester. Carr was handsome — 'straight-limbed, well-favoured, strong-shouldered, and smooth-faced', not over-tall but 'well compacted' with flaxen hair and, like James and many others, retaining still his Scottish accent. The King, it was noted, leaned on his arm, pinched his cheek, smoothed his ruffled garment. But Rochester had an eye on wider influence and his opportunity came with the death of Salisbury in 1612, for although the King kept the Treasureship vacant and Rochester did not, even then, attain to actual office, the threads of power, and the gifts that attached to them, now ran through his hands.

Rochester was rash enough, or unfortunate enough, to become at this stage a leading actor in the notorious affair of Frances Howard, Countess of Essex. James had always enjoyed a wedding, and on coming to England had fancied himself as a matchmaker who would unite the rival houses of his new kingdom by the marriage bond. It was a policy which had brought some success in Scotland and he had great hopes from the marriage of Frances Howard to the Earl of Essex in 1606. But Frances was then only thirteen and the Earl fourteen years old. Seven years later Frances was suing for divorce on the grounds of non-consummation of marriage. She was now a great beauty, impet-

ous, used to having her own way in everything but this marriage, unprincipled in ridding herself of its ties. Her husband, although he was the son of Elizabeth I's dazzling, buccaneering favourite, had turned out to be stiff and awkward with few of the courtier's graces, though there is no reason to believe the Countess's charge of impotence. Rumour maintained, indeed, that the Countess herself prevented consummation with the help of drugs. Charles could not fail to know of his father's pressure on the Commission which granted the divorce, of the adverse comments of reputable men, or that the object of the divorce was the marriage of Frances with Viscount Rochester. Shortly after the divorce Rochester was created Earl of Somerset and at Christmas time 1613 the two were married, the King bearing the cost of the wedding and presenting the bride with jewels worth £10,000 paid for from the sale of Crown lands. James himself, with the Queen and Prince Charles, led the courtiers who attended the wedding, Thomas Campion provided the masque on the wedding day, Jonson followed with the Challenge at Tilt the next day and his Irish Masque on December 29. Inigo Jones produced and designed them all. John Donne wrote an Eclogue to Somerset and on January 6 the students of Gray's Inn, at the expense of Sir Francis Bacon, performed the charming Masque of Flowers which ushered in a fresh round of festivities for the marriage of Lady Jane Drummond, the Queen's favourite, to Robert Ker, Earl of Roxburgh. Thus literature and art combined to honour those upon whom the King smiled. Yet the King could ill afford the cost.^[2]

James had a constant struggle to make ends meet, partly because of his exaggerated ideas of the wealth of England, partly because of an irresponsible and seemingly incurable extravagance that had been restrained in Scotland by the poverty of that country. He had been particularly lavish to his Scottish friends and his presents to the Spanish Ambassadors in 1604 were said to include more plate than Queen Elizabeth gave away in her whole reign. He had a passion for jewels, one diamond he wore in his hat being valued at £50,000, while the scale of his entertainment accorded both with the growing luxury of European Courts and with his own ideas of the exaltation of his state. Anne shared to the full her husband's predilections. Her childbed expenses amounted to £60,000 for the Princesses Mary and Sophia, the cost of her revels, masques, clothes, horses and carriages reached a prodigious total and by 1605 her debts were already over £40,000. When she was short of money she sulked, and to restore her good

humour, for James liked a tranquil life, he would toss her some further source of income, as he did the sugar duties in 1603.

The royal couple's personal expenses were merely the centre of a vast network of Court and State expenditure which was rising faster than receipts. In James's defence it could be said that Elizabeth I died in debt, that James had a family, that everywhere in Europe display and ostentation were rising, and that the country was in the grip of a baffling inflation. But there was no regular income to foot the bill. Crown lands and feudal dues helped a little, the dowry of a son's wife added an extra dimension to the marriage contract. James was adept at the sale of honours, even creating the order of baronet half-way between a baron and a knight, which sold at £1095; but there were many cases of noble lords or baronets whose titles rested upon hire-purchase or who, in the world of business, would have been found in a debtors' prison, having received the goods without money to pay.

Such taxes as there were depended upon Parliament, the most important and regular being those known as tonnage and poundage, taxes levied at the ports upon outgoing and incoming goods and normally granted to each new monarch for life. The taxes known as subsidies, tenths and fifteenths were usually voted for a particular purpose, such as war. Generally speaking, tenths and fifteenths were levied outside towns upon the cattle and crops of landowners, and in towns upon the capital value of a man's stock-in-trade and chattels. In 1334 a composition was arrived at which was still in force in James's reign, when a fifteenth and a tenth together yielded about £30,000. A subsidy was a personal tax charged upon persons possessed of moveables at the rate of 2/8d in the pound value, and upon persons possessed of land at the rate of 4/- in the pound of its annual value; no one could be double-charged. A subsidy yielded to James some £70 – £80,000, but the yield of all taxes was falling. An extra tax, known as an imposition, was a payment over and above the normal schedule of rates already authorized, but this was generally strongly opposed. When all else failed recourse was had to borrowing. Loans came from professional money-lenders like Philip Burlamachi, the man who helped Charles to buy his 'warlike engines', from corporations like the City of London, and from farmers of the customs. Sometimes they were made in return for favours given or in hope of favours to come.

James inherited a situation which was already difficult and which he had not the temperament to control. The men whom he saw before him in his first House of Commons were for the most part substantial

landowners many of whom had close commercial ties, most of whom were wealthy. They were no fools and they placed their own interests high on the list of reasons for being there at all. Yet to this collectively experienced, determined, and hard-headed body James presented not only an emptying Exchequer but a preconceived notion of his own power. The obsequious flattery which he had met on his arrival in England had blinded him to the powerful self-interest of the men who sat before him. So he was surprised and affronted when his first Parliament of 1604 granted him tonnage and poundage for life but then, instead of proceeding to vote further supplies, turned to grievances, complaining of the pressure of various feudal incidents, voicing its fears concerning religion, and maintaining that it held its privileges as of right. Only in the expansive session following the Gunpowder Plot did it grant him a substantial supply.

By the time James's second Parliament met Henry was dead and Charles was heir to the throne. The Parliament which was summoned in 1614 to deal with the financial situation was opened on Tuesday April 5 with as much pomp as the bad weather allowed; Charles, in his robes of state, joined the procession to Westminster and for the first time watched his father open a Parliament. Nothing was achieved, neither in the redress of grievances by the King nor the grant of supplies by the Commons. Within two months James had dissolved his second — the 'Addled' — Parliament and had returned to his hunting. He was absent when, in July, King Christian of Denmark made a surprise visit to his sister, arriving unexpectedly at Denmark House as Anne was taking dinner. It is possible that the visit was prompted by rumours that Anne was unhappy, estranged from the King, and depressed by the death of Henry. At all events she was delighted to see her brother, tearing off her best jewel to give to the servant whom she at first would not believe when he said that Christian was at her window. Charles was not less pleased to see his favourite uncle and he entertained him nobly until his father's return. The usual bout of fireworks, provided by Christian, and of drinking, sponsored by James, then ensued, Christian again proving more than a match for anyone at the English Court and being even less inhibited at finishing the entertainment under the table or on the floor. On August 1 they all visited Phineas Pett at Woolwich and inspected his new ship, the Mer Honneur . When Christian departed, a few days later, apart from the customary lavish gifts made on such occasions, he presented his nephew with one of the three warships that had escorted him to

England — a gift beside which Charles's collection of model artillery looked very small.

Charles had now a baby nephew, Prince Frederick Henry, born to Elizabeth on 2 January 1614: it was sad that there was no money available for him to make the journey to Heidelberg in the only way considered appropriate to his rank. He was quite unaware that the gossips were still shaking their heads and asserting that he was unlikely to live to manhood and that this baby would be his father's heir. He was more interested in a situation of a different kind which was developing before 1614 was out. Although Somerset was still in the ascendant another name was cropping up: 'a youth named Villiers begins to be in favour with his majesty', it was said. George Villiers was the second son of a small Leicestershire landowner. His widowed mother did all she could to capitalize his physical attractions; he learned music, dancing, fencing, and at the age of eighteen went to France in the company of his friend, Sir John Eliot. Three years later he returned with little money but with all the accomplishments of the courtier. Shortly afterwards he came to London and in August 1614 was introduced to the King at Sir Anthony Mildmay's house at Apethorpe, whither James had rushed for refreshment after Christian's visit. Before long Villiers became James's cupbearer. His rise now seemed a foregone conclusion and it was helped by developments outside his control.

Since James made peace with Spain English Catholics had enjoyed a position of comparative security in which leading families of the Northampton-Suffolk-Howard connection were known and accepted as being Catholics or Catholic supporters. But, while Catholicism had to this extent been condoned, its reinforcement by alliance with the King's powerful favourite was going too far; Lady Frances Howard's marriage to Somerset was condemned as much because she was a Catholic as because of the moral issues involved. Since the Howard-Somerset marriage had not been prevented, powerful interests, foremost amongst whom was George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, sought to counterpoise the alliance by the substitution of a new favourite. It is, indeed, not impossible that the meeting at Apethorpe had been deliberately arranged. 'We could have no way so good to effectuate that which was the common desire', wrote Abbot, 'as to bring in another in his [Somerset's] room; one Nail (as the Proverb is) being to be driven out by another.' The time

was opportune. James was tiring of Somerset and he was instantly attracted to Villiers.

Nevertheless there were conventions to be observed. One was James's habit of winning Anne's approval before advancing a new figure at Court — in order, so it was said, that she might not later bother him with recriminations. In this case the issue was complicated by Anne's Catholic leanings and by the fact that 'having been bitten with Favourites both in England and Scotland' she 'was very shie to advanture upon' another. At the same time she had little sympathy for Frances, and she positively hated Somerset. The Archbishop worked hard upon the Queen. Villiers himself, with his courtesy and charm , was a powerful ally in his own cause and in the end there was staged a curious little ceremony in the Queen's bedchamber in which Anne called upon Prince Charles for his sword and presented it to the King who thereupon knighted Villiers and advanced him to the office of Gentleman of the Bedchamber, while Somerset at the door of the closet vainly called for restraint. Thus, involuntarily, was Charles brought in to play his part in the rise of George Villiers.^[3]

Somerset had even greater troubles to contend with than the rise of a new favourite. There had been nothing essentially reprehensible in Frances refusing to consummate a marriage arranged by others for purely dynastic purposes when she and the bridegroom were children. But the undercurrent of gossip was fanned into flame by the death in the Tower of Sir Thomas Overbury, a literary dilettante who had remained close to Somerset throughout the favourite's rise to power. In the autumn of 1615 it began to be rumoured that the Somersets had contrived the imprisonment of Overbury and had subsequently poisoned him because he had knowledge that would have invalidated the Countess's case for divorce. Soon James had no alternative but to let the two come to trial. In an atmosphere infected by stories of potions and witchcraft the Countess admitted her guilt. Somerset pleaded his innocence long and desperately. Both were found guilty and sentenced to death but were remanded to the Tower. There was then nothing to impede the advance of George Villiers.

About this time a parallel move was made to counteract any Catholic influence within Prince Charles's own household. Possibly Fullerton was a little alarmed at Carey's friendship with the Catholic Earl of Suffolk, father of Frances Howard. At all events, Fullerton now brought in to serve the Prince Dr George Carleton, who since 1589 had been vicar of Mayfield in Sussex. Carleton was possessed

either of wide tolerance or an ability to trim his sails. He was anti-papist yet maintained the Apostolic succession; Calvinist yet believed in episcopal divine right; not an Arminian yet questioned the doctrine of predestination. He had already written that he disapproved of the endless contentions in the Church and thought the true Church was that which served the same God, and held the same rule of faith, wherever it was placed. When he arrived at Court to take up service with Charles on 10 February 1615 he professed himself appalled at the conditions he found there, particularly with the 'shameless avidity' for preferment. But with Charles himself he was delighted. 'I would be silent about the Prince', he wrote, but 'I must praise his accomplishments, his skill in riding, running at the ring, etc. He has far more understanding than the late Prince at his age, and is in behaviour sober, grave, swete; in speache, very advised, without any evil inclinations and willing to take advice.'^[4] Again — 'grave', 'swete', are the adjectives used of the young Charles.

Charles was now frequently with his father. In the March of 1615, braving the hard weather and 'extreme fowle wayes', they travelled to Cambridge where they met a considerable concourse of gallants and great men; in August they were at Gravesend, where Charles inspected the fleet on his own. They hunted together at Royston and made progress to Newmarket and Huntingdon. Charles sat with his father to receive the Venetian Ambassador in November and was reported to be 'quite robust'.

With his father Charles was feasted in the City on 14 June 1616 by Alderman William Cockayne and the new Company of Merchant Adventurers who gave £500 to him and £1000 to his father. He also met many of the dyers, dressers, finishers, and other cloth workers who were presented to the King. The occasion marked the official launching of Cockayne's project for dressing cloth in England, instead of exporting it undyed and undressed to be finished overseas. James had listened to the plausible talk of Cockayne. He had been dazzled by promises of high export duties on the finished cloth, of customs duty on dyestuffs imported, of duty on the alum used in dyeing, and by the handsome payment which Cockayne would make for monopoly rights. He himself would receive a continuing £300,000 a year, he was assured. That the breaking of the Merchant Adventurers' monopoly of the cloth export trade was an important part of the scheme could hardly have occurred to him. Nor, indeed, would it have mattered. For, superficially, the project had much in its favour. There would be

work for dyers and finishers, dyed and finished cloth would command higher prices than undressed, the foreigner would be outdone, and a blow struck for national self-sufficiency. Cockayne had a reputation for plausibility and had not neglected to win over members of the Council. So the export of unfinished cloth was banned in 1614, the charter of the Merchant Adventurers was revoked, and the new company with Cockayne at its head was launched in 1616.

It was only a year after the celebration at Cockayne's house that the project collapsed. The Dutch, who normally took undressed cloth and finished it, had a great industry geared to this process. They not only refused to handle the English dressed cloth but started to manufacture their own. Other customers complained that English finishing was inferior to Dutch. Stocks of cloth accumulated in England and workpeople were put off work. A reduction in exports meant a loss of imports, trade declined, and a scheme with apparently so much to commend it ground to a halt. James, complaining that he had been 'much abused', dissolved the new company and reinstated the old while taking refuge in an aphorism. 'Time', he remarked sadly, 'discovereth many inabilities which cannot at first be seen.'^[5]

This was Charles's practical introduction to the woollen cloth industry upon which, more than any other single thing, the prosperity of his country depended. Woollen cloth comprised over eighty per cent of the country's exports, its production being based upon the sheep which, since the Middle Ages, had produced the best wool in the world. From the wide-spreading sheep farms of the Cistercian Houses in Yorkshire to the slopes of the Cotswold hills, from the Welsh border country to the plains of East Anglia, from rough pasture land in Devonshire to sweet grass on the Wiltshire Downs and a variety of grazing throughout Surrey, Sussex and Kent, there was scarce a farm with any grass that did not keep sheep. From the flocks of many thousands managed on business lines to the few sheep of a small farmer they all made their contribution. The sheep produced long hair or short hair according to their breed and their feed, but for the most part the quality was high and wool had been England's chief export until the paramount advantage of turning it into cloth at home had been realized. The change from the export of raw wool, to the export of woollen cloth, which had been going on right through the reigns of the Tudors, was completed by James when, after pronouncing in characteristic style that we should 'not be killed with arrows from our own quiver', he not only repeated the injunction that wool should not be

exported, but abolished the European wool staple through which, for centuries, had passed the fleece of the English sheep. The policy of conserving wool in the interests of cloth-making was not entirely non-controversial. The great landowners whom Charles could see at the Council Table and at the Court were chary of any restrictions upon the sale of their wool. But the home demand remained high and their links with the clothiers who produced the cloth and with the Merchant Adventurers who exported it were strong. The wool embargo remained. But it would still be the sheep, grazing quietly in countless pastures, fields and wayside plots, which would be the greatest source of wealth in Charles's England.

5—
Prince of Wales

Not until Monday 4 November, 1616, was Charles formally created Prince of Wales. It was a simple ceremony without show, for several reasons: it was very cold, Charles had been unwell, the Queen could not bear the memories evoked of Henry, the King did not wish to make too much of his successor, and money was short. But Charles came down river from Richmond on the previous Thursday, as Henry had done before him, and was 'most joyfully met' at Chelsea by the Lord Mayor of London and the City Companies in their various barges, with banners flying, music playing, and drum and trumpet sounding. Thomas Middleton composed a water masque for the occasion in which, braving the cold, London was seen sitting on a sea unicorn flanked by Neptune and the rivers Thames and Dee, with six tritons before her. Spectators thronged the banks of the river to see, if not to hear, Charles addressed as 'Treasure of hope' and 'jewell of mankind/Adorn'd in titles, but much more in minde'. After this they all proceeded down river, the tritons sounding their horns, and were met at Whitehall by the two deities, Hope and Peace, likewise defying the weather. Peace, sitting on a dolphin, concluded the river festivities with a song of welcome to the Prince:

Welcome, oh welcome, Spring of Joy and Peace!
Borne to be honour'd, and to give encrease
Welcome, oh welcome, all faire joyes attend thee,
Glorie of life, to safety we commend thee!

The Prince then landed at Whitehall stairs preceded by nobles and officers of the Court. As he made his way through the palace he was received by various dignitaries until he reached the door of the Presence Chamber where the festivities ended for the day.

On the following Monday, 4 November, the actual investiture took place. Preceded by heralds and trumpeters, by the Earl Marshal,

the Lord Chamberlain, twenty-six Knights of the Bath newly created to mark the occasion and various dignitaries carrying his robes and symbols of office, came Charles, bareheaded, supported by the Earls of Suffolk and Nottingham and followed by the Gentlemen of his household. So he entered the Presence Chamber where the King was seated on his throne with his barons and bishops on one side, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London with the Judges and members of his Council on the other. It was now Charles's turn to have the words of investiture addressed to him, to receive the ring and the sword from the hands of his father, to be robed and crowned as Prince of Wales. After the patent was read it was handed to him by the King, who kissed him twice. At this moment the trumpets and drums sounded, after which the King rose and departed.

Charles remained to dine in the Hall, and was served with great state and magnificence. The meal was formal, the Prince at the head of the table, the nobles seated according to their degree, none nearer than four yards to the Prince. The Earl of Southampton and the Earl of Dorset, bareheaded, acted as cupbearer and carver, Dr Senhouse, the Prince's chaplain of the golden voice, said grace. The newly-created Knights of the Bath sat at a separate table on the Prince's right and he courteously drank their health. At a decent distance were the members of the Court privileged to be onlookers, among them Sir Symonds D'Ewes, destined to report other things than the Prince's inauguration, who remarked with satisfaction that he was standing very near the Prince's chair all the time. The King and Villiers watched from a balcony. If by Court standards the entertainment had not been lavish they had, as the Venetian Ambassador predicted, 'spent money by handfuls'.^[1]

The Careys had again been observing the formation of Charles's household with more than ordinary interest. Would Sir Robert become Chamberlain to the new Prince of Wales? If he were so advanced, what of the influential bedchamber post? James, still determined not to loosen the reins round Charles, gave orders that no one be enrolled into the Prince's household without his knowledge. This complicated matters. But Carey was equal to the occasion. He sought out the Queen, won her support—for had not he and his family served the Prince exceedingly well from his infancy?—and so managed affairs that he secured both offices. 'Thus', he remarked complacently in his Memoirs after telling the story in detail, 'did God raise up the Queen to take my part.' Carey had already married his daughter to Lord Whar-

ton's heir; his eldest son was made Knight of the Bath at the time of the Prince's creation, and in 1620 married Martha, eldest daughter of the wealthy City financier, Lionel Cranfield. Cranfield was then rising rapidly to the height of his power and influence; he had been knighted in 1613 and became Privy Councillor in the year of the marriage. In the following year he would become Lord Treasurer and in 1622 Earl of Middlesex, his rise being due to the simple fact that he was the only one to make some success of clearing out the Augean stables of the royal finances. His career was typical of the combination of business and politics, private interest and public advantage which were characteristic of the time. In giving good service while turning the occasion to his own profit, Lionel Cranfield was doing in one sphere what Robert Carey was doing in another.^[2]

Charles, Prince of Wales, was, at sixteen, well accustomed to such men. He perceived, however, that in George Villiers, who was rapidly taking the place of both Salisbury and Somerset, James had an adviser of a different stamp. The rise of Villiers was unimpeded. Between January and August 1616 he had become Master of the Horse, Knight of the Garter, Viscount Villiers and Baron Whaddon. On 5 January 1617 he was created Earl of Buckingham. As he grew in power he grew in strength and beauty. He had, like Prince Henry, an indefinable charm. Like Henry he excelled in all things physical. Impetuosity and quick temper rather added to his charm until power and influence burned them to arrogance and impatience. The impact which his physical presence made on contemporaries is astounding. 'He was one of the handsomest men in the whole world', wrote Sir John Oglander. 'From the nails of his fingers—nay from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him. The setting of his looks, every motion, every bending of his body was admirable,' wrote Bishop Hacket. Bishop Goodman wrote in greater detail:

All that sat in the Council looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as if it had been the face of an angel. . . . He was the handsomest bodied man in England; his limbs so well compacted, and his conversation so pleasing, and of so sweet a disposition. . . . I have heard it from two men, and very great men . . . that he was as inwardly beautiful as he was outwardly.

Sir Symonds D'Ewes, not perhaps easily influenced, 'saw everything in him full of delicacy and handsome features'.^[3] His wife repeatedly asserted that she regarded it as the greatest privilege to be married to

him. King James was captivated and went so far as to acclaim his infatuation out loud to his Privy Council in the autumn of 1617: 'You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf, and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had his John, and I have my George.'^[4]

But if Buckingham resembled Prince Henry in some ways, he was at the same time less earnest than Henry and intellectually less able. Charles was bound to compare the two. Moreover Buckingham, who was only eight years older than Charles, was usurping the place close to his father which Charles might well have expected to be his. That the Prince's own sword should have been used for Buckingham's first step up the ladder was bitter. The relationship between the two young men was strained. When Charles accompanied his father Buckingham was there too — quick of speech, sensing the appropriate remark, guiding the humour of the King. If Charles compared the new favourite with Henry he perhaps compared both with himself. Although he was now fit to take his place as Prince of Wales, not only without embarrassment but with dignity and a certain charm of his own, it was a strange irony that three of the people of his own generation to whom he was close early in his life were outstanding—his brother, his sister, and now his father's favourite. In spite of Charles's development some feeling of inadequacy, some failure, in his own mind, to measure up to what was expected of him, the awkwardness of his continuing stammer, even some resolutely suppressed resentment, show in the diffident stance of his portraits and the nervous fixity of his eyes. Nothing could express the difference between George Villiers and Charles Stuart more tellingly than two portraits painted by Daniel Mytens about this time.

Yet at fifteen Charles retained some of the boy's curiosity, some of the impish humour apparent in the letters to Henry and his mother. In 1616 he was attracted to a ring the favourite was wearing and tried it on. He absent-mindedly kept it. When, some time later, the ring was required it could not be found. James scolded Charles who was reduced to tears but ultimately the ring was discovered in the pocket of one of his suits. On another occasion, when the trio were walking in the gardens of Greenwich Palace, Charles turned the fountain of an ornamental pond full on Buckingham and drenched his suit. James boxed Charles's ears. Charles played tennis with Buckingham but they

quarrelled. Buckingham's temper induced some physical action whereupon Charles responded every inch the Prince: 'What, Sir, you intend to strike me!' James was alarmed. He commanded the young men to love one another. Buckingham staged a great feast of reconciliation, which he termed the friends' feast, at his newly purchased house at Wanstead in Essex. It was held out of doors with hangings draped from the trees to form an imaginary palace. Many of the favourite's family were present and James drank to them all in turn, vowing to advance their race above all other and confident, so he said, that his posterity would do likewise. Charles entered into the spirit of the reconciliation and James wrote to him shortly afterwards: 'I must confess to my comfort without flattery that in making your affections to follow and second thus your father's, you show what reverent love you carry towards me in your heart.'^[5]

Charles, indeed, needed a friend. He was genuinely fond of his father but such was James's regard for his favourite that he could not have one without the other. Subtly the relationship changed. Charles used for Buckingham the nickname James adopted, Steenie, because of a fancied resemblance to St Stephen. Buckingham called him, as his father did, Baby Charles. Charles's letters to Buckingham became intimate and he used him as intermediary with his father. There was, for example, a misunderstanding concerning his mother's will. Charles believed that the King wished him to persuade her to make one, leaving her jewels to Charles. James thereupon became extremely angry. Charles wrote a letter of apology and explanation. Buckingham then told Charles of his father's continuing anger, possibly exaggerating it, and Charles begged Steenie to intervene with his father, writing with a mixture of dignity and abjection: 'I sent to have the King's aprobation of that which I thought he had desyred . . . my meaning was never to clame anie thing as of right . . . I pray you . . . tell him . . . that I will be content to have anie pennance inflicted upon me so he may forgive me.' He signs himself 'Your treu constant loving frend Charles P.'^[6]

In 1617 James paid his first, and what was to be his only, visit to Scotland since his accession to the English throne. He was absent from the capital for seven months, of which part of May and the whole of June and July were spent in his native land. Buckingham went with him but Charles, to his deep disapointment, was left behind. 'I am sorie for nothing', he wrote to his father after he had left 'but that I cannot be with your Majestie at this tyme both because I would be

glad to wait upon you, and also to see the Cuntrie whair I was borne and the customes of it.'^[7] The Prince, however, who had been made a member of the Privy Council the previous year, was one of a Council of six, which included his mother and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who would be responsible for governing the country while his father was away. Although the Venetian Ambassador remarked that he thought the Queen and the Prince would not play a great part in the decisions of the Council, Charles was becoming familiar with affairs of state. He received ambassadors, he was getting used to talking to them, he asked pertinent questions, and always took a written account of the proceedings to read to the King afterwards. He was described as 'very grave and polite' and he dressed for the occasion. When he received the Venetian Ambassador at the end of 1617, for example, he was in scarlet and gold with a gilt sword at his side and white boots with gold spurs on his feet.

The Venetian Ambassador noted that Charles was 'very dear' to his parents. But it was undoubtedly his father whose influence at this time was the most profound. Whatever the ultimate judgment on James, he was not a man to be ignored. The figure he cut at Court in his younger days was not unimpressive. The eyes were shrewd. Although not tall, he was above middle height and well built, while the hunting he delighted in gave him an air of physical fitness and a ruddy complexion: several of his early portraits depict a handsome man. His speech was 'swift and cursory, and in the full dialect of his country'. The remarks he made were terse and apposite though often astonishingly crude, metaphor, simile and allusion coming naturally to him. In serious discourse he could hold his own with anyone. If his undoubted learning did not sit lightly upon him he at least knew how to use it with effect; if his writings and his speeches were sometimes over-long they were packed with matter and were rarely dull.

Charles learned from his father the love of God and the supremacy of kings: 'first of all things, learne to know and love that God, whom-to ye have a double obligation; first for that he made you a man; and next, for that he made you a little God to sit on his Throne, and rule over other men.' He learned of the Divine Right of Kings and the importance of the royal prerogative; if in practice James stretched it too far yet he could warn that 'prerogative is a secret that ryves (tears) in the stretching'. He was warned against Puritans — 'very pests in the church and commonweal' not to be suffered 'except ye would keep them for trying your patience, as Socrates did an evil wife' — and

against the 'horrible crime of witchcraft' which Charles was 'bound in conscience never to forgive'. He was told to embrace knowledge and learning, which is 'a light burden, the weight whereof will never presse your shoulders' and, particularly, to study his own craft, which was to rule his people: 'And when I say this, I bid you know all crafts: For except ye know everyone, how can yee controll every one, which is your proper office?'

As a guide to language, on which James was competent to speak, he advises 'be plaine, honest, naturall, comely, cleane, short, and sententious'. Indeed, in the apt phrase, the pointed aphorism, James had few equals, even in that age of fine language and word play. Whatever the occasion James could redeem it by a phrase. When he wished country gentlemen to leave the Court and return to their seats in the country he told them that a 'country gentleman in town is like a ship at sea, which looks very small; a country gentleman in the country is like a ship in a river, which looks very big.' His diatribes against tobacco were famous. It was probably his love of the hunting field with its good, clean air that gave him such a detestation of tobacco smoke that 'maketh a kitchen of the insides of men'. He cut down the Preface to the Trew Law of Free Monarchies 'least the whole Pamphlet runne out at the gaping mouth' thereof. He had decided opinions on most things. Football was 'meter for laming then making able the users thereof'; idleness was 'the mother of all vice'. If the royal pronouncements to Parliament were often far from tactful they contained many phrases upon which an heir to the throne could ponder.

In biblical matters James' thoughts ranged widely and his works included A Meditation upon the Lord's Prayer , dedicated to Buckingham in 1619, A Meditation upon St. Matthew's Gospel , written in 1620, and a translation of the Psalms, whose printing was authorized by Charles in 1631. 'Your inheritance', the Bishop of Winchester told Charles in editing James's collected works in 1616, 'consists as much in the workes of your Father's Royall Vertues, as in the wealth of his mighty Kingdom.'

Some of his precepts James most abjectly failed to live up to. The man who could advise his son: 'impaire not by your Liberalitie the ordinarie rents of your crowne' was doing exactly that. The man who could advise that kings in their persons should be 'as bright lamps of godlinesse and vertue' grew more dependent upon handsome young men, would be seen lolling upon their necks, caressing them in public. As he grew older James became, also, more careless of his appearance and would slobber his wine, of which he drank increasing quantities

both with and between meals. He was also inclined to dribble his food. Possibly he gave little heed to his eating, for his custom was to have learned men near him with whom he could converse at meal times. In his dress in his younger days he was quite dapper, but he had a morbid fear of assassination, quite natural after the experiences of his youth, and took to wearing padded and quilted garments which gave him a somewhat grotesque rotundity. His legs, which had never been strong, were afflicted with arthritis and he tended to walk one-sided. His propensity for the ridiculous was constantly landing him in ludicrous situations, as when he was thrown from his horse into a stream in winter, going in through the ice head first and up to his waist so that only his legs were visible kicking the air. On another occasion he leaped from bed crying 'treason!' when some sporting guns were let off nearby. He slept in the middle of a mass of empty beds so that no assailant might come near him.

In his prime he was able to combine hunting and absence from Court with a steady hand upon affairs of state and he could get through more work in a couple of hours than most men in a day; that the hand was less steady and more often withdrawn in his later years was the effect as much of illness as of age or inability. Taking him all in all, James was no mean king and not one to be ignored. Nor, as a father, was he to be underestimated. And Charles neither ignored nor underestimated. The doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings he carried with him to his dying day, so implicitly that he never felt the need to enunciate it in so many words. It was his tragedy that, whereas James was not called upon in the final count to vindicate the theory, Charles gave his life for it, or for something very like it.^[8]

The object of the Scottish visit was largely James's concern to bring the Scottish Church into a nearer conformity with English worship. His intention to end faction in the English Church had been demonstrated by the conference at Hampton Court over which he presided in the first year of his reign. That conference, if it did nothing else, authorized a new translation of the Bible and emphasized James's abhorrence of Presbyterianism in the words 'no bishop, no King'. Bishops had been re-established by the Scottish Parliament in 1612 but had been given scant approval by the Scottish people as a whole. James nevertheless now wanted to introduce other customs such as kneeling whilst taking communion. That he had his way, albeit with difficulty, was partly because the fervour of religious controversy in Scotland

was at the time somewhat cooled. But there was nevertheless astonishment and protest at the installation of an organ in the chapel of Holyrood House and the arrival by sea of carved wooden figures of patriarchs and apostles. The carvings had to be removed as 'popish images' although, as James remarked, there would have been no objection if he had set up dragons and devils.

Nearly £22,000 had been assigned from the Exchequer for the Scottish journey, a sum not particularly large but sufficient to emphasize the shortage of money generally and so to add to the gloom of the autumn and winter of 1617/18 after the King's return. Charles agreed to act as sponsor to Elizabeth's second son, born on Christmas Eve, but there was still no money to attend the christening. James was plagued with arthritis and gout, Anne was ill, Christmas was dull, the Twelfth Night masque, Jonson's Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue , was undistinguished, although Charles's dancing was praised. But the February valentining went forward in the usual way. Each man and woman drew from one of two boxes and, thus paired, danced together, ate together, exchanged presents, and kissed whenever and wherever they met. Charles joined in with the rest. The royal family was further cheered in February by the Muscovite Ambassador, who paid his first visit to the King in great state. It was a considerable tonic to James that the presents he brought exceeded in value those he had given to Queen Elizabeth. They included skins of martens, of ermine and black foxes, silks and cloth-of-gold, heavily jewelled Turkish bows, scimitars with precious scabbards, knife cases powdered with turquoise and other fine jewels, and twelve large Icelandic falcons, their hoods embroidered with pearls. Sixty Muscovites, wearing their long native robes and fur caps, with gorgets of great price around their necks, marched through the streets of London before the gaping populace. The Ambassador himself, a 'bulky monster', dined with the King and threw himself on the floor, touching the ground with his head, when the King drank his health.^[9]

Some of the great figures of Charles's boyhood were meanwhile making their final bow. Before the year 1618 was out the tragedy of Raleigh had drawn to its conclusion. Raleigh was released from the Tower in order to equip an expedition to search for the gold he still believed existed in the region of the river Orinoco near Spanish territory in Guiana, but on condition that he provoked no quarrel with Spain. Charles and his mother looked approvingly on Raleigh and watched his preparations with interest, while Gondomar spoke darkly

to the King of upsetting Spain and jeopardizing the Spanish match. The inevitable clash with Spanish settlers occurred and Raleigh returned without gold and without his son, a young man of great promise who had been killed on the Orinoco. His trial and condemnation — he was still under the death penalty from his conviction at the beginning of the reign — followed inevitably though Anne interceded earnestly for his reprieve. Raleigh was beheaded on 29 October 1618 and one of the last links with Elizabethan life was cut.

Bacon remained, shrewdly observing the scene. He could see Charles, as well as his father, being brought increasingly under the influence of Buckingham and as early as 1616 he had taken the bold step of writing to the favourite reminding him of his responsibilities to the Prince: 'it would be an irreparable stain and dishonour upon you . . . if you should mislead him, or suffer him to be misled by any loose or flattering Parasites'.^[10] Charles, for his part, recognized the quality of the man and when Bacon became Chancellor in 1617 Anne and Charles showed their respect by sending, in the King's absence in Scotland, their own representatives to do him honour.

In Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke, Charles saw a man of different stamp, a lawyer whose name he would become accustomed to see widely in print and whose views would play a big part in the constitutional controversies of his reign. Coke's physical courage sometimes quailed before the wrath of James, but he never abandoned his position. When James assured Coke that he, as King, would defend the common law, Coke replied that, on the contrary, the common law defended the king. But when James turned on him in fury, shouting that the king was protected by none but God, that the king protected the law not the law the king, Coke fell on his knees in terror. Coke's insistence that the common law was supreme over any other jurisdiction, that it could be expounded only by the judges, and could be halted for no one, not even the king, hit at the heart of the prerogative as James understood it. He told Coke he was a knave who argued in sophistries and threw the ultimate jibe at the great lawyer — that he should go and study the common law. He proceeded to punish Coke by sequestering him from the Council; he forbade him to ride the summer circuit, insulted him by ordering him to revise his law reports, and dismissed him from the bench. Charles and his mother were very concerned for the Chief Justice, and Anne intervened with the King 'to have him used less insolently', but to no avail.

While his father and Buckingham increasingly supplied the impetus to his life, other influences round Charles were subtly changing. In 1617 Sir Henry Vane had joined his Household as cofferer. Vane's appointment, indeed his whole career up to this time, was typical of Court preferment in its mixture of patronage and purchase. According to Clarendon, who did not like him, Vane was a man 'of very ordinary parts by nature, and he had not cultivated them at all by art, for he was very illiterate. But being of a stirring and boisterous disposition, very industrious and very bold, he still wrought himself into some employment.' He was a very different type from the Murrays and Dallingtons, and even from the Careys of Charles's young days.

In the tittle-tattle of Court life, meantime, the old gossip flared up from time to time. There were snide references to Jimmy Davidson. Occasionally the even uglier rumour was revived in great secrecy by Bedy the Dane, that he was the natural father of Prince Charles. Charles shut his ears to such talk. He blushed, indeed, 'like a modest maiden' at any loose conversation or lewd word and this, in itself, was sufficient to fan gossip. When the Venetian Ambassador wrote in 1616 that Charles's constitution was still sufficiently delicate for him to wait two or three years before taking a wife, the Courts of half-a-dozen Princes took note. Warming to his theme the omniscient Ambassador announced that Charles either did not feel, or instantly subdued, the passions normal to a young man. It was, indeed, still being rumoured widely in Germany in 1621 that the Prince was physically incapable of becoming a father. 'So far as one knows', wrote the Venetian Ambassador as late as 1622, 'he has not tasted certain youthful pleasures and apparently has not felt love except by some show of poetry.' But for once the Venetian was wrong. Charles had, in a stiff and decorous way, sown a very few wild oats. In 1615 he was involved in an affair for which, as he wrote to Buckingham, his father gave him 'a good sharp potion'. But, he continued, 'you took away the working of it by the well-relished comfits ye sent after it.' Charles had met a lady with whom he was enamoured and was going to meet her again — possibly the arrangements for the meeting were the 'well-relished comfits' which Buckingham sent.^[11]

A few years later the verses, which are possibly those to which the Venetian Ambassador referred, were penned. In the summer progress of 1618 the King, Buckingham and Charles stayed at the house of Sir Nicholas Bacon where Anne Gawdy, his granddaughter, was also

living. The girl was beautiful and was made much of by the King and the two young men. The Prince, in particular, was 'so far in liking' that he wrote some adolescent lines to her, whose merit depended solely upon the fact that they contained an anagram of her name:

Heaven's wonder late, but now earth's glorious ray,
With wonder shines; that's gone, this new and gay
Still gazed on: in this is more than heaven's light —
Day obscured that; this makes the day more bright.

It is likely that in this respect, as in other physical matters, Charles was late in developing — was 'slow enough to begin to be eager after the feminine prey', as Buckingham put it. Indeed, Buckingham did not regard him as ready and ripe for these affairs until he was twenty-one or two years old.^[12]

But, quite apart from his own feelings or his own capabilities, the Prince of Wales could not be ignored in the European marriage market. Gondomar, in particular, had been sitting quietly at the centre of his own web of intrigue, close by the King's person, since 1613, and since time was on his side in the sense that the Prince must certainly marry someone, he was prepared to wait, weaving his web with patience, to ensure that the marriage would be between Charles and the Infanta Maria. James, for his part, was not sorry when the French match cooled in 1616 and he was able to turn his attention exclusively to Spain. But there were difficulties. His Privy Council would be against a Spanish match, his Archbishop of Canterbury would be against, Buckingham was against, a Parliament would certainly be against. Charles himself — conscientious, hard-working, dutiful, decorous Charles — was hardly considered.

6—
The Palatinate

In 1617 attention began to be focused upon the Central European state of Bohemia, whose king was one of the Electors to the Holy Roman Empire and who was at that time the aged Hapsburg, Matthias, the Holy Roman Emperor himself. Matthias was childless. Wishing to perpetuate in the Hapsburg family the succession of both Bohemia and the Empire, he resigned the crown of Bohemia as a first step and nominated his cousin, Ferdinand of Styria, in his place. Ferdinand was accepted by a majority in the Bohemian Council of State and crowned in July 1617. But Bohemia was a country sharply divided by religious belief and economic interest, while Ferdinand was Jesuit-trained, sincerely if fanatically Catholic. The Protestants on the Council of State rose in protest and in May 1618 denounced the rule of Ferdinand and established an alternative government.

The effect on the rest of Europe was profound. No one was more closely concerned than the young Elector Palatine, son-in-law to James and leader of the Protestant bloc, and none was more ready for action. Outside the Empire no one was more closely concerned than the King of England, both through his treaty with the Protestant Union and his family connections with the Palatine, yet no one was less anxious to come to the issue. James was in the midst of his marriage negotiations with Gondomar, and was about to improve his financial position through the good offices of Lionel Cranfield: to spend money on war was the last thing he wanted. As Frederick prepared to fight and the English people demonstrated their support for the Protestant cause and the Princess Elizabeth, James was torn between conflicting desires to support his son-in-law, keep the friendship of Spain, and refrain from spending money. The first tentative moves came from Savoy. Count Mansfeld, a soldier of fortune with a personal vendetta against the Hapsburgs, had been in the service of the

Duke of Savoy and still had some 2000 troups under his command. The Duke offered them to the Protestant Union and Mansfeld agreed to lead them for what he might get out of the conflict.

James meanwhile seized upon a proposal reputedly made by the King of Spain that he should use his prestige to mediate. This appealed to James's vanity as well as to his desire to postpone action and might, indeed, have offered a solution. But the mediator he chose to represent him was the most unsuitable James Hay, Viscount Doncaster, a courtier of wealth, good nature and personal charm whose talents lay elsewhere than in the tough and intricate diplomacy required on this occasion. As Doncaster made unhurried preparations for departure, troops began to move in Europe and Frederick, in January 1619, sent Baron Christopher Dohna to England to call upon his father-in-law for aid and to renew the treaty with the Protestant Union which was drawing to a close. It might have been taken as an augury that on the 12th of that month the Banqueting House in Whitehall, where Elizabeth and Frederick were married, was destroyed by fire. James renewed the treaty but nothing more. Charles made much of Dohna, who was a link with his sister. He was impatient to do something physical, something dramatic, for her cause. Instead of this he was caught up in close domestic trouble with the illness first of his mother and then of his father.

Early in 1619 Anne was taken ill. She had been in poor health for some time, she saw little of the King, and her personal following had dwindled. To Charles and to her brother she remained passionately attached. At Hampton Court in February Anne seemed to recover something of her old spirit, and the King went to Newmarket. But she relapsed, had her favourite bed set up and sent for Charles on March 1. He found her physicians in attendance, with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London already at her bedside anxious to ensure that she died professing the faith of the Church of England. She spoke a word to Charles in the old bantering manner, asking how he did? 'At your service', he replied in the same spirit. She then begged Charles to go home. 'No, I will stay to wait upon your Majesty.' 'I am a pretty piece to wait upon', she replied wryly, once more commanding him to bed. He went unwillingly. After supper he returned and spoke a few words to her. She would not believe her end was near and very few of the courtiers who had thronged to Hampton Court on hearing that her condition had worsened were admitted. She became worse in the night, the Prince was sent for and she gave him her

blessing, her hand being guided and placed upon his head. She was just able to sign her will in which she left her property to Charles. Her power of speech was gone but the Bishop of London, Charles and her personal staff prayed with her. She called for James and made a sign to indicate that she died in the faith of the Church of England. 'She was in her great condition a good Woman', affirmed a near contemporary. Archbishop Abbot, many years after her death, perhaps wishing to scotch any rumour of Charles's illegitimacy, spoke of her as one of whose virtue he had not the least doubt.

For thirteen weeks Anne lay unburied while her effigy was made, money was with difficulty raised for the funeral, and the ladies of the Court quarrelled over precedence in the funeral cortège. Again the burden fell on Charles, for his father was ill at Newmarket. On the day of the funeral, 13 May 1619, Charles rode before the hearse and led the crowd of mourners, all in the black garments provided, as was customary, by the Court. It was, said an observer, 'a drawling, tedious sight', everyone being dressed alike and appearing 'tired with the length of the way or the weight of their clothes, each lady having twelve, and each countess sixteen yards of broadcloth in her dress.'^[1] It was not what the high-spirited Anne would have wished. Charles was harrowed still further when James summoned him to his bedside and advised him on suitable counsellors for the succession.

The death of Matthias, the Holy Roman Emperor, on March 20 lost some of its impact in England in the midst of these domestic affairs, but Doncaster, delayed by the death of the Queen and the illness of the King, at last got off on May 12, while James recovered and entered London on June 1 to an enthusiastic welcome. There was room now for the feelings of expectation and urgency which Charles shared with the rest. Eagerly he perused Doncaster's despatches from Europe and wrote somewhat stiffly but full of boyish enthusiasm:

I am verrie glad to heer that my brother is of so rype a judgement and of so forward an inclination to the good of Christendume as I fynd by you he is. You may assure your selfe I will be glade not onlie to assiste him with my countenance, but also with my person, if the King my father will give me leave.^[2]

But while Doncaster was making his leisurely way across Europe, receiving lavish entertainment at Heidelberg and other capitals, events marched rapidly forward. Ferdinand, the deposed King of Bohemia, was elected Holy Roman Emperor in succession to Matthias and was

crowned on August 18. Two days before that the Bohemian Council of State offered the throne of Bohemia to Frederick, Elector Palatine, James's son-in-law.

Frederick hesitated. Christopher Dohna was despatched again to England to seek James's advice. Elizabeth reputedly said she would rather eat sauerkraut as a Queen than eat off gold plate as an Elector's wife. James was thrown into an even wilder agony of indecision than before, for now a throne for his daughter was in the balance. He worried over the constitutional issue, evading Dohna, keeping him dangling between Bagshot, Windsor and Wanstead, but asking basic questions when they met: Could the Bohemian nobles of right choose their own king? What was Ferdinand's constitutional position? Not until a week after Dohna's arrival did he allow the matter to come before the Privy Council. This was already September 10 and a month had passed since Bohemia's invitation. It was not unreasonable that Frederick should act on his own initiative. He accepted the throne of Bohemia on September 28. He and Elizabeth entered Prague on October 31 and were crowned in November. The third of their children, Prince Rupert, was born there a month later on 7 December 1619.

The Catholic League could not accept such a situation. While rumours flew around of a flank attack by Spain upon Frederick's own Palatinate, feeling in England and in the Privy Council itself was running strongly against Spain and the Spanish match was discredited. Doncaster returned eager for war against the Catholic League. Achatius Dohna, brother of the unfortunate Christopher, was despatched as Ambassador from Frederick, King of Bohemia, to ask for his father-in-law's assistance in raising a loan of £100,000 in the City of London. Sir Andrew Gray, a Scottish officer in the Bohemian service, returned to England to beg leave to levy a regiment for his master to be paid out of the City loan. He brought with him a letter from James's little grandson, Prince Frederick Henry, which pleaded for help.

James was alone in seeing the other side of the picture. It was not his daughter's patrimony that was at stake, but a throne her husband had accepted rashly without waiting for his father-in-law's advice. At the same time Frederick's action had precipitated the Protestant-Catholic clash that James had laboured so long and so hard to avert. But, since the clash appeared imminent, should he not now throw his weight on the side of religion, his daughter, and the little grandson

whose letter had so strongly affected him? A practical reason against doing so was a shortage of money. More importantly he would forfeit his ambition to be Europe's arbiter for the far less satisfactory possibility of being Europe's Protestant leader. He saw something of the terrible catastrophe of a war-torn Europe; he was distressed that it was his own son-in-law who had taken the step which was likely to reduce his peace policy to ashes. So strong was James's belief that he should remain uncommitted that it was not until March that he gave his consent to the raising of volunteers and permitted the City loan to go forward. He worried incessantly and gave vent to his feelings against Frederick: 'It is only by force that he will ever be brought to reason!', he exclaimed. 'If my son-in-law wishes to save the Palatine', he said on another occasion, 'he had better at once consent to a suspension of arms in Bohemia!'. He would not allow prayers to be said for Frederick as King of Bohemia. 'James is a strange father', the Prince of Orange reputedly remarked, 'he will neither fight for his children nor pray for them.' No wonder it was reported that the King 'seemed utterly weary'. 'I am not God Almighty', he was heard to mutter, a remark so out of character that in itself it demonstrated his depression. He busied himself with writing a meditation upon St Matthew's Gospel, which he called The Crown of Thorns .^[3]

It was a different situation in August 1620 when, while the Emperor moved against Prague, Spain from the Netherlands invaded Frederick's hereditary territory in the Palatinate. James immediately announced to his Council that he would defend the Palatinate. Charles headed a subscription list for its defence with £5000. Buckingham gave £1000, the rest of the Council and the City of London brought the total to £28,000. But the rest of England could raise no more than a paltry £6000. Meanwhile on September 4 the Spanish General, Spinola, entered Oppenheim on the Rhine, well within the Palatine territory. James had no alternative but to call a Parliament, for which Proclamation was made on November 6. A fortnight later news reached London that on 29 October 1620 at the battle of the White Hill just outside Prague Frederick had suffered utter defeat at the hands of the Emperor and that he and his family were in flight.

Charles was at Royston with his father when he heard the news. For two days he remained shut in his room, speaking to no one. Inadequacy and insufficiency tormented him. Henry would have been in Prague or Heidelberg long before, fighting for his faith and his sister. Yet Charles's more statesmanlike feelings assured him that this

could have given no more than an instant lifting of the spirit and the consolation of mutual support. It might have brought in more volunteers, more money, but would have been unlikely, in the end, to affect the outcome. If in part he regretted that his nature permitted no such spontaneous reaction, he had also to grapple with the consciousness that he loved neither his sister nor Frederick's Calvinism with the intensity that Henry had shown. Deep down an even darker consideration stirred — the unspoken fear that also haunted his father — fears of the popularity of the Protestant Princess whose resemblance to her brother Henry was still commented upon, fears of the succession of Elizabeth and her children if Charles left no heir: 'it hangs on a single thread', it was said, 'whether she and her children may not reign one day in these realms.' The desire of Elizabeth and Frederick to send one of their sons to England to be educated might be merely a device to depose James, by-pass Charles, and proclaim the boy king. James's refusal to allow his grandson to come had indicated some such train of thought. The King was reluctant, even now, when his daughter was in flight, to offer her a home in England. When it was rumoured that he had invited her and Frederick to come to England his comment was 'God forbid!' and he wrote to Carleton, Ambassador at The Hague, for 'the stay of his daughter . . . from coming into England'. Elizabeth was informed confidentially by the Dutch Ambassador and mentioned the matter no more. But she had her own personal reasons for wishing to remain with her husband near the scene of action, and whatever were James's motives, and they were probably mixed, Elizabeth herself felt strongly that to leave Continental Europe at this time would be both strategically and politically a false move.

The Parliament of 1621 was the first in which Charles played a full part, and he rode with his father to open it at Westminster on January 30. The King was suffering from arthritis and had to be carried in a chair into Westminster Abbey for the sermon and then into the House of Lords where Lord Chancellor Bacon presided. As the Commons crowded to the bar of the House James commended his son to them and they to him. The position in Europe was grim. Earlier in the month Frederick had been put under the ban of the Empire with all his lands and dignities confiscate. James told his hearers that he had borrowed from the King of Denmark and given from his own privy purse and now was reduced to beginning 'as a man would beg an alms' for the recovery of the Palatinate. 'I declare unto you', he announced,

'that if I cannot get it with peace, my crown and my blood and the blood of my son shall not be spared for it.' A Council of War declared on February 12 that an army of 30,000 men was required at an initial cost of £250,000 and a subsequent charge of £900,000 annually. The Commons granted two subsidies, amounting to some £160,000 — but not for war, upon which they remained uncommitted, but for the King's general expenses. James was delighted to receive a promise of money so early in the session but it soon became apparent that before considering further supplies the House had affairs of its own to discuss.

Charles could now be seen regularly walking through King Street and Westminster Hall with his guard and retinue on his way from St James's to the Parliament House. He heard the Members discuss the economic situation. Trade had been declining, largely because of the loss of markets resulting from the European war; in the clothing areas, particularly, there was much unemployment and considerable distress. Members were concerned for the industry which was the very backbone of English prosperity and with which many of them were closely connected, and they were worried at the threat of insurrection as starving cloth workers began to take food from the market place and from the homes of richer people. Some employers were helping their workpeople by giving them food or keeping them on in work in spite of the fact that unsold cloth was accumulating in their barns. The House was sympathetic. Sir Edwin Sandys, who represented Ipswich in the clothing area of East Anglia, made an impassioned speech for 'the poor man's labour, his inheritance' and a few months later the first Commission on Unemployment was appointed.

Charles heard the Commons marshall their grievances and denounce monopolies, particularly the monopolies of inns and alehouses and of gold and silver thread. He knew that Buckingham's family was concerned in these and he watched as Sir Giles Mompesson was made the scapegoat and was banished the kingdom. He enjoyed many of the debates, particularly the contributions of Sir Edward Coke. 'I am never weary of hearing you', he told the Chief Justice, 'you do so well mix pleasant things with these sad and serious matters.' He was able to calm the more excitable spirits in the House when James sent a tactless message. He intervened in the case of the aged Roman Catholic Floyd, a barrister who had been imprisoned in the Fleet by the Council for openly rejoicing at Frederick's defeat outside Prague. Though he denied the words attributed to him, the House of

Commons, which was doing nothing to assist the Palsgrave and his family, turned on Floyd in fury. 'Let a hole be burnt in his tongue', 'Let his tongue be cut out', 'Let his nose and ears be cropped off!' they cried one after another. The nauseating scene became merged in questions as to who could claim jurisdiction over the unfortunate old man. When it fell to the House of Lords they fined him £5000, imprisoned him for life, and ordered him to be whipped at the cart's tail from London Bridge to Westminster Hall. It was at the instance of Charles that the whipping was remitted.

This was also the Parliament of Bacon's disgrace. He had made enemies; and in his own conduct, in the sphere where his public duties impinged upon his private life, he was careless and gifts exchanged hands while suits were pending. There is no evidence that Bacon's judgment was affected and in an age where the line between bribery, gift, and legitimate payment was finely drawn it is unlikely that anything would have been heard to Bacon's discredit had it not been for jealousy and personal rancour. As it was, even with the support of the Prince and of Buckingham, Bacon could not stand up to the charges brought against him in the House of Lords. Charles himself carried to the House Bacon's letter of submission. On 3 May 1621 after the Great Seal had been taken from him and his further punishment was being debated, both Charles and the Earl spoke in his favour. The sentence, nevertheless, was severe and Bacon never returned to public life. James, for all his erudition, had never recognized the qualities of Bacon's scientific mind. Bacon's plea for a science based upon observation and experiment, and co-ordinated by an official body, could have blossomed into a national institution which would have redounded to James's credit. But James preferred an aphorism. The Novum Organum of 1620, which embodied Bacon's plan, 'resembled the peace of God', said James, 'for it passed all understanding'. Charles, on the other hand, kept Bacon's Advancement of Learning with him throughout the troubles of his later life and annotated the book in his captivity.

Charles delivered the speech of thanks from the Lords to the King on the adjournment on 4 June 1621. As the Members dispersed to their homes it became apparent that the bad summer was delaying the ripening of the crops. In the continuing cold of autumn the harvest was disastrous and the price of corn rose steeply. The Court augmented its supplies by progresses and cheered itself by entertainments. Ben Jonson's masque The Gypsies Metamorphos'd was played

three times, Buckingham appearing as a gypsy in the performance at Windsor early in September. A feature of the play was the fortunetelling of the gypsies in which the first gypsy, taking the King's hand, asked

Could any doubt, that sawe this hand,
Or who you are, or what commaund
     You have upon the fate of things,
Or would not say you were let downe
From heaven, on earthe to be the Crowne
     And top of all your neighbour kings?

When a gypsy took the hand of Charles it was to offer a singularly apt and charmingly turned fortune, predicting a Spanish bride and

. . . the promise before day
of a little James to play
     Hereafter
'Twixt his Grandsires knees, and move
All the prettie waies of Love,
     And laughter

It was enough to move the old King to tears!

Shortly afterwards James went to Newmarket, where he was confined by the cold weather and a slight indisposition. It was therefore Charles who, on his twenty-first birthday, rode in through the early morning chill from Newmarket, dining at Epping and reaching St James's by two o'clock in the afternoon, in order that the following day he might open the new session of Parliament.

The question of concrete help for the Palatinate was once again the main issue. Lord Digby, English Ambassador at Madrid, who also knew Central Europe and was more able than most to grasp the essentials of the situation, hammered home the points: the necessity of holding the Lower Palatinate during the winter, which meant supplies for the 20,000 men already there under Vere and Mansfeld; the need in the spring for an additional army for which some £900,000 a year would be required. But there was no enthusiasm for a land war which would have swallowed much money and still further disrupted trade and commerce. Members spoke instead of diversionary action at sea to cut off Spanish supplies — in other words a good old naval war in the old style for the glory of God, the winning of treasure and, they hoped, the discomfiture of Spain and the rescue of the Palatinate at little expense to themselves. They did, however, grant a subsidy for

the maintenance of the troops already in the Palatinate (for which recusants were to be assessed at double rates), they asked for the enforcement of the anti–Catholic laws, and they begged that their Prince be married to one of the Protestant faith. Charles, bitterly complaining that 'his marriage was being continually prostituted in the House', sent to his father at Newmarket a copy of the petition in which the Commons had expressed their views. James exclaimed in wrath that 'some fiery and popular spirits' had been 'emboldened . . . to argue and debate publicly of matters far above their reach and capacity' and commanded Parliament not to 'presume henceforth to meddle with anything concerning our government or deep matters of state, and namely not to deal with our dearest son's match with the daughter of Spain'. The response of the Commons was first a further petition and then the Protestation of December 18 in which they maintained that 'affairs concerning the King, State and defence of the realm and of the Church of England, and the maintenance and making of laws, and redress of mischiefs and grievances' were 'proper subjects for debate in Parliament' and that in all these matters Members of Parliament had the right of free speech. This was too much for the harrassed King. He first adjourned and then dissolved Parliament on 6 January 1622; he imprisoned Coke and Sir Robert Phelips, confined John Pym to his house, and solemnly, in the presence of Charles and the members of his Council, tore the offending Protestation from the Journal of the House of Commons.

As the bitterly cold weather continued John Chamberlain took to wearing gloves as he wrote to his friend, Dudley Carleton, at The Hague. Among other events he reported a series of fires in the capital: the Fortune theatre was burnt down in two hours, destroying the players' costumes and their play books, there was a serious fire in the clerk's office in Chancery Lane. Though fire was not unusual in the close-packed streets of the capital with its many wooden or half-timbered buildings, Chamberlain thought the present outbreak was because 'some firie planet raigned'. More likely people were trying to keep warm with bigger fires than normally. On Twelfth Night 1622, the day James tore the Commons' Protestation from their Journal, Jonson's Masque of Augurs opened Inigo Jones's new Banqueting Hall, which replaced the one destroyed by fire three years earlier. Although the work was not complete and seats had to be improvised, the scale and balance of the building was unmistakeable. The bad weather

continued into the spring when the anniversary celebrations of the King's coronation, including tilting and a masque devised by the Prince, were several times postponed, to Charles's extreme annoyance, not only because he had worked hard on the preparation of the entertainment but because he wanted to wear at the tilting a feather which had been sent him from the Infanta.

Charles had matured considerably during the Parliament of 1621. Not only had he made the acquaintance of some of the great orators and parliamentarians of the day but he had experienced personally the clash of his father's outlook and theirs. He was himself popular with the Members who liked his modest manner, his obvious desire to please, and his voice which was 'lowe' but 'good'. His popularity increased his poise and self-confidence, he was much less reserved than formerly, and spoke with greater firmness. He needed all the strength of character he could muster as, after the dissolution, his father became the laughing-stock of Europe. Why should James assume to himself the title of Defender of the Faith, it was asked, when he suffered the Protestants of Germany to be extirpated? When he was called at Court a second Solomon someone was heard to hope he was not, after all, the fiddler's son! In Brussels they depicted him with his pockets hanging out and never a penny in them, nor in his purse, turned upside down. At Antwerp they pictured the Queen of Bohemia as a poor peasant woman with her hair hanging about her face, and her child on her back, while the King, her father, carried the cradle after her. Comedies showed the Palatine being presented with 100,000 pickled herrings by the King of Denmark, 100,000 butter boxes by the Dutch, and 100,000 ambassadors by the English. In England the pamphlets Vox Populi and Tom Tell-Troath were repeating such gibes and many more. It was said that for one health drunk to the King, ten were drunk to the Palatine and to the Lady Elizabeth.^[4]

Charles tried to assert his new-won confidence—'showing his teeth' the Venetian Ambassador called it—though James still kept him tightly reined. But he would question others closely, using the knowledgeable Venetian, for example, to tell him about Count Mansfeld. Otherwise he kept his own council, still saying and doing what he was expected to say and do. Observers were puzzled. 'He moves like a planet in its sphere', wrote the Venetian Ambassador in 1622, 'so naturally and quietly that one does not remark it. In speech he shows good sense, his replies are prudent, he grasps things with quick judgment and leans to the better opinion. But if he hears his father or

the favourite say anything to the contrary, he immediately changes.' Perhaps it was intended dissimulation, learned from James himself ('that falst Scotch Urchin' as Queen Elizabeth called him) or from Guicciardini.

It was observed that he would retire for hours to his model house working upon out-of-the-way mathematics and methods of campaigning and encamping, and that he was dressing 'absolutely without jewels, more modestly than any gentleman soever', no doubt out of sympathy for Elizabeth and her family. The year following the dissolution of Parliament was full of strange undercurrents. At Christmastime 1622 four of Charles's musicians performed in Gondomar's Roman Catholic chapel; Charles dismissed them. But when Gondomar complained to the King, Charles was compelled to reinstate them. About the same time the Lieutenant of the Middle Temple and some thirty others drank the health of the distressed Lady Elizabeth, kissed their drawn swords, and swore to live and die in her service. James was displeased. Charles's reaction was touched with bitterness, the more so that it was not he but their cousin, Duke Christian of Brunswick, who was most vociferous and most active in helping Elizabeth. Not only did he declare himself, 'Your most humblest, most constant, most faithful, most affectionate, and most obedient slave, who loves you, and will love you, infinitely and incessantly to death', but he was actually fighting in her armies.^[5]

Perhaps as a reaction to the enforced inactivity of his own life Charles at this time entered into a freer, more light-hearted social round than he had known hitherto. It is possible that his father had encouraged Buckingham to lead him. At all events in Court entertainment Buckingham, his wife and Charles were now frequently joined by the Duchess of Lennox, a thrice-married beauty, still young, who was said 'to be much courted and respected by the Prince' and even to have 'cast her cap' at the widower King himself. The quartet were frequently observed going round from one place of entertainment to another, turning up unexpectedly with a minimum of etiquette and an abandon of high spirits. When the Marquise of Buckingham had smallpox the Duchess of Lennox attended her assiduously. There was considerable gossip shortly afterwards when a chain of diamonds, valued at over £3000, was put round the Duchess's neck by Charles himself—'which was taken by all for an extraordinary and unusual honour done unto her'. But the chain carried the picture of James, not Charles, and was said by some to be a tribute to her care

of the Marquise, of whom James was extraordinarily fond. Not long afterwards Charles gave another 'faire jewell' to another fair lady, the attractive Mlle St Luc, when she departed for home with her aunt, the wife of the French Ambassador. It was clear that Charles had thrown off much of his reserve and was enjoying the courtier's life in which hitherto he had shown little interest.^[6] If there is any truth in the story that Joanna Bridges, who was living in Mandinam in Carmarthenshire in 1648 and who married Jeremy Taylor as his second wife, was a natural daughter of Charles she would have been conceived at this time. Her mother could have been the Duchess of Lennox.

Charles was, indeed, thinking of marriage. His own inclinations were leading him in that direction and he was beginning to believe with his father that a Spanish match could, strange though it might seem, help the Palatinate. As he discussed the matter with Buckingham their friendship deepened. When the Venetian Ambassador found Charles in 1622 caressing Buckingham like a brother and 'behaving as if the favourite were prince and himself less than a favourite', he thought it was to please the King, but it was, on the contrary, the outcome of his developing affection for Buckingham and an indication of the interests they now held in common.

7—
The Spanish Match

By 1622 the amazing Spanish marriage negotiations had continued, on and off, for eight years and opposition was found on both sides. James was well aware of the difficulties of a Spanish match. A majority of his Privy Council and his Archbishop of Canterbury would oppose it; so would Buckingham; and a Parliament would certainly be most vocally and distressingly in opposition. On the Spanish side Gondomar's enthusiasm had to be balanced against the doubts of the Spanish monarch, the caution of the Spanish Court, the reluctance of the Infanta, and the hostility of the Pope and the theologians. Two kings of Spain, three Popes, and innumerable theological junta addressed themselves to the question with no more eagerness than that shown by the English Parliament. That Spain entered into discussions at all was the result partly of fear and partly of hope. The fear was that an unfriendly Britain would cement a powerful anti-Hapsburg bloc in Europe and that the English fleet, united with the Dutch, would sweep the Spaniard off the seas; the hope was no less than the mirage produced by Gondomar of a Catholic Britain. These reasons for negotiation were clearly expressed in many communications by the Spaniards to each other, and never changed over the years. At the same time it is doubtful if, without Gondomar's determination, they would have continued after Spanish troops had invaded the Palatinate. As it was, Gondomar audaciously used the action to demonstrate that a marriage alliance was necessary to nullify the action and restore the Palatinate to Frederick. The terms of the marriage treaty, which continued to be discussed, amended, and haggled over, stipulated a large dowry of some £500,000 or £600,000 but did not mention the Palatinate. The English were expected to grant freedom of worship to the Infanta in her own chapels and to recognize her own Roman Catholic priests and her own Household, which would be nominated

by the King of Spain. Though the English won the point that children of the marriage need not be baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, their education was to remain with their mother until an age which was still the subject of negotiation. Most importantly, the Spanish insisted upon the repeal of the recusancy laws in England and the consequent grant of freedom of worship to English Catholics as essential to the marriage treaty.

The Infanta was then seventeen years old, a gentle withdrawn girl, devoted to her religion, terrified at the consequences of marrying a heretic; she had announced that she would go into a nunnery rather than do so and had changed her mind only at the prospect of her mission of conversion. Charles knew much of this from the English Ambassador's letters to himself and to the King. The Infanta's portrait had not particularly excited him, though the round, girlish face with its blue eyes, pink and white complexion, full mouth and slightly protruding Hapsburg lip, framed by the pale hair of her Flemish forbears, showed promise of considerable beauty; nor was he much impressed by stories of the exquisite delicacy of her fine, white hands. It would be well, he remarked, if a Prince could have one wife for reasons of state and another to please himself. But Charles had no strong feelings against a Spanish marriage in itself. As a political alliance it appealed to him and he believed, like his father, that the large dowry, and the very fact of a marriage bond with a Hapsburg, would help his sister. And, as he assured Gondomar, he had no desire to persecute Catholics.

The fact that Charles could entertain a Catholic marriage at all gave something of a jolt to those who had been assiduous in supplying him with a Puritan entourage. They never understood that their handling had been too heavy, nor that his mother's influence had been against them. Throughout her married life rumours had persisted that Anne was about to embrace the Catholic faith and that she did, in fact, hear mass in private. It was she who had originally forwarded the idea of a Spanish match for Prince Henry, who had welcomed a possible alliance between Elizabeth and the Spanish king, and she would certainly not have neglected to talk to Charles of the advantages of a Spanish marriage for himself.

In such a situation Charles's Puritan chaplains should clearly do their duty. In 1621 Hakewill left with the Prince, on the understanding that it would not reach the King, a memorandum against a Catholic match. Two hours later the paper was with James and Hakewill was

thrown into prison. Though subsequently released, he never regained his office about the Prince. There may have been misunderstanding, though this is unlikely, and it seems that even Murray suspected some breach of trust by Charles.^[1] But the incident served to encourage the Puritans to make a further effort to increase their influence with the Prince, and their choice fell upon John Preston, a Cambridge tutor and, like Senhouse, a 'golden voiced preacher', skilled in debate and the lighter sophistry, who had delighted James at Cambridge by successfully opposing the motion that dogs cannot reason in syllogisms. He was appointed chaplain to the Prince at the end of 1621. Preston himself had worked hard to acquire this position of influence. He had declined other appointments, cultivated favour with Buckingham when the favourite was of a Puritan turn of mind, and used his influence as a Cambridge tutor with the sons of wealthy and powerful Puritan families who were his pupils. He was helped by the general sympathy to Puritanism of Archbishop Abbot.^[2]

It is a pity that there was removed from Charles at this time the direct influence of Thomas Murray. It may have been a move to take away one so influential with the Prince and so fundamentally opposed to the Spanish match. But Murray had served the Prince well for fifteen years and his retiring disposition gave him little zest to continue Court life now that his charge had moved out into the world. It says much for the regard in which he was still held that James offered him the Provostship of Eton College, a post for which there was always competition among men of the highest calibre. There is little to be said for the unsavoury manoeuvring in which these men indulged, except that it was normal at the time. As early as April 1614 Sir Dudley Carleton, who was then Ambassador at Venice, was writing to his friend, John Chamberlain, reminding him of 'a good morsel' which would be given for the appointment. Three years later Carleton's agent, Edward Sherburn, was asking how much he should offer for it. Sir Henry Wotton was also asking after the post. Sir Henry Saville, the sitting Provost, had remained in remarkably good health for an old man, but when he became ill in the spring of 1619 the manoeuvring started all over again. But Saville recovered. Two-and-half years later he was again ill. Should Carleton try once more? Murray had taken no steps to press his suit and it was assumed that without doing so no office was obtainable. But James was extraordinarily loyal to the man who had been his son's mentor for so long. Against the manoeuvring of Court interests, against the even more powerful opposition of the

bishops, against the wishes of the Vice Provost and the Fellows of Eton College, he insisted on the election of Thomas Murray. Nor was he helped by that dour Scot who not only scorned to manoeuvre but steadfastly refused to take holy orders to placate the bishops. The Governors of Eton had, instead, to grant a dispensation for the acceptance of a Provost who was not in holy orders and whose appointment did not, therefore, accord with their statutes. There followed a few halcyon weeks in the summer of 1622 when Charles and Buckingham, forgetful of the Palatinate and the Spanish marriage, swam each evening in the Thames near Eton and Murray entertained them and their friends at the College.^[3]

Francis Cottington, who succeeded Murray as Secretary to the Prince, was a man of different stamp. His family background was land on the borders of Wiltshire and Somerset, sheep, and the making of broadcloth — a conventional background which was combined with service in Spain. When the Ambassador was recalled in 1609 Cottington acted as English agent for a couple of years, he spent a year as Consul at Seville, and was again in Spain in 1616. His familiarity with the country at a time when the Spanish marriage negotiations were in full swing undoubtedly influenced his appointment, and his Catholic leanings did him little harm at that point; on the contrary, he was a good tool in the hands of the pro-Spanish party. He was in his middle forties when he took up his post. He was portrayed by Clarendon, who did not like him, as a great dissembler. But he was patient, tenacious, and his dry humour appealed to Charles: 'under a grave countenance', as Clarendon put it, 'he covered the most of mirth'. More importantly, Cottington proved a loyal servant and companion to Charles.

Endymion Porter, who was some ten years younger than Cottington, now became Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince. He came of a Gloucestershire gentry family but had a Spanish grandmother and had been brought up in the same household as the Condé d'Olivarez, who was now chief minister to the King of Spain. Back in England he had served in the Villiers family, more recently in that of Buckingham himself, and he married one of Buckingham's nieces, who was a zealous Catholic. Like Cottington, he became a close and loyal friend to Charles.^[4]

Meanwhile Buckingham, whose career had begun as a counterweight to Catholic influences at Court, now, like James and Charles, began to see the general advantages of a Spanish alliance. His support of the Palatinate and of Protestantism in general had been shaken by a

personal dislike of Frederick and of the Dutch and he had been offended when his candidate, Sir Edward Cecil, had been passed over and the command of British troops in Europe given to Sir Horace Vere. At the same time family connections caused him to look more favourably upon the Catholic religion than he had done before. In May 1620 he had married Lady Catherine Manners, daughter of the Catholic Earl of Rutland. The Earl had objected to the marriage and it was, in a sense, a runaway match, which accounts for the fact that the wedding of the favourite had not been celebrated with the wealth and display that had accompanied lesser nuptials. Although his wife had been ostensibly converted through the good offices of Bishop Williams to the Protestant faith, it is likely that she remained basically Catholic. More recently, at the end of 1622, his mother had become a Catholic and it was rumoured that Buckingham himself was veering in that direction. So, in spite of the appointment of Preston as his chaplain, the influences round Charles had become basically pro-Spanish and far less Puritan.

The year 1621 had been inconclusive. The Infanta was said to have been offered in marriage to the Archduke Ferdinand and it was rumoured that her father on his deathbed in March commended this choice to her brother, his successor as Philip IV. In 1622 the Spaniards were asking for the Prince's conversion as an alternative to freedom of worship for Catholics in England, while the English were standing firm on the size of the dowry and the support of Spain in recovering the Palatinate for Frederick. John Digby, who was negotiating for terms in Madrid as Ambassador Extraordinary and whom James had created Earl of Bristol earlier in the year, prepared to throw in his hand, writing to the Spanish King that the marriage negotiations had not progressed a step further than the general terms in which they had been expressed seven years before. The reply was typically courteous but firm: the marriage depended upon liberty of conscience for Catholics, the Palatinate depended upon the Emperor.

James then instructed Bristol to get an answer from the King of Spain within ten days as to whether he would mediate for the restitution of the Palatinate or give James's forces free and friendly passage through his territories. James's messenger was Endymion Porter, who knew the contents of the despatch. The ten days passed and Bristol was still playing the diplomatic game with the Spaniards but Porter, impatiently, went to his old friend, Olivarez, asking bluntly for an answer. 'What!', exclaimed the Condé, 'my Master to assist

with Arms against His Uncle, against the Catholic League, against the Head of His House! He would never do it!' Porter reported the affair to Charles and, according to Buckingham, it finally determined him to put the matter to the test himself.

In February 1623, in spite of the gout and arthritis that wracked him, James was feeling happy. Christmas and New Year had been particularly bright and pleasant. He was at his favourite hunting lodge at Royston and Steenie and Baby Charles were with him. For the moment the vexed question of the Palatinate could be laid aside. Perhaps he would send Steenie to Spain to conclude the marriage treaty; perhaps, even, Steenie would stand proxy at the wedding in Madrid. And after that, who knows, perhaps Baby Charles himself would sail to Spain to bring home his bride, as he himself had gone to Denmark and his father before him had gone to France. Pleasantly his thoughts wandered on, oblivious for the time that the treaty was still heavy on his hands, that he had no firm guarantee that it would restore the Palatinate to his son-in-law, that meanwhile his daughter and his grandchildren were largely dependent upon the charity of the House of Orange. While he was in this state of euphoria his two boys entered in high spirits. Baby Charles, particularly, was very excited. They wanted his permission for an enterprise they had in mind. It was very secret but their plans were well laid. They wished to ride to Spain to conclude the marriage treaty, which surely could not be delayed if the Prince himself were there. They would be accompanied merely by Francis Cottington and Endymion Porter and possibly a groom. They would then bring the Infanta home, help would be forthcoming for the Palatinate and the gordian knot which had resisted untying for years would be cut at one deft, bold stroke. In the mood James was in the plan chimed sweetly with his thoughts. Only later did its imprudence strike him in all its crudity. For the Prince to go in person before the treaty was signed was not only improper but tantamount to capitulation; his son was offering himself as a hostage to Spain and the anti-Spanish groups in Court and country would rise in protest. At the same time Charles would be exposing himself to the dangers of the long journey across Europe where it was easy to lose the way, where bandits fell upon unwary travellers, where falls and broken limbs, to say nothing of hunger and sickness, would be the least of his tribulations. What kind of king and father was he to risk his only son, the heir to the throne, on such an enterprise?

When Charles and Buckingham came next morning to arrange details they found James in a desperate state after a night of self-recrimination. He fell into a great passion of tears and told them that he was undone and that it would break his heart if they went. Charles reminded his father of the promise made the previous day and, like a petulant child, declared that if he were forbidden to go to Spain he would never marry at all. Buckingham more roughly told the King that if he broke his word no one would ever believe him again. Changing his tack James then exclaimed to Buckingham that if any evil befell the Prince it would be laid at his door and his ruin would be unavoidable. Finally Cottington was sent for. 'Cottington', said James, 'here are Baby Charles and Steenie, who have a great mind to go by post into Spain to fetch home the Infanta. . . . What think you of the journey?' The question had to be repeated to the incredulous Secretary who finally answered in a trembling voice that it would render fruitless all that had been done, that as soon as the Spaniards had the Prince in their hands they would propose new articles, particularly concerning religion. James in anguish threw himself upon his bed. 'I told you this before,' he cried passionately, 'I am undone! I shall lose Baby Charles!' In the near pandemonium that followed, the Prince and the Duke stood firm and James at last gave his consent to the journey.

There is no doubt that a visit to Spain by the Prince had been quietly talked about earlier, but that it meant no more than a journey to fetch home his bride after a marriage treaty, and possibly a proxy wedding, had been concluded. The more romantic episode could have been born in the fertile brain of the Duke. But Charles himself was now ready enough for action and later maintained that 'the heroic thought started out of his own brain to visit the Court of Madrid'. As a contemporary wrote, he was 'very apt to try conclusions', he was active, an excellent horseman, 'never perfectly well but when he was in action' and the physical challenge of the ride across Europe appealed to him. Intellectually he felt able to enter into any treaty himself and he believed the whole affair would redound to his credit. Sir Henry Wotton, saying that James cast the greatest trust upon Buckingham when he made him the companion of his son's journey into Spain, implies that the initiative was neither the Duke's nor the Prince's but the King's. This is unlikely and not in character. But it matters little where the first whisper came from; the escapade as it was carried out and the incredible naïvety which accompanied it were typical of the romantic adolescent that Charles had become, and it was his spirit, as

much as anybody's, that carried it through to the end and beyond what should have been the end.

Cottington was created a baronet on February 16 and, taking Endymion Porter with him, he went to Dover to hire a vessel for France. On Monday February 17 Charles quietly took leave of his father, making public arrangements to meet him again at Newmarket, but instead joining Buckingham at his house at New Hall. Very early the following morning John and Thomas Smith, bearded youths, ordinarily apparelled and wearing large hats, rode off with Buckingham's master of horse, Sir Richard Graham, in the direction of Gravesend. At the Gravesend ferry they demanded to be put ashore at the outskirts of the town instead of the usual landing stage and handed the ferryman a gold piece without waiting for the change. Assuming they were setting off for France to settle a quarrel in a duel, and thinking it a shame that either of such generous young men should be killed, the ferryman gave information to the magistrates at Gravesend who sent off a postboy to stop them at Rochester. But Buckingham's mounts had reached the town long before and had been exchanged for post horses when, from the brow of the hill beyond Rochester, the little party saw one of the royal carriages approaching on the Dover Road. They took to the fields to escape detection — 'teaching post-horses to jump hedges' as Charles afterwards said — but they had been seen and were stopped at Canterbury as they were taking fresh mounts. Only by making himself known and saying he was going to inspect the fleet did Buckingham elude the vigilance of the mayor.

With such delays and with inferior hired mounts, unlike the horses they were accustomed to, it was not until six o'clock that evening that they reached Dover. The night was tempestuous, and it was six o'clock the following morning when the party set sail. Charles was seasick with the rest but they were in Boulogne at two in the afternoon, pushing on to reach Montreuil by evening. Two days later they were in Paris, not without adventures on the way. There was a nasty moment when two young Germans, who had seen them at Newmarket, commented upon their likeness to the Prince and Buckingham, and Dick Graham, with poker face, had to enlarge upon the extreme improbability of two such famous people travelling alone, so meanly.

In Paris they bought periwigs to aid their disguises, pulling them well down over their foreheads. Charles was in the highest spirits, enjoying his first visit abroad, and with Buckingham as guide spent the day sightseeing in the French capital. They were fortunate enough

to see the French King in the gallery of his palace, to join without apparent detection a knot of people who were watching the Queen Mother dine, and to see the rehearsal of a masque by the royal family. Charles gazed with delight upon the Queen of France, sister to the Infanta whom he was wooing. He paid scant attention to Henrietta-Maria, the somewhat sallow little princess, of no particular beauty, who was also performing. When the stories of these adventures reached London James related them with delight, but there were not wanting those who found the reception of the Prince and his party a little too warm for strangers. Chamberlain judged that they 'went not unknown at the Court of France' but that the French 'dissembled the knowledge'.

The following day, February 23, they were speeding across France at three o'clock in the morning. They took beds at simple inns or peasant houses and for the most part aroused little comment, except at Bordeaux, six days from Paris, where Cottington had great difficulty in keeping them from being entertained by the Duc d'Epernon, who suspected that the fare of country inns was not quite what they were used to. They amused themselves with buying local homespun coats fashioned, as they laughingly described them, 'in a kind of noble simplicity'; they spent hours chasing goats in the Pyrenean foothills, trying to catch one to supplement the Lenten fare which was all the local inns provided: it was Charles who finally shot one from his saddle straight through its head. A few miles further on they met an English messenger, Walsingham Gresley, carrying despatches from the Earl of Bristol to England. They were 'saucy enough', as they put it, in one of their letters to the King, to open the despatches but were unable to read the cypher; but they took Gresley back with them over the frontier so that he could take a message home actually written on Spanish soil. Gresley reported to James that Buckingham looked weary but that Charles had never been so merry and danced for joy to be actually in Spain.

In England, meanwhile, rumour gave way to incredulity followed by consternation when it was learned that the Prince and Buckingham had really gone. There were even cries that Buckingham was guilty of treason in thus taking the Prince out of the country. James himself was now inclined to put the best possible face on the escapade and derived pleasure from the thought of the dash and daring of his 'sweet Boys and dear ventrous Knights, worthy to be put in a new Romanso'. He sent after them their robes and Orders of the Garter to wear on St

George's Day 'for it will be a goodly sight for the Spaniards to see my two boys dine in them'; he sent horses for tilting, and jewels in profusion for themselves and for the Infanta. He even composed a long poem:

What sudden change hath darked of late
The glory of the Arcadian state?
The fleecy flocks refuse to feed,
The lambs to play, the ewes to breed;
     The altars smoke, the offerings burn,
     Till Jack and Tom do safe return.

The Spring neglects her course to keep,
The air with mighty storms doth weep;
The pretty birds disdain to sing,
The meads to swell, the woods to spring;
     The mountains drop, the fountains mourn,
     Till Jack and Tom do safe return.

Gresley had to give his story over and over again in the greatest detail, including the number of falls each member of the party had had — Cottington twelve, Buckingham seven, but the Prince none at all. As the first to bring news of their arrival in Spain he was rewarded with £1000 and a pension of £500 a year for life.

Four days after meeting Gresley the travellers were in Madrid. It was Friday March 7, sixteen days after they had ridden out from New Hall, an average rate of sixty miles a day. For the last two days Buckingham and Charles had ridden ahead and they went straight to Bristol's house, reaching it at about five o'clock in the evening. Thomas Smith knocked on the door while John Smith waited in the shadows opposite. The incredulous Ambassador rushed them up to his bedchamber to keep them hidden while he considered the situation. Spanish intelligence, meanwhile, was well informed and in a state of great excitement Gondomar hurried to the royal palace where the Condé d'Olivarez was at supper. 'What is it?' asked the minister, 'one would think that you had got the King of England in Madrid'. 'If I have not got the King', replied Gondomar, 'at least I have got the Prince!'. Late that night Bristol sat down to report to James the arrival of his 'sweete boys'. When the news reached London bonfires and the ringing of bells signalized the people's joy; but the celebrations were by command of the King and Chamberlain's remark, 'God send we may praise at parting', more accurately expressed the general feeling.

The following day Olivarez and Gondomar were admitted to the Prince's presence. Gondomar was said to have fallen on his face and

cried out 'Nunc Dimittis' while Olivarez 'kneeled and kissed his hands and hugged his thighs and delivered . . . high compliments'. Only one reason, it seemed to them, could have brought the Prince on such a journey in such a manner, and that was his intention to announce his conversion to the Roman Catholic religion. Charles's remark that he came thither not for religion but for a wife could have put an end to all the misunderstandings that followed, but in the exuberance of the moment no one seemed to pay much attention to it. The same day Buckingham was taken in a closed coach by a private way to the King. Already crowds were thronging to Bristol's house and rumours of the English Prince and his conversion were spreading. But there were difficulties in the way of seeing the Infanta. It was Lent, she was much engaged with her confessors and with prayer and meditation. But the Spanish royal family was accustomed to take the air in the Prado in the afternoons and it was arranged that on the Sunday the Prince should be in a waiting coach when the royal carriages passed by. The Infanta would be wearing a blue ribbon. Although the coaches passed and re-passed each other several times Charles could see little of the lady he had come so far to marry. She, probably, saw more; at any rate her attendants would have reported the royal presence, the grave brow, the expressive eyes, the curling chestnut hair and graceful movements of the young man as he repeatedly removed his hat and bowed his head in salute. It was said that the colour rose in her cheeks as she passed. That evening Charles met the Spanish King. As each of the young men disputed the honour of giving way to the other, Charles saw a boy of barely eighteen, but he was soon to learn that this boy had an appreciation of art and letters far beyond his own and that the Spanish Court was already showing the artistic brilliance that would characterize the reign.

On March 16 Charles and Buckingham made their official entry into Madrid and were conducted to the royal palace, where apartments had been prepared for them. The streets were thronged with excited citizens who sang the song of Lope de Vega:

Carlos Estuardo soy
Que, siendo amor mi guia,
Al cielo d'Espana voy
Por ver mi estrella Maria

The English party hunted the wolf, the wild boar and the stag, picnicking in the hills with the King and his courtiers. Charles made his kill; he distinguished himself in the tiltyard, he won general

admiration by his grace as he dined in public, dressed very simply at first but later in the subdued elegance which was his taste. He was able to compare Spanish masquing with English and to watch that typical Spanish entertainment, the bullfight. He met a Sevillian artist, a year older than himself, who was painting an equestrian portrait of the Spanish King, and was impressed when the finished picture was put on public display in the streets of Madrid. Charles himself sat for the young Velasquez and paid one hundred escudos for the sketch which was made, perhaps intending a finished portrait for the Infanta. Above all, he revelled in the collections of Philip in the Prado and elsewhere. He saw many of the great Titians for the first time and was particularly enthusiastic over Jupiter and Antiope , which the King promptly gave him. Charles also acquired The Girl with the Fur Cloak and Charles V with the White Dog . He frequently visited the collector Don Geronimo Fures y Muenoz, who possessed many Italian masterpieces, and who presented the Prince with paintings and a number of curiously shaped weapons for his collection. Charles bought all the paintings he could, hardly caring what he paid, including Corregio's St John the Baptist and an Erasmus by Holbein. He was unable to secure some Leonardo drawings he desired and bid unsuccessfully against the King of Spain for a little Holy Family of Corregio. When Philip realized what had happened he immediately offered Charles the picture.

In England, simultaneously, official goodwill towards Spain was demonstrated in the entertainment given to the Spanish Ambassador, Inojosa, who was amused with bull and bear baiting but himself provided the best sport by turning a white bear into the Thames where the dogs baited him. The King of Spain sent to the King of England four asses, five camels and one 'ellefant', which created a considerable stir when they arrived in London. Letters came frequently 'To the best of fathers and masters' or to 'Dear Dad and Gossip' in which the writers referred to themselves as 'your Baby', and 'your Dogge' and James replied with long letters to his 'sweet Boys'. Friends, courtiers, servants, news-writers, even Archie, James's fool, were meantime following the trail to Madrid by sea or land in such numbers that Charles had to send some of them home as being too great a burden upon the Spanish Court. There was too great a burden upon the English Exchequer, also, as ships were fitted out to take men and robes of state, horses, accoutrements, presents and ordinary apparel. Ten ships of the King's fleet which had been prepared to fetch the Infanta home were costing some £300 a day as they waited in harbour.

But in Spain things were not going well. Bristol was tactless in mentioning to Charles that the Spaniards expected him to turn Catholic. Charles was indignant: 'I wonder what you have ever found in me that you should conceive I would be so base and unworthy as for a wife to change my religion!' But he did not repeat his remark to the Spaniards and continued to prevaricate when they raised the question of his conversion. He did, however, accept a challenge to dispute with their theologians. He took Buckingham with him and sat down in his chair, the rest on benches before him. There was deep silence. Finally Charles was asked what he would like to hear discussed. He replied that he knew of nothing upon which they could speak that would influence him as he felt no scruple whatsoever. When one of the Fathers nevertheless proceeded to expound upon some words of Christ to Peter, Charles told him he was doing violence to the text and the meeting broke up in disorder.

The Infanta, for her part, found it impossible to contemplate marriage to a Protestant and announced once more that she would enter a nunnery rather than do so. She and Charles had still not met privately and it was not until Easter Day, April 7, that Charles was solemnly escorted by the King himself and a large retinue to the Queen's apartments, where the Infanta sat with her attendants. Even now Charles was expected to address her in the formal manner which Spanish etiquette required. When he flung to the winds his carefully prepared speech and spoke words of his own they came over, even in translation, so highly inappropriate to the Spanish Court that everyone rose and left the room. Undoubtedly the Infanta's attractions were enhanced by her inaccessibility and Charles found himself watching her, 'as a cat doth a mouse', said Olivarez, placing himself where she was likely to pass by but, of necessity, so far away that Buckingham's wife sent him some 'perspective glasses', adding sagely that she thought it a bad sign for the marriage that they let him get no nearer. One morning early Charles determined to break down the ban and made his way to the Casa da Campo, a royal pleasaunce by the river, where the Infanta was accustomed to gather maydew. He gained admittance to the garden but found that a high wall kept him from the orchard where Maria was gathering her flowers. Not to be deterred, he got a lift up from the man who was attending him and leaped from the top of the wall into the orchard almost at her feet. Her shriek as she fled was not what a lover would have wished, neither was his peremptory dismissal by her guardian, who begged him to leave

immediately, ushering him out in prosaci fashion through a door in the wall.

In the absence of the Prince's conversion a Papal dispensation was necessary to the marriage. While Charles waited in Madrid the Spaniards became more demanding in their terms and a junta of theologians was in almost daily session considering the minutiae of the situation. Humiliating as his position was, Charles had come to the point where he dare not let go. To return home without the Infanta appeared to him the worst of the possible alternatives. He wrote to his father on April 29 for a free hand to promise what he thought fit, Buckingham supporting the request. The letters from the two young men are extraordinary enough, but still more extraordinary was the easy acquiescence of James which gave Charles full freedom of action. Charles was aware that he could not sign away concessions which required Parliamentary sanction, but he thought he saw his way over this obstacle and wrote again to his father to the effect that he considered a promise merely a promise to do his best: 'if you do your best, although it take not effect, you have not broken your word, for this promise is only a security that you will do your best.' With this comforting self-deception, and a willingness to deceive either the Spaniards or Parliament or both, and thinking to conclude the affair by capitulation, Charles agreed to all the Spanish terms while James, with equal self-deception, showed his exuberance by conferring a Dukedom upon Buckingham on May 18.

The treaties which were accordingly drawn up for James and his Privy Council to sign with the Spanish Commissioners in England, and for Charles and the Spaniards to sign in Madrid, consisted of twenty-three public articles and four private, the private ones guaranteeing the repeal of the penal laws against Catholics within three years, 'a perpetual toleration' of Catholics in England, and free religious discussions between the Prince and his wife. There was nothing in the whole treaty about the Palatinate, the dowry, or even the date of the wedding. But by this time the Spaniards had again hedged and the junta had again come to their assistance: the King of Spain was responsible to the Pope for observance of the treaty and must therefore see it implemented before his sister left Spain. This would require a full twelve months after marriage. Charles was with Buckingham when Olivarez brought this shattering news and the Duke lost his temper in a thoroughly justifiable way. 'There is nothing but trickery and deceipt in the whole business!', he exlaimed. 'It had been better

you had never meddled with it but left it in Bristol's hands', replied the Condé coldly. The utmost he would concede was that, if Charles agreed to remain in Spain for another year, it might be possible for the marriage to take place immediately.

When Cottington arrived in England with this latest news, preparations were in full swing for the reception of the Infanta as Princess of Wales. Denmark House and St James's Palace were being prepared for her use by Inigo Jones and her chapel was being hurriedly built — a 'temple to the devil', as James described it in one of his less sanguine moments. James was horrified at the latest despatches. 'Your letter', he wrote to Charles, 'hath strucken me dead; I fear it shall very much shorten my days.' The appalling thought of not seeing his 'boys' for another year, of the need to stop the fleet from sailing, of making excuses all round, was finally swamped in the great urge to have them home at all costs. If the Spaniards will not alter their decision, he wrote, you must come speedily away and give over all treaty, otherwise

never look to see your old Dad again, whom I fear ye shall never see, if you see him not before Winter: Alas, I now repent me sore, that I ever suffered you to go away. I care for Match nor nothing, so I may once have you in my arms again: God grant it, God grant it, God grant it, amen, amen, amen.

When the marriage articles arrived shortly afterwards he was sufficiently recovered to go into consultation with Cottington and Conway and he decided to accept them, recommending that Charles be married at once and leave immediately, with the Infanta following in due course. This even meant foregoing the marriage portion, for this would only be despatched with her. He tried to put a brave face upon affairs, hunting as usual, but was apt to break down. 'Do you think', he exclaimed one day to an attendant, bursting into tears, 'that I shall ever see the Prince again?'

Charles believed that his father's consent to the marriage articles would induce the Spaniards to let him take the Infanta with him, but after the ever-courteous exchanges — except where Buckingham and Olivarez were concerned, for they were now barely on speaking terms — the Condé informed Charles that the utmost that could be conceded was a marriage in September and the departure of the Infanta for England in the following March. Charles then replied that he would have to regard the treaty as at an end. They would be grieved, they said, but no obstacle would be placed in the way of the Prince's

leaving. The following morning, July 7, Charles requested an audience of the King intending, it was assumed, to take his farewell. To the general astonishment he completely capitulated. He would accept the marriage articles as they stood and agree that the Infanta remain in Spain until March.

For a few days it seemed as though he had won what he desired, even though on the harshest terms. The Infanta was spoken of as the Princess of England, she took English lessons, Charles saw more of her, although they were never alone, and she was allowed to appear in public at the theatre with him. Charles was, however, somewhat affronted when the jewels he produced for his bride were merely shown to her by the King and then set aside. When James heard what Charles had done he was angry but resigned. 'Since it can be no better I must be contented; but this course is . . . a dishonour to me', he wrote. But with the prospect of seeing his two boys soon his mind took a practical turn. A fleet to bring his son home and another to fetch the Infanta meant double charges: 'if they will not send her till March; let them, in God's name, send her by their own fleet', he instructed Charles on July 21 with something of the old spirit. And, he added, with a good deal of common sense and a startling juxtaposition of possibilities, 'upon my blessing, lie not with her in Spain, except ye be sure to bring her with you, and forget not to make them to keep their former conditions anent the portion, otherwise both my Baby and I are bankrupts for ever.'

By July 25 the treaty had been signed in England, James and the Privy Council had sworn to observe its terms — even the Puritan Archbishop of Canterbury behaving, as James put it, remarkably well — and Charles and Philip had signed in Madrid. At this point the Pope fell ill. Although he had agreed to the marriage on the amended terms he had not yet conveyed the necessary dispensation and he died before he could do so. A new dispensation from another Pope and another period of waiting loomed ahead. In the heat of the Spanish summer tempers frayed, quarrels between Protestants and Catholics were becoming embarrassing to Charles as even his own close attendants became involved. In an atmosphere of increasing exasperation he decided to leave for home without waiting for the dispensation, depositing proxy for his marriage with the Earl of Bristol.

Charles had tried too hard, stayed too long. It appeared that even with the most extreme concessions that he could make, short of his own conversion, the Spaniards would find some reason for not allow-

ing the marriage to go forward. But the charade was carried on to the end. On August 29 Charles took his final leave of the Infanta in the presence of the Queen, presents were exchanged and the following day he started for the Escurial accompanied by the King of Spain and his brothers. They spent two days hunting and picnicking in apparent amity, Charles pleaded once more for his sister and Philip spoke of returning the Palatinate as a wedding gift. They said farewell near the Escurial. On September 2 Charles proceeded by coach to the coast with a magnificent escort while Buckingham, after high words with Olivarez, galloped on ahead through the heat. Charles showed his feelings in only one courteous exchange. Asked if he would like his carriage to be open or shut he replied that he would not dare to give his opinion without sending first to Madrid to consult the junta of theologians.

There was still one thing to do. Into one of the most recent exchanges between the Prince, Buckingham and Olivarez, Charles had read the certainty that, even if the marriage were to take place, the Infanta would immediately nullify it, as she would be allowed to do, by retreating into a nunnery. As he rode on, the certainty was borne in upon him that the proxy marriage was simply another chimera. By the time he reached Segovia his mind was made up and he sent Edward Clarke, a confidential servant of Buckingham's, back to Bristol cancelling the proxy which the Ambassador held. That the cancellation was not to be produced until the Prince was clear of the shores of Spain was perhaps a reasonable precaution, though there is no reason to believe that they would have stayed him. Less easy to explain is Charles's instruction that his messenger should not even present his letter to Bristol until after the new Pope's dispensation had arrived. In this way it would be the greatest possible humiliation to the Spaniards. But Charles possibly had also in mind that if the dispensation never materialized the cancellation need never be shown and the onus for the break would rest firmly with the Spaniards.

Early on the morning of September 12 the welcome sight of English horsemen, who had ridden through the night from Santander, brought the news that the fleet had arrived to escort them home. Charles lost no time and, with the bells of Santander ringing in his ears, was on board The Prince before nightfall. The sight of a magnificently appointed cabin for the Infanta hardly moved him as he sat himself down in an English ship and conversed at ease with the Earl of Rutland, Buckingham's father-in-law, who was in command, on the

familiar topics of home and family. They were held up for some days by had weather but on September 18, exactly six months after leaving New Hall, they sailed for home.^[5]

Much had happened to Charles. If he had ever been in love with Maria he had fallen out of it; but he was aware instead of a deep affection for Buckingham. For six months they had been thrown closely together and Charles now, like his father, was emotionally involved with Steenie. His third emotion was mixed, comprised of a desire to be revenged upon Spain and a desire to find a scapegoat for the whole sorry affair.

8—
The Prince's Parliament

Charles reached Portsmouth on October 5 and, despite rough weather, disembarked immediately. He spent a short night at the house of Viscount Annand at Guildford and long before dawn was on his way. News of his arrival had reached the City at midnight and his first sight of London, after six months' absence, was a dull red glow in a northern sky from hundreds of bonfires lit in joy at his return. As he crossed the Thames by Lambeth Stairs at daybreak the fires were paling but the bells of London were pealing out their greeting. He partook of hurried refreshment at Buckingham's house in the Strand, briefly receiving members of the Privy Council meanwhile, and, refusing the inopportune request of the Spanish Ambassador for an audience, took carriage with Buckingham for Royston where his father waited. But such a concourse of people had collected during his brief stop that his carriage could barely proceed up the Strand. It appeared to be 'carried on men's shoulders, and, as he passed, acclamations and blessings resounded from every side'. In the general rejoicing shops remained shut and work was at a standstill, wine was dispensed freely and tables set up in the streets for general feasting. A cartload of condemned criminals who crossed his path on their unhappy way to Tyburn were reprieved at Charles's own command. As evening fell the bonfires were rekindled, anything that would burn serving as fuel. 'The very vintners burnt their bushes in Fleet Street and other places, and their wine was burnt all over London and Westminster into all colours of the rainbow', while the cross in St Paul's churchyard was festooned with as many burning links as the Prince had years. The dull, wet weather made little difference. One hundred and eight bonfires were counted that night between St Paul's and London Bridge alone, and as light departed every window had its candle to illuminate the scene. But Charles and Buckingham had pressed on, pausing only to change coaches at Ware.

At Royston James came down from his room to welcome them. As they met on the stairs the Prince and the Duke fell on their knees before the old King and they all wept. Nothing more was seen by the courtiers as the three passed into the privacy of James's room. Apart from Charles's boast, 'I am ready to conquer Spain, if you will allow me to do it!', no details of that first meeting were allowed to penetrate the outer world. Low voices, occasional more emphatic tones and frequent bursts of laughter were all that could be heard. When at last they emerged James was saying that he liked not to marry his son with a portion of his daughter's tears — a remark which, in varying form, would be heard frequently in the following weeks. Once more the emphasis had changed. Little had been heard of the Palatinate during the marriage negotiations. Now that these had failed the three men made a virtue of necessity, attributing the breakdown to Spain's attitude to the German war.

The staging of the reunion at Royston was sound, for the place was distant from London, the roads wretched and the accommodation limited. The weather also helped to keep people away, and for a couple of weeks the three men were able to preserve their privacy, Secretary Conway probably being the only person in their full confidence. Meanwhile nothing could stem the continued rejoicing at the Prince's arrival without the Infanta. At Cambridge every college had a speech and an extra dish for supper, while at St Paul's a solemn service gave thanks for his safe return.^[1]

Charles himself had little inclination to celebrate. Letters from Bristol informed him that the Infanta had no intention of going into a convent and could not be forced because after marriage she would be 'her own woman'; she seemed, indeed, the Ambassador reported, more loving towards the Prince than she had been while he was in Spain, she continued her English lessons, was called the Princess of England still, and was weary of the junta and all its restrictions. The Pope's dispensation was expected daily. A misunderstanding had already put Bristol in possession of Charles's cancellation of his proxy but in the circumstances Bristol decided to ignore it until he had heard further from England. Charles now panicked at the thought of being married by proxy to the Princess who, a few weeks earlier, he had so ardently desired. James once more brought in the restoration of the Palatinate as a condition of the marriage while Charles rushed off a series of urgent notes to Bristol: 'Make what shifts or fair excses you will, but I command you, as you answer it upon your peril, not to

deliver my proxy'; 'Whatever answer ye get, ye must not deliver the proxy till ye make my father and me judge of it.' But the Pope's approval of the marriage was delivered to King Philip in Madrid on November 19 while the courtiers bringing these despatches were still pounding their way across Europe. Bristol had only his own reading of the situation to guide him. In accordance with the proxy agreement the date of the wedding was fixed for November 29 and he and Aston ordered clothes for themselves and thirty rich liveries for their attendants. The Spanish erected a tapestry-covered terrace between the royal palace and the church, and invitations were sent out both for the wedding and for the christening of a baby Spanish princess, which was to take place on the same day. Then with preparations at their height, there arrived on the 25th, four days before the ceremonies, the four emissaries from England countermanding the proxy. If Charles's object had been the humiliation of Spain, he could not have succeeded better. The decorations were taken down, the Infanta's English lessons ceased, she was once more the Infanta of Spain and ceased to be the Princess of England.^[2]

When he instructed Bristol to withhold his proxy Charles may not have envisaged a situation which worked out with quite so much public humiliation to the Infanta and her family. He did write to her, but his letters were returned unopened. He was then convinced that the Spanish Court had been deceiving him from the beginning and that she was as guilty as anyone else. This was particularly humiliating to a Prince who had wooed as ardently, and as publicly, as Charles. It was, moreover, virtually his first love affair and in the bitterness of his own rejection he had little thought for the feelings of the lady. It was left for the English Ambassador Extraordinary to make the only human comment. The lapse of the proxy, wrote Bristol, would not only put 'great scorn' upon the Spanish King but would be a 'great dishonour' for the Infanta. And, he added, 'whosoever else may have deserved it, she certainly hath not deserved disrespect nor discomfort'. Though her attitude and her feelings remain as remote as those of her family and friends, she was, perhaps, the greatest sufferer in the whole unhappy episode. But her marriage in 1631 to her cousin Ferdinand, the Emperor's son, was more than ordinarily happy. In due course she became Queen of Bohemia and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, in strange contrast to Charles's sister, the exiled Queen of Bohemia, whose cause had been the origin of Charles's wooing. Maria died in 1646 in childbed of her fourth child with

knowledge of the deep strife that wracked the country which might have been her own: whether events would have moved differently if she had been Queen of England neither she nor Charles could conjecture.

The close conference of the three men at Royston and the posting of couriers to and from Spain had occasioned the utmost speculation, and by the middle of October loyalty and curiosity could no longer be restrained, even by the state of the roads and the execrable weather, and everyone was flocking out to Royston to pay their respects. James and his son moved another thirty miles to Hinchinbrook and enjoyed some hunting. They moved next to Newmarket. Then, at the end of the month, with James suffering from undefined pains which made movement difficult, Charles posted to London with Buckingham and at a brief meeting of the Privy Council gave a short account of the Spanish business. As always, physically tireless, rising early and travelling hard in bitter weather, he merely gave himself time to relax in his own palace of St James's on November 1 to see the King's Company perform The Mayd of the Mill by Beaumont and Fletcher, and then posted back to Newmarket.

He was in London again on the 5th where, as part of the anniversary observance of the Gunpowder Plot, he saw the Cockpit Company at Whitehall perform The Gipseys by Middleton and Rowley. On the 9th he received the Spanish Ambassadors, doing so 'with . . . no more capping nor courtesie then must needs, a lesson belike he learned in Spaine', as Chamberlain noted. In this, and in the way he disposed ostentatiously to his servants of presents he had received from the Spaniards, he set the general tone. Archie, the jester, fooled around in a suit given him by the Condé d'Olivarez, the tongues of courtiers who had been in Spain were loosed, and stories of ill-usage, scant food, discourtesies, bigotry, as well as of the general poverty of the country outside the capital, were soon circulating. There was even talk of the Spaniard's design on Charles — it was a marvel he got away so easily — he had only his sister to thank for that, her succession being infinitely more to be feared by the Spaniards than his own. To emphasize the difference between the two countries, as well as to celebrate their return, Buckingham gave a feast of 'superabundant plenty' on November 18 of which the centre piece consisted of twelve pheasants piled on one dish, forty dozen partridges, and forty dozen quail. James and Charles partook and the three of them attended a

masque by John Maynard, the main theme of which was congratulation to the Prince on his return.

In the general obsession with Spanish affairs the burning of Alderman Cockayne's house in Cheapside on November 15 created but a passing diversion, even though he lost £10,000 in goods and merchandise. He was a hard man, who had retained his own wealth in spite of the ruin of thousands of poor cloth workers through his unhappy project of dyeing cloth, and there was little interest and no pity to spare for him. More serious were the smallpox and a contagious, spotted fever which were raging as the year drew to a close, claiming their victims by death and by the dreaded pock marks. In spite of so many unpropitious circumstances, attempts were made by the Court to enjoy Christmas and to rehearse the Twelfth Night masque as usual. Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion by Ben Jonson had to be postponed and finally abandoned on the excuse of the King's indisposition, but rumour had it that the French and Spanish Ambassadors would not attend together, and it was difficult to give precedence to either. Charles, continuing to evince his pleasure in the drama, attended all the Christmas plays, which included The Bondman by Massinger and Middleton's The Changeling .

James was still struggling to maintain his policy of friendship with Spain. Charles, on the other hand, could see no alternative but war to recover the Palatinate and bring Spain to her knees. Buckingham agreed with him. He was not only stung by the failure of what he expected to be his greatest triumph, he was humiliated by the knowledge that his charm had not succeeded against the gravitas of the Spanish nobility. His measure of pique and irritation overflowed when he learned that his name had not been inscribed upon the commemorative pillar erected at the Escurial. But one thing was certain. If there was to be war there must be money. And to obtain supplies it was necessary to call a Parliament.

James accepted the situation reluctantly and on December 28, sorely against his will, signed the warrant for the issue of writs for the new Parliament. The dilemma he was in possibly accounts for the fact that there is almost no evidence of James's direct intervention in the elections. Charles and Buckingham, on the other hand, exerted themselves to the utmost to obtain the return of pro-war and anti-Spanish members who would support them. It was Charles's first experience of attempting to 'manage' a Parliament and he made no bones about using his patronage and pressing his candidates wherever he could.

On his Cornish estates, for example, letters went out in his name recommending candidates for at least thirteen boroughs, though only five were returned, including Sir Richard Weston for Bossiney and Thomas Carey, son of Robert, for Helston. At Chichester in Sussex Sir Thomas Edmondes's success was probably due to the Prince's support; Sir Henry Vane, Charles's cofferer, was returned for Carlisle — without patronage though he was a known friend of the Prince. Francis Finch, Charles's nominee, was returned for Eye in Suffolk and Ralph Clare, of the Prince's Privy Chamber, for Bewdley — but he was also lord of the manor and was supported by local loyalty. On the Prince's Yorkshire estates another second generation Carey, Sir Henry, was returned on Charles's nomination for Beverley. But there were also distinct refusals. In Boroughbridge Sir Edmund Verney, supported by the Prince, was turned down in favour of Ferdinando Fairfax. In Plymouth and Coventry the Prince's nominees were passed over in favour of the City recorders, John Glanville and Sir Edward Coke, while Cottington was turned down three times, possibly because of his Catholic affiliations, before being returned for Camelford. Obviously, apart from direct intervention, there were friendships, connections, and general goodwill which secured the return of candidates favourable to Charles.

Buckingham had less territorial patronage to exercise, but his network of family connections and office dependencies was vast and he was able to ensure the return of members who would support his policy. So the Parliament of 1624, although by no means 'packed', was an assembly in which there was considerable support for Charles and Buckingham. But although it was likely to be anti-Spanish, it was not so certain that it would also be pro-war. Members came to Parliament with many interests to serve. On the whole they were hard-headed and kept their purse-strings tight. Charles begged his father to act with decision, to think of his sister and her children. Elizabeth herself was full of hope; 'my brother', she wrote to Sir Thomas Roe, 'doth show so much love to me in all things, as I cannot tell you how much I am glad of it.' She had particular hope from the Parliament for it began on their dear dead brother's birthday.

On that day, February 19, after two postponements because of plague, James opened what was to be his last Parliament with considerable pomp. He told the members how sadly he had been deceived by Spain, how he wanted peace but was forced to admit that the omens were otherwise. He asked their advice: 'I assure you ye may freely

advise me, seeing of my princely fidelity you are invited thereto.' This was an innovation, indeed, the King delivering to them, unsolicited, the right to discuss both foreign policy and, by implication, his son's marriage. He dealt briefly with the Spanish visit, explaining that Charles had gone to find out in the quickest way what the Spaniards intended. This was a good resolution, James asserted, clinching the matter with an aphorism: 'I had general hopes before, but Particulars will resolve matters, Generals will not'. The details of the Spanish journey, he told them, would be communicated by Buckingham supported by Charles. The Speaker, Sir Thomas Crew, indicated at once the anti-Papist feeling of the House by desiring the strict execution of the recusancy laws. On the question of the Palatinate he was cool: 'God, in His due Time, will restore the distraught Princess.'

On February 24, in the great hall of Whitehall Palace, where it was usual for kings to preside, Buckingham in robes of state held the centre of the stage while he gave his account to the Lords of the Spanish adventure, supported and supplemented by Charles. Three days later Weston, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, repeated the tale to the Commons. The detailed story made bitter hearing. The Duke was now at the height of his power and, next to the Prince, the most popular man in England. When the Spanish Ambassador complained that he had slandered the Spanish king Parliament promptly retaliated by declaring that Buckingham deserved commendation as good patriot and loyal minister. Even his former enemies now joined the anti-Spanish and pro-war group which he led. No wonder it was said 'that never before did meet in one man . . . so much love of the King, Prince and People. He sways more than ever for whereas he was before a favourite to the King, he is now a favourite to the Parliament, people, and city, for breaking the match with Spain'.^[3]

Observers noted at the same time Charles's assumption of power, 'entering into command of affairs by reason of the King's absence and sickness, and all men address themselves unto him'. The 'brave Prince' never missed a day at the Parliament, he was frequently in the Council Chamber, he organized affairs tirelessly and with care, riding backwards and forwards between Royston or Newmarket and London, rebuking any who opposed him, keeping the reins firmly in his hands. He had grown a beard while in Spain, he was 'somewhat stouter' and the Spanish experience had matured him. One observer was so impressed by his bearing that he thought 'he had concealed himself before'. To some he seemed a little too popular. 'The Prince

his carriage at this Parliament', wrote the Earl of Kellie to the Earl of Mar in May, 'has been lytill too populare, and I dout his father was lytill of that mynd.' As a result there was 'not the harmonye betwyxt the Kings Majestie and the Prince' as could be wished.

A surprising development, considering his speech defect, was the frequency with which he spoke in Parliament; his slight stammer persisted, but it never deterred him, and he knew how to use his youth and his rank to the best advantage. On March 12, for example, he reported to the House of Lords on the findings of a committee which had met the previous day. In supplying money for war, he reported, 'it was fit to use Expedition, and so to provide, that we might not only shew our Teeth and do no more; but also be able to bite, when there should be Cause'. 'And', he added,

Gentlemen, I pray you think seriously of this Business: take it to Heart, and consider in it, First, my Father's Honour, Secondly mine, and more particularly mine, because it is my new entering into the world: If in this ye shall fail me, ye shall not only dishonour and discourage me, but bring Dishonour upon yourselves. But, if ye go with Courage, and shew Alacrity and Readiness in this Business, ye shall so oblige me unto you now, that I will never forget it hereafter; and, when Time doth serve, ye shall find your Loves and your Labours well bestowed.

The peroration was, perhaps, hardly adroit. But Charles had judged his audience well, and the immature words from the young Prince were strangely disarming. 'This Conclusion did so take us', wrote one who was present, 'That we all prayed God to bless him, as we had just Cause to honour him.' He was now, indeed, 'the glorious prince' of Conway's letter to Carleton, and the session began to be called 'the Prince's Parliament'.^[4]

It was the considered policy of Charles and Buckingham to keep James away from Westminster, for they feared the influence of his basically pacific policy upon the basically parsimonious members. Conversely they wanted to keep away from James anyone who would encourage his lingering desire for peace with Spain. The two men whose influence they had most cause to fear were Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, James's Lord Treasurer, and John Digby, Earl of Bristol, James's Ambassador Extraordinary in Madrid. Bristol they endeavoured to keep out of the country for as long as possible, Middlesex they turned upon immediately. Middlesex, James's most successful Treasurer, who 'had built up a surplus out of a deficit',

wanted the Spanish dowry as much as James himself did. He was shocked at the expenditure incurred by the Spanish journey and in Council he spoke against all warlike proposals from the point of view of one who has to find the money. On Charles's return from Madrid he was the only Privy Councillor to maintain that the Prince ought to continue with the Spanish marriage, whereupon Charles lost his temper and 'bade him judge of his merchandise, for he was no arbiter in points of honour'. But Middlesex could not be dismissed in this way. His success as Treasurer and his position close to James made him dangerous. Yet he was also vulnerable. In removing financial malpractices, in sweeping away graft and unnecessary expenditure, in his attitude to monopolies, Middlesex, like Bacon before him, had made enemies. Like Bacon, he had swum a little too near the edge in his own financial practices, and his own fortune was considerable. It was not difficult for his enemies to build up a case against him. It came to a head on 18 April 1624 in charges of bribery, extortion, oppression and 'other grievous misdemeanours', which were laid before the House of Lords by Sir Edward Coke and Sir Edwin Sandys, who used for the purpose the old practice of impeachment which had been used for Bacon's trial three years earlier.

James did what he could to save Middlesex but was hampered by the knowledge that Charles was deeply involved. It hardly needed Williams, his Lord Keeper, to write to him, 'your Son, the Prince, is the main Champion that encounters the Treasurer; whom, if you save, you foil your Son. For, though Matters are carried by the whole Vote of Parliament, and are driven on by the Duke, yet they that walk in Westminster Hall, call this the Prince's Undertaking.' In the absence of Buckingham through illness it was, indeed, Charles himself who led the attack upon Middlesex, disregarding his father's advice 'that he should not take part with a Faction in either House . . .' and should 'take heed, how he bandied to pluck down a Peer of the Realm by the Arm of the Lower House, for the Lords were the Hedge between himself and the People; and a Breach made in that Hedge, might in time perhaps lay himself open.'

James made a good speech in the defence of Middlesex. 'I were deceived, if he were not a good officer', he said. 'He was Instrument, under Buckingham, for the Reformation of the Household, the Navy, and the Exchequer.' 'All Treasurers', he asserted in one of his telling generalizations, 'if they do good service to their Master, must be generally hated.' He emphasized the point that, apart from Bacon's

impeachment, there was no precedent for informers being in the Lower House while the Judges were in the Upper House.

If the Accusations come in by the Parties wronged, then you have a fair Entrance for Justice; if by Men that search and hunt after other Men's Lives and Actions, beware of it; it is dangerous; it may be your own Case another Time. . . . Let no Man's particular ends bring forth a Precedent that may be prejudicial to you all, and your Heirs after you.

The question was not publicly asked — but was James thinking of any particular man's 'particular ends', and could that man have been Buckingham? In private he turned upon the Duke with the fury of a Hebrew prophet: 'By God, Steenie!', he exclaimed, 'you are a fool, and will shortly repent this folly!' while to Charles he burst out in anger that he would live to have his bellyfull of impeachments. 'When I am dead', he continued with even more prophetic insight, 'you will have too much cause to remember how much you have contributed to the weakening of the Crown by the two expedients you are now so fond of — war, and impeachment!'.

The sentence against Middlesex, delivered on May 13, was severe. He was to lose all his offices, to be incapable of holding any state office in future, to be fined £50,000, prohibited from taking his seat in Parliament or even coming within the verge of the Court, and to be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure. His prison sentence was remitted, his fine reduced, but he had been rendered powerless.^[5]

On March 8 an Address of Both Houses had recommended that the treaty with Spain should be broken, and on March 20 the Commons voted three subsidies and three fifteenths (about £300,000) to be in the Exchequer within one year of the breaking of the treaty. The pill was sweetened and James had to swallow it. On March 22 he agreed to annul the Spanish treaty although it was not until April 6 that he permitted the departure of the courier carrying the information to Spain. Even then a separate letter to the English Ambassador at Madrid directed him to inform the Spanish King that, although James had listened to the advice of his Parliament, he was not bound to take it. But if James was slipping from his part of the bargain, Parliament put a bite in theirs by electing a Council of War, the first of its kind, to administer the taxes raised under Parliamentary supervision.

For the time being there was general agreement that the subsidy should be used for the repair of fortifications, for fitting out the fleet,

reinforcing troops in Ireland (England's 'back door'), and helping the Dutch Republic. Clashes with the Dutch in the East Indies, even the so-called massacre of Amboyna on February 11, seemed so little relevant to the European situation that in June England agreed to pay 2000 troops for two years to help the Dutch maintain their independence against Spain. Mansfeld came to London in April in an interval of the fighting. Charles made much of him; and the London populace, who fully approved his lodging in state in the apartments which had been prepared for the Infanta, gave him an enthusiastic welcome. On the 16th he went to Theobalds to see James who promised him 13,000 men and £20,000 a month if the French would do likewise. Charles was jubilant. Now, he declared, he had something worth writing to his sister about and she would hear tidings better and better every day!

Yet when Bristol arrived home on April 24 there was bound to be some anxiety. James had called him home on December 30, ostensibly as a reprimand, but it was possible that he hoped for the support of his pro-Spanish Ambassador against his Parliament. It took Bristol some time to assemble his own household goods, the possessions which Charles had left behind, and the jewels which the Spanish royal family had returned. He also had difficulty in raising funds for the journey, having lent profusely to Charles to pay for the Prince's farewell presents. In the end he pawned his plate, but it was not until March 17 that he left Madrid, the Spaniards expressing the utmost sorrow at his departure. He hardly realized the strength of the forces against him until he reached the French coast and found no vessel waiting to bear him home. Such delay was in keeping with the endeavours of Charles and Buckingham to keep him out of the country until Parliament had risen, for they feared nothing more than a fresh appraisal of the situation under Bristol's guidance. When he landed in England on April 24 he was put under house arrest and refused access to the King. Although Buckingham was ill, Charles pressed the case against the Ambassador with vindictiveness: 'I fear if you are not with us to helpe charge him', he wrote to the Duke, 'he may escape with too slight a charge.' Bristol was still under restraint when the Parliamentary session ended on May 29. The only reply to his reiterated demand for a hearing had been the appointment of a commission who presented him with a series of interrogatories which, in substance, were the charges made against him by Charles and Buckingham: that he had expected, even encouraged, the Prince to change his religion on his first coming to Spain; that he advised the Prince to stay longer in Spain

1
Charles shortly after coming to England, aged about four, by Robert Peake. The 
haunted look of the sick child is in pathetic contrast to the richly embroidered robes.

2
Charles, Duke of York, aged probably eight or nine, showing the bright little face of 
a happy and well-balanced child in good health. Artist unknown.

3
Charles at the age of ten or eleven proudly wearing the ribbon of the Garter. The fair 
hair and skin are apparent in all these early portraits. From the miniature by Isaac Oliver.

4, 5
Charles and his brother, shortly before Henry's death 
in 1612.  No. 4 is now generally identified as Henry 
(Strong, English Icon ; Toynbee,  Bodleian Library 
Record , vol. 9, pt. 1, p. 22). The appearance of the sitter 
still inclines me to the view of the 1952  Bodleian Picture 
Book  No. 6, since amended, that it is Charles.

than he should have done; that he had never insisted upon the restitution of the Palatinate to Frederick; that, overall, he was dilatory in getting a conclusion to the marriage treaty; and that, in the end, he did not obey the Prince's instructions concerning the proxy. In short, everything that had been misconceived, everything that had gone wrong, all the mistakes made by Charles himself, were laid on Bristol's shoulders.

The Earl's reply to the charges, which he reiterated in many letters to the King and to his friends, was always the same: on the matter of religion he had done no more than ask the Prince to make his position clear, he had been at one with James in hoping to receive from the match a worthy lady for Charles, a portion three times as large as had ever before been given, and the restitution of the Palatinate — for which, Bristol asserted, 'a daughter of Spain and two million had been no ill pawne'. He maintained that three months more would have decided the matter one way or another, yet he had been forced to see 'the whole state of affairs turned upside down' through no fault of his own. As for the proxy, he had acted as he thought proper, and in accordance with the Prince's honour, until he received a direct cancellation from England, when he withdrew it immediately.

The replies were straightforward, the Commission declared itself satisfied, the King was willing to see Bristol. Yet the Earl had hardly been tactful: he had questioned Charles's honour over the business of the proxy, he had implied that Charles had not been forthright in maintaining his religion, that Charles's decision to leave was taken at the wrong time and, overall, that it would have been better if the whole affair had been left in his hands. Yet such was Bristol's loyalty that he could hardly be touched. 'Whilst I thought the King desired the match I was for it against all the world', he wrote to Cottington. 'If his Majestye and the Prince will have a warr', he continued, 'I will spende my life and fortunes in it.' Buckingham and Charles suggested that if Bristol would retire to his country house all proceedings against him would be dropped. Bristol, with calm, exasperating integrity, continued to assert that if he had done anything wrong let his case be investigated, for he required only justification or death. House confinement continued, mainly on his manor of Sherborne, but he was not allowed at Court and he never saw James again.^[6]

Parliament meantime coupled the Subsidy Act with a promise from James that no immunity for English Catholics would be included in any treaty for his son's marriage, and it called for an oath

from Charles, which he swore in Parliament on 5 April 1624, that 'whensoever it should please God to bestow upon him any lady that were Popish, she should have no further liberty but for her own family, and no advantage to recusants at home'. In calling for these assurances the Houses were not unmindful of rumours that another marriage treaty with another Catholic Princess was already under consideration. Perhaps they did not realize how far the considerations had already gone.

9—
A Daughter of France

Even before they left Spain, and while the question of the proxy was still outstanding, Charles and Buckingham had turned their thoughts to general strategy and, in particular, to the question of an alternative marriage alliance. The obvious Court for a new wooing was that of France where, although two Princesses had gone, to Spain and to Savoy respectively, there still remained little Henrietta-Maria, now entering her fifteenth year. France was generally held to be less obdurate on religious matters than Spain, and she still had powerful political reasons for lining up against the Hapsburg. Charles and Buckingham had talked in Madrid to an enigmatic friar named Grey, who had let fall the no doubt inspired belief that a French match was still open to Charles, and he had been despatched from Santander, with great secrecy, before Charles sailed for home, to sound the French Court further. The response, though guarded, was sufficiently encouraging for Henry Rich, Viscount Kensington, to be sent to Paris at the end of February 1624 to pursue the matter.

On the social side Kensington's embassy soon made headway. Handsome, polished, easy spoken, familiar with the language, fond of the French and a former lover of the Duchesse de Chevreuse, he had soon met not only the Queen Mother but Henrietta-Maria herself. She was 'the sweetest creature in France', he assured Charles, she danced well and sang most sweetly; and, commenting upon her known small stature, 'her growth is very little short of her age', he said, 'and her wisdom is infinitely beyond it. I heard her discourse with her mother, and the ladies about her, with extraordinary discretion and quickness.' Kensington also indicated a warmth in Madame, as she was known, which had been all too lacking in the Infanta, telling how anxious she had been to see a miniature of the Prince which he had been showing to some of the courtiers. She contrived to borrow it, blushing as she

opened it, and kept it for an hour, finally returning it with many praises. It was not difficult for Kensington to talk himself into a private interview with the Princess in which he dwelt upon Charles's virtues and his ardent desire for marriage. Henrietta-Maria knew well enough that this was a second wooing but, according to Kensington, she 'drank down his words with joy' and, with a low curtsey, added 'that she was extremely obliged to his Highness, and would think herself happy in the occasion that should be presented of meriting the place shee held in his good esteem'. From other remarks attributed to her it is likely, indeed, that she wanted to be a queen, that to be Queen of England appealed to her, and that, moreover, she had been genuinely attracted to the Prince she had seen at the French Court but who had no eyes for her at the time. 'The Prince', she is reputed to have said, 'need not have travelled so far to find a wife.' On hearing a rumour that Mlle de Montpensier was to be offered to the Prince in her stead she fell into such a passion that her mother had difficulty in calming her.

This distant and successful love-making was sweet to Charles after the frustrations of the Spanish wooing. Henrietta-Maria was the sixth and youngest child and third daughter of the Italian Marie de Medici and the Bourbon Henri IV of France. She was still in her cradle when her father was assassinated by the Catholic fanatic, François Ravaillac, as a protest against the King's toleration of the Huguenots. Her eldest brother became King as Louis XIII at the age of eight in May 1610, her mother acting as Regent until 1614, when Louis came into his majority. The younger children were brought up at St Germain-en-Laye, about two hours' coach ride from Paris, under the care of Madame de Montglat — the Mamangat of their early letters — to whom they were devoted. Henrietta herself formed an even stronger attachment to her governess's daughter, Madame de Saint-Georges, who was her constant companion. There was not much formal education at St Germain-en-Laye, but Henrietta inherited the quick wit of her father, a French aptness for the right phrase, and an obstinacy that was all her own. At fifteen she had barely learned to translate this obstinacy into determination.

While on the personal side the French marriage negotiations seemed to be going well, there were signs that the French were going to be hard bargainers, second only to the Spaniards, and in May the Earl of Carlisle (the former Viscount Doncaster) was sent to Paris to lend weight to the diplomatic manoeuvring. The French, like the

Spaniards, refused to include a military alliance in the marriage treaty but they expected, nevertheless, toleration for English Catholics. The steps by which agreement was reached were all too familiar, the English being beaten, stage by stage, into promising more than they could perform. The French would accept no verbal guarantee of toleration but demanded a written statement, signed and sealed. In view of the undertaking made to Parliament by James and by Charles this was impossible. James refused the French request, Carlisle was angry, Buckingham was for acquiescence, Charles, at first indignant, lost his indignation and wanted his father to agree. After two days of torment, egged on by the Duke and the Prince, James agreed on September 7, but on condition that his acceptance took the form of a letter. Kensington was rewarded with a peerage and became the Earl of Holland on September 15. Charles was delighted. 'The business', he wrote to Carlisle, 'is all brought to so good an issue that . . . I hope that the treaties will be shortly brought to a happy conclusion.' The Privy Council was informed and had little alternative but to accept the King's agreement and its corollary — the suspension of the laws against recusants. But Parliament was due to reassemble on November 2, and to face the House before the marriage was actually accomplished was to invite disaster. So it was prorogued until February on the pretext of plague. Yet the French were not satisfied, they refused to accept a letter, and repeated their demand for an official document signed and sealed by James; at the same time refusing to put into writing the minimal engagements of financial and military aid which they themselves were prepared to undertake.

But Charles was now as bent upon the French match, and as willing to accept any conditions to effect it, as he had been upon the Spanish match. A rumour that the Spaniards were despatching Gondomar again to England alarmed him. He spoke plainly to his father. He would never match with Spain. If not with France, who would his father find for him? James was startled, horrified and angry. But there was logic in Charles's reasoning; what other alliance was there? So James agreed to do what Charles wanted — which entailed breaking his own and his son's engagement to Parliament concerning Catholics.

The English Ambassadors in Paris signed the treaty on 10 November 1624. On December 12 it was ratified at Cambridge by James and Charles in the presence of Buckingham and Conway, the only members of the Privy Council allowed to attend. James's hands were so crippled with arthritis that he could barely sign. The public

engagements provided freedom of worship for Henrietta; gave into her care the education of any children of the marriage until their thirteenth year; guaranteed a chapel, which should be open to English Catholics, at all places where she resided; allowed twenty-eight religious attendants for her worship who would be permitted to wear their habits in public, and a domestic establishment of French Catholics chosen by the King of France. The secret engagement, signed by James and Charles, promised that all English Catholics imprisoned for their religion should be freed, that no English Catholic should be persecuted because of his religion, and that any Catholic deprived of property since the previous July should have it restored. In return for this, the French gave the bride a dowry of £120,000, a vague verbal assurance of military assistance, an unwritten promise to pay Mansfeld and his troops for six months, to allow him to land at a French port and to proceed through part of France if he thought fit.

Before welcoming the bride it was necessary for the English to carry out their part of the agreement, which they did as quietly as possible. On December 24 the recusancy laws were suspended. On the 26th an order was issued to the Lord Keeper for the release of all Catholics imprisoned for offences connected with their religion. James salved his conscience by a verbal twist — his promise to Parliament spoke of a treaty, his undertaking to the French was in an accompanying document. Charles later explained his agreement to the secret terms on the grounds that, with the French King's knowledge, he had signed in order to satisfy the Pope and obtain his dispensation for the marriage; it was never intended, he claimed, that the agreement should be binding.

He now felt he could write to Henrietta himself, but he had great difficulty in composing his letters, altering the rough drafts several times.

I have not dared to take the liberty of testifying to you, by a single line, the great impatience with which my spirit has been tormented, during my long waiting for the happy accomplishment of this treaty, until I received good tidings of it; begging you to be assured that, besides the renown of your virtues and perfections, which is everywhere spread abroad, my happiness has been completed by the honour which I have already had of seeing your person, although unknown to you; which sight has completely satisfied me that the exterior of your person in no degree belies the lustre of your virtues. But I cannot, by writing, express the passion of my soul to have the honour of being esteemed

Yours etc.

He sent the letter, with his portrait, by Sir Thomas Carey, and there followed jewels of great price, which included a necklace of one hundred and twenty large pearls, a diamond of 'incomparable size and worth', and two diamond earrings in the shape of pearls.^[1]

Much had been accomplished in the fifteen months since the return from Spain, but the difficult weather and the emotional strains were taking their toll. Charles stood up to both better than his father and Buckingham. James was repeatedly ailing, Buckingham was seriously ill in May and when he reappeared in June looked so pale and haggard that people spoke of attempts by the Spaniards to poison him. This was not so far-fetched as might appear, for the Spanish envoys were doing their best to discredit the Duke. Diplomatic relations had not been severed with Spain and there remained in England the Marquis of Inojosa, who had been sent as Ambassador Extraordinary in the spring of 1623 to deal with the marriage negotiations, and Don Carlos Coloma, who had succeeded Gondomar as Ambassador. This Rosencrantz and Guildenstern combination, with the aid of a handful of Spanish agents, supplied a continuing chorus and much of the offstage action to the first half of 1624. As characters they were Jonsonian rather than Shakespearean and their antics could hardly have been surpassed in the mind of Jonson himself. Four paid informants (whose names were never revealed in spite of Buckingham's offer of £10,000) kept them appraised of events in Parliament at £100 a time. Complaining that James was isolated by the deliberate policy of Buckingham, they were reduced to slipping notes to the King when Charles and the Duke were off their guard; they made contact with James through Don Francisco de Carondelet, Archdeacon of Cambrai and chaplain to Coloma; they obtained back-door access to him through various servants. Another member of the network was on his way from Spain with fresh instructions when he was set upon in Flanders and robbed of his papers by assailants disguised with false beards, whose identity was never discovered but who were suspected to be in the pay of Buckingham.

The object of all this activity was to keep England from war and, as an immediate goal, to separate Buckingham from James. Their attack upon Buckingham's narration to Parliament as a libel upon the Spanish King was too flimsy to gain credence but they then built up a more elaborate plot in which Charles figured as well as the favourite. James, it was alleged by the Spaniards in one of their clandestine interviews

with the King, was to be kept in the comfortable seclusion of one of his country houses while the Prince, with the support of the Duke, ruled in his place. Already James was, they declared, a prisoner and besieged, his very servants creatures of Buckingham, and people were saying it would be a great happiness if the Prince reigned instead. On another occasion they brought up a story which had, in fact, been circulating for some time, that Buckingham planned to marry his little daughter to Elizabeth's son, so joining his family to the royal line and perhaps even securing the succession.

James remained calm, merely muttering that Buckingham had he knew not how many devils in him since his return from Spain, and that Charles was strangely carried away with rash and youthful notions; yet, if what he heard of Buckingham were true, he would have his head cut off! He was sufficiently upset to greet the two young men with tears in his eyes as he proceeded by way of St James's to Windsor for the Garter ceremonies of April 1624 and Buckingham did not accompany the King and the Prince. Shortly afterwards, however, the Duke made his peace, categorically denying any desire or plan to marry his daughter to Elizabeth's son. Elizabeth made her own denial. The Spanish envoys could not substantiate any of their charges and Inojosa left the country on June 26 in a merchant ship, a mark of grave disrespect to an ambassador.^[2]

After a backward spring the summer of 1624 had set in hot and dry and plague and spotted fever persisted. Charles found time to remember his old friend, Dallington, who was knighted and given the headmastership of Charterhouse in July; as with Murray at Eton Charles had to fight the bishops in insisting upon the appointment for his nominee. In the autumn a mellow and temperate season brought relief as well as an abundant harvest of grain and fruit. Charles took pleasure in hunting, but suffered a severe fall from which it took him some while to recover. They all tried to enjoy Christmas with some of the old gaiety: after all, the French treaty had been signed, Parliament was not sitting, 10,000 volunteers had joined the Dutch in the summer and the drums in the City were beating up more, while sufficient men had been impressed to provide Mansfeld with an army of sorts. It was these pressed men and their pay and maintenance that were the most pressing problems. The men who already were fighting in Europe were volunteers. They knew what they were fighting for and their condition, though often bad, was rarely absolutely desperate. The men now pressed for Mansfeld's army were different. At the end of

the year they were still at Dover, there were insufficient vessels to carry them to France, insufficient food to feed them while they waited, insufficient authority to discipline them. Many who had homes to go to were running away, those to whom pillage was second nature were sacking shops and ravishing farms; hunger, cold, dirt and disease were reducing the most ordinary of men, swept up from their villages and their occupations by the press gang, to bands of marauders seeking food and shelter. Mansfeld had exhausted the October and November payments and, while the Privy Council spoke of martial law, he was demanding payment for December. Charles, with the incisive action of which he was sometimes capable, perceived the need and borrowed on his own personal security from Philip Burlamachi.

Though this merely relieved, and did not solve the problem, Charles made a great effort to entertain his cousin Christian who had briefly interrupted his fighting for Elizabeth to visit England. There was a show of dancing and the Twelfth Night masque, Jonson's The Fortunate Isles , was played on January 9. But James kept to his chamber, suffering from gout and depression. Not only had his control of foreign policy, so jealousy guarded throughout his reign, been wrenched from him but Charles was so bent on war that even his relationship with his son had changed. The dominant relationship which at one time had been the King and the Duke and had then become the King, the Duke and the Prince, was now the Prince and the Duke. Infirmity combined with inadequacy to produce depression. 'I am an old king', James had said to his Parliament — and there had been the suggestion not only that he was old in wisdom but that he was old in years.

It is difficult to say how far Charles and Buckingham were thinking in terms of the succession. Charles was no longer in awe of his father, and in proportion as he found he could guide Parliament his dependence upon James lessened. But his determination to purge himself of the Spanish humiliation was something of an obsession and he could still fear the pro-Spanish peace policy of the King. It had been difficult to keep James from listening to the Earl of Bristol and there would be cause for alarm if the threatened conjunction with Gondomar was allowed to take place. How far Charles wanted to be free, to act without recourse to the old man who now so often waited at Theobalds or Newmarket or Royston for the messages of his son, is mere conjecture.

As for Buckingham, he was now so firmly attached to Charles that

he had no fear of the succession: he might, indeed, even welcome an end to the maudlin protestations of affection which James, though somewhat perfunctorily, continued to bestow upon him. Moreover, there were straws to indicate that his popularity in that quarter might be waning, and it is possible that, once the joy of reunion was over, Buckingham sensed that his relationship with the King was not the same as before. The Earl of Clarendon, writing long after the event, said that the delicate Spanish marriage negotiations were 'solely broken' by the journey to Spain and that James 'never forgave the Duke of Buckingham'. The Venetian Ambassador, although thinking at first that the Duke was high in favour with James on his return from Spain, reversed his opinion later. 'I am assured', he wrote, 'that the King is tired of Buckingham.'^[3]

In the New Year of 1625 James roused himself, took an interest in affairs, and hunted from some of his favourite lodges. But on March 5, while at Theobalds, he was taken with a tertian ague. At first it did not seem serious, but an intermittent fever became so severe that he was driven to thrust his hands in cold water and to drink quantities of small beer to cool himself. By the 12th these fits were subsiding and he prepared to move to Hampton Court. A curious situation then developed. Buckingham was at Theobalds, and so was his mother, a lady of whom James had never been fond. Together they decided to by-pass James's physicians and apply some remedies of their own which allegedly had helped the Duke when he was ill. Accordingly some medicine and a plaster were obtained from Dr John Remington, who lived at Dunmow in Essex. James was given the medicine by the Duke, the plaster was applied by Buckingham's mother in the absence of James's doctors. When the next bout of fever ensued it was very bad and the physicians, realizing what had happened, protested strongly. But they were ordered from the room and the same treatment was repeated with the same adverse results. Dr Crappe, who protested particularly violently, was ordered not only out of the room but away from the Court by Buckingham.

Later, realizing that he was now very ill, James begged the Earl of Pembroke not to leave him and sent for his old friend, Launcelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester. But Andrewes himself was too sick to rise from his bed and John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, set out for Theobalds from London. William Harvey, one of the physicians in attendance, informed him that death was near, and with Charles's permission Williams prepared the King for his end. On March 24

James made profession of his faith in the presence of Charles, Williams, Buckingham, and his chief ministers, receiving communion according to the rites of the Church of England. He had a long talk, quite alone, with Charles, everyone else being ordered two or three rooms away so that there was no possibility of being overheard. The secrets of the deathbed confidences were never disclosed. For three more days he lingered. In the early hours of the 27th he called for Charles who came hurrying to him in night attire. But when Charles arrived his father was beyond speech and died shortly afterwards. He was in his fifty-seventh year.

After he had spent two or three hours in retirement Charles was proclaimed at Theobalds gate by the Knight Marshall as King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. He then took coach for St James's and that evening was similarly proclaimed in London at Whitehall Gate, at Cheapside, and in other parts of the capital. Buckingham rode with him, in the same coach, and lay that night in the same chamber. Also in the same coach was the new King's Puritan chaplain, John Preston, who had hurried to Theobalds on news of James's relapse. Spiritual consolation would have been looked for from a chaplin and in the anti-Spanish turn of events Preston was not unwelcome: the significance of the episode was hardly as great as the Puritans cared to think. A suite was prepared for Buckingham next to the new King's in St James's, where Charles elected to stay until after the funeral, and the Duke was sworn of the King's bedchamber. Elizabeth wrote of the loss 'of so loving a father'; she could hardly say more, for his practical help had been little. But she said her sorrow would have been much greater had not God left her 'so dear and loving a brother . . . in whom, next God', she now placed all her confidence.

Rumours of poison were common enough in the seventeenth century. But many strange and unexplained circumstances surround the death of James. Why should Buckingham bring his mother to the King's deathbed? Why, when James appeared to be well enough to travel to Hampton Court, did he introduce another form of treatment? Why were the King's own doctors ordered from the room? Suspicions were strong enough for Dr John Eglisham to retrieve a piece of the plaster which had been used and to take it to Dr Remington who had allegedly supplied it. Remington, in surprise, declared it was not his plaster. Eglisham was compelled to flee the country but the following year published his evidence in a pamphlet printed in Frankfurt. Meanwhile, the doctors who embalmed the King found his

organs reasonably sound and no signs of poison, while Dr Harvey consistently dissociated himself from the charge. It is possible that James, like his son Henry and his mother Mary, was suffering from porphyria; he had been subject increasingly to vomiting, pain, and intermittent fever and these, as with Henry, caused people to think of poison. Besides, Buckingham's actions were performed too publicly for those of a would-be assassin — unless he was relying upon his position and the very openness of his actions to shield him. Motive, indeed, there may have been for on the very day that James was taken ill there came news that Gondomar was on his way and that he came neither unwelcome nor unsent for. The French match was still not beyond a breach and it was being whispered that there was no bulwark strong enough against Gondomar, but that he would 'mar all'. There was even talk of the Spanish match again, and that Gondomar's coming would again quicken that business. Buckingham had no need to be reminded of the effect of Gondomar on the convalescent and still weak King. More sinister was the faintest of murmurs, to be heard more loudly the following year, that Charles himself had not been unaware of the events in James's sick room. Charles's movements at the time, were indeed, unspecified. With his father about to move to Hampton Court it is likely that he was not at Theobalds when Buckingham was applying his quack remedies.

James's body was brought from Theobalds to London on April 4 in a hearse lined with black velvet and accompanied by guards and heralds, Charles heading the nobility who accompanied it in coaches. It was nine in the evening when, in foul weather, the hearse came to Holborn and made its way through Chancery Lane and the Strand to Denmark House where the coffin lay for nearly five weeks, flanked by six magnificent silver candlesticks which Charles had brought from Spain. The funeral on May 7 was one of the most magnificent ever staged. Inigo Jones designed the hearse, and mourning was distributed to over 9,000 people. It was in keeping with James's life that Chamberlain should describe the funeral as at the same time 'somewhat disorderly'. Charles was chief mourner and established a precedent by walking on foot from Denmark House to the interment in Westminster Abbey. Bishop Williams preached the sermon which took two hours. It was later published as Great Britain's Solomon and finished, predictably, with a double compliment: 'Though his father be dead, yet is he, as though hee were not dead, for he hath left one behind him most like himselfe, whom God prosper and preserve.'^[4]

When Charles on March 27 made his first journey as King into London it was raining. The weather, wrote James Howell,

was suitable to the Condition wherein he finds the Kingdom, which is cloudy; for he is left engaged in a war with a potent Prince, the People by long Desuetude unapt for Arms, the Fleet-Royal in quarter Repair, himself without a Queen, his Sister without a Country, the Crown pitifully laden with Debts, and the Purse of the State lightly balusted.^[5]

The summary was apt.

Charles himself was well aware that he had succeeded at no easy time. Yet the situation was largely of his own making. Foreign policy, since his return from Spain, had been his rather than his father's; his father's last Parliament had been called The Prince's Parliament; his father's ministers of state had consulted him; his father's favourite was his favourite. Charles had long ago accepted his position as heir to the throne, and James's ill-health, his own driving obsession with Spain and the Palatinate, and the presence of Buckingham all contrived to lessen the break of death and succession so that the transition to kingship was not as emotional as it might otherwise have been. At twenty-four Charles was confident, optimistic, physically strong and not overwhelmed with grief. He was glad that power was now in his hands, glad that he had the support of Buckingham, determined to attend meticulously to the day-to-day requirements of kingship; it is doubtful whether, at this stage, he looked beyond his immediate purpose to the wider responsibilities of a ruler. He accepted a divine right of kings, as his father had done, he had the same belief in his prerogative (did he remember his father's warning that prerogative 'ryves in the stretching'?). He had sufficient confidence in himself to believe that he could rule a kingdom of some 5,000,000 persons, including those as diverse as the Scots and the Irish. But there was no problem to him so large, so pressing, so all-consuming as that of war. Yet war was not altogether in his nature. He had been driven to it as the only way to help his sister and wipe out the memory of the inglorious Spanish adventure. He now derived some pleasure in putting to practical use the tactics he had worked upon with his model armies and the precepts he had imbibed from Guicciardini; he was fascinated by Buckingham's grandiose schemes for power and influence on the Continent of Europe; and the stronger the opposition the more determined he was to carry the enterprise through.

First, he must secure his wife and Queen. The proxy marriage, which Buckingham was to have attended, was postponed when James's illness became serious, but it was celebrated on May Day outside the West door of Notre Dame in Paris with the Duc de Chevreuse, a distant cousin of Charles's, acting as proxy. The little Princess wore a crown of diamonds and was gorgeously attired in cloth of silver and gold with a train so heavy that, it was said, the three bearers could scarcely lift it and a man had to walk beneath carrying the weight on his head and shoulders. As soon as the ceremony was over the waiting courier galloped off for England to take the news that Charles was married while Elizabeth, in exile, contrived to give a feast to honour the occasion. A little later Buckingham went to Paris to conduct the Queen to her husband. He also intended to negotiate military help from France. With these two important assignments on his hands Buckingham yet allowed himself to play a most extraordinary additional role, no less than that of lover to the Queen of France, whom he had seen on his way through Paris in 1623. Now he approached her more boldly, and when the royal party escorting Henrietta to the coast had reached Amiens he found an opportunity of being alone with her one evening in a riverside garden. So far, perhaps, Anne had not been averse to the attentions of the gallant Englishman, which were in marked contrast to her boorish husband's neglect. But whatever Buckingham attempted in the garden could not be permitted, and her cries brought her attendants rushing to her side.

The Queen stayed with Henrietta's mother at Amiens while the wedding party proceeded to the coast. Buckingham's farewells to her were more loving than courtesy required and he soon found an excuse to post back, leaving Henrietta in the care of her younger brother, while he carried on a series of open flirtations which were widely commented upon. The whole affair did nothing to cement the alliance between France and England. If that alliance was not to be close it would be the more unfortunate for the little Queen who had been diverted from Calais because of the plague and who reached the French coast at Boulogne on June 8. The farewells with her mother had been tearful. She had already promised the Pope and her brother, the King, that she would bring up her children as Catholics, and she had been charged with the heavy responsibility of acting as champion of the faith in an alien country. Now she carried a letter from her mother to the same effect. At Boulogne she spent some time gazing out at the sea which she had never seen before and met many of the

English courtiers who had braved the English Channel to greet her, among them Buckingham's redoubtable mother, who was one of the first to be presented. Toby Mathew, who had been knighted for his services to Charles in Madrid, acted as interpreter. In the account of the meeting he wrote for Buckingham's wife he remarked that Henrietta-Maria was taller than he had thought. He was clearly enchanted with her combination of youth and maturity: 'believe me', he wrote, 'she sits already upon the very skirts of womanhood . . . upon my faith, she is a most sweet lovely Creature . . . full of wit, and hath a lovely manner in expressing it.' But he perceived more: 'I dare give my word for her, that she is not afraid of her own shadow.'

In England all was excitement for her arrival. Charles himself set out from London on May 31 going by way of Gravesend and Rochester to Canterbury, where many of the Court were gathering. Impatiently he went on to Dover, climbing the Castle keep to look towards France. But the French cortège was still on the other side, making its slow way to the coast. The most he could do was to dine with Phineas Pett on the Prince Royal , the ship detailed to bring his bride over. Pett was at Boulogne in ample time to greet the new Queen but storms delayed their departure, and it was not until Sunday June 12 that they set sail, making Dover in a little over eight hours. Charles, who had returned to Canterbury, was told the moment the Prince Royal was sighted, and, as Henrietta-Maria disembarked, Robert Tyrwhitt, making the journey from Dover to Canterbury in thirty-six minutes, brought Charles the news. She came ashore by means of an 'artificial moveable Bridge' and was then carried in a litter to the town, where she was welcomed by the mayor, before proceeding by coach to Dover Castle. Her French attendants found the Castle dismal and the furniture old. Perhaps Charles should have been there. But he had promised Henrietta's mother to give her daughter a night's rest to recover from her journey before visiting her.

He gave her little more. The next morning, as she was breakfasting, news was brought that the King had arrived. Throwing composure to the winds she dashed downstairs preparing to kneel and kiss the hand of the young man who stood there. But Charles caught her up in his arms and embraced her with many kisses. Overcome, she began the speech in French she had been taught—'Sire, je suis venue en ce pais de vostre Majestie pour estre usée et commandée de vous . . .' but burst into tears. Then she thought that Charles was looking down to her feet and, conscious of her small stature, hastened, like a little girl,

to show him her shoes, saying in French, 'Sir, I stand upon mine own feet. I have no helps by art. Thus high I am, and am neither higher nor lower'. She reached, indeed, to his shoulder, which was fitting, for he was not tall. She was a bony little creature, quick in her movements; in contrast to the King, black-haired and dark-skinned. If her nose was a little large, her teeth a little prominent, her big black eyes obscured these shortcomings as they responded to every changing mood. She was fifteen, he was twenty-four. The couple retired in private for an hour, after which Henrietta presented her attendants to her husband and they all went in to dinner. Her Confessor, who was keeping as close to her as he could, kept reminding her that it was the eve of St John Baptist, a fast day. But Henrietta was young and hungry after the abstention of a rough sea passage and an interrupted breakfast. Moreover, her husband was carving pheasant and venison for her, and she ate heartily of both.

They went on then to Canterbury, but as they made to enter the royal carriage Madame de Saint-Georges, who was reluctant to leave her charge's side, was politely told by Charles that her rank did not permit her to ride by the Queen. In spite of Henrietta's appeal Charles was firm and Buckingham's wife, his mother, and the Countess of Arundel took their places in the royal coach. The villagers along the route turned out to greet them with cheering and the ringing of church bells. On Barham Down the King and Queen alighted to walk along the ranks of simple country people drawn up to wish them well. The French attendants, an onlooker reported, looked disdainfully on this English custom. But Henrietta performed her role admirably. After supper at Canterbury she was taken to her room by the Duchesse de Chevreuse. Charles followed and, when he was undressed, dismissed his two attendants and with his own hands pushed fast the seven bolts to the doors of the chamber. The following morning he lay abed until seven o'clock, which was late for him, and was found to be very merry and cheerful.

They journeyed to London by the route Charles had followed on his outward journey, going by river from Gravesend. The weather was bad, the plague deaths had mounted in London to a hundred in the week of the Queen's arrival, but everyone put on a brave show. The King and Queen were in green and kept the big window of their barge open, in spite of the rain, waving and smiling to the onlookers on shore and in the craft of all kinds and sizes which jostled for a view of the royal couple. Guns roared from the Tower of London as they

passed and from the ships of the fleet which accompanied them. A pleasure boat capsized but everyone was saved and the incident added to the merriment. And so they came to Denmark House, the much-loved home of Charles's mother, where his father had lain in state before his funeral and which Inigo Jones had restored for his wife. It was 16 June 1625 when Henrietta-Maria alighted there. At a ceremony in Whitehall Palace the following day her marriage was confirmed and declared to be lawfully and fully consummated and she was formally declared Queen.^[6]