My noble Lord,

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.1

I showed your letter of thanks to his Majesty, who saith there are too many in it for so small a favour, which he holdeth too little to encourage so well a deserving servant. For myself I shall ever rejoice at the manifestation of his Majesty's favour towards you, and will contribute all that is in me to the increasing his good opinion; ever resting

Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant,

G. BUCKINGHAM.

TO THE R. Ho: MY VERY GOOD LO, THE LO. MARQUIS BUCKINGHAM, LO: HIGH ADMIRAL OF ENGLAND, AND OF HIS M. MOST HO. PRIVY COUNCIL.2

My very good Lord,

If I should use the Count de Gondomar's action, I should first lay your last letter to my mouth in token of thanks, and then to my heart in token of contentment, and then to my forehead in token of perpetual remembrance.

I send now to know how his Majesty doth after his remove, and to give you account, that yesterday was a day of motions. in the Chancery; this day was a day of motions in the Starchamber (and it was my hap to clear the bar, that no man was left to move any thing, which my Lords were pleased to note they never saw before); to-morrow is a sealing day; Thursday is the funeral day; so that I pray your Lordship to direct me whether I shall attend his Majesty Friday or Saturday. Friday hath some reliques of business, and the commissioners of treasure have appointed to meet; but to see his Majesty is to me above all.

I have set down de bene esse Suffolk's cause the third sitting next term, if the wind suffer the commission of Ireland to be sped. I ever more and more rest

Your Lordship's most obliged friend

This xi. of May, 1619.

and faithful servant,

FR. VERULAM, Canc.

1 Harl. MSS. 7000. f. 71. Orig. own hand. Docketed by Meautys, "My Lo. of

Buckm, to my Lo." No date.

2 Fortescue Papers. Original, own hand.

The Queen's; who died on the 2nd of March.

1619.]

APPOINTMENT TO ATTEND THE KING.

15

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.'

My most honourable Lord,

I acquainted his Majesty with your letter at the first opportunity after I received it, who was very well pleased with that account of your careful and speedy dispatch of businesses. And for your Lordship's coming to attend his Majesty, Saturday will be the fittest day both in regard of his M. leisure and for those remainders of business which I see do yet lie upon your Lordship. I would sooner have given your Lp. answer to your letter, but that your servant seeing me so long busy with his M. and not hoping for despatch that night he was here, went away for that time upon assurance that it should be sent after him. I will give order for the despatch of your business as soon and in what manner you will direct, and so I rest,

Your Lp's faithful friend

and servant,
G. BUCKINGHAM.

Greenwich, 13th May, 1619.

Your business should have been done before this, but that I knew not whether you would have the attorney or solicitor draw it.

1 Harl. MSS. 7006, f. 134. Docketed by Meautys "13 May, 1619, my Lo. of Buck". to your Lp. touching your own business."

THE next letter, though only one of compliment, serves to remind us that the summer of 1619 was a critical time for Europe; and to introduce a remarkable paper of Bacon's which has hitherto escaped notice, but which is important as indicating the policy which in this crisis he would himself apparently have recommended England to pursue.

We have seen that in the beginning of March, 1616-7, he had concurred as one of the select councillors to whom the question of proceeding or not proceeding with the treaty for a marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Infanta of Spain was then referred, in a recommendation to proceed with the treaty,--as an enterprise which promised advantages either in case of success or failure. If it were carried out on fair conditions it would be a valuable alliance; if it broke, the breach would probably be upon some material point of religion, and such a breach would strengthen the Government, both with subjects at home and with the Protestant powers abroad. The resolution finally taken by the King appears to have been in accordance with that recommendation, and to have been framed cautiously, with a view to either event. Digby was appointed to negotiate a treaty upon the basis of the articles, as last agreed upon; according to which a general promise of connivance and leniency in the administration of the penal laws against the Catholics was all that Spain demanded in the way of toleration. Upon this basis he was commissioned to treat and conclude, if he found the symptoms favourable; but not otherwise: and with reservation in any case of the point of religion, on which nothing was to be finally concluded until it had been submitted to the King and expressly approved. But the concession which the Spaniards had made or

1619.]

NEGOTIATION WITH SPAIN.

17

professed to make on the point of religion had already served its purpose it had encouraged James to renew the negotiation for the marriage, and thereby detached him from an alliance with France; and they were now free to withdraw it again. When Digby arrived in Spain in September, 1617, he found them as liberal and easy as possible with regard to the marriage portion and other temporal articles; but upon the religious point they could not now be satisfied with less than an engagement to repeal the statutes relating to the Catholics. This was a different thing: and accordingly, pleading want of commission to treat upon that point, and having arranged to his satisfaction what else he had in charge, he came home. James, knowing this to be an engagement beyond his power to fulfil, declined to entertain the proposal. This was in May, 1618. And thus it would seem that the case had already occurred which the select councillors had anticipated: the negotiation was about to break upon a material point of religion; and if their advice had again been taken at this juncture I can hardly doubt that they would have advised the King to take advantage of the occasion to break it off at once. It would certainly have been the best course to take, and would have left the Government in a better position, both at home and abroad, than it was before. But for this James was not quite prepared, and I have some reason to think that he expressly abstained from consulting the councillors on that point, as knowing what their advice would be, and hoping to be able to bring the matter into a better shape himself. But however this may be,

1 I infer this, though somewhat doubtfully, from a passage in the 'Narrative of the Spanish Treaty,' by Francisco de Jesus; edited and translated by Mr. Gardiner for the Camden Society, 1869. On the 27th of May, he says that the King asked Gondomar to have an interview with the commissioners, "in order to hear from them their approbation of the 20 articles and of the 5 which had been added, and which Sir John Digby had brought with him from Madrid; but asking him to say nothing to them about the principal point of religion and the liberty of the Catholics, because the King wished to treat of that privately with his Catholic Majesty, and to see if they could come to an agreement" (p. 147). He adds indeed that Gondomar did not feel justified in listening to anything about the articles" without adding that the principal matter which had to be arranged and secured was the general point, since in no other manner could either his Majesty [the King of Spain] agree to the marriage, or the Pope dispense: and he therefore spoke in this manner at the meeting which took place between himself and the aforesaid commissioners; and they declared that they would on their part help to facilitate and bring about this liberty of conscience." But if any one is disposed to infer from this that they did not at that time advise the breaking off of the treaty upon that "principal point of religion," I would remind him that this was only what they said to Gondomar,- -or rather what Francisco says that Gondomar told him they said;-and that if they thought it expedient for the King to take this occasion of breaking off the treaty and found him unprepared to follow their advice, it was certainly not to Gondomar that they would confide their views. It was not for them to break off the treaty. All they had to do was to give him a civil answer.

VOL. VII.

the treaty was not formally broken off at this time, and though it was not proceeded with, the friendly relations between England and Spain were not in any way disturbed. The Catholics were treated favourably. Imprisoned priests were set at liberty. The strictest justice-or what James believed to be justice-was enforced with regard to all Spanish complaints, even when (as in the case of Sir Walter Ralegh) it brought him into dangerous opposition to the current of popular feeling. He still wished for the Spanish alliance: but if the marriage treaty could not proceed unless he promised more than he could perform, it must stop. And it stopped accordingly, until a new alarm from another quarter induced the Spaniards to start it once more, and to give it room to move by retreating for awhile from the position which they had taken up.

This new alarm came from the revolution in Bohemia, which was indeed the beginning of the thirty years' war-a war which the greatness of Spain was not destined to survive. In the summer of 1618 the Protestant aristocracy of Bohemia, upon some dispute about the suppression of Protestant churches on the ecclesiastical lands which was held to be a breach of charter, rose against the government, broke in upon the Board of Regency as they sate in council in an upper chamber, threw three of the ministers out of the window, established a Directorate of thirty members, and appealed to all the Protestant powers of Europe for support. It was a movement which could not be confined within the limits of the country. The Emperor of Germany was King of Bohemia, and his cousin Ferdinand of Styria was heir elect. Germany, therefore, with all its discordant elements-its Jesuits, Calvinists, and Lutherans, its Catholic League and Protestant Union, its weak head and unmanageable members,—was an immediate party to the quarrel. The sympathies of Spain were with the Emperor, and her policy urged her to take his part and assist in crushing the Bohemian rebellion. But her finances were not in condition for a great war, unless England could be kept out of it; and the commanding position on the Protestant side which the crisis placed within England's reach was a temptation which something must be done to counteract. Mr. Gardiner has given us the substance of a report submitted by Gondomar and Aliaza to the Spanish Government on the 13th of January (o.s.), 1618-9, which will best shew the view they took of the relation between Spain and England at this juncture.

"In spite," said Gondomar, "of the success which had attended his efforts to keep James out of the hands of the war party, it was impossible to be free from anxiety for the future. It was true that the King's exchequer was empty; but the nation was rich, and a declaration of war