WILLIAMS AND CARONDELET. 43 СНАР. 1624. April 7. Gains fur ther infor knew to be mation from Ca As he ex- rondelet. After some consideration, it was resolved that Buckingham should go to Theobalds to feel his ground with the King,1 whilst Williams remained in London to probe Carondelet's secret to the bottom. He ordered the immediate arrest of a priest whom he specially intimate with Coloma's secretary. pected, 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.2 ham in As soon as Carondelet was gone, Williams sat down Buckingand wrote off for Buckingham an account of all that formed. 1 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 in 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. 2 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 were already in the Deanery or not. Hacket is most confused in dates, and often mixes up different stories. But I do not think him, or Williams, likely to invent such a story as this. CHAP. I. 1624. April 6. had passed.1 A few evenings later Carondelet returned with further 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, the day before Carondelet's first interview with Williams, the delayed despatch announcing the final breach of the negotiations with Spain was at last sent off-a step which would hardly have been taken if the impression made by Carondelet and Lafuente on the King had not been already removed.2 1 Cabala, 275. 2 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 un derstood that there was, though [? not] 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 JAMES BREAKS WITH SPAIN. 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 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 counsel 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 which was to go in the same state of this nature, but was only employed before this journey of the Prince's in matters of mine owne 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 inno cence. "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]. 1 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." The King to Aston, April 5. S. P. Spain. I. 1624. CHAP. 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.' April 6. Nature of Buckingham's influence Such a reservation could have but little result. The one fact of importance was that the Spanish inover James. trigue had failed, and the treaties were at last abandoned. In all that had passed the weakness and hesitation of James had been most manifest. He had been half driven, half persuaded, 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. For it was surely not merely owing to the personal ascendancy of Buckingham that James at last shook off the influence of the Spanish ambassadors. Here, at least, Buckingham had the advantage of a good cause. If he dazzled James by his vigour and audacity, he was also able to convince his intellect. After all that had passed it was impossible even for James to maintain seriously that it would be wise to look again to Spain for the recovery of the Palatinate. Difficulties still to be met. Buckingham's sanguine and incisive temper had carried him safely thus far. 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. And he would now 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 1 Conway to Aston, April 3. Date corrected to April 8. S. P. Spain. |