1623

THE MARRIAGE TREATY BROKEN OFF.

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115 the prince home, doubly delighted because he had come without CHAP the infanta. With him came Buckingham, whom James had created a duke while he yet hoped that the visit to Madrid might prove successful.1

Charles poured forth to his father all his pent-up bitterness against the Spaniards, and James learnt the failure of the scheme on which he had lavished so much vain toil and for which he had stooped to so many humiliations. At no time, however, could James withstand the impetuous will of any person whom he loved, and now that he was visibly declining he became the passive instrument of his son and favourite to unravel the work of anxious years. The king wrote to Bristol that the marriage could not take place until satisfaction had been given regarding the Palatinate. The King of Spain naturally replied that he could do no more than urge restitution to Frederick's descendants. James next demanded that the infanta's whole dowry should be paid in ready money, a thing quite impossible, and ordered Bristol to leave Spain unless Philip complied within twenty days. Meantime the new pope, Urban VIII., had authorised the nuncio to deliver the dispensation, and the date for the ceremony, November 29, had been fixed. Only three days before that day Bristol received a peremptory order for postponement. Philip thereupon stopped all preparations for the marriage and ordered the infanta to cease her study of the English language. The imprudence of James and Charles had allowed him to withdraw honourably from an alliance which he had never desired.

In wishing to show forbearance towards catholics at home and to live in peace with catholics abroad, James was wiser than most of his subjects and may claim the regard of later ages. But he was guilty of a gross breach of trust in consenting to make the position of his catholic subjects a matter of bargain with a foreign power. He made a fatal mistake when he abandoned the high place which he inherited from Elizabeth as chief of the protestant world. At a time when religious hatreds were so powerful, conflicts between religions were inevitable

1 Gardiner, ch. xliii.-xlv., has given the first full and trustworthy account of the prince's visit to Madrid. It is curious and interesting and throws a strong light on the character of Charles.

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CHAP. and the mere dislike of war was not a policy. A good man would not have sought a quarrel with any catholic power, but a brave man would not have shrunk from taking his part in the defence of protestantism. Conceit of his office led James into thinking that nations have nought to do with high mysteries of state which should be left to monarchs alone. Conceit of his own wisdom suggested that his brother monarchs would bow to his award, however it might mortify their interest or their conscience. Caring at bottom far more about the inheritance of his grandchildren than about the religion or freedom of half Europe, he hoped to gain his ends by negotiation with the aspiring house of Austria, and the inflexible court of Rome. The world was to be stilled by the marriage of a boy and a girl, and emperor and pope were to confine themselves within the bounds traced by the King of England. But the march of the counter-reformation could not be stayed by exchanging civilities with its chiefs. All that James achieved by his elaborate diplomacy was to annul the weight of his own kingdom, to fulfil the ruin of his son-in-law, to prolong the war in Germany, and to bring the protestant cause to the very verge of destruction.

A new policy, it might seem the reverse of the old one, was to be tried for the recovery of the Palatinate, but under auspices which scarcely allowed a reasonable hope of success. Of the two thoughtless young men who were scheming a grand attack on the King of Spain and the emperor, Buckingham was impelled by pique solely, Charles by a mixture of pique with concern for his unfortunate sister, and both were equally hasty, equally ignorant of the state of Europe, equally incapable of grasping any complex question or framing any coherent system. They set eagerly to work. As a war with Spain would be popular, they persuaded the king to call a new parliament without delay. Bristol was ordered to return home that he might give an account of his conduct, that is, pay the penalty of having displeased Buckingham at Madrid. The Dutch were invited to appoint commissioners for negotiating an alliance with England. Ambassadors were to visit the kings of Denmark and Sweden, the princes of North Germany, the Duke of Savoy and the Republic of Venice, and enlist all these powers in the war against the house of Hapsburg. The Queen-Mother of France having

1624

117

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THE LAST PARLIAMENT OF JAMES I. hinted that she was ready to bestow her youngest daughter, CHAP. Henrietta Maria, upon the Prince of Wales, it was resolved to send Henry Rich, Viscount Kensington, ambassador to Paris, in order to clear the way for a marriage treaty. So little had Charles profited by his late experience that, while preparing for a protestant war and inflaming the protestant passions of England, he was as forward as ever to wed a catholic bride.

The last parliament of James I. met on February 19, 1624. In temper the new house of commons strongly resembled those which had gone before. All the old leaders of the popular party had found seats, and they were joined by two younger colleagues of extraordinary gifts, John Selden, second only to Bacon in breadth and acuteness of mind, and second to none in deep and varied learning; and Sir John Eliot, a man of generous and heroic temper and unrivalled eloquence, although not always farseeing or sure in judgment. Most of the members were staunch protestants, willing to enact new penalties against recusants and to make war on Spain, but little acquainted with foreign affairs and very loath to engage in continental wars. So completely had James been unnerved by the failure of his dearest hopes, that he condescended to ask the advice of the houses upon those questions of foreign policy which heretofore he had reserved to himself. Buckingham told the houses the story of the prince's late adventure, insisting that the Spaniards had never meant to keep their promise of help towards regaining the Palatinate, and urging that the treaty with Spain should be dropped as fruitless. So far his hearers were ready to believe and applaud.

The lords resolved to ask the king to break off all further negotiation. In the commons the need for assuring freedom of speech was pressed by Eliot, but the matter was shelved by reference to a committee. The house reverted to foreign affairs and petitioned the king to act in defence of protestantism. They were disposed to make a grant, but they wished it to be spent in repairing the fortresses, strengthening the garrison of Ireland, fitting out a fleet, and succouring the Dutch republic, measures all of them preliminary to a maritime war with Spain. Accordingly, when James received the deputations from the houses, it appeared how far were his thoughts from the thoughts of the commons. He wanted above all things to recover the Pala

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CHAP. tinate, and therefore to use his best efforts in Central Europe, while he still hoped to avoid a Spanish war. Then he was in debt and warlike preparations were costly. Money he must have, but the money for the war should be paid over to treasurers appointed by the parliament, which would thus be assured that the grant had been expended according to its intention. A few days afterwards he estimated his wants at six subsidies and twelve fifteenths, about £780,000 in all.

The commons returned to their house in a very bad temper. "The Palatinate," said Sir Francis Seymour, "was the place intended by his majesty. This we never thought of, nor is it fit for the consideration of the house in regard of the infinite charge." Eliot summed up the sense of the commons in a few significant words. "Are we poor? Spain is rich. There are our Indies. Break with them; we shall break our necessities together." A breach between the commons and the crown was averted by the prince and Buckingham, who desired a war in the Palatinate, it is true, but desired a war with Spain even more. Buckingham coerced the king and Charles soothed the houses into seeming harmony. The commons voted three subsidies and three fifteenths, less than half of the original demand, while the king declared himself willing to break off all further treaty with Spain. But the commons had put on record that their grant was made for the purposes above-named, and the king, while approving of those purposes, shunned any mention of a Spanish war and avowed that his one aim was to recover the Palatinate.

The Spanish envoys tried as a last desperate resource to shake the credit of Buckingham with his master. They dwelt on the favourite's insolent and domineering ways, and assured James that Buckingham was resolved to make him a tool or even to dethrone him if he continued obstinate. These accusations only hastened the fall of the minister most desirous to preserve peace with Spain. The lord treasurer, Middlesex, had long been at variance with Buckingham, who thought that he had prompted the ambassadors. Buckingham resolved to ruin Middlesex, and easily drew Charles into encouraging an impeachment for corruption in his office. The house of

1 Commons' Journals, i., 740.

1624

THE STATUTE OF MONOPOLIES.

119

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commons was willing enough, and James vainly warned his son CHAP. and his favourite that they would live to have more than they wanted of impeachments. Middlesex had apparently done some inexcusable things. Coke and Sandys carried up the articles of impeachment, and on May 13 the treasurer was found guilty by the lords and sentenced to be for ever incapable of office under the crown, to be excluded from parliament and the court, to pay a fine of £50,000, and to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure. As usual, the heaviest part of the sentence was remitted, but Middlesex was banished from public life. The proceeding against him was the first impeachment in the strict sense of that term brought against a minister of the crown since the impeachment of the Duke of Suffolk in 1450.

The alliance of the prince and Buckingham with the popular party rendered possible the act against monopolies which is the one memorable statute of the reign of James I. By this act the law was placed almost on its present footing. Monopolies generally were made void, and all questions as to what constituted a monopoly were to be judged in the courts of common law. Persons trying to stay or delay any action on a monopoly by means of any authority other than the court wherein it was pending were to suffer the penalty of a præmunire. Existing patents of twenty-one years or less were to be valid, if granted to the introducers of new manufactures. Similar patents for fourteen years or less might be granted in future. A saving was also inserted for privileges conferred by any former statute. Although some vexatious monopolies were established in the reign of Charles I., the influence of this statute1 upon the later course of English commerce and industry has been incalculable. But the temper of James, always irritable, had now become senile. The sense of failure and of impotence, the perplexities of the situation abroad, the impeachment of Middlesex, the importunities of the commons for harsh measures against the recusants and for a war with Spain, had wrought him to a querulous exasperation, and he prorogued the parliament on November 2 with as little grace as on any former occasion.

In May, Kensington was joined at Paris by the Earl of Carlisle, and the treaty for the hand of the Princess Henrietta

121 and 22 Jac. I., ch. iii.