1616.
A young minion to gratify with pleasure, a necessitous family to supply with riches, were enterprises too great for the empty exchequer of James. In order to obtain a little money, the cautionary towns must be delivered up to the Dutch; a measure which has been severely blamed by almost all historians; and I may venture to affirm, that it has been censured much beyond its real weight and importance.
When Queen Elizabeth advanced money for the support of the infant republic, besides the view of securing herself against the power and ambition of Spain, she still reserved the prospect of reimbursement; and she got consigned into her hands the three important fortresses of Flushing, the Brille, and Rammekins, as pledges for the money due to her. Indulgent to the necessitous condition of the states, she agreed that the debt should bear no interest; and she stipulated, that if ever England should make a separate peace with Spain, she should pay the troops which garrisoned those fortresses.[*]
After the truce was concluded between Spain and the United Provinces, the states made an agreement with the king, that the debt, which then amounted to eight hundred thousand pounds, should be discharged by yearly payments of forty thousand pounds; and as five years had elapsed, the debt was now reduced to six hundred thousand pounds; and in fifteen years more, if the truce were renewed, it would be finally extinguished.[**]
But of this sum, twenty-six thousand pounds a year were expended on the pay of the garrisons: the remainder alone accrued to the king: and the states, weighing these circumstances, thought that they made James a very advantageous offer, when they expressed their willingness, on the surrender of the cautionary towns to pay him immediately two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and to incorporate the English garrisons in their army. It occurred also to the king, that even the payment of the forty thousand pounds a year was precarious, and depended on the accident that the truce should be renewed between Spain and the republic: if war broke out, the maintenance of the garrisons lay upon England alone; a burden very useless, and too heavy for the slender revenues of that kingdom: that even during the truce, the Dutch, straitened by other expenses, were far from being regular in their payments; and the garrisons were at present in danger of mutinying for want of subsistence: that the annual sum of fourteen thousand pounds, the whole saving on the Dutch payments, amounted, in fifteen years, to no more than two hundred and ten thousand pounds; whereas two hundred and fifty thousand pounds were offered immediately, a larger sum; and if money be computed at ten per cent., the current interest more than double the sum to which England was entitled:[*] that if James waited till the whole debt were discharged, the troops which composed the garrisons remained a burden upon him, and could not be broken, without receiving some consideration for their past services: that the cautionary towns were only a temporary restraint upon the Hollanders; and, in the present emergence, the conjunction of interest between England and the republic was so intimate as to render all other ties superfluous; and no reasonable measures for mutual support would be wanting from the Dutch, even though freed from the dependence of these garrisons: that the exchequer of the republic was at present very low, insomuch that they found difficulty, now that the aids of France were withdrawn, to maintain themselves in that posture of defence which was requisite during the truce with Spain: and that the Spaniards were perpetually insisting with the king on the restitution of these towns, as belonging to their crown; and no cordial alliance could ever be made with that nation, while they remained in the hands of the English.[**] These reasons, together with his urgent wants, induced the king to accept of Caron’s offer; and he evacuated the cautionary towns, which held the states in a degree of subjection, and which an ambitious and enterprising prince would have regarded as his most valuable possessions. This is the date of the full liberty of the Dutch commonwealth.
1617.
When the crown of England devolved on James, it might have been foreseen by the Scottish nation, that the independence of their kingdom, the object for which their ancestors had shed so much blood, would now be lost; and that, if both states persevered in maintaining separate laws and parliaments, the weaker would more sensibly feel the subjection, than if it had been totally subdued by force of arms. But these views did not generally occur. The glory of having given a sovereign to their powerful enemy, the advantages of present peace and tranquillity, the riches acquired from the munificence of their master; these considerations secured their dutiful obedience to a prince who daily gave such sensible proofs of his friendship and partiality towards them. Never had the authority of any king who resided among them, been so firmly established as was that of James, even when absent; and as the administration had been hitherto conducted with great order and tranquillity, there had happened no occurrence to draw thither our attention. But this summer the king was resolved to pay a visit to his native country, in order to renew his ancient friendships and connections, and to introduce that change of ecclesiastical discipline and government on which he was extremely intent. The three chief points of this kind, which James proposed to accomplish by his journey to Scotland, were the enlarging of episcopal authority, the establishing of a few ceremonies in public worship, and the fixing of a superiority in the civil above the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
But it is an observation suggested by all history, and by none more than by that of James and his successor, that the religious spirit, when it mingles with faction, contains in it something supernatural and unaccountable; and that, in its operations upon society, effects correspond less to their known causes than is found in any other circumstance of government; a reflection which may at once afford a source of blame against such sovereigns as lightly innovate in so dangerous an article, and of apology for such as, being engaged in an enterprise of that nature, are disappointed of the expected event, and fail in their undertakings.
When the Scottish nation was first seized with that zeal for reformation, which, though it caused such disturbance during the time, has proved so salutary in the consequences, the preachers, assuming a character little inferior to the prophetic or apostolical, disdained all subjection to the spiritual rulers of the church, by whom their innovations were punished and opposed. The revenues of the dignified clergy, no longer considered as sacred, were either appropriated by the present possessors, or seized by the more powerful barons; and what remained, after mighty dilapidations, was, by act of parliament, annexed to the crown. The prelates, however, and abbots, maintained their temporal jurisdictions and their seats in parliament; and though laymen were sometimes endowed with ecclesiastical titles, the church, notwithstanding its frequent protestations to the contrary, was still supposed to be represented by those spiritual lords in the states of the kingdom. After many struggles, the king, even before his accession to the throne of England, had acquired sufficient influence over the Scottish clergy, to extort from them an acknowledgment of the parliamentary jurisdiction of bishops; though attended with many precautions, in order to secure themselves against the spiritual encroachments of that order.[*] When king of England, he engaged them, though still with great reluctance on their part, to advance a step further, and to receive the bishops as perpetual presidents or moderators in their ecclesiastical synods; reiterating their protestations against all spiritual jurisdiction of the prelates, and all controlling power over the presbyters.[**] And by such gradual innovations, the king flattered himself that he should quietly introduce episcopal authority: but as his final scope was fully seen from the beginning, every new advance gave fresh occasion of discontent, and aggravated, instead of softening, the abhorrence entertained against the prelacy.
What rendered the king’s aim more apparent, were the endeavors which, at the same time, he used to introduce into Scotland some of the ceremonies of the church of England: the rest, it was easily foreseen, would soon follow. The fire of devotion, excited by novelty, and inflamed by opposition, had so possessed the minds of the Scottish reformers, that all rites and ornaments, and even order of worship, were disdainfully rejected as useless burdens; retarding the imagination in its rapturous ecstasies, and cramping the operations of that divine spirit by which they supposed themselves to be animated. A mode of worship was established, the most naked and most simple imaginable; one that borrowed nothing from the senses, but reposed itself entirely on the contemplation of that divine essence which discovers itself to the understanding only. This species of devotion, so worthy of the Supreme Being, but so little suitable to human frailty, was observed to occasion great disturbances in the breast, and in many respects to confound all rational principles of conduct and behavior. The mind, straining for these extraordinary raptures, reaching them by short glances, sinking again under its own weakness, rejecting all exterior aid of pomp and ceremony, was so occupied in this inward life, that It fled from every intercourse of society, and from every cheerful amusement which could soften or humanize the character. It was obvious to all discerning eyes, and had not escaped the king’s, that, by the prevalence of fanaticism, a gloomy and sullen disposition established itself among the people; a spirit obstinate and dangerous; independent and disorderly; animated equally with a contempt of authority, and a hatred to every other mode of religion, particularly to the Catholic. In order to mellow these humors, James endeavored to infuse a small tincture of ceremony into the national worship, and to introduce such rites as might, in some degree, occupy the mind, and please the senses, without departing too far from that simplicity by which the reformation was distinguished. The finer arts too, though still rude in these northern kingdoms, were employed to adorn the churches; and the king’s chapel, in which an organ was erected, and some pictures and statues displayed, was proposed as a model to the rest of the nation. But music was grating to the prejudiced ears of the Scottish; clergy; sculpture and painting appeared instruments of idolatry the surplice was a rag of Popery; and every motion or gesture prescribed by the liturgy, was a step towards that spiritual Babylon, so much the object of their horror and aversion. Every thing was deemed impious but their own mystical comments on the Scriptures, which they idolized, and whose Eastern prophetic style they employed in every common occurrence.
It will not be necessary to give a particular account of the ceremonies which the king was so intent to establish. Such institutions, for a time, are esteemed either too divine to have proceeded from any other being than the Supreme Creator of the universe, or too diabolical to have been derived from any but an infernal demon. But no sooner is the mode of the controversy past, than they are universally discovered to be of so little importance, as scarcely to be mentioned with decency amidst the ordinary course of human transactions. It suffices here to remark, that the rites introduced by James regarded the kneeling at the sacrament, private communion, private baptism, confirmation of children, and the observance of Christmas and other festivals.[*]
The acts establishing these ceremonies were afterwards known by the name of the Articles of Perth, from the place where they were ratified by the assembly.
A conformity of discipline and worship between the churches of England and Scotland, which was James’s aim, he never could hope to establish, but by first procuring an acknowledgment of his own authority in all spiritual causes; and nothing could be more contrary to the practice as well as principles of the Presbyterian clergy. The ecclesiastical courts possessed the power of pronouncing excommunication; and that sentence, besides the spiritual consequences supposed to follow from it, was attended with immediate effects of the most important nature. The person excommunicated was shunned by every one as profane and impious; and his whole estate, during his lifetime, and all his movables, forever, were forfeited to the crown. Nor were the previous steps requisite before pronouncing this sentence, formal or regular, in proportion to the weight of it. Without accuser, without summons, without trial, any ecclesiastical court, however inferior, sometimes pretended, in a summary manner, to denounce excommunication, for any cause, and against any person, even though he lived not within the bounds of their jurisdiction.[*] And, by this means, the whole tyranny of the inquisition, though without its order, was introduced into the kingdom.
But the clergy were not content with the unlimited jurisdiction which they exercised in ecclesiastical matters: they assumed a censorial power over every part of administration; and, in all their sermons, and even prayers, mingling politics with religion, they inculcated the most seditious and most turbulent principles. Black, minister of St. Andrew’s, went so far,[**] in a sermon, as to pronounce all kings the devil’s children; he gave the queen of England the appellation of atheist; he said, that the treachery of the king’s heart was now fully discovered; and in his prayers for the queen he used these words: “We must pray for her for the fashion’s sake, but we have no cause: she will never do us any good.” When summoned before the privy council, he refused to answer to a civil court for any thing delivered from the pulpit, even though the crime of which he was accused was of a civil nature. The church adopted his cause. They raised a sedition in Edinburgh.[***]
The king, during some time, was in the hands of the enraged populace; and it was not without courage, as well as dexterity, that he was able to extricate himself.[*] A few days after, a minister, preaching in the principal church of that capital, said, that the king was possessed with a devil; and that, one devil being expelled, seven worse had entered in his place.[**] To which he added, that the subjects might lawfully rise, and take the sword out of his hand. Scarcely, even during the darkest night of Papal superstition, are there found such instances of priestly encroachments, as the annals of Scotland present to us during that period.
By these extravagant stretches of power, and by the patient conduct of James, the church began to lose ground, even before the king’s accession to the throne of England; but no sooner had that event taken place, than he made the Scottish clergy sensible that he was become the sovereign of a great kingdom, which he governed with great, authority. Though formerly he would have thought himself happy to have made a fair partition with them of the civil and ecclesiastical authority, he was now resolved to exert a supreme jurisdiction in church as well as state, and to put an end to their seditious practices. An assembly had been summoned at Aberdeen;[***] but, on account of his journey to London, he prorogued it to the year following. Some of the clergy, disavowing his ecclesiastical supremacy, met at the time first appointed, notwithstanding his prohibition. He threw them into prison. Such of them as submitted, and acknowledged their error, were pardoned. The rest were brought to their trial. They were condemned for high treason. The king gave them their lives, but banished them the kingdom. Six of them suffered this penalty.[****]
The general assembly was afterwards induced[v] to acknowledge the king’s authority in summoning ecclesiastical courts, and to submit to the jurisdiction and visitation of the bishops Even their favorite sentence of excommunication was declared invalid, unless confirmed by the ordinary. The king recommended to the inferior courts the members whom they should elect to this assembly; and every thing was conducted in it with little appearance of choice and liberty.[v*]
By his own prerogative, likewise, which he seems to have stretched on this occasion, the king erected a court of high commission,[*] in imitation of that which was established in England. The bishops and a few of the clergy, who had been summoned, willingly acknowledged this court; and it proceeded immediately upon business, as if its authority had been grounded on the full consent of the whole legislature.
But James reserved the final blow for the time when he should himself pay a visit to Scotland. He proposed to the parliament, which was then assembled, that they should enact, that “whatever his majesty should determine in the external government of the church, with the consent of the archbishops, bishops, and a competent number of the ministry, should have the force of law.”[**] What number should be deemed competent was not determined; and their nomination was left entirely to the king: so that his ecclesiastical authority, had this bill passed, would have been established in its full extent. Some of the clergy protested. They apprehended, they said, that the purity of their church would, by means of this new authority, be polluted with all the rites and liturgy of the church of England. James, dreading clamor and opposition dropped the bill, which had already passed the lords of articles; and asserted, that the inherent prerogative of the crown contained more power than was recognized by it. Some time after, he called, at St. Andrew’s, a meeting of the bishops and thirty-six of the most eminent clergy. He there declared his resolution of exerting his prerogative, and of establishing, by his own authority, the few ceremonies which he had recommended to them. They entreated him rather to summon a general assembly, and to gain their assent. An assembly was accordingly summoned to meet on the twenty-fifth of November ensuing.
Yet this assembly, which met after the king’s departure from Scotland, eluded all his applications; and it was not till the subsequent year, that he was able to procure a vote for receiving his ceremonies. And through every step in this affair, in the parliament as well as in all the general assemblies, the nation betrayed the utmost reluctance to all these innovations, and nothing but James’s importunity and authority had extorted a seeming consent, which was belied by the inward sentiments of all ranks of people. Even the few over whom religious prejudices were not prevalent, thought national honor sacrificed by a servile imitation of the modes worship practised in England. And every prudent man agreed in condemning the measures of the king, who, by an ill-timed zeal for insignificant ceremonies, had betrayed, though in an opposite manner, equal narrowness of mind with the persons whom he treated with such contempt. It was judged that, had not these dangerous humors been irritated by opposition; had they been allowed peaceably to evaporate; they would at last have subsided within the limits of law and civil authority; and that, as all fanatical religions naturally circumscribe to very narrow bounds the numbers and riches of the ecclesiastics, no sooner is their first fire spent, than they lose their credit over the people, and leave them under the natural and beneficent influence of their civil and moral obligations.
At the same time that James shocked, in so violent a manner, the religious principles of his Scottish subjects, he acted in opposition to those of his English. He had observed, in his progress through England, that a Judaical observance of the Sunday, chiefly by means of the Puritans, was every day gaining ground throughout the kingdom; and that the people, under color of religion, were, contrary to former practice debarred such sports, and recreations as contributed both to their health and their amusement.[*] Festivals, which, in other nations and ages, are partly dedicated to public worship, partly to mirth and society, were here totally appropriated to the offices of religion, and served to nourish those sullen and gloomy contemplations to which the people were, of themselves, so unfortunately subject. The king imagined, that it would be easy to infuse cheerfulness into this dark spirit of devotion. He issued a proclamation to allow and encourage, after divine service, all kinds of lawful games and exercises; and, by his authority, he endeavored to give sanction to a practice which his subjects regarded as the utmost instance of profaneness and impiety.[**]
To show how rigid the English, chiefly the Puritans, were become in this particular, a bill was introduced into the house of commons, in the eighteenth of the king, for the more strict observance of the Sunday, which they affected to the Sabbath. One Shepherd opposed this bill, objected to the appellation of Sabbath as Puritanical, defended dancing by the example of David, and seems even to have justified sports on that day. For this profaneness he was expelled the house, by the suggestion of Mr. Pym the house of lords opposed so far this Puritanical spirit of the commons that they proposed that the appellation of Sabbath should be changed into that of the Lord’s day.[*]
1618.
At the time when Sir Waller Raleigh was first confined in the Tower, his violent and haughty temper had rendered him the most unpopular man in England; and his condemnation was chiefly owing to that public odium under which he labored. During the thirteen years’ imprisonment which he suffered, the sentiments of the nation were much changed with regard to him. Men had leisure to reflect on the hardship, not to say injustice, of his sentence; they pitied his active and enterprising spirit, which languished in the rigors of confinement; they were struck with the extensive genius of the man, who, being educated amidst naval and military enterprises, had surpassed, in the pursuits of literature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives; and they admired his unbroken magnanimity, which, at his age, and under his circumstances, could engage him to undertake and execute so great a work as his History of the World. To increase these favorable dispositions, on which he built the hopes of recovering his liberty, he spread the report of a golden mine which he had discovered in Guiana, and which was sufficient, according to his representation, not only to enrich all the adventurers, but to afford immense treasures to the nation. The king gave little credit to these mighty promises; both because he believed that no such mine as the one described was any where in nature, and because he considered Raleigh as a man of desperate fortunes, whose business it was, by any means, to procure his freedom, and to reinstate himself in credit and authority. Thinking, however, that he had already undergone sufficient punishment, he released him from the Tower; and when his vaunts of the golden mine had induced multitudes to engage with him, the king gave them permission to try the adventure, and, at their desire, he conferred on Raleigh authority over his fellow-adventurers. Though strongly solicited, he still refused to grant him a pardon, which he deemed a natural consequence, when he was intrusted with power and command. But James declared himself still diffident of Raleigh’s intentions; and he meant, he said, to reserve the former sentence, as a check upon his future behavior.
Raleigh well knew that it was far from the king’s purpose to invade any of the Spanish settlements: he therefore firmly denied that Spain had planted any colonies on that part of the coast where his mine lay. When Gondomar, the ambassador of that nation, alarmed at his preparations, carried complaints to the king, Raleigh still protested the innocence of his intentions; and James assured Gondomar, that he durst not form any hostile attempt, but should pay with his head for so audacious an enterprise. The minister, however, concluding that twelve armed vessels were not fitted out without some purpose of invasion, conveyed the intelligence to the court of Madrid, who immediately gave orders for arming and fortifying all their settlements, particularly those along the coast of Guiana.
When the courage and avarice of the Spaniards and Portuguese had discovered so many new worlds, they were resolved to show themselves superior to the barbarous heathens whom they invaded, not only in arts and arms, but also in the justice of the quarrel: they applied to Alexander VI.., who then filled the papal chair; and he generously bestowed on the Spaniards the whole western, and on the Portuguese the whole eastern part of the globe. The more scrupulous Protestants, who acknowledged not the authority of the Roman pontiff, established the first discovery as the foundation of their title; and if a pirate or sea adventurer of their nation had but erected a stick or a stone on the coast, as a memorial of his taking possession, they concluded the whole continent to belong to them, and thought themselves entitled to expel or exterminate, as usurpers, the ancient possessors and inhabitants It was in this manner that Sir Walter Raleigh, about twenty-three years before, had acquired to the crown of England a claim to the continent of Guiana, a region as large as the half of Europe; and though he had immediately left the coast, yet he pretended that the English title to the whole remained certain and indefeasible. But it had happened in the mean time, that the Spaniards, not knowing, or not acknowledging, this imaginary claim, had taken possession of a part of Guiana, had formed a settlement on the River Oronooko, had built a little town called St. Thomas, and were there working some mines of small value.
To this place Raleigh directly bent his course; and, remaining himself at the mouth of the river with five of the largest ships, he sent up the rest to St. Thomas, under the command of his son, and of Captain Keymis, a person entirely devoted to him. The Spaniards, who had expected this invasion, fired on the English at their landing, were repulsed, and pursued into the town. Young Raleigh, to encourage his men, called out, “That this was the true mine, and none but fools looked for any other;” and, advancing upon the Spaniards, received a shot, of which he immediately expired. This dismayed not Keymis and the others. They carried on the attack, got possession of the town, which they afterwards reduced to ashes; and found not in it any thing of value.
Raleigh did not pretend that he had himself seen the mine which he had engaged so many people to go in quest of: it was Keymis, he said, who had formerly discovered it, and had brought him that lump of ore, which promised such immense treasures. Yet Keymis, who owned that he was within two hours’ march of the place, refused, on the most absurd pretences, to take any effectual step towards finding it; and he returned immediately to Raleigh, with the melancholy news of his son’s death, and the ill success of the enterprise. Sensible to reproach, and dreading punishment for his behavior, Keymis, in despair, retired into his cabin, and put an end to his own life.
The other adventurers now concluded, that they were deceived by Raleigh; that he never had known of any such mine as he pretended to go in search of; that his intention had ever been to plunder St. Thomas; and having encouraged his company by the spoils of that place, to have thence proceeded to the invasion of the other Spanish settlements; that he expected to repair his ruined fortunes by such daring enterprises; and that he trusted to the money he should acquire, for making his peace with England; or, if that view failed him, that he purposed to retire into some other country, where his riches would secure his retreat.
The small acquisitions gained by the sack of St. Thomas discouraged Raleigh’s companions from entering into these views; though there were many circumstances in the treaty and late transactions between the nations, which might invite them to engage in such a piratical war against the Spaniards.
When England made peace with Spain, the example of Henry IV. was imitated, who, at the treaty of Vervins, finding a difficulty in adjusting all questions with regard to the Indian trade, had agreed to pass over that article in total silence.
The Spaniards, having all along published severe edicts against the this silence in their own favor, and considered it as a tacit acquiescence of England in the established laws of Spain. The English, on the contrary, pretended that, as they had never been excluded by any treaty from commerce with any part of the king of Spain’s dominions, it was still as lawful for them to trade with his settlements in either Indies, as with his European territories. In consequence of this ambiguity, many adventurers from England sailed to the Spanish Indies, and met with severe punishment when caught; as they, on the other hand, often stole, and when superior in power, forced a trade with the inhabitants, and resisted, nay, sometimes plundered, the Spanish governors. Violences of this nature, which had been carried to a great height on both sides, it was agreed to bury in total oblivion; because of the difficulty which was found in remedying them upon any fixed principles.
But as there appeared a great difference between private adventurers in single ships, and a fleet acting under a royal commission, Raleigh’s companions thought it safest to return immediately to England, and carry him along with them to answer for his conduct. It appears that he employed many artifices, first to engage them to attack the Spanish settlements, and, failing of that, to make his escape into France: but, all these proving unsuccessful, he was delivered into the king’s hands, and strictly examined, as well as his fellow-adventurers, before the privy council. The council, upon inquiry, found no difficulty in pronouncing, that the former suspicions, with regard to Raleigh’s intentions, had been well grounded; that he had abused the king in the representations which he had made of his projected adventure; that, contrary to his instructions, he had acted in an offensive and hostile manner against his majesty’s allies; and that he had wilfully burned and destroyed a town belonging to the king of Spain. He might have been tried either by common law, for this act of violence and piracy; or by martial law, for breach of orders: but it was an established principle among lawyers,[*] that, as he lay under an actual attainder for high treason, he could not be brought to a new trial for any other crime. To satisfy, therefore the court of Spain, which raised the loudest complaints against him, the king made use of that power which he had purposely reserved in his own hands, and signed the warrant for his execution upon his former sentence.[**] 54
Raleigh, finding his fate inevitable, collected all his courage and though he had formerly made use of many mean artifices, such as feigning madness, sickness, and a variety of diseases, in order to protract his examination, and procure his escape, he now resolved to act his part with bravery and resolution, “‘Tis a sharp remedy,” he said, “but a sure one for all ills,” when he felt the edge of the axe by which he was to be beheaded.[*] His harangue to the people was calm and eloquent; and he endeavored to revenge himself, and to load his enemies with the public hatred, by strong asseverations of facts, which, to say the least, may be esteemed very doubtful.[**] With the utmost indifference he laid his head upon the block, and received the fatal blow; and in his death there appeared the same great, but ill-regulated mind, which, during his life, had displayed itself in all his conduct and behavior.
No measure of James’s reign was attended with more public dissatisfaction than the punishment of Sir Walter Raleigh. To execute a sentence which was originally so hard, which had been so long suspended, and which seemed to have been tacitly pardoned, by conferring on him a new trust and commission, was deemed an instance of cruelty and injustice. To sacrifice to a concealed enemy of England the life of the only man in the nation who had a high reputation for valor and military experience, was regarded as meanness and indiscretion; and the intimate connections which the king was now entering into with Spain, being universally distasteful, rendered this proof of his complaisance still more invidious and unpopular.
James had entertained an opinion, which was peculiar to himself, and which had been adopted by none of his predecessors, that any alliance below that of a great king was unworthy of a prince of Wales; and he never would allow any princess, but a daughter of France or Spain, to be mentioned as a match for his son.[*] This instance of pride, which really implies meanness, as if he could receive honor from any alliance, was so well known, that Spain had founded on it the hopes of governing, in the most important transactions, this monarch, so little celebrated for politics or prudence. During the life of Henry, the king of Spain had dropped some hints of bestowing on that prince his eldest daughter, whom he afterwards disposed of in marriage to the young king of France, Lewis XIII. At that time, the views of the Spaniards were to engage James into a neutrality with regard to the succession of Cleves, which was disputed between the Protestant and Popish line;[**] but the bait did not then take; and James, in consequence of his alliance with the Dutch, and with Henry IV. of France, marched[***] four thousand men, under the command of Sir Edward Cecil, who joined these two powers, and put the marquis of Brandenburgh and the palatine of Newbourg in possession of that duchy.
Gondomar was at this time the Spanish ambassador in England; a man whose flattery was the more artful, because covered with the appearance of frankness and sincerity; whose politics were the more dangerous, because disguised under the mask of mirth and pleasantry. He now made offer of the second daughter of Spain to Prince Charles; and, that he might render the temptation irresistible to the necessitous monarch, he gave hopes of an immense fortune, which should attend the princess. The court of Spain, though determined to contract no alliance with a heretic,[****] entered into negotiations with James, which they artfully protracted; and, amidst every disappointment, they still redoubled his hopes of success.[v] The transactions in Germany, so important to the Austrian greatness, became every day a new motive for this duplicity of conduct.
In that great revolution of manners which happened during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, the only nations who had the honorable, though often melancholy advantage, of making an effort for their expiring privileges, were such as, together with the principles of civil liberty, were animated with a zeal for religious parties and opinions. Besides the irresistible force of standing armies, the European princes possessed this advantage, that they were descended from the ancient royal families; that they continued the same designations of magistrates, the same appearance of civil government; and restraining themselves by all the forms of legal administration, could insensibly impose the yoke on their unguarded subjects. Even the German nations, who formerly broke the Roman chains, and restored liberty to mankind, now lost their own liberty, and saw with grief the absolute authority of their princes firmly established among them. In their circumstances, nothing but a pious zeal, which disregards all motives of human prudence, could have made them entertain hopes of preserving any longer those privileges which their ancestors, through so many ages, had transmitted to them.
As the house of Austria, throughout all her extensive dominions, had ever made religion the pretence for her usurpations, she now met with resistance from a like principle; and the Catholic religion, as usual, had ranged itself on the side of monarchy; the Protestant, on that of liberty. The states of Bohemia, having taken arms against the emperor Matthias, continued their revolt against his successor, Ferdinand, and claimed the observance of all the edicts enacted in favor of the new religion, together with the restoration of their ancient laws and constitution. The neighboring principalities, Silesia, Moravia, Lusatia, Austria, even the kingdom of Hungary, took part in the quarrel; and throughout all these populous and martial provinces, the spirit of discord and civil war had universally diffused itself.[*]
1619.
Ferdinand II., who possessed more vigor and greater abilities, though not more lenity and moderation, than are usual with the Austrian princes, strongly armed himself for the recovery of his authority; and besides employing the assistance of his subjects, who professed the ancient religion, he engaged on his side a powerful alliance of the neighboring potentates. All the Catholic princes of the empire had embraced his defence; even Saxony, the most powerful of the Protestant: Poland had declared itself in his favor;[**] and, above all, the Spanish monarch, deeming his own interest closely connected with that of the younger branch of his family, prepared powerful succors from Italy, and from the Low Countries; and he also advanced large sums for the support of Ferdinand and of the Catholic religion.
The states of Bohemia, alarmed at these mighty preparations, began also to solicit foreign assistance; and, together with that support which they obtained from the evangelical union in Germany, they endeavored to establish connections with greater princes. They cast their eyes on Frederic, elector palatine. They considered that, besides commanding no despicable force of his own, he was son-in-law to the king of England, and nephew to Prince Maurice, whose authority was become almost absolute in the United Provinces. They hoped that these princes, moved by the connections of blood, as well as by the tie of their common religion, would interest themselves in all the fortunes of Frederic, and would promote his greatness. They therefore made him a tender of their crown, which they considered as elective; and the young palatine, stimulated by ambition, without consulting either James[*] or Maurice, whose opposition he foresaw, immediately accepted the offer, and marched all his forces into Bohemia, in support of his new subjects.
The news of these events no sooner reached England, than the whole kingdom was on fire to engage in the quarrel. Scarcely was the ardor greater, with which all the states of Europe, in former ages, flew to rescue the Holy Land from the dominion of infidels. The nation was as yet sincerely attached to the blood of their monarchs, and they considered their connection with the palatine, who had married a daughter of England, as very close and intimate; and when they heard of Catholics carrying on wars and persecutions against Protestants, they thought their own interest deeply concerned, and regarded their neutrality as a base desertion of the cause of God, and of his holy religion. In such a quarrel they would gladly have marched to the opposite extremity of Europe, have plunged themselves into a chaos of German politics, and have expended all the blood and treasure of the nation, by maintaining a contest with the whole house of Austria, at the very time and in the very place in which it was the most potent, and almost irresistible.
But James, besides that his temper was too little enterprising for such vast undertakings, was restrained by another motive, which had a mighty influence over him: he refused to patronize the revolt of subjects against their sovereign. From the very first, he denied to his son-in-law the title of king of Bohemia.[**]
He forbade him to be prayed for in the churches under that appellation; and though he owned, that he had nowise examined the pretensions, privileges, and constitution of the revolted states,[*] so exalted was his idea of the rights of kings, that he concluded subjects must ever be in the wrong, when they stood in opposition to those who had acquired or assumed that majestic title. Thus, even in measures founded on true politics, James intermixed so many narrow prejudices, as diminished his authority, and exposed him to the imputation of weakness and of error.
1620.
Meanwhile affairs every where hastened to a crisis. Ferdinand levied a great force, under the command of the duke of Bavaria and the count of Bucquoy, and advanced upon his enemy in Bohemia. In the Low Countries, Spinola collected a veteran army of thirty thousand men. When Edmonds, the king’s resident at Brussels, made remonstrances to the archduke Albert, he was answered, that the orders for this armament had been transmitted to Spinola from Madrid, and that he alone knew the secret destination of it. Spinola again told the minister that his orders were still sealed; but, if Edmonds would accompany him in his march to Coblentz, he would there open them, and give him full satisfaction.[**] It was more easy to see his intentions, than to prevent their success. Almost at one time it was known in England, that Frederic, being defeated in the great and decisive battle of Prague, had fled with his family into Holland, and that Spinola had invaded the Palatinate, and, meeting with no resistance, except from some princes of the union, and from one English regiment of two thousand four hundred men, commanded by the brave Sir Horace Vere,[***] had, in a little time, reduced the greater part of that principality.
High were now the murmurs and complaints against the king’s neutrality and inactive disposition. The happiness and tranquillity of their own country became distasteful to the English, when they reflected on the grievances and distresses of their Protestant brethren in Germany. They considered not, that their interposition in the wars of the continent, though agreeable to religious zeal, could not, at that time, be justified by any sound maxims of politics; that, however exorbitant the Austrian greatness, the danger was still too distant to give any just alarm to England; that mighty resistance would yet be made by so many potent and warlike princes and states in Germany, ere they would yield their neck to the yoke; that France, now engaged to contract a double alliance with the Austrian family, must necessarily be soon roused from her lethargy, and oppose the progress of so hated a rival; that, in the further advance of conquests, even the interests of the two branches of that ambitious family must interfere, and beget mutual jealousy and opposition; that a land war, carried on at such a distance, would waste the blood and treasure of the English nation, without any hopes of success; that a sea war, indeed, might be both safe and successful against Spain, but would not affect the enemy in such vital parts as to make them stop their career of success in Germany, and abandon all their acquisitions; and that the prospect of recovering the Palatinate being at present desperate, the affair was reduced to this simple question, whether peace and commerce with Spain, or the uncertain hopes of plunder and of conquest in the Indies, were preferable? a question which, at the beginning of the king’s reign, had already been decided, and perhaps with reason, in favor of the former advantages.
James might have defended his pacific measures by such plausible arguments; but these, though the chief, seem not to have been the sole motives which swayed him. He had entertained the notion, that, as his own justice and moderation had shone out so conspicuously throughout all these transactions, the whole house of Austria, though not awed by the power of England, would willingly, from mere respect to his virtue, submit themselves to so equitable an arbitration. He flattered himself that, after he had formed an intimate connection with the Spanish monarch, by means of his son’s marriage, the restitution of the Palatinate might be procured from the motive alone of friendship and personal attachment. He perceived not, that his unactive virtue, the more it was extolled, the greater disregard was it exposed to. He was not sensible, that the Spanish match was itself attended with such difficulties, that all his art of negotiation would scarcely be able to surmount them; much less, that this match could in good policy be depended on, as the means of procuring such extraordinary advantages. His unwarlike disposition, increased by age, rivetted him still faster in his errors, and determined him to seek the restoration of his son-in-law, by remonstrances and entreaties, by arguments and embassies, rather than by blood and violence. And the same defect of courage which held him in awe of foreign nations, made him likewise afraid of shocking the prejudices of his own subjects, and kept him from openly avowing the measures which he was determined to pursue. Or, perhaps, he hoped to turn these prejudices to account; and, by their means, engage his people to furnish him with supplies, of which their excessive frugality had hitherto made them so sparing and reserved.[*]
He first tried the expedient of a benevolence, or free gift, from individuals; pretending the urgency of the case, which would not admit of leisure for any other measure: but the jealousy of liberty was now roused, and the nation regarded these pretended benevolences as real extortions, contrary to law, and dangerous to freedom, however authorized by ancient precedent. A parliament was found to be the only resource which could furnish any large supplies; and writs were accordingly issued for summoning that great council of the nation.[**] 55
1621.
In this parliament there appeared, at first, nothing but duty and submission on the part of the commons; and they seemed determined to sacrifice every thing, in order to maintain a good correspondence with their prince. They would allow no mention to be made of the new customs or impositions, which had been so eagerly disputed in the former parliament;[***] the imprisonment of the members of that parliament was here by some complained of; but, by the authority of the graver and more prudent part of the house, that grievance was buried in oblivion;[****] and, being informed that the king had remitted several considerable sums to the palatine, the commons, without a negative, voted him two subsidies;[v] and that too at the very beginning of the session, contrary to the maxims frequently adopted by their predecessors.