dentally thrown into a fortuitous accordance with the deeper feelings of the nation. In all this there was no abiding security. Once before in English history had a giddy youth won a fleeting popularity by stepping forward to declare himself the leader of the multitudes whose sufferings had never touched his heart; and those who could look most deeply into the character of Charles might well dread lest the tragical story of the second Richard should be repeated in the face of an earnest and longsuffering nation.

If we pause for a moment to allow our thoughts to dwell once more on the years which had passed by as Charles was growing up to manhood, it is impossible to resist Character of the past the feeling of discouragement. Not a hope had been bistory, formed which had not been baffled; not a man had stepped forward to guide the English nation who had not been thrown back into obscurity. Bacon was banished for ever from public life; Bristol's career had been cut short, and he was looking forward to the future with more anxiety than he was willing to express; Pym was solacing himself in the seclusion of a country life, and was waiting for better times. The wish to send forth an English army to the help of the Continental Protestants, and the wish to put an end by mediation to the miserable war by which Germany was devastated, had alike been uttered in vain. Seven years had gone by since the negotiation for the Spanish match had been formally opened, and it seemed as if, since that day, nothing had been done.

and pros

Yet it was not really so. The worth of an individual or of a nation lies not so much in what they achieve, as in what they are. Ignorance enough there had been, and sloth h; pects for the but the will to do right was there. Bacon and future. Bristol, Pym and Phelips, and even (whenever his better nature was in the ascendant) James himself, were filled with a desire to make their country and the world better and happier than they were. There was no petty desire of national aggrandisement in the English demand for war; there was no mere shrinking from laborious toil in the English demand for peace. It was thus that the seeds sown in these wintry days would bear precious fruit; that the silenced speakers of the

1623

FUTURE PROSPECTS.

171

Parliament which had been dissolved by the irritable King would gather to their side comrades as noble as themselves to bear in common the burden of the new struggle, into which they were to enter with clearer perceptions and with higher aims; and that the frustrated advocates of peace, when they had passed away from earth, would leave behind them men who would take up their work when the time came for it to be accomplished.

172

CHAPTER XLVII.

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SPANISH TREATIES.

THE young man's dream which had lighted Charles and Buckingham on their way to Madrid, had been pleasant enough while it lasted. All difficulties, personal and political, were 1623. Charles and to vanish away before the magic of their presence. Buckingham in Spain. The King of Spain would, for the sake of his future son-in-law, compel the Emperor to surrender the Palatinate, and the strife which had desolated Germany for five years would be composed as easily as a lovers' quarrel. The King's sister, brought up in the most bigoted attachment to the faith of her childhood, would give her heart as well as her hand to the heretic prince whose person she loathed, and whose religion she detested. Of the two, Buckingham, not being himself in love, had been the first to discover the mistake. Quick to take offence at the slightest discourtesy offered to him, he was not long in perceiving that the Spaniards meant to make the most of their opportunity, and to deliver over the Infanta, if they delivered her over at all, only upon conditions which would be insupportable to the English people. Whilst Charles had been hanging about Philip's court, and promising anything short of his own apostasy, Buckingham had been quarrelling with the Spanish ministers, and urging the Prince to return to England as soon as possible.

When at last Charles had convinced himself that his concessions had been made in vain, and that, whatever he might do, he would not be allowed to carry the Infanta with him to England, his faith in Buckingham was more strongly confirmed

1623

Their war.

WARLIKE PROJECTS.

173

than ever Buckingham's life was so completely bound up with his life, and Buckingham's objects were for the most part so fully served by promoting his young master's wishes, like designs. that differences of opinion were seldom likely to arise between them. Now that a difference had arisen, Charles had proved to be in the wrong, whilst Buckingham had proved to be in the right, and that too on a point on which Charles might well think that his friend had been more jealous for his honour than he had been himself.

Both Charles and Buckingham had come back with the full persuasion that they had been duped by the Spaniards, and with a full determination to take their revenge. To the heated imagination of the youthful politicians, the re-conquest of the Palatinate seemed very easy. In fact, the enterprise was one of exceeding difficulty. Not only was the position of Spain and the Imperialists exceedingly strong, but there were elements of disunion at work amongst the opponents of the House of Austria which would go far to make the task of organising a successful resistance impossible.

regain the

The first task, however, which offered itself to Buckingham was harder in appearance than in reality. It might seem easier to drag Theseus from his seat of pain than James determined to to move James to a declaration of war. A lover Palatinate. of peace by temperament and by force of reason, he knew too well what faults had been committed on both sides to be eager to join in the doubtful fray. Great, too, as was the influence exercised over him by his favourite and his son, it is hardly likely that this alone would have sufficed to overcome his reluctance to embark on so arduous an undertaking. In 1620, in spite of his unwillingness to displease those with whom he was in continual intercourse, Charles and Buckingham, backed by the almost unanimous voice of his Council and his Court, had in vain urged him to take part in the strife. At the close of 1623 he was no longer in a position to offer resistance. His plan for settling the affairs of Germany with the help of Spain had broken down completely. Even he was driven to acknowledge that that path was no

longer open to him, and that if the Palatinate was to be recovered at all, it must be recovered by force of arms. The only question for him to ask himself, therefore, was whether he was willing to abandon all hope of its recovery, and this he was decidedly not prepared to do. The abandonment of his daughter and her children, from considerations of state policy, was so grievous to him, that, though Buckingham would doubtless have much moral and physical inertness to combat, he could always make use of the King's real desire to recover the Palatinate as a lever to move him in the direction of decisive action.

In January 1624, James to a great extent yielded himself into the hands of Buckingham. The marriage ceremony at

1624. Madrid had been postponed under circumstances January which made it almost a matter of certainty that it Diplomatic preparations. would never be heard of again. Bristol, the chief supporter of the alliance, was recalled from his embassy in Spain, and the Earl of Oxford, who had been confined in the Tower for nearly two years on account of a violent attack upon Gondomar's influence, was set at liberty. Writs were issued for a new Parliament. Once more, as in 1620, ambassadors were ordered to make ready to start in every direction. This time they were to be the messengers, not of peace, but of Sir Isaac Wake was to stir up the Duke of Savoy and the Republic of Venice. Sir Robert Anstruther was to wait upon the Princes of Northern Germany and the King of Denmark. Sir James Spens would do the like office with the King of Sweden. The States-General were invited to send commissioners to negotiate a close alliance, and the invitation was made more attractive by a letter in which Conway was allowed impudently to represent the plot which had been hatched between Buckingham and Gondomar for the partition of the territory of the Republic as a mere unauthorised suggestion of Spanish iniquity.1

war.

These steps, important as they were, formed only part of the

1 Conway to the Prince of Orange, Conway to Carleton, Jan. 19

S, P. Holland.