The Cradle King: The Life of James VI and I, the First Monarch of a United Great Britain
Page 38
But even deep in the English countryside, James could not escape events on the Continent. In August, as planned, a Spanish army in the Low Countries led by Spinola invaded the Palatinate while Emperor Ferdinand moved against Prague. James refused to admit what was happening. The Venetian ambassador reported that ‘When any one reminds his Majesty that Spinola is on the march and proceeding towards the Palatinate, he says, “What do you know? You are ignorant. I know quite well what I am about. All these troubles will settle themselves, you will see that very soon. I know what I am talking about.”’ James refused to make any new decisions, declaring that ‘he does not know what more he can do, since he wishes to procure peace in any event and he does not wish to weaken the force of his mediation by any stronger declarations. He says: “I allow them to levy as many men as they wish from these kingdoms, I leave my subjects free, and even exhort them to give help in money, I perform all the good offices which are opportune with all the powers. What can I do more?”’ Although his ambassadors were told to reiterate that while James would not let the Palatinate ‘fall in any circumstances’, there was evidently only ‘slight disposition to do more’; and indeed he could not do more without summoning a Parliament, an option that after the disasters of 1610 and 1614 was ‘very far from the King’s thoughts’.43
It was only in the early autumn of 1620 that James started to accept that Spain had duped him. At Hampton Court on 24 September, he angrily accused Gondomar of deceiving him, declaring that he would not allow his children nor his religion to perish – even if it meant going himself to defend the Palatinate. Gondomar pointed out that he had never actually promised that the Palatinate would not be invaded. James knew this to be true; he burst into tears. To the Privy Council, he made a formal declaration that he would defend the Palatinate. Having made the decision, James finally seemed happy, throwing a banquet, letting wine flow freely around the court, and drinking toasts to his children. But he soon started listening again to Gondomar, who assured him that, in fact, this invasion was the beginnings of peace. All Frederick had to do was renounce his claim to Bohemia, and his Palatinate would be restored to him. Gaining ground, Gondomar asserted his influence, forcing James to admit formally that Spain had not broken any promise about the Palatinate. The court was outraged at James’s acquiescence to Gondomar – it was ‘as if all our councillors were petty companions in respect of him, the great ambassador (as he calls himself) of the great King of Spain’.44 As the French ambassador put it, Gondomar was ‘not only an ambassador, but one of the first councillors of State of this kingdom, being day and night at the Palace of Whitehall, where the most secret counsels are confided to him and where they listen to his advices and follow them almost to the letter’.45
James was increasingly isolated from public opinion, which was virulently stirred up against Spain – often personalised in the form of Gondomar – by the sermons and writings of preachers. Most prolific among these was the Reverend Thomas Scott, who penned a series of tracts, starting with Vox Populi, a supposed translation of a report by Gondomar to the Spanish Council, gloating of his success in bringing England into the Spanish fold.46 On reading it, the Venetian ambassador reported, Gondomar ‘foams with wrath in every direction’.47 Simonds D’Ewes recorded that James ‘was much incensed at the sight of it’ and ordered the arrest of the anonymous author, who escaped to the Low Countries; meanwhile, the pamphlet enraged the English against Gondomar who had his Holborn residence ‘secured by a guard of men’.48 James was heard to remark that his people were becoming too republican, and issued a proclamation banning all speech on matters of state. While many of his counsellors urged him to call a Parliament, Buckingham and Gondomar persuaded him otherwise.
Then, in November, word reached England that on the 8th Maximilian of Bavaria had routed the Bohemian troops at the battle of the White Hill outside Prague. After just a year in power, Frederick and Elizabeth had been forced to flee the city, ignominiously, at night, and to head north. In England, there was an outpouring of grief for ‘the beloved Queen, who in her flight never had a helping hand from her father to protect and accompany her’. Now, reported Girolamo Lando, ‘tears, sighs and loud expressions of wrath are seen and heard in every direction. They have even found letters scattered in the streets, against the King, threatening that if his Majesty does not do what is expected of him, the people will assuredly display unmistakably their feelings and their wrath.’49 James, hunting hare at Newmarket, was shattered. ‘Very sad and grieved’, abandoning the chase, he ‘remained constantly shut up in his room in great sadness and dejection, forbidding the courtiers any kind of game or recreation.’ In December, the Bishop of London summoned his clergy and instructed them, in the King’s name, ‘not to meddle in their sermons with the Spanish match nor any other matter of state’. But by now feelings were too high, and the very next Sunday, a preacher at Paul’s Cross ‘spake very freely’ on the matter.50 Over the next three months, at least three clerics were imprisoned for speaking out against Spain: Ralph Clayton for expatiating on the dangers of importing a Spanish ewe, a thinly veiled reference to James’s plans to marry Charles to the Infanta; Dr John Everard, a reader at St Martin’s in the Fields, a stone’s throw from Whitehall Palace, was gaoled twice, also for preaching against the Spanish match; and Samuel Ward of Ipswich for caricaturing Gondomar in writing.51
At times James remarked ‘that he never wished to meddle in the affairs of Bohemia, and he clearly foresaw these disasters’. But skilled observers thought that now for the first time they saw ‘various signs that he really means to help the Palatinate and is steadily determined to listen no more to words or to the singing of deceitful sirens’.52 They were proved right when the King finally decided to call a Parliament, nearly seven years after the collapse of his last. James rode to Westminster on 30 January 1621 to make his usual opening speech but, to the consternation of many, had to be carried into the House of Lords in a chair, ‘being so weak in his legs and feet that it is doubted he will find little use in them hereafter, but be altogether perdus [lost] that way’.53 He would speak only briefly, he declared, since he had found that his former speeches had been turned against him (in the event he spoke for an hour). He reminded the members that Parliament was called to make laws and reform abuses. While he was ready to defend the religion of his people by pen and person, he preferred persuasion to martyrdoms. The proposed marriage with Spain would not lead to toleration of the Roman Catholic religion, nor would it encourage popery. He also had to call Parliament for his own necessities. No king, he declared, had reigned for so long, received so little, and spent so much for the public good. Despite this, he had been accused of giving away too much. Over the last two years, he had looked into and reduced his expenditure – here he gave thanks to the assistance of his ‘young Admiral’, Buckingham. And then there was the miserable state of Christendom. He might not have supported his son-in-law’s claim to the Bohemian throne, but he had spent immense sums in defending the Palatinate and in diplomatic embassies – and he would spend his own and his son’s blood to restore the Palatinate. Finally, he declared his willingness to reform all real grievances, but not to hunt after pretended ones. This Parliament had been long looked for; he hoped it would prove a happy one.54
At first it seemed that a happy Parliament was possible, as two subsidies were agreed on 15 February, as a ‘present of love’ to the King. But in return, the Commons took up Sir Edward Coke’s suggestion that such generosity entitled them ‘to appoint two days every week to hear grievances’.55 A slew of controversial monopolies was put under scrutiny, and, more pertinently, the men who sanctioned them: the ‘referees’. Sir Giles Mompesson, a relative of Buckingham’s by marriage, and Sir Francis Bacon (now Viscount St Albans) were both investigated on these grounds, and then, on 14 March, two charges of accepting bribes as Lord Chancellor were presented against Bacon. The Lord Chancellor appealed to his patron Buckingham and directly to the King, but to no effect: on 3 May Bacon was
found guilty, fined £40,000, imprisoned at the King’s pleasure in the Tower, held ‘uncapable of any office, place or employment in the state or commonwealth’, evicted from Parliament, and required to remain twelve miles away from court. There were many who believed that Buckingham had sacrificed Bacon to save himself; some even alleged that James himself was under threat. One of Bacon’s servants alleged that the Lord Chancellor told the King that ‘Those that will strike at your Chancellor, it’s much to be feared, will strike at your crown.’56 One observer in Paris even reported that there was talk that Bacon’s fall would lead to the deposing of King James himself, in favour of the Prince of Wales.57
In February 1621, while Parliament was proceeding, the Council of War gave its report on a plan for intervention to help the Palatinate. It estimated that an army of 30,000 men would be needed, costing over £200,000 to raise, and almost one million pounds a year to maintain in action. James was horrified at the sums, and doctored them for public consumption. He asked Parliament for £500,000 and at the end of the first parliamentary session, in June 1621, the Commons passed a resolution stating that if the King’s attempts to mediate failed, they would ‘be ready to the utmost of their powers, both with their lives and fortunes, to assist him, so as by the divine help of Almighty God … he may be able to do that with his sword which by a peaceable course shall not be effected’.58 In fact the Commons voted for only two subsidies, which brought in some £160,000.
James, however, made no military preparations. Wanting to believe that he had Philip of Spain’s promise that the Palatinate would be restored if Frederick renounced Bohemia, he convinced himself that this was the case. He determined that he would offer to Emperor Ferdinand Frederick’s renunciation of Bohemia, with a promise of good behaviour in the future. If Ferdinand were not moved, then James would simply call in his promise from Spain. If Spain refused … well, then and only then he would have to abandon hopes of an alliance with Spain and resort to force. ‘I am a King who loves peace,’ he declared. ‘I do not delight in shedding blood and therefore I strain every nerve to avert it if possible. But if notwithstanding my great dexterity and his promises, the King of Spain will not do his duty and fulfil them, I shall then have every reason and justice to take up arms against him and his, hoping with God’s help, in so righteous a cause, to make him repent of having roused a pacific lion.’59
In May 1621, Sir John Digby was despatched to the Emperor in Vienna to present the English terms, but James had reckoned without his son-in-law. Despite his losses, Frederick had no intention of giving up the fight, and called on his Protestant brothers for help. His general Ernst von Mansfeld was driven into the Upper Palatinate, where his growing army, subsisting off the local peasantry, became a menace. Digby did manage to bring about a truce, but its impact was hardly felt: Maximilian invaded the Upper Palatinate from Bavaria, driving Mansfeld towards the Rhine; at the same time, the Spanish forces gained the upper hand in the Lower Palatinate. Finally, military preparations began in England. Parliament, which had been prorogued until the following February, was called into session on 20 November. Money was forwarded to Frederick, along with pleas that he should renounce his claims to the Bohemian throne, while heading his own troops in the Palatinate. And then, suddenly, the momentum was broken. Before Parliament opened, James left London with Buckingham for Royston then Newmarket, where the Villiers ladies were in attendance, and did not return.
D.H. Willson writes of James’s ‘criminal folly’: ‘His absence from London was sheer indulgence, proof that he had sunk lower in his love of ease, of Buckingham, and of Bacchus.’60 But it might have been a canny strategy to focus Parliament’s minds on raising the finance to support Frederick’s troops: with James so publicly absent, the usual parading of grievances would have little impact. Fired by some passionate anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic rhetoric, Parliament voted one subsidy to aid the Palatinate, and framed a petition asking for the enforcement of existing anti-Catholic laws and urging that Charles should be found a Protestant wife. James was furious – ‘God give me patience’ – and refused to receive the petition. He wrote angrily to the Speaker of the House, protesting that his absence had given some fiery and popular spirits the boldness to debate matters that were far beyond their reach and capacity, matters moreover, ‘tending to our high dishonour and breach of prerogative royal’. He commanded that in future no member of Parliament should meddle with his government nor the arcana imperii, nor ‘deal with our dearest son’s match with the daughter of Spain, nor touch the honour of that King’. ‘We think ourselves very free and able to punish any man’s misdemeanours in Parliament,’ he warned, ‘as well during their sitting as after; which we mean not to spare henceforth.’ Gondomar was outraged. He wrote to the King threatening to leave England if James did not give him an assurance that the Commons would be punished; if they were not, then James had ceased to be King.
But the Commons were not to be easily quashed. Twelve MPs brought a second, slightly gentler petition to Newmarket, asking the King to ignore misreporting of their debates, to receive their first petition and to confirm their privileges. In a display of kingly condescension, James was Grace incarnate, calling for stools for the MPs to sit on, and assuring them that he, of all kings, was the freest from trusting to idle reports. ‘We,’ after all, ‘are an old and experienced King, needing no such lessons’. The Commons, however, had usurped his prerogative, no matter that they claimed they hadn’t meant to. How could they presume to discuss the Prince’s marriage without committing high treason: indeed, ‘What have you left unattempted in the highest point of sovereignty in that petition of yours?’ He could not permit the Commons to call their privilege an undoubted, inherited right. As long as they kept within the limits of their duty, then he would protect their lawful liberties; but if they trenched upon his prerogative then he – or any king – would reduce the privilege of those who dared pluck the flowers of his Crown. The MPs immediately drew up a protestation. They would stop quarrelling, they guaranteed, but a statement of rights had to be set down. The Commons’ privileges were their ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance, they insisted; the weightest matters of state should be debated in Parliament, and every MP had the freedom of speech and the freedom from arrest.
Christmas arrived, and the Commons retired for the festivities. James was in a quandary. All his instincts told him to dissolve Parliament: ‘The plain truth is we cannot with patience endure our subjects to use such anti-monarchical words to us concerning their liberties, except they had subjoined that they were granted unto them by the grace and favour of our predecessors.’ But if he dissolved Parliament, then he would lose the money. Gondomar, meanwhile, was urging him that, while Parliament was in session, negotiations with Spain were impossible; if James was to be secure on his throne, Parliament must be dissolved. Gondomar had Buckingham’s support here: Tillières complained that the Marquis scarcely acted as if he were English. In the final days of 1621, James came to a decision. He came to the Council chamber and demanded that the Clerk of Parliament produce the Commons’ Journal Book, in which the protestation had been recorded. He was offended with the protestation, he announced to the Council. It had ignored his repeated declarations that he wished to preserve all the Commons’ liberties. It had been written just as he was receiving a deputation with them – and, moreover, agreeing to their adjournment. It had been voted on at six o’clock at night, when only a third of members were in the House. It contained words that invaded most of the prerogatives of the Crown. There was only one thing to be done: ‘His Majesty erased it from the Journal Book with his own hand, and ordered an Act of Council to be entered thereof.’61
James kept the Parliament ‘full ten days in suspense’, and then suddenly dissolved it by proclamation, making a speedy escape to Theobalds, ‘not intending, as the speech is, to return till towards Easter’. Gondomar applauded him, saying that the dissolution of Parliament was the best thing that had happened in the last cent
ury. But James’s troubles were not over. After dining at Theobalds, he decided to go out riding, and his horse stumbled in a ditch, throwing the King into the New River, ‘where the ice brake; he fell in so that nothing but his boots were seen’. Sir Richard Young went into the water to pull him out, and ‘there came much water out of his mouth and body’. The King was strong enough to ride back to Theobalds and a warm bed.62 Despite the gravity of the incident – ‘if he had not been rescued promptly he would have drowned’ – some listeners found it amusing. The French ambassador Tillières joked that the only ill effect of his immersion was that it had ‘put much water into his wine’.63
Soon afterwards, James was back with the hunting crew at Newmarket, and more especially with Buckingham. Many believed that Buckingham’s show of love for the King was far from altruistic. His enemies pointed angrily to the inexorable social and financial rise of Buckingham’s relatives, especially his mother and his brothers, one of whom was openly spoken of as insane. Once again, James found himself the target of libels. Now he was cast as Jove, King of the Gods, with Buckingham as his young lover Ganymede, ‘his white-faced boy’.64 Buckingham was parodied as the King’s false idol:
Come, offer up your daughters and fair wives,
No trental nor no dirge
Will open good King James his eyes,
But sacrifice to St George.65
But the relationship between King and favourite seemed almost to be strengthened by adverse public opinion. In 1620, James had arranged a fine marriage for Buckingham, to Lady Catherine Manners, the only daughter of the Earl of Rutland. James absorbed ‘Kate’ into his family vision: ‘My only sweet and dear child, Thy dear dad sends thee his blessing this morning, and also to his daughter. The Lord of Heaven send you a sweet and blithe wakening, all kind of comfort in your sanctified bed, and bless the fruits thereof, that I may have sweet bedchamber boys to play me with.’66 When the marriage did indeed bear fruit, James revelled in playing with the children – a remarkable change of heart, it was observed, for a man who had shown no real affection for his own offspring in their infancy. As even the satirists had to admit, albeit with sarcasm, it was a happy family: