"Charles appears," says Mr. D'Israeli,1 "to have desired that his Court should resemble the literary Court of the Medici. He assembled about him the

great masters of their various arts. We may rate Charles's taste at the supreme degree, by remarking that this monarch never patronized mediocrity: the artist who was honoured by his regard was ever a master-spirit. Father of art in our country, Charles seemed ambitious of making English denizens of every man of genius in Europe." Vandyke and Rubens were domiciled in England; and who can tell how much the Cavalier cause owes of its romantic interest to the classic, yet original grace, with which the former has immortalized the persons of its heroes. The Italians happily call him "Il Pittore Cavalieresco," and it was in one of his happiest moods that he made that fine picture of Prince Rupert, bequeathed, in gratitude for many a noble service, to Lord Craven, and now in possession of his descendant at Combe Abbey.

In the midst of such society it was natural for our young Prince to imbibe the accomplished tastes he saw so richly displayed around him, and there

1 Comment. iii. 93.

2 See "Edinburgh Review," xlii. p. 330, and Macaulay's "Essays," who says, that "Charles owed his popularity to having taken his little son on his knee and kissed him, and for having had prayers read at six o'clock in the morning, and for his Vandyke dress and peaked beard." These "Essays" were written long ago their eloquence and verve may sometimes carry the reader, as they do the writer, unconsciously beyond the bounds of taste and good feeling, and therefore of truth.

with to nourish and cultivate his own natural genius for the arts.1 We shall soon find him, a solitary prisoner, consoling himself with such resources, and exercising those gifts that ultimately made his pencil as famous as his sword.

But these Medicean enjoyments were not the only attractions that the Court of Charles possessed for the young Palatine. The Queen, Henrietta Maria, had a passion for society and a Frenchwoman's wonderful tact in sustaining its effervescence. She had contrived to impart to her drawing-room gossip some of the deep and agitating importance of the Council Chamber. Every interest was, therefore, concentrated there: every political or social intrigue was there to be heard of, to be canvassed, and schemed about yet further. Under this glittering mask, most of the many mischiefs of the State were concocted, or, at least, received their poisonous ingredients.2 The Queen's winning manner and sweet beauty threw a grace

1 See Appendix for Lord Orford's character of Rupert.- Catalogue of Engravers, p. 135.

One of the fierce controversial pamphlets of 1643, thus speaks of the Queen, at a later period, but in the same sense :"Because her Pope is turned out of doors, she makes the fatal sisters and furies of her Privy Council, and proceeds so manfully meritoriously, that Sir Kenelm Digby consults now with her Holiness, to have her set in the Rubric as St. Nemesis of the breeches."-Harleian Misc. v. 343.

It is curious that Bishop Warburton designates Lady Carlisle (in a pithy note to Clarendon's Rebellion, vol. vii. p. 541), as "the Erinnys of her Times."

and fascination over all this, and Lady Carlisle, the prime minister of her boudoir and petty politics, was also beautiful and persuasive: Lady Rivers, Lady Aubigny, Lady Isabel Thynne, belonged to the same circle, and were similarly qualified. Their charms, or talents, or interest, as well as the magic of their place, secured for them the adoration of the poets and wits, Donne, Carew, Suckling, Waller, Lovelace, Matthewes, and others, through whose flattery they are best known to us, and whose wit is living still in the cold and unexplored recesses of our libraries. Among the men of higher "caste" and lower intellect who were then Court butterflies (or caterpillars) were Lords Holland, Newport, Devonshire, Elgin, Rich, Dungarvon, Dunluce, Wharton, Paget, Saltoun; and some of worthier stamp, as the Duke of Lenox (Richmond), Lord Grandison, and Lord Fielding (Earl of Denbigh's son), Turning from the sparkling "Academie," and the treachery-brooding "chamber" of Lady Carlisle, truth, intellect, and honour, were to be found in the society of Falkland, and such friends as he gathered round him at Burford' and in London. I do not know that the conversation of such men as Hyde, Selden, Hales, or Chillingworth, would have had much charm for the soldier-prince at this time, but it qualified, as men of mind will ever do, the tone of general society, in which the

1 Clarendon's Life, i. 42.

influence of a Bacon, a Raleigh, and a Burleigh, was still felt.

But there was one pleasure cultivated by the King into which Rupert entered with enthusiasm: Charles enjoyed hunting with hereditary zest, and had sacrificed to this passion the long sacred immunities of British property. He enclosed Richmond Park with as little ceremony as the first Norman conqueror shewed to his Saxon slaves, for the greater conveniency of having "red as well as fallow deer" so close at hand. The hunting, whatever was its style, in England seems to have been then as now, pre-eminent; and was the attraction from which our Prince perhaps parted with the most regret. In a letter from the Rev. Mr. Garrard to Lord Wentworth, dated July, 1637, we find that, "Both the brothers (Palatine) went away unwillingly, but Prince Rupert expressed it most, for being a hunting that [very] morning with the King, he wished that he might break his neck, so he might leave his bones in England!"*

And beneath all this hunting, and gaiety, and grandeur, the strong slow stream of popular power was at constant work; unperceivedly, but inevitably working out its way; soon to open and swallow up the holiday-makers that now trampled gaily on its dangerous banks. Ship-money, "a sound of lasting memory in England," was first brought to trial during this visit of Prince Rupert's. 1 Clarendon's Rebellion, i. 176. 2 Strafford Papers, vol. ii. 88.

But at length, Charles roused himself to the conviction that something besides talking must be done for the Palatinate. The return of Lord Arundel from his embassy, with the usual negative results, decided the question between war and words. Austria only offered civility, and Spain promises: but the Duke of Bavaria' used the plain stern language of a soldier, and swore that what the sword had gained the sword should keep.2 For eighteen years King James and Charles had been the duped victims of every succeeding king, emperor, and minister of Austria and Spain. England was now to put forth her arm in the old cause; the rather perhaps that the Elector had been very busy among the Puritans, and made, in sporting phrase, a hedge against the doubtful issue of the struggle that was every day approaching. In the former year (1636) an attempt had

1 The Duke of Bavaria had, at the period of his investiture of the Palatinates, consented to leave this arrangement in the Emperor's hands. But since then he had married, and had a son born to him, and he was determined to leave that son his possessions unimpaired. As his wife was the young Emperor's sister, his brother-in-law was little inclined to dispossess him. marriage is thus described by my good gossip, Howell, p. 261: -"The old rotten Duke of Bavaria, for he hath divers issues about his body, hath married a young lady little above twenty, and he near upon fourscore."

2 D'Israeli's Commentaries, iii. 429.

His

3 But when she strove to do so, she found it palsied: Charles, in his letter to Lord Wentworth (Feb. 1637), deplores his inability to send troops.-Strafford Papers.

I find this hypothesis amply borne out by Mr. Forster in the fifth volume of his "Statesmen of the Commonwealth," p. 70, &c. See also vol. iii. of this work.