Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Straf- | ways, but offering no resistance, no railing, no ford, who began his political career as a reformer reviling-nothing but a passive obedience. Not and patriot, was also imprisoned. The poor- satisfied with merely preaching this sermon, Sibthe victims too obscure to be named--suffered thorp determined to print it under the title of most; but their wrongs equally with those of the "Apostolic Obedience." Here a license was negreater patriots helped to swell the detestation cessary, and an application was made for one to of despotism, and to purchase the liberties which the primate. Abbot, notwithstanding the king's we now enjoy. In several towns the tradespeo- orders, absolutely refused to grant the license, or ple made a bold resistance. Any opposition or declare that the precious stuff was orthodox. lukewarmness on the part of a crown officer or Hereupon Abbot was suspended, and confined to any servant of government insured his disgrace a country-house in Kent; his functions were inand dismissal. Sir Randolph Crew, the chief- trusted to a commission; and Laud, who was one justice of the King's Bench, was removed for of the commissioners, licensed the sermon. This "showing no zeal, and his place was given to rising churchman, who, if we may believe Abbot Sir Nicholas Hyde, who had assisted Bucking- and others, was "the only inward counsellor" ham in his defence" We believe that there with Buckingham, received the new promotion were not many sufferers of this class. The lawyers of dean of the chapel royal. Dr. Roger Mainand judges, however, subservient as they were, waring, like Montague, got a bishopric; Sibthorp were patriots compared to the bishops and the was not quite so fortunate-for he could obtain High Church party. Laud, whom Charles had only a chaplainship in ordinary to his majesty, a translated on the 20th of June, 1626, from the stall in Peterborough, and the rectory of Burtonsee of St. David's to that of Bath and Wells, Latimer, in Northamptonshire. For twenty drew up a set of instructions, in the king's name, years the High Church party had been labouring to the clergy, who were enjoined to preach the hard for despotism, but their system only drove merits of lending or giving money without au- people faster into the ranks of their opponents, thority of parliament, and to make those merits the Puritans; and these last proceedings tended appear as essential to salvation. To remove any wonderfully to convince men's minds that the doubt as to his approbation of a confederacy or bishops, and priests, deacons, and other ministers, league of church and state against parliament were the creatures of the court; the instinctive and the people, Laud expressely avowed it in enemies of all who cherished the ancient liberties the preamble to these instructions. Forthwith of the land, and who contemplated the extenthe pulpits resounded with this exchequer preach- sion of those liberties and their establishment ing, and the Established clergy tried to outstrip upon a broader and sounder foundation. Thus one another in a race whose goal was marked by many men of mark, who had no love for the a mitre. Dr. Roger Mainwaring, one of the king's more rigid notions of the Puritans, and no dechaplains, delivered two sermons highly against cided aversion to the creed and ceremonies of the the power of parliament before the king and church by law established, arrayed themselves court at Whitehall, proclaiming, and attempting against the whole hierarchy, and prepared to to prove by texts of Scripture, that the sovereign make the Puritan ardour a sharp sword against was not bound to keep and observe the laws of civil tyranny. the realm; that parliament was an inferior sort of council; that the royal will was enough for the imposing of taxes; and that any disobedience or refusal to pay money for his use would as-tirely, not to his wife's natural temper, but to the suredly be punished in the next world. Robert Sibthorp, vicar of Brackley, who was tired of the obscure life of a country parson, and longing after promotion, went, if possible, beyond Dr. Mainwaring. In an assize sermon, preached at Northampton, upon the text-"Render, therefore, to all their dues" he told the people that, even if the prince, the anointed of the Lord, should command a thing contrary to the laws of God or of nature, still the subjects were bound to submit to the punishment, only praying secretly that Heaven might turn the prince from the error of his

In the meantime, while clouds were gathering abroad, Charles had nothing but storms in his own house. These latter he attributed en

One fine summer

influence of the French people about her. At
last, seeing that they would not be gone unless
they were forced away, and being less delicate
than formerly about the French court, he came
to an unalterable decision.
afternoon he passed, apparently without being
announced, into the queen's side of the house,
"and, finding some Frenchmen, her servants,
unreverently dancing and curvetting in her pre-
sence, took her by the hand and led her into his

4 Rushworth; Heylin. That honest Puritan, old Andrew Marvell, says of Mainwaring and Sibthorp, "They were exceed.

1 Rushworth. Whitelock says the chief-justice, not favouring ingly pragmatical, intolerably ambitious, and so desperately the loan, was put out of his place.

proud, that scarcely any gentleman might come near the tail of their mules."-Wood, Athena Oxonienses,

them out of London; for on the 7th of August the king, who was at Oaking, wrote entirely with his own royal hand the following letter: "Steenie, I have received your letter by Dick Græme; this is my answer. I command you to send all the French away to-morrow out of the town. If you can, by fair means (but stick not long in disputing), otherwise force them away, driving away like so many wild beasts until ye have shipped them; and so the devil go with them. Let me hear no answer, but of the performance of my command. So I rest, &c."3 Some time before the scene at Whitehall, four new ladies of the queen's bed-chamber, all English, had been sworn. The first of these was the Duchess of Buckingham. Charles immediately despatched Sir Dudley Carleton to Paris, to explain away and justify his breach of the marriage treaty. Louis, his mother, Maria de' Medici, his minister Richelieu, all gave Carleton a very cold reception. There was even a talk of avenging the wrongs of Henrietta Maria by a recourse to arms: but Richelieu had already wars enough on his hands; and in the month of September they sent the gallant, witty, splendid, and profligate Marshal de Bassompierre to England, as special ambassador, to set it all right. The marshal was very courteously received by Buckingham, the Earl of Dorset, and other courtiers.

lodgings, locking the door after him, and shut- | was not unattended with difficulty, of getting ting out all save only the queen. Presently upon this, my Lord Conway called forth the French bishop and others of that clergy into St. James's Park, where he told them the king's pleasure was, all her majesty's servants of that nation, men and women, young and old, should depart the kingdom; together with the reasons that enforced his majesty so to do. The bishop stood much upon it, that, being in the nature of an ambassador, he could not go unless the king his master should command him; but he was told again, that the king his master had nothing to do here in England, and that if he were unwilling to go, England would find force enough to convey him hence." Having brought the bishop to reason, my Lord Conway, accompanied by Mr. Treasurer and Mr. Comptroller, went into the queen's apartments, and told all the French that were there that it was his majesty's pleasure | they should all depart thence to Somerset House, there to remain away from the queen till further orders. "The women howled and lamented as if they had been going to execution, but all in vain, for the yeomen of the guard, by that lord's appointment, thrust them and all their countryfolks out of the queen's lodgings, and locked the doors after them. It is said also the queen, when she understood the design, grew very impatient, and broke the glass windows with her fist; but since, I hear, her rage is appeased, and the king and she, since they went together to Nonsuch, have been very jocund together. The same day, the French being all at Somerset House, the king (as I have heard some to affirm) went thither and made a speech to them to this purpose; that he hoped the good king, his brother of France, would not take amiss what he had done; for the French, he said, had occasioned many jars and discontents between the queen and him; such, indeed, as longer were insuffera-imprisoned, and made to compound with the ble. He prayed them, therefore, to pardon him, if he sought his own ease and safety; and said, moreover, that he had given order to his treasurer to reward every one of them for their year's service. So the next morning, being Tuesday, there was distributed among them £11,000 in money, and about £20,000 worth of jewels."" Two of the queen's women-servants—her nurse, and one that had used to dress her-and some dozen others of the inferior sort, as cooks, bakers, &c., were allowed to remain: all the rest were shipped at Dover a week after. It appears that Buckingham executed the high commission, which

1 Letter from John Pory to Meade, in Ellis.

2 Letter from John Pory to Meade. The amount actually given was not so great by £8328. The list of the individuals

and of the sums severally received by them is preserved in one

of the Harleian MSS., and is given by Sir H. Ellis,

The French court complained, through its ambassador, as well of the general infraction of the promises made by Charles and his father of a full toleration, as of the treatment of the queen and her domestics; and it had also requested his majesty the King of Great Britain to ordain a better and more moderate usage of his subjects professing the Catholic apostolical Roman religion. The English council, at the very moment when the Catholics were being disarmed, fined,

sacrifice of their property for the privilege, not to profess their religion openly, but to live in England, insisted that there was no persecution, no infraction of the treaty upon that point. They boasted that his present majesty had made no new laws against the Catholics, and that he had not allowed one drop of blood to be spilt, either of Jesuit, priest, or other Roman Catholic, since his accession. They could not deny that Charles and his father had allowed the French court to interfere in the religion and government of the nation; they admitted all the articles of the marriage-treaty, which had been confirmed by Charles since his accession, but they pretended that all the religious part of that treaty was simply a matter of form to satisfy the Roman Catholic party of France, and the pope, who might other

Sir H. Ellis, "Collection of Letters.

wise have withheld the necessary dispensation. | perty, and papers of such as had violated the When statesmen could make treaties and speak laws. 4. That they had laboured to create in the of them a few months after in this manner, na- gentle mind of the queen a repugnance to all that tional agreements were no better than so much his majesty desired or ordered, even to what he dirty paper. The English council then turned did for the honour of his dignity, and for the the tables upon the French, who had not been comfort and establishment of his household, and more honest, but who had taken good care not had avowedly fomented discords between their to commit themselves, as the English court had majesties as a thing essential to the welfare of done, by signing treaties and specific clauses. It their church. 5. That they had subjected the was alleged that King Louis had solemnly pro- person of the queen to the rules of, as it were, mised, as a sequel to the marriage of his sister, monastic obedience, in order to oblige her to do to convert his alliance with England into an al- many base and servile acts, which were not only liance offensive and defensive-to co-operate with unworthy of the majesty of a queen, but also arms and money for the recovery of the Pala- very dangerous to her health. 6. That they had tinate to allow Count Mansfeldt to land at Ca- abused the influence which they had acquired lais, with free permission on all occasions to march, over the tenderness and religious mind of her take up quarters in France, or re-embark-and majesty, so far as to lead her a long way on foot, to assist Mansfeldt, the King of Denmark, and through a park, the gates of which had been exthe Protestant princes of Germany; and the pressly ordered by the Count de Tilliers to be council maintained that none of these promises kept open, to go in devotion to a place (Tyburn), had been kept, and that hence numerous disasters where it had been the custom to execute the most had befallen the friends, relations, and allies of infamous malefactors and criminals of all sorts, King Charles. They also accused Louis of not exposed on the entrance of a high road; an act conforming to the articles he had entered into not only of shame and mockery towards the queen, with the Huguenots, and particularly those of but of reproach and calumny of the king's preRochelle, who had consented to accept them by decessors of glorious memory, as accusing them the friendly interposition of King Charles; and of tyranny in having put to death innocent perthey asserted that his majesty considered him- sons, whom these people look upon as martyrs; self bound, not only by the prayers of the party although, on the contrary, not one of them had interested and the confidence they reposed in him, been executed on account of religion, but for high but also by the feelings and opinions of the world treason. 7. That King Charles having borne at large, to importune his brother-in-law to ob- with them long, and admonished them in the vain serve this compact with his Protestant subjects. hope of amendment, and being most anxious to On the other great point the council admitted preserve a good understanding and friendship that it was expressly promised in the treaty of with his dear brother, he had commissioned the marriage that Madame Henrietta Maria and all Duke of Buckingham to go from Holland into her household should enjoy the free exercise of France, to give full information in these matters, their religion, and that all her servants and conceiving the duke, who had contributed so officers should be French Roman Catholics, se- much to the accomplishment of the marriage, to lected by his most Christian majesty; but they be the most proper agent; but that this journey insisted that neither the letter nor the spirit of had been prevented by the intimation which was the agreement had been violated, for, though the given to the duke that the King of France was French had been sent back, it was not as Catho- averse to it. Bassompierre defended, as best he lics, but as offenders who had disturbed the affairs could, and without any scrupulous adherence to of the kingdom and the domestic government of truth, the political conduct of his own court; and his majesty's house. They then asserted, as he then spoke for the expelled French attendants, proofs, several flagrant cases, of which the follow- palliating or denying altogether the charges ing are the most important:-1. That the bishop brought against them. With respect to the proand his priests had created factions and dissen- cession to Tyburn and the prayers offered there, sions-excited fear and mistrust in the Protes- he told the council he knew very well that they tants-encouraged the Catholics, and even insti- themselves did not believe that story which they gated the disaffected in parliament. 2. That wished to make other people believe. It was some of the French had lent their names to others true, he said, that the Queen of Great Britain, for the purpose of taking houses in the fields, by permission of the king her husband, kept her where, under their protection, priests had their jubilee in the chapel of the fathers of the oraretreat and performed their masses, &c. 3. That tory at St. James's; and after her devotions, they had converted the queen's own lodgings which terminated with vespers, she went in the into a place of rendezvous for Jesuits and fugi- cool of the evening to promenade in St. James's tives, and a place of security for the persons, pro- Park, and thence to Hyde Park, as she had often

done before, but that she did not go in proces of May (1627) they had collected a fleet of 100 sion, nor say any prayers, nor kneel, nor approach sail, giving out that it was intended to chastise the gibbet within fifty paces. But, not satisfied the Spaniards and retrieve the honour lost on with his denial, he offered to justify the fact, or the Isla de Leon. Buckingham, who, it appears, rather that part of it which related to praying attributed that failure to the circumstance of his for those who had suffered at Tyburn, if it had not having personally commanded, resolved to taken place, upon the plea that such prayers go with the present expedition as high-admiral were acts of Christian piety and humanity, and and generalissimo. This self-confident, vainthat they in no wise called in question the justice glorious man had no knowledge or experience of that had sentenced the malefactors. In the end the art of war: he had never seen a gun fired of all, Charles conceded that his wife should have except on parade or in a salute, and his high preone French bishop and twelve French priests sumption made him despise the advice and guid(none of them to be Jesuits), two French ladies ance of others. But, as if this were not enough of the bed-chamber, and three French femmes de to insure fresh defeat and disgrace, he went to chambre, a laundress, a clear-starcher, two phy- sea without any concert or understanding with sicians, one apothecary, a surgeon, a lord-cham- those with whom he was to act. Leaving Portsberlain, an equerry, a secretary, a gentleman mouth on the 27th of June, with his 100 ships usher, three valets, cooks at discretion, two and 7000 land troops, who knew not whither they chapels, ten musicians, a burying-ground, and the were going, he came to anchor off Rochelle on particular glory of giving freedom to a certain the 11th of July. There he expected to be renumber of English priests detained in prison.ceived with open arms, but the Rochellers refused Bassompierre left London with sixteen English to admit him into their town, and advised him priests included in his numerous retinue. Buckingham followed him on his road to talk about his own expedition to Paris, but the marshal now persuaded him to break off or delay that journey. As soon as Bassompierre arrived at Paris, he found (what he knew very well before) that the coming of the Duke of Buckingham was not agreeable; and the queen herself desired him to write and let him know that he should desist from it.'

It has been generally admitted by historians -and we see slight ground for questioning the received opinion-that from this moment Buckingham, who had been heard to swear that he would go into France again in spite of King Louis-as an enemy, if they would not admit him as a friend-determined at all hazards to force a war with France upon his master, who had not the means of honourably supporting the war in which he was already engaged with Spain. It is true that there had been many previous causes of difference between the two courts-that there had been seizures of ships and merchandise on both sides. But it was not till this critical juncture that Charles gave Soubise a royal commission to levy men and ships under pretext of their being employed against Spain.2

The relief of the Rochellers-the support of the Huguenot Protestant cause in France-had ever been an object near to the hearts of the English people; and it is pretty safe to conjecture that, among the motives that drove Charles and the favourite into this rash war was a glimmering of hope that they might thereby recover the short popularity they had enjoyed during the last parliament of King James. By the month 2 Rymer.

Ambassades de Bassompierre.

to go and make himself master of the isle of Rhé, in the neighbourhood. On the following day he landed a part of his army under the fire of his ships, and defeated a small French force commanded by Thoiras, the governor of the island. Buckingham then wasted four or five days in landing the rest of his troops, or in doing nothing. Thoiras employed this precious time in conveying all the wine and provisions from the town of St. Martin into the strong fortress, and in improving the defences of the castle. When Buckingham moved, instead of taking the fort of La Prée, which then might easily have been done, he turned it and left it in his rear. He poured his troops into the bare and empty town of St. Martin; but the citadel, strongly placed on a rock, filled the minds of those who knew something about war with serious apprehensions. Buckingham, who had expected to take it by a coup-demain, now resolved upon a regular siege, the preparations for which were much criticized. On the 14th of August Charles wrote to felicitate (rather prematurely) the favourite upon his taking of Rhé-to promise him more men—more provisions-more money—and to tell him to prosecute the war, and "by no means to be the first motioner of a treaty. . . . but if the French court should offer, then to hearken, but not to believe too hastily." In the same letter the king spoke of a manifesto, which Buckingham had prepared, to rouse all the French Protestants to arms. "I would wish you," he says, "to alter one point in it, that, whereas ye seem to make the cause of religion the only reason that made me take arms, I would only leave you declare it the chief cause; you have no need to name any

3 Hardwicke State Papers.