whilst, on the 20th of July previous, he had positively sworn in the Spanish treaty to procure the abolition of all those laws from parliament; a fact notorious not only to Charles, Buckingham, and Bristol, but to all the lords of the council, and the Spanish ambassadors, still in London. He concluded by begging them to remember that time was precious, and to avoid all impertinent and irritating inquiries.
On the 24th of February, a conference of both houses was held at Whitehall, at which Buckingham went into the detail of the journey of the prince and himself to Spain. Bristol was prohibited attending parliament, and the duke gave his own version of the whole affair. According to him—for he produced only such despatches as had been in a private conference with the lord-keeper Williams deemed safe; "his highness wishing," said Williams, "to draw on a breach with Spain Without ripping up of private despatches"—the Spaniards behaved in a most treacherous manner. what after long years of negotiation the king could bring the court of Spain to nothing. That the earl of Bristol had merely got from them professions and declarations; and that though the prince had gone himself to test their sincerity, he had met with nothing but falsehood and deceit. That as to the restitution of the Palatinate, he had found it hopeless from that quarter.
Perhaps no minister bronzed in impudence by years of crooked dealing, ever presented such a tissue of base and arrant fictions to the commons of England. The despatches, had they been produced, would have crowned the king, the prince, and the favourite, with utter confusion. Bristol could have proved, had he been allowed, that he had actually completed the treaty when the prince and Buckingham came and put an end to it. So indignant were the Spanish ambassadors at this shameful misrepresentation of the real facts, that they protested vehemently against the whole of the statement, and declared that had any nobleman in Spain spoken thus of the king of England, he would have paid with his head for the slander.
Buckingham was not only defended but applauded. The prince during the whole time stood at his elbow, and aided his memory or his ingenuity. Coke declared that Buckingham was the saviour of his country; and out of doors the people kindled bonfires in his honour, sung songs to his glory, and insulted the Spanish ambassadors. The two houses, in an address to the throne, declared that neither the treaty for the marriage, nor that for the restitution of the Palatinate, could be continued with honour or safety with Spain.
Of all things, James dreaded war: he complained of his poverty, his debts, of his desire of quietness at his years; but he had not the resolution to resist the importunities of Buckingham and the prince, backed by a strong cry from the deluded people, especially as he saw no other mode of obtaining the money so necessary to him. In addressing parliament, he stated candidly the many reasons against the war; the emptiness of his exchequer, and the impoverished condition of his allies; that Ireland would demand large sums, and the repairs of the navy more; and then put to them these questions—whether he could with honour engage in a war which concerned his own family exclusively? and whether the means would be found for prosecuting it vigorously?
A deputation from both houses answered these queries by calling for war, and offering to support him in it with their persons and fortunes. This address was read by Abbot, the archbishop of Canterbury, who but six months before had most reluctantly sworn to the Spanish treaty. This was, indeed, a triumph to the archbishop, but did not make the singularity the less of putting an address for war into the hands of a clergyman; and one, moreover, who had so lately fallen into great difficulty on account of his own accidental shedding of blood. When the archbishop came to the passage where James was consolidated on "his having become sensible of the insincerity of the Spaniards," "Hold!" he exclaimed; "you insinuate what I have never spoken. Give me leave to tell you that I have not expressed myself to be either sensible or insensible of their good or bad dealing. Buckingham hath made you a relation on which you are to judge; but I never yet declared my mind upon it."
James, indeed, knew very well to the contrary; the Spaniards had been too grasping, and had thus overshot themselves, but they meant to complete the marriage; and it was a most unjustifiable thing in James to go to war with them, on the ground of their insincerity, if he did not believe in its existence. But James was desirous that as Buckingham had so strenuously called for war to avenge his own petty, private piques, he should bear the blame of it.
James told them plainly that if he went to war he should demand ample advances, and when five days afterwards the question of supplies came on, he demanded seven hundred thousand pounds to commence the war with, and an annual sum of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds towards the liquidation of his debts. The amount startled the commons, in spite of their magniloquent offer of supporting him with life and fortune; but Buckingham and the prince, who were as mad for war as they had before been for their foolish adventure, let the commons know that a much less sum would be accepted, and they voted three hundred thousand pounds for the year, which the king consented should be put into the hands of the treasurers appointed by the house, who were to pay money only on a warrant from the council of war. James also agreed that he would not end the war without their consent. The vote was accompanied by another address, vindicating Buckingham from the censures of the Spanish ambassadors, and then the king issued a proclamation, announcing that both the treaties with Spain were at an end.
Thus was James, after twenty years of peace, except in the character of an ally of his son-in-law, launched into a war. The Spaniards ridiculed the idea; for on the authority of Gondomar, they had conceived not only a very contemptible idea of James, but that the kingdom was poor, torn with religious factions, and feeble from the timid and vacillating character of the king. Only one peer, the earl of Rutland, had the good sense to oppose the vote for the war.
The restraint of the desire to please Spain during the negotiations for the marriage being removed, the houses of parliament indulged their old hatred of the catholics by uniting in a petition to the king to renew their persecution.
