The Cradle King (52 page)

But James remained adamant and angry. In his eyes, the Bohemians had rebelled against their natural leader, and, by accepting the throne, Frederick had endorsed the rebellion, and effectively usurped the kingdom, threatening ‘to set all Christendom by the ears’. James turned his scholarly attention to poring over Bohemian public law to ascertain whether or not Frederick’s election was legal. He held long, aimless conferences with ambassadors. He refused to let the Privy Council express its opinion – since he knew they wanted to help Frederick. But James had his weaknesses. Frederick instructed his five-year-old son, Frederick Henry, to write a letter to his grandfather, appealing for help: James, fancying himself the family man, was deeply touched. To the new Spanish ambassador Father Diego Lafuente (known as Padre Maestro) James deplored how he had been put ‘in a great strait, being drawn to one side by his children and grand-children, his own flesh and blood, and to the other side by the truth and by his friendship to Philip and to the House of Austria’ – but Lafuente noted that the equation placed the ‘truth’ with Philip rather than with the King’s flesh and blood. Nevertheless James’s paternal pride could not but be stirred by the fact that he now had a King for a son-in-law – and, more important, a Queen for a daughter. As the Venetian envoy Piero Antonio Marioni wrote, ‘those who converse familiarly with his Majesty tête à tête easily perceive his delight at this new royal title for his son-in-law and daughter’.
³³
Cracks appeared in his friendship for Spain: occasionally he would blurt out that they were playing with him, and pined for the company of Gondomar, who had returned to Spain the previous year.
³⁴
At other times, he became afraid that it would be thought he had plotted for Frederick’s election, and blurted out, on his word as a Christian Prince, that he was innocent. Foreign observers lost patience with these mixed messages and even began to doubt that James was in full control of his faculties. The French ambassador Count Leveneur de Tillières wrote home that ‘It seems to me that the intelligence of this King has diminished. Not that he cannot act firmly and well at times and particularly when the peace of the kingdom is involved. But such efforts are not so continual as they once were. His mind uses its powers only for a short time, but in the long run he is cowardly. His timidity increases day by day as old age carries him into apprehension and vices diminish his intelligence.’
³⁵

Meanwhile, Catholic powers on the Continent were plotting. Maximilian of Bavaria, the leader of the Catholic League, offered to provide assistance to the ousted Ferdinand on the condition that on defeating Frederick he, Maximilian, would inherit the title of Elector Palatine, and a good proportion of his estates. In secret, Ferdinand agreed to the deal; Philip of Spain was let in on the pact, and agreed with some reluctance to provide a diversion by attacking the Palatinate from the Netherlands.
³⁶
Preparations for this attack from Spain became evident to observers in early 1620, but James refused to believe it. If the Princes of the Union were in any danger, it was self-inflicted, brought on by their plotting in Bohemia. His alliance with them was purely defensive, and he would not assist them in what he saw as offensive attacks.

Finally, in the spring of 1620, Gondomar made his return to James’s court. Now James found himself placating the ambassador, asking for his patience, and swearing that he was doing all he could to avoid giving offence to Spain, though he was surrounded by anti-Spanish zealots and must not be squeezed. ‘I give you my word, as a king, as a gentleman, as a Christian, and as an honest man, that I have no wish to marry my son to anyone except your master’s daughter, and that I desire no alliance but that of Spain,’
³⁷
he exclaimed heatedly, taking off his hat, and wiping his head with a hankerchief. He looked to Gondomar for the answers. ‘All that is needed,’ James said, ‘is that we two should talk over these matters together.’ Would the Emperor attack the Palatinate? he asked. ‘What would you do,’ replied Gondomar tartly, ‘if anyone had taken London from you?’ James had no answer. He hoped that God would arrange matters for the best.
³⁸
James fell to secret scheming with Gondomar. In public, he contradicted himself daily, with promises that he would send armies to the Palatinate and grand pledges of support to the Princes of the Union, followed almost immediately by querulous excuses that he did not have the funds. Finally, he allowed volunteers to be raised in England (four thousand signed up), a strategy that allowed Englishmen to fight for the Palatinate, but let him off the hook.

When news came in April 1620 that Frederick was considering an alliance with the Turks to pursue his causes, James finally lost sympathy. At table – and therefore in public – the King declared that even if the Turk ‘moved against Christendom in force, even in favour of his son-in-law, he would use all the forces of these realms to oppose him, and would not stand even at fighting against his own daughter’.
³⁹
To Gondomar, he declared: ‘The Palatine is a godless man and a usurper. I will give him no help. It is much more reasonable that he, young as he is, should listen to an old man like me, and do what is right by surrendering Bohemia, than that I should be involved in a bad cause. The Princes of the Union want my help; but I give you my word that they shall not have it.’
⁴⁰
The bond with Gondomar was tightened when news arrived in May of Dutch attacks against English merchants in the Spice Islands. James and Buckingham took their complaints to Gondomar, and plotted with him to launch an attack on Holland; Gondomar was allowed to convey it to Spain as a serious, royally sanctioned proposition. He reported home that it was now safe for the Palatinate to be invaded: England would not go to war to save it.

On 28 July 1620, James set off on his annual summer progress, visibly relieved to be leaving this complex international power-brokering behind. The Venetian envoy reported that he started ‘with so much the more satisfaction as in leaving the city behind he throws off the weight of negotiations and removes himself from the annoyance of ministers and ambassadors, from whom he is naturally always ready to remove himself and of whom he wishes to be rid, especially in these days of trouble and involved affairs, and to get as far off as possible’.
⁴¹
The King, he added in cipher, ‘seemed utterly weary of the affairs that are taking place all over the world at this time, and he hates being obliged every day to spend time over unpleasant matters and listen to nothing but requests and incitements to move in every direction, and to meddle with everything. He remarked: “I am not God Almighty.”’
⁴²

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