And in the accent to whose ring our hearts But he chose the best as he always could

From The Contemporary Review.
CHARLES I. AND HIS FATHER.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.

BY PETER BAYNE,

I.

fusions and incongruities.

He was a

spoiled child, in a deplorably literal sense, before he was born. Nature's intention with him seems to have been to produce the ablest Stuart that ever graced the line since it sprang from the daughter of THE "fractions" of a book on James Robert Bruce; but what Mr. Carlyle I., which Leigh Hunt rescued from Mr. would call “black art" intervened to deCarlyle's Waste-Paper Bag, are so pic-feat nature's intention; and the child turesque in style, and so illuminative as born three months after the shock reto the history of the period, that one re-ceived by Mary Stuart from the drawn grets they are fractions only. Carlyle swords of Rizzio's murderers was physicould have given us a rare book on James.ologically a wreck, - damaged irretrievIn the perplexing and contradictory ably in body and mind. To revile James character of the man, and in the tragi- as a coward because he shuddered at the comic medley of events in his reign, he flash of the cold iron is as thoughtless as it would have found exercise for dramatic would be to scorn him because he could sympathy and sardonic humour, and he not stand on his legs till he was seven would have had ample opportunity, in the years old. Though damaged, however, course of the work, of indicating the in mind and body, he was destroyed in "deep presaging movement" of those neither. His limbs shook; his nerves forces which were to convulse English were those of a hypochondriac; yet he society during the Puritan revolution. had physical toughness enough to enjoy The reign of James was essentially an field sports. His tongue was too large historical introduction to the life and for his mouth; he stuttered and sputtimes of Charles I., and it is as such that tered; but he was a loud, voluble, vivaI treat of it in this chapter. cious talker. His mind, like his body, Carlyle evidently demurs to the verdict had been shaken into grotesque incoheof mere contemptuous execration which rence. Will and intelligence, instead of has commonly been pronounced upon being in closest conjunction, like good James. His Majesty," he says, as Isword in steady hand, had been flung perceive, in spite of calumnies, was not a apart. He would see with piercing clearcoward." No man detests cowardice ness what it was best to do, and with more than the biographer of Cromwell, streaming eyes, stammering and whimbut he will have it that James's discre- pering would wish to do it; and would tion was of a kind not incompatible with not be able. He would negotiate about a courage. "He knew the value, to all matter for years, fail in his object, and persons, and to all interests of persons, then sum up with the adroit shrewdness of a whole skin; how unthrifty every- of his friend Bacon, in form of an where is any solution of continuity, if it apophthegm, the cause of his failure. can be avoided! He struggled to pre-"The wisest fool in Europe." Sully called side pacifically over an age of some him. There is nothing in Shakespeare ferocity much given to wrangling." We wiser than the sayings, or foolisher than seem to detect a spark of positive enthu- the doings, of Polonius. siasm for James in Mr. Carlyle when he speaks of his good nature and his "shining examples of justice."

66

And yet the evidence is strong that James was both cowardly and unrighteous. It was not a shining example of justice that he gave in the case of Raleigh. It was still less a shining example of justice that he gave in the case of Somerset. The truth is, he was an aggregate of con

It was one of the fixed ideas of Englishmen in the first half the seventeenth century that Queen Elizabeth had been a great and glorious sovereign, and that it was well with England in her time. Knowing the Virgin Queen better than the men of that generation knew her, we can keep our admiration for her within bounds; but from the day of her death until the day when Charles II. returned

from his travels to ascend the throne,, tics; the head and, so far as appears, the the reign of Elizabeth was looked back tail and the body, of the Bright and Cobto with enthusiasm by the great body of den school of his day. "Let us mind our Englishmen. Eliot and Pym attested the own business! Why should not the two fact in their contendings with James; great maritime powers, England and Charles I. knew it, and declared, in open- Spain, having the broad spaces of the sea ing the Long Parliament, that his wish for roadway, make room for each other? was to see "all things reduced to the We shall be Protestants; Spaniards will good order and practice of Queen Eliza- be Papists; but why should we injure beth, which, by the people of England, each other for that? Why should we not were looked upon with the greatest rev- rather be allied in those cases where our erence;" and it was one of the funda- interests are identical?" This was the -mental notions of Oliver Cromwell, who, gist of James's non-intervention logic. to his second Parliament, used these The present generation, with its insular words, "Queen Elizabeth of famous and pacific maxims, can hardly cast a memory, we need not be ashamed to stone at him. Advice, political or theocall her so." Imperious, proud, ambi- logical, he was ready to give to all lengths tious to do good to her people and be and breadths; but whether people would the crowned servant of England, with hear, or whether they would forbear, he one hand on the money-bag and one on was not the man to strike. Not Lord the sword,- persecuting Papists and Palmerston himself could have had firmer bidding her own bishops know their mis- faith in the potency of Great British tress, he was the kind of queen Eng- exhortation than James. Persons have lishmen could love. Arbitrary and over- been met with in our own time cynical bearing she was; but Poyser could for- enough to sneer at the substitution of give his wife for being a termagant in constitutional syllogisms and well-aimed consideration of her efficiency in mind-quotations, even when fired off by Earl ing the house and snubbing Squire Donnithorne. Elizabeth snubbed the pope, stood forth frankly as the head of the Protestant interest in Europe, fostered the Reformation in Scotland, befriended the Dutch, smashed the Armada, and did it all uncommonly cheap. She was neither too bad, nor what would have been quite as fatal - too good, to be the ideal sovereign of the great body of Englishmen.

Russell in his finest attitude, for cannon batteries and bayonet charges; and a similar scepticism was prevalent in the time of James. Reckoning up the suc cours forwarded to the distressed Elector Palatine, the wits declared that Denmark had sent a hundred thousand herrings, Holland a hundred thousand butterboxes, and the king of England a hundred thousand ambassadors. James's subjects were eminently disqualified to appreciate anything but the eccentricity of his pacific opinions. They were fierce, impatient, irascible, and inspired with burning hatred both of popery and of Spain. It was the avowed belief of the ablest Protestants of the time, of men as statesmanlike as Pym and as ardently progressive as Milton, that peace could not be kept with Rome or toleration granted to Romanists, because the pope claimed to be above all monarchs and all

James thought far too much of himself to learn anything from Queen Elizabeth. His political notions, even if abstractly wise, were hopelessly irreconcilable with those of Elizabethan Englishmen. Account for the fact as we may -- whether it was that he wished to shield himself from assassination, or that he honestly desired to be fair and friendly to all his subjects he was disposed to tolerate Roman Catholics. The fact is an honour to him in our eyes, but it grieved his own sub-laws. Jesuitism was in the heyday of its jects. His foreign policy gave no more powers, and Jesuitic popery, which, until satisfaction than his domestic. He was Prince Bismarck once more treated it as the first advocate of the doctrine of Eng-a reality, had become, for statesmen of lish non-intervention in Continental poli- our time, a reminiscence or a shadow,

was regarded by the great body of intelli-ers chosen at Oxford to do the jingling gent Englishmen as a terrible fact. It creditably to the University were two had been revealed to them in the Massa- men, one in the prime of manhood, the cre of St. Bartholomew and in the Gun- other in the bloom of youth, who have powder Plot. Clad in steel, and com- become known to history - William Laud manding the armies of Catholic Europe, and John Hampden. Their epithalamium it engaged in internecine struggle with contained this prayer, with reference to Gustavus Adolphus, the champion of the marriage: "That a progeny might Protestantism, who called all true Prot- thence arise unequalled by any land or estant hearts to his banner, a call heard race." Curious! Had Hampden's prayer and obeyed by many a brave youth in Eng- not been granted there would have been land and Scotland. "Those only," says no Prince Rupert to lead the Cavaliers on Isaac Disraeli," who have read the letters Chalgrove field, where Hampden fell; but of the times can form any adequate notion there would also have been no female. of the agonizing and universal interest branch from the Stuart stem to ingraft on which pervaded the English people at the Brunswick stock, and to yield an heir every advance or retreat of the Aus- to the British throne when the male trian Tilly, the Danish Christian, and branch, against which Hampden fought, the Swedish Gustavus." It was not had been finally cut off. It is, perhaps, long-winded arguments, but steel-clad worth remembering that Prince Charles squadrons, that James's subjects wished of Culloden stood not one whit nearer to him to contribute to the Protestant James I. than his Brunswick cousins,

cause.

and that Queen Victoria has in her veins He had been ten years on the throne that best stream of the Stuart blood of England before his policy fully evinced which flowed off with her whom our its difference from that of Elizabeth. In fathers affectionately called "the Prot1610 the dagger of Ravaillac reached the estant Electress." Her Majesty inherits heart of Henry of Navarre. Though he the throne of Great Britain as a Stuart. had formally joined the Catholic Church, The Elector Palatine was ambitious Henry's schemes were generous towards beyond his strength of wing, and, by Protestantism and obnoxious to the hawking at the crown of Bohemia, lost Jesuits, and they were commonly believed both it and his patrimonial Palatinate. at the time to have planned the assassi- Had James been a man of war, tens of nation. The general policy of James in thousands of Englishmen would have relation to Continental Protestantism had gladly followed him to redress in arms been influenced by Henry, and the death the wrongs of Frederick and his wife. of the French king removed one of his But James hated war, and there were leading lights. For about ten years also, other considerations besides his love of he enjoyed the services of Salisbury, the peace which might well disincline him to judicious minister of Elizabeth. It was a warlike expedition. The old feudal in connection with the troubles of his array of England had fallen to pieces, and son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, that could not be pitted against the standing James's distinctive and unpopular policy armies which had arisen on the Contibecame conspicuous. The marriage itselfnent. He believed besides in the divine had been enthusiastically approved in right of kings; he furiously detested the England. According to Tillières, the doctrine of the divine right of peoples. French ambassador, Elizabeth Stuart was It was by the Bohemian people that Fred"honoured and beloved" by the English erick had been called to the throne, people, and they were well pleased when and he had stretched out his hand against she was given in marriage to a resolutely his liege lord, the German Emperor. Protestant prince. The Universities had James, therefore, was averse to the idea got out their jingling apparatus, and pro- of fighting for his son-in-law; but he duced the amount of Latin verse required would negotiate for him to any extent; to celebrate the occasion. Among oth- and circumstances provided him with a

field in which he could prosecute negotia- | siduous in his worship of the rising sun. tions, as he thought, with a prospect of Suddenly "the baby" and Steenie, as substantial results. His son Henry had James called Charles and Buckingham, died. His son Charles, whose cast of announced that they were going to Spain character suited him better, required a in person. James expostulated, gesticwife. Inasmuch as James was wise, heulated, cried; but he had himself, in his had discerned before leaving Scotland, hot youth, crossed the sea to pay court and had written down in his "Basilicon to Anne of Denmark, and as "the sweet Doron," that the heir to the English crown lads "insisted, the "dear dad and gossip" ought to marry a Protestant; but inas- of course gave way. Taking the names much as he was only a wise fool, he of Tom and Jack, Charles and Buckingplayed the traitor both to his own sagac-ham crossed the Channel, and proceeded ity and to the interests of his country and vid Paris to Spain. Of Buckingham, his race, by making it his grand object to perhaps the most interesting variety of marry Charles into one of the Catholic the species royal favourite that ever apdynastic houses. It was so much finer peared, it will here be appropriate to say to rank with the monarchs of Spain, a word or two. France, and the Empire than to hold out Queen Elizabeth had inherited from the hand of fellowship to the mob of her father the inestimable faculty of princelings who headed the mixed multi-knowing and valuing a wise man when tude of Protestant Germany! The Span- she saw him. An incurable and offenish Infanta was of the age at which those sive flirt, she liked pretty men, but knew luckless beings, the princesses of old that they were good only for playthings, dynastic houses, are chaffered for by and had strength of will to keep them in kings and ministers. Baby Charles and their place. James thought no one so the Infanta - this was the scheme of wise as himself, and was not without disJames would be married; England and cernment of intellectual defect in fasciSpain would be cordial allies; and the nating personages; but knowledge, here preponderating influence of the Spanish and elsewhere, was not, in James, synonythrone would be used at the Imperial mous with power. Against Somerset he Court for the restoration of the Palati-appears to have fairly maintained his nate to Frederick. Bristol, James's am- mental independence; but Villiers, far bassador in Spain, whose talent, experi- more brilliant, ambitious, and daring ence, and general ability to judge are be- than Carr, was resolutely bent on makyond debate, made up his mind that the ing him a slave in all respects. That project was feasible, and that, in the Buckingham was a fool is as certain as event of the marriage, Spain would hon-that his sovereign was; but as James estly exert herself to replace Frederick in his seat as Elector Palatine. Though they might hate the English and love the pope, all sensible Spaniards felt that it was of extreme importance to Spain that such Englishmen as Raleigh, Frobisher, and Drake,

was a wise fool, Buckingham was a fool of genius. Felton's knife put an end to him before the nature and reach of his capacity could be finally estimated. That his figure was handsome and his face beautiful; that he was splendidly accomplished and that his manners were captivating; that his courage was steady and placid in the moment of general danger, and foolhardy when only his own life was at stake; that he was active, adventurous, and speculative, in the style of the old English voyagers; - all this may be regarded as proved. He entertained schemes of conquest in South

Adventurous hearts who bartered bold Their English blood for Spanish gold, should leave Spanish commerce alone. They were willing, therefore, to pay some price for a stable peace with England. Under those circumstances it was natural that Spain, though perhaps insincere in the earlier stage of the nego-America, which he got Gustavus Adoltiations, should become desirous that the Infanta should be married to Charles; and if this is granted, it can hardly be disputed that James, holding a very bad hand, was playing as good a game for the Elector as was on the cards.

phus to sanction, and on which Cromwell, who became possessed of his papers, is thought to have founded an expedition. Equally certain is it that he was vain, unprincipled, irascible; that his prodigality was outrageous; that his arrogance The Spanish negotiation reached a and audacity verged on lunacy. Writers crisis in 1623. Prince Charles had late-speak of his white velvet dress, hung ly come of age. Buckingham was as- with diamonds to the value of eighty