1623.] RETURN OF CHARLES FROM MADRID. 179

and council: James also swore privately to other articles for tolerating the Catholics. But the death of the pontiff at this time occasioned new delays, and Buckingham had resolved to break off the match. He regarded Bristol as his political rival, and was jealous of the consideration with which he was treated. He had also had several quarrels with Olivarez; while the Spaniards, on the other hand, were disgusted with his shameless profligacy, his arrogant temper, and the want of respect and decorum in his conduct towards the prince. He was likewise anxious to return to the English court, where he found that he had more enemies than he suspected.

Under pretext of the new delay, James was induced to send an order for the return of the prince. It was farther arranged that a proxy should be left with Bristol, to be delivered after the arrival of the dispensation; that the espousals should take place before Christmas, and that the prince should be represented by Philip himself, or his brother Don Carlos. The infanta took the title of Princess of England, and a suitable court was formed for her. Buckingham, as lord-high-admiral, having gone before to see that the fleet was ready, Charles now took a solemn leave of the queen and the infanta : Philip accompanied him on his way as far as the Escurial, and they parted as brothers. Several of the Spanish grandees attended Charles to St. Andero, where he embarked; and, on the 5th of October, he landed safely at Portsmouth, to the great joy of the king and nation.

The dispensation was received from Rome on the 12th of November, and Philip appointed the 29th for the espousals, and the 9th of December for the marriage. The nobility were invited to attend, and the towns and cities in Spain were commanded to make public rejoicings, when couriers suddenly arrived from England, ordering Lord Bristol not to deliver the proxy, to prepare to return to England, and to declare to the Spanish king that James would proceed with the marriage only on the condition of his pledging himself to take up arms in defence of the palatinate.

Philip justly complained of the indignity thus offered him; the orders for the marriage were recalled;_and the infanta, with tears, laid down her new title. Bristol, on his return, was ordered to remain at his country-seat and to consider himself a prisoner; and thus at once fell the edifice which James had been so many years erecting.

In all this it is easy to discern the influence of Buckingham: but the Spaniards were the dupes of their own artifices. They had protracted the negotiations for years, in the hope of extorting the most favourable terms possible for the Catholic religion in England.

With the large dower of the Spanish princess, James had hoped to relieve his pecuniary embarrassments: but that hope being gone, no resource remained but to summon a parliament. To this measure, when urged by the prince and Buckingham, he gave an unwilling consent; and when parliament met, on the 24th of February, 1624, he addressed it, submitting the late negotiations and all other matters to its consideration. On the subject of religion, he required them to judge him charitably as they would be judged, adding that he had certainly, on sundry occasions, relaxed the severity of the penal laws; but as to dispensing with or altering them, "I never," he declared," promised nor yielded; I never thought it with my heart nor spoke it with my mouth." This daring falsehood he uttered in the presence of his son and Buckingham, who well knew his oath to the secret articles of the marriage treaty!

A few days after, Buckingham addressed the two houses, the prince standing by to prompt him, and vouch for the truth of what he said. By the aid of downright falsehoods, misrepresentations, and garbled extracts of despatches, he made out, to the satisfaction of those who were glad of any pretext for a quarrel with Spain, that the Spanish court had been insincere from first to last in the negotiation. An address was voted, requesting the king to break off all treaties with the court of Madrid; Buckingham became a

1625.] DEATH OF THE KING.

181

universal favourite; and bonfires and public rejoicings testified the delight of the people at the prospect of a war with the papists. The king gave a reluctant consent to the war, and the commons voted a sum of £300,000 for carrying it on, which, at the king's own desire, was to be paid into the hands of treasurers appointed by themselves.

Cranborne, earl of Middlesex, lord-treasurer, was now impeached for bribery and other misdemeanours. He was a citizen of London, who had risen chiefly through the favour of Buckingham: but he had, of late, incurred his displeasure, and the patron and the prince now urged on his impeachment. The king, who saw farther into matters than either of them, told the duke that he was a fool, and was cutting a rod for his own back, and the prince that he would live to have his fill of impeachments :* but they heeded him not, and Middlesex was found guilty by the lords.

Towards the end of this year a treaty of marriage was effected between the Prince of Wales and the Princess Henrietta Maria, sister of the King of France. Unhappily for the house of Stuart, one of the articles was, that the queen should have the education of the children till they were thirteen years of age. James and his son, heedless of their late oaths† and protestations, also agreed to articles which nearly amounted to a toleration of the Catholic religion.

The king thus at length succeeded in his darling object of obtaining a high match for his son: but he was not fated to witness the marriage. He died on the 27th of March in the following year, 1625, after a fortnight's illness. His disorder was said to be tertian ague and gout in the stomach. He met his end with great constancy and devotion,‡ charging his son

* Clarendon, i., 41.

† Charles had, a few months before, bound himself by oath, "That, whensoever it should please God to bestow upon him any lady that were popish, she should have no farther liberty but for her own family, and no advantage to the recusants at home."Journal of Commons, 756. Lingard, ix., 219.

When the historian speaks of such a man as James finding VOL. III.-Q

to be steadfast in his religion, and not to desert his sister and her children.

The character of this monarch was a strange mixture of sense and folly. On perusing his writings, one cannot fail to be struck with the shrewdness, sagacity, and good sense which they exhibit: yet ever and anon something occurs to prove that the author was not a wise man. It was, however, in his actions that James's folly most signally displayed itself; and here he forfeits all claim to respect. Wisdom in conduct is never, we think, to be found where moral courage is wanting; and this last usually requires physical courage for its support. In this James was notoriously deficient; and hence nothing great, and but little good, can be recorded of him. His treatment of Arabella Stuart was cowardly and cruel; that of Raleigh unjust and pusillanimous; and in the case of the Somersets he behaved most disgracefully. In his habits James was filthy; he drank to excess, and he swore and blasphemed in an odious manner. word, with all his learning and talents, it would be difficult to find a monarch less entitled to respect than James I.

In a

The court of James was licentious and profligate to an extreme degree; and, if we may believe the ac

"peace in death," and taking to himself in his last moments the consoling assurance of acceptance with God and future happiness, we can scarcely credit the relation. And still it was probably so; for instances of like infatuation are constantly occurring in the history of individuals whose lives we find stained with every crime, and of whom it is nevertheless gravely recorded that they met their end full of Christian hope and comfort. There is surely nothing in the principles or doctrines of the Christian faith to encourage such egregious self-delusion; and that it is so frequently indulged, in the absence of all that is virtuous and good, is to be accounted for only by the facility with which the most profligate can deceive themselves as to their true character, and accommodate their religious views to any moral standard, however degraded and false. As to James, he had not been inattentive to the outward forms of religion, notwithstanding the profligacy of his life; and he no doubt relied on this, in connexion with a vague faith in certain religious views, to make good his account in another world.-Am. Ed.

AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.

183

counts of the time, it was not uncommon for the court-ladies to appear in public in a state of intoxication. The whole story of the Somersets presents a deplorable picture of aulic depravity. At the same time, the royal palace was frequently the scene of great magnificence; and those stately masques, where Ben Jonson supplied the poetry, and Inigo Jones the machinery, far exceeded in costliness and splendour the court entertainments of succeeding times.

The history of the reign of James, indeed, is rather the history of his court than of the nation. The most important national event in the whole course is that of the colonization of the north of Ireland, which we will now briefly relate.

On the suppression of the rebellion of the Desmonds in the late reign, their immense territories had become forfeit to the crown. A plan of colonization was adopted, and the lands were parcelled out among the undertakers (as they were named) at low rents. The grants, however, were too large, and the conditions were not duly complied with: so that, though Munster thus received a large accession of English blood (the stock of its nobility and gentry of the present day), the experiment failed. After the accession of James, the great northern chieftains O'Neal and O'Donnel fled to Spain, and their territories, amounting to half a million of acres, fell to the crown. The king and Lacon then devised a system of colonization, which was carried into effect by Sir Arthur Chichester, the lord-deputy. There were to be three classes of grants, of 2000, 1500, and 1000 acres. Those who obtained the first were to build a castle and a bawn or strong courtyard; the next, a house of stone or brick and a bawn; and the third, a bawn only. They were all bound to settle on their lands, in certain proportions, able-bodied men of English or Lowland-Scottish birth, who were to live in villages, and not dispersedly. A portion of this territory was also granted to the native Irish. The plan was a noble one; and though, like everything designed for the benefit of that unfortunate country, the cupidity and in