April 3. Carondelet betrayed to Carondelet fancied that the secret of his interview with the King was in safe keeping; but in spite of his clerical character his morals were loose. His mistress was in the pay of Williams, who, provided that he could get imporWilliams. tant information, cared little what means he employed to obtain it. To Williams the discovery afforded a splendid opportunity of strengthening his interests at Court. It was true that he had been assured by Buckingham that his conduct in opposing the war with Spain would be passed over; but since he had given offence no opportunity had been afforded him of exhibiting his devotion. April 5. Williams informs the Prince. Williams went first to the Prince. "In my studies of divinity," he said, after explaining how he had come by his knowledge, "I have gleaned up this maxim, It is lawful to make use of the sin of another. Though the devil make her a sinner, I may make good use of her sin." "Yea," answered Charles with a smile, “ do you deal in such ware?" "In good faith," said Williams, "I never saw her face." After some consideration, it was resolved that Buckingham should go to Theobalds, to feel his ground with the King,2 whilst Williams remained in London, to probe Carondelet's secret to the bottom. He ordered the immediate arrest of a miserable confusion. He fancied that he knew better what happened than appears on the face of the documents he printed, and transferred to the beginning of April events which took place long afterwards, when the King was at Windsor, which will be given in their proper place. The Spanish embassy stood in no good repute since Inojosa's arrival. Tillières is not a very satisfactory authority against it. But even his outrageous statement about Inojosa that n'étant pas content de débaucher les filles et femmes Catholiques, il se fait servir des prêtres et confesseurs de maqueraux,' throws some light on the probability of the truth of the story about Carondelet. Tillières to Ville-aux-Clercs, Feb. 7, Harl. MSS. 4593, fol. 46 b. 2 Hacket gives a wrong date, and sends Buckingham to Windsor instead of Theobalds. From the Lords' Journals we know that Buckingham was in his place on the morning of the 5th, and was absent on the 6th and 7th. Conway, in a letter written to Aston on the 7th (S. P. Spain), speaks of him as being then at Theobalds. 1624 April 7. Gains fur ther information from Carondelet. WILLIAMS AND CARONDELET. 211 priest whom he knew to be specially intimate with the archdeacon. As he expected, Carondelet was not long in asking leave to plead for his friend's life. Late at night, to escape observation, he came to the Deanery at Westminster. At first he found Williams obdurate. How could mercy be shown whilst Parliament, with its watchful eye, was still in session? Carondelet caught at the word Parliament. He knew that Williams had opposed Buckingham at the beginning of the year. He did not know how ready he was to desist from a fruitless opposition. "Let not,” he said, “the dread of this Parliament trouble you. I can tell you, if you have not heard it, that it is upon expiration." Then, fancying from Williams's answers that he had found a confederate, he unfolded the whole tale of his secret audiences.1 As soon as Carondelet was gone, Williams sat down and wrote off for Buckingham an account of all that had passed.2 Buckingham A few evenings later Carondelet returned with further informed. information, and Williams was able to take credit to himself for having fathomed so deep a mystery. Yet, before Buckingham had time to receive the information, he had recovered his mastery over the mind of James. On April 6, April 6. the day before Carondelet's first interview with breach with Williams, the delayed despatch announcing the final Spain. breach of the negotiations with Spain was at last sent off-a step which would hardly have been taken if the im The final 1 Hacket, i. 198. Mr. Tierney, in his edition of Dodd, argues that the story of the priest arrested is untrue, because an account (Cabala, 275) sent off at once to Buckingham by Williams contains a heading "The end, as was conceived, of Don Francisco's desiring this conference." I do not see that this necessarily follows. Williams may very well have omitted the story of the priest, which was only needed to show why Carondelet came to his house What had to be accounted for was, how Carondelet came to confer with Williams on such secret matters; what was his end in "desiring this conference." Whether he had already been brought to the Deanery by other affairs was unimportant. Hacket is most confused in dates, and often mixes up different stories, but I do not think that either he or Williams were likely to invent the story. 2 Cabala, 275. pression made by Carondelet and Lafuente on the King had not been already removed.' This despatch, written and rewritten several times, announced that the proposition made in January by the Spanish ambassadors could not be accepted. James would never consent to his grandson's education at the Emperor's court, nor would he 1 Williams did not write his notes till two o'clock on the morning of the 8th, and that morning Buckingham was in his place again in the House of Lords. The following account by Williams of a further conference between himself and Carondelet, is given in Birch's transcripts, Add. MSS. 4164, fol. 280, as taken from Harl. MSS. 7000, where I have not been able to find it. Dr. Birch's name is, however, a sufficient guarantee that the reference only is incorrect. "He was very inquisitive if I had already or intended to impart what he had told me in secret the night before to any man; to the which he did add a desire of secrecy, because (1) the King had charged him and the friar to be very secret; (2) the ambassadors did not know that he had imparted these things unto me; (3) the paper was secret instructions which they gave the friar to urge and press the same points which himself had done, unto the King. "2. He confessed that the greatest part of the friar's instructions was to do all the worst offices he could against the Duke, and to lay the breach of the marriage and disturbance of the peace upon him. "3. He excused his bringing the copy of that paper unto me, because the Marquis (i.e. Inojosa) had got it in his custody; but said he would procure it with all speed. I desired him to do it, the rather because, besides my approbation of the form and manner of writing, I might be by it instructed how to apply myself to do his Majesty service therein, as I found by that conference his Majesty's bent and inclination. 4. He having understood that there was, though a close, yet an indissoluble friendship between the Duke and myself, desired me to show some way how the Duke might be won unto them, and to continue the peace. I answered I would pursue any fair course that should be proposed that way; but, for myself, that I never meddled with matters of state of this nature, but was only employed before this journey of the Prince's in matters of mine own court and in the pulpit. "5. He desired to know if they might rely upon the King, whom only they found peaceably addicted, otherwise they would cease all mediation and prepare for war. I answered that he was a king that never broke his word, and he knew best what he had said unto them. "6. He commended much the courage and resolution of the Lord Treasurer, which I told him we all did, as a probable sign of his innocence. 1624 THE END OF THE TREATIES. 213 be satisfied with anything less than a direct engagement that Spain would assist his son-in-law by force of arms if diplomacy should fail. The two Houses of Parliament, he added, ‘have given us their faithful advice to dissolve both the treaties, as well of the marriage as of the Palatinate. To which we have given our consent, having not found any example that any king hath refused the council of the whole kingdom composed of faithful and loving subjects.' So far the letter was all that Buckingham could have desired; but a passage followed in which James again pressed Philip to aid him, or at least not to oppose him, in his efforts to obtain the restitution of the Palatinate. And though he allowed the Prince to cancel this last clause,' he did not countermand the sending of a letter of Conway's in the same packet, in which the ambassador at Madrid was directed to assure Philip that, though James had promised to listen to the advice of his Parliament, he had never promised to follow it.2 Nature of Buckingham's in Such a reservation could have but little result. The one fact of importance was that the Spanish intrigue had failed, and the treaties were at last abandoned. In all that had passed the hesitation of James had been most fluence over manifest. He had been half-driven, half-persuaded, James. to place himself in hostility to Spain. It had not been without many backward glances that he had taken the required step-glances which the Spaniards interpreted as meaning much more than they really did. Yet it was surely not merely owing to the personal ascendency of Buckingham that James at last shook off the influence of the Spanish ambassadors. "7. He said the Marquis had despatched three correos, and expected of large propositions from Spain to be made unto his Majesty concerning the present restitution of the Palatinate, and that if these failed they were at an end of all treaty, and the ambassadors would forthwith return home." "Indorsed :-Bishop of Lincoln's Relation of Speeches passed between his Lordship and Don Francisco. .—11 April, 1623." [Sic]. The 'In the draft the passage is scored out, and a note in Charles's hand is appended to it "These two last are thought best to be left out." King to Aston, April 5, S. P. Spain. 2 Conway to Aston, April 3. Date corrected to April 8. S. P. Spain. What he asserted in his despatch was nothing more than what he had said plainly to Carondelet. He broke off the treaties because the King of Spain had given him no reason to suppose that he intended to assist him in the forcible recovery of the Palatinate. James may perhaps have retained a lingering hope that Philip might still be moved to give the required promise, but to all except himself the breach thus made was final and irreparable. Difficulties still to be met. Buckingham's sanguine and incisive temper had carried him safely up to this point. Would it serve him equally well when he came to proceed to positive action? It is far easier to put an end to negotiations than to conduct a war. He would no longer have the full assurance of the support of the House of Commons. If he had been on the side of Parliament against the King in wishing to make the breach with Spain complete, he was on the side of the King against Parliament in wishing to make a close alliance with France the main feature of his foreign policy. That he was in the right in shrinking from going to war without French aid cannot reasonably be doubted, but it remained to be seen at what price that aid was to be purchased. |