1623 March 10. Olivares writes to TACTICS OF OLIVARES. 15 on his master by sending his son, that he trusted there would be no further delay in granting the dispensation, for there was nothing in his kingdom which Rome. he could now deny him. Some months afterwards, Buckingham asserted that he found the Spaniard's language 'heavy and ineffectual,' and that he had all but quarrelled with him about it. In a letter written by himself and the Prince to James that very day, nothing of the kind is to be found. "We find," they say, "the Count Olivares so overvaluing our journey, that he is so full of real courtesy, that we can do no less than beseech your Majesty to write the kindest letter of thanks and acknowledgment you can unto him." That very morning, Olivares had said, with truly Spanish exaggeration, that if the Prince could not have the Infanta as his wife, he should have her as his mistress. "We must hold you thus much longer to tell you," the writers went on to say, "the Question of acknowledg. Pope's Nuncio works as maliciously and as actively ing the Pope. as he can against us, but receives such rude answers that we hope he will be soon weary on it. We make this collection of it, that the Pope will be very loth to grant a dispensation; which, if he will not do, then we would gladly have your directions how far we may engage you in the acknowledgment of the Pope's special power. For we almost find it, if you will be contented to acknowledge the Pope chief head under Christ, that the match will be made without him." 1 March 25. reply. The old King was sadly puzzled by this last paragraph when it arrived in England. "I have written," he replied, “a letter to Conde de Olivares, as both of you desired me, as James's full of thanks and kindness as can be devised, and indeed he well deserves. But in the end of your letter ye put in a cooling card, anent the Nuncio's averseness to this business, and that thereby ye collect that the Pope will likewise be averse; but first ye must remember that in Spain they never put doubt of the granting of the dispensation; that themselves did set down the spiritual conditions, which I fully agreed unto, and by them were they sent to Rome, and the 'Buckingham's relation, Lords' Journals, iii. 222. The Prince and Buckingham to the King, March 10, Hardwicke S. P. i. 401. Consulta there concluded that the Pope might, nay ought, for the weal of Christendom, to grant a dispensation upon these conditions. These things may justly be laid before them, but I know not what ye mean by my acknowledging the Pope's spiritual supremacy. I am sure ye would not have me renounce my religion for all the world, but all that I can guess at your meaning is that it may be ye have an allusion to a passage in my book against Bellarmin, where I offer, if the Pope would quit his godhead and usurping over kings, to acknowledge him for the Chief Bishop, to which all appeals of churchmen ought to lie en dernier ressort, the very words I send you here enclosed, and that is the farthest that my conscience will permit me to go upon this point, for I am not a monsieur who can shift his religion as easily as he can shift his shirt when he cometh from tennis." 2 March 10. convert the It is not probable that either Charles or Buckingham was seriously thinking of acknowledging the authority of the Pope. A game of duplicity was being played on both Attempts to sides. By constantly referring to the reluctance of Prince. the Pope to grant the dispensation, Olivares, no doubt, hoped to terrify Charles into the hoped-for conversion, whilst, at the same time, if he found his religious convictions to be unassailable, he was preparing him for the announcement that the Pope had refused to grant the dispensation. Charles, on the other hand, instead of meeting the difficulty in the face, was inclined to temporise, thinking it good policy to allow hopes to be entertained which he never intended to realise. Not long after his arrival, he threw away a splendid opportunity of clearing his position. Olivares was talking to him about his grandmother. The Queen of Scots, he said, had suffered for 1i.e. the junta at Madrid. 2 As for myself, if that were yet the question, I would with all my heart give my consent that the Bishop of Rome should have the first seat. I being a Western King, would go with the Patriarch of the West. And for his temporal principality over the Signores of Rome, I do not quarrel at either. Let him, in God's name, be primus Episcopus inter omnes Episcopos, et princeps Episcoporum, sɔ it be no otherwise but as St. Peter was princeps Apostolorum." The Kirg to the Prince and Buckingham, March 25, Hardwicke S. P. i. 411. 1623 BRISTOL'S MISTAKE. 4 17 the true faith, and her blood which had been shed would not cease to cry to heaven till her children who came after her were brought back to a knowledge of the faith. Instead of taking the chance, thus thrown in his way, of stating plainly what his religious position was, Charles affected in his reply to treat the whole matter as a mere historical question, and offered to show the Spaniard a portrait of his grandmother, and to enlighten him on some points relating to her execution.' Bristol's conversation with the Prince. The Spanish ministers were much perplexed. At last they came to the conclusion that Charles was afraid of Bristol. Gondomar accordingly undertook to remove the obstacle, and adjured the ambassador not to hinder the pious work of the Prince's conversion, to which, as he said, Buckingham was ready to give his aid. Bristol, knowing what the common rumour was, and having no doubt noticed the Prince's deportment, accepted Gondomar's account without difficulty, little dreaming that his mistake would one day be imputed to him as a crime. Going straight to the Prince, he asked him with what object he had come to Spain. "You know as well as I," answered Charles, briefly. "Sir," said Bristol, who was too much a man of the world to be surprised at anything, "servants can never serve their masters industriously unless they know their meanings fully. Give me leave, therefore, to tell you what they say in the town is the cause of your coming: 'That you mean to change your religion, and to declare it here.' I do not speak this that I will persuade you to do it, or that I will promise you to follow your example, though you will do it. But, as your faithful servant, if you will trust me with so great a secret, I will endeavour to carry it the discreetest way I can." By this time Charles began to show signs of vexation, hardly knowing, perhaps, how much he was himself to blame for the suspicions to which he had given rise. "I wonder," he broke in, indignantly, "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." Bristol replied that he hoped he would Francisco de Jesus, 57. Compare Roça's narrative in the Appendix, VOL. Y. pardon what he had said, and then proceeded to give him some good advice. Unless he let it be known plainly that he had no intention of allowing himself to be converted, there would be no real effort made to obtain the dispensation. Nothing would be settled as long as that question remained open.1 The Prince lodged in the Palace. It can hardly be doubted that both Gondomar and Olivares were well pleased when the day came on which the Prince was March 16, to be removed from Bristol's house. On March 16 he was conducted in state to the apartments prepared for him in the Royal Palace. The King himself came to accompany him, forcing him to take the right hand as they rode. A week before, Gondomar had been created a Councillor of State, and had been ordered to accept his dignity at the Prince's hands. All prisoners, who were not confined on account of the most heinous crimes, were set at liberty. English galley-slaves, who had been captured when serving in pirate vessels, saw hope beam on them once more, and were freed for ever from their life of wretchedness. sumptuary laws which had been recently imposed in the vain hope of restoring by such expedients the exhausted finances, were relaxed, and the Court was ordered to deck itself in all its ancient splendour. As the Prince passed through the streets, the populace applauded him to the echo, and the song of Lope de Vega, which told how Charles had come, under the guidance of Love, to the Spanish sky, to see his star Maria, was sung by high and low.3 The Yet, even amidst the gorgeous festivities which followed, the old question was ever returning. "For our main and chief business," wrote the two young men to the King, March 17. The conver- "we find them, by outward shows, as desirous of it sion still looked for. as ourselves, yet are they hankering upon a conversion; for they say that there can be no firm friendship with 1 Seventh Article against Bristol. Answer to the Seventh Article. Charles I. to Bristol, Jan. 20, 1626, State Trials, ii. 1285, 1406, 1277. ''A True Relation,' &c. Nichols' Progresses, iii. 818. 3 "Carlos Estuardo soy Que, siendo amor mi guia, 1623 CHARLES SEES THE INFANTA. 19 out union in religion, but put no question in bestowing their sister; and we put the other quite out of question, because neither our conscience nor the time serves for it, and because we will not implicitly rely upon them." This was certainly but a faint resistance, and it is hardly to be wondered at that Charles added, in his own hand, "I beseech your Majesty advise as little with your Council in these businesses as you • Charles's opinion of the Infanta. In truth, Charles was more than ever anxious to avoid giving offence to the Spaniards. He had found an opportunity of seeing the Infanta more closely than when she had passed him in her brother's coach. "Without flattery," wrote Buckingham, "I think there is not a sweeter creature in the world. Baby Charles himself is so touched at the heart, that he confesses all he ever yet saw is nothing to her, and swears that, if he want her, there shall be blows." 2 Of love, in the higher sense of the word, there can have been no question between two persons who had never exchanged a syllable with one another in their lives; but it is impossible to doubt that Charles's fancy and imagination were deeply impressed, even if something is to be set down to his reluctance to return to England baffled and alone. At last, however, the time came when it was necessary to think of more serious business. Buckingham was now, for the first time in his life, to try his powers as a diplomaBuckingham as a diploma- tist. He began by requesting Olivares to join him in putting the marriage treaty into its final shape, the Prince having come to Spain upon the understanding that the King had already given his sincere assent to the match.3 tist. It is not to be supposed that Olivares would leave anything unattempted to obtain better terms from Buckingham than those which he had wrung from Bristol. Before him rose the dreaded phantom of a war with England, a war which 'The Prince and Buckingham to the King, March 17, Hardwicke S. P. i. 408. Buckingham to the King, March 17 (?), ibid. i. 410. |