STUART, Charles (1600-49)

Prince Charles was the first heir apparent to sit in the House of Lords in more than 200 hundred years. Like Henry of Monmouth, who ascended the throne as Henry V, Charles dominated the parliaments in which he sat. However, his involvement in the assemblies of 1621 and 1624 has not always been well understood. For instance, in his study of Charles in both parliaments, Chris Kyle emphasizes the prince’s legislative interests at the expense of his wider political role, and claims that in 1621 Charles acted as little more than a messenger between the Lords and the Commons. Charles’s contributions to the foreign policy debates in 1624 are dismissed in a single paragraph.36 C.R. Kyle, ‘Prince Charles in the Parls. of 1621 and 1624’, HJ, xli. 604, 611, 612. Charles’s formative years have been examined more thoroughly, but once again the results have not always been satisfactory. Charles Carlton, for example, has cast doubt on the severity of Charles’s childhood disability on the basis of evidence that does not withstand close scrutiny. For example, he claims that in 1604 Charles danced a galliard, whereas he merely called for his favourite tunes to be played, and that he received fencing lessons, whereas these were actually provided for Prince Henry.37 Carlton, 5. cf. his sources, F. Devon, Issues of the Exchequer, 17; HALS, ms 65447. Given these misleading assessments, a fresh look at the early years of the future Charles I, particularly those in which he served his political and parliamentary apprenticeship, is sorely needed.

Infancy and childhood , 1600-12

The second son of James VI of Scotland and his Danish queen, Anne of Denmark, Charles was born at Dunfermline Castle, on his mother’s jointure estate, at 11 p.m. on 19 Nov. 1600, the 11th anniversary of his parents’ first meeting.38 CSP Scot. 1597-1603, p. 373. Astrological notes, written sometime after his death, claim that Charles was born at 12.40pm: Sloane 1778, f. 10. On Anne’s possession of the lordship of Dunfermline, see W.W. Seton, ‘Early Years of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Chas., Duke of Albany [Chas. I]’, SHR, xiii. 369; Beresford Chancellor, 170. Named after his paternal grandfather’s younger brother, Charles Stuart, 5th earl of Lennox [S], he was so sickly that, according to some accounts, it was decided to christen him immediately.39 P. Heylyn, Short View of the Life and Reign of Chas. I (1658), 3-4; Beresford Chancellor, 3. This did not preclude a public baptism, however, which took place at Holyroodhouse on 23 Dec., on which occasion the young prince was also invested with the title duke of Albany, an honour customarily bestowed on the king of Scotland’s second son. James would have preferred to wait until the following spring before holding this ceremony so that his brother-in-law, Christian IV of Denmark, might attend, but he was evidently overruled by his wife.40 CSP Scot. 1597-1603, p. 748. In the absence of both Christian and the duke of Brunswick (who was married to Christian’s sister Elizabeth), two visiting French noblemen, Henri, duc de Rohan and his younger brother Benjamin, comte de Soubise, agreed to act as godfathers.41 Beresford Chancellor, 3; CSP Scot. 1597-1603, p. 758. These two leaders of the Huguenot community thereby forged a connection with the House of Stuart that would later prove significant, for during the second half of the 1620s Charles would, as king, aid his godfather Soubise in the latter’s war with the French crown.

Although it was quite normal for a monarch’s younger children to be raised outside the royal family, Anne of Denmark hated the idea, having been forced to hand over her eldest son Prince Henry to the earl and countess of Mar six years earlier.42 R. Strong, Henry, Prince of Wales, 3. She was both deeply attached to her new son and alarmed by his poor state of health. When, in July 1601, the king’s comptroller, Sir George Home, proposed to have Charles transferred to the care of another, she threatened to have him banished from court.43 CSP Scot. 1597-1603, p. 841. Aided by the principal lady of her bedchamber, Lady Jane Drummond, and Margaret, Lady Ochiltree, both of whom seem to have served as the young prince’s governesses, Anne retained oversight of the infant Charles, at least until the birth of his short-lived younger brother Robert in January 1602. However, the accession of her husband as king of England in March 1603 necessitated a change in these arrangements, as Charles was not well enough to accompany his parents on their long journey south. Prior to his departure, therefore, James committed the care and education of the young duke of Albany to Alexander Seton, Lord Fyvie [S], president of the court of sessions and one of the ‘Octavians’ who had been appointed in 1596 to restore the royal finances.44 Reg. PC Scot. 1599-1604, p. 556; R. Lockyer, Jas. VI and I, 179-80. As constable of Dunfermline Palace and bailie of the regality of Dunfermline,45 Seton, 369. Fyvie was also trusted by the queen and would have been a familiar face to the young prince, on whose development Fyvie kept the king fully informed.46 Letters and State Pprs. during the Reign of Jas. the Sixth (Abbotsford Club), 46, 55.

Although Charles had been left behind in Scotland, both his parents were anxious that he should rejoin them as soon as possible. To ensure that Charles was fit to travel, James dispatched Dr Henry Atkins to Scotland in April 1604 with instructions to take charge of the prince’s medical welfare. On his arrival, however, Atkins was shocked to find the prince so ‘far out of order’.47 SP14/8/88. Charles suffered from two distinct conditions, both of which he had evidently inherited from his father. The first concerned his legs and ankles, the joints of which were so loose and weak that as an infant he preferred to crawl. Like James, who did not learn to walk until he was about five and whose legs as an adult were so spindly and wasted that he invariably had to lean on the man next to him, he may have been the victim of an hereditary neuromuscular disease, perhaps myotonic muscular dystrophy.48 F. Holmes, Sickly Stuarts, 38, 41, 60, 61; HALS, ms 65447. In February 1602 James provided his young son with a baby-walker, described as ‘a timber stool with round wheels to go in’, in an attempt to strengthen Charles’s flimsy legs, but to no avail.49 ‘... ane tymber stule with rynand quhellis to gang in’: Letters to King James the Sixth (Maitland Club, 1835), p. lxxxi. The second condition which afflicted Charles was a tongue that was too large for his mouth. Described in 1622 by the Venetian ambassador Girolamo Lando, who knew Charles well, this condition is known as macroglossia, and was also shared with his father. Indeed, Sir Anthony Weldon famously remarked that James’s tongue, being too large, ‘ever made him speak full the mouth, and made him drink very uncomely’.50 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 452; Secret Hist. of the Ct. of Jas. I ed. W. Scott, 2. We are grateful for expert advice on this subject to Frederick Holmes, emeritus prof. of the Univ. of Kansas Medical Center, and his colleague Dr Susan Jackson of the Dept. of Hearing and Speech. Because his tongue was too big for his mouth, Charles learned to speak only with difficulty. This helps to explain why it was not until he was two-and-a-half that he began to talk at all; it may also be the reason why the young Charles was not easily pacified when he was cross.51 Letters and State Pprs. 55; Secret Hist. of the Ct. of Jas. I, 61-2; Heylyn, 12. His speech impediment, which remained with him for the rest of his life and inclined him to brevity and gesticulation, has normally been described as stammering.52 HMC Skrine, 23; M.J. Havran, ‘Character and Principles of an English King: the Case of Chas. I’, Catholic Historical Rev. lxix. 184, 187, 188; K. Sharpe, Personal Rule, 179, 180. However, stammering has psychological rather than physical causes. It is misguided to infer from the evidence of the prince’s dysfluency the existence of ‘some boiling subterranean rage’ in Charles’s mind, as Carlton has done.53 Carlton, pp. xii, 59.

Atkins, who thought the underlying cause of Charles’s ailments was vitamin C deficiency, immediately set about trying to work some improvement in the young prince. By early July Charles had made considerable progress, so much so that he was able to ‘go alone five or six times together the whole length of a very large chamber, the longest in Dunfermline’, whereas before Atkins’ arrival Charles had been unable to walk unaided. Moreover, he no longer needed a staff, although his footsteps remained hesitant.54 SP14/8/88; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 163. The dramatic improvement achieved by Atkins meant that by mid July Charles was well enough to begin the long journey south to London. Escorted by Lord Fyvie and attended by Atkins, the royal party travelled to Berwick, York and Worksop where, despite the enforced absence in London of the 7th earl of Shrewsbury (Gilbert Talbot^*), Charles was introduced to the delights of hunting and treated to musical entertainment.55 Heylyn, 8; HALS, mss 65451, 65452; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 195, 227. Thereafter they travelled through Leicestershire and Northamptonshire where, in mid August, they were met by the king and queen, who were overjoyed to be reunited with their son.56 G. Seton, Mem. of Alexander Seton, Earl of Dunfermline, 59; Mems. of Robert Cary ed. G.H. Powell, 83.

Now that Charles had arrived it was necessary to find for him a suitable governess. Before his coming many of the great ladies of the court had been vying for the position, but on seeing that Charles was such a sickly child – ‘the weakest and sparest child of his years that ever I saw’, wrote Philip Gawdy^‡ – competition for the place quickly evaporated.57 Mems. of Robert Cary, 83; Letters of Philip Gawdy ed. I.H. Jeayes, 149. Eventually, in early October,58 Heylyn, 8. responsibility for the young duke was bestowed upon Lady Elizabeth Carey, one of the queen’s attendants and the wife of Sir Robert Carey^* (later 1st earl of Monmouth), England’s former ambassador to Scotland and now a gentleman of the king’s bedchamber. Sir Robert himself was subsequently given charge of Charles’s ‘family’, by which was meant the prince’s personal servants.59 CSP Dom. Addenda 1580-1625, p. 458.

Thanks to Lady Carey’s careful ministrations, Charles’s health continued to improve. However, according to her husband, who later recorded her service for posterity, she had to protect her charge against the well meaning but sometimes ill conceived remedies proposed by his father. James was frustrated that Charles remained reluctant to speak, and suggested that the string under his tongue be cut, to the understandable horror of Lady Carey, who vetoed this proposal. He also insisted that Charles should be fitted with iron boots to strengthen his ankles and leg muscles. He may have got his way, for a pair of reinforced boots was apparently made for Charles by the London bone-setter Edward Stuteville, to whose skill, according to Weldon, Charles ultimately owed his ability to walk.60 Mems. of Robert Cary, 84-5; Carlton, 4-5; Secret Hist. of Ct. of Jas. I, ii. 62. A pair of reinforced boots, reputedly made for Charles, was acquired by the Mus. of London in 1917 (accession nos. A18293 and A18294), but their provenance is doubtful. Although the heels and heel quarter are made of brass, the boots are otherwise lacking in ankle support. Nevertheless their size indicates that they were made for a child, being only 21cm long at the soles. We are grateful to Hilary Davidson, curator of fashion and decorative arts at the Museum, for this information. Although Charles loved his own mother dearly, he developed a great affection for Lady Carey, whom in later life he described as ‘Mother Carey’. As a young man he once assured her that ‘I do not forget her who took care of me when I was not able to take care for myself’.61 Add. 72276, f. 50.

As well as assigning him a governess, James also had to find suitable lodgings for Charles, as royal princes were not normally expected to live full time with their parents. In late October 1604 Sir Thomas Knyvett^* (later Lord Knyvett) was persuaded to give up his apartments at Whitehall.62 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 161. Situated in the south-west corner of St James’s Park, these lodgings had been greatly improved and extended by Knyvett since he had acquired them in 1585, when they were described as little more than ‘very old and crooked houses’.63 H.J.M. Green and S.J. Thurley, ‘Excavations on the west side of Whitehall 1960-6’, Trans. of the London and Mdx. Arch. Soc. xxxviii. 103, 105, 108; E310/19/97; SP14/53/53. Charles remained there until about February 1607, when space was found for him at St James’s Palace, the residence of his older brother Prince Henry.64 E351/343, rot. 173d. The apparently fixed nature of his domestic arrangements was, however, misleading. Charles’s parents moved between their various palaces with bewildering rapidity, and while he was young Charles tended to follow in their wake. Between 29 Aug. 1605 and 26 Jan. 1606, for instance, he travelled from Windsor, to Oatlands, Hampton Court and then Whitehall.65 Ibid. rot. 137. This peripatetic existence was normal for members of the royal family in this period, and it is unlikely that Charles found the experience unsettling.

Shortly after Charles was settled with his new governess, his father turned his thoughts to the young prince’s title. Although he was duke of Albany, Charles did not, as yet, possess an English title, unlike his elder brother Henry, who had automatically become duke of Cornwall on James’s accession to the English throne. By late December 1604 James had decided to imitate Henry VII, who had created his second son Henry (the future Henry VIII) duke of York. One contemporary observer believed he was prompted to do so by Lord Fyvie who, having been Charles’s ‘father as it were from his cradle’, now received an annuity of £200 and the earldom of Dunfermline in gratitude for his care.66 Cal. of Talbot Pprs. ed. G.R. Batho (Derbys. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. iv), 239; SP14/12/16; Chamberlain Letters, i. 201; CSP Dom. Addenda 1580-1625, p. 456.

James’s decision to invest Charles as duke of York excited envy and puzzlement at court. Many Scots, entirely missing the point of the exercise, thought James should have chosen a further Scottish title for his son, since Charles had been born among them. Henry Howard^*, earl of Northampton, who was in the habit of making ‘cruel and malicious speeches’ about the sickly young prince, also opposed the creation, to the dismay of the king, who demanded to know ‘what moved him to envy my doing honour to my poor baby Charles’. Despite these criticisms, a bewildered Charles was created duke of York on 6 Jan. 1605 in the Great Hall at Whitehall, on which occasion he was carried by the elderly lord admiral, Charles Howard^*, 1st earl of Nottingham. To celebrate the event, a sumptuous show was put on that evening by the queen and a dozen of her ladies, ‘all painted like blackamoors’.67 SP14/12/16; Letters of King Jas. VI and I ed. G.P.V. Akrigg, 252, 254; Diary of Lady Anne Clifford ed. K.O. Acheson, 59; Annales (1631) ed. E. Howes, 857. Four months later, in May 1605, Charles was assigned lands worth more than £3,000 for his maintenance, including 11 manors in Yorkshire and the two castles of Brancepeth and Raby, both in County Durham, thereby dispelling a criticism, heard shortly after the investiture, that ‘we have a duke of York in title, but not in substance’.68 SP14/14/24; Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, ii. 43.

Although Charles now had a place in the English peerage, his future role (assuming he reached adulthood) had still to be decided. In February 1605, the month after his creation, it was suggested to James that Charles should be appointed regent of Ireland. Although the prince was too young to discharge these duties in person, a deputy could be appointed until such time as he attained his majority. A more mischievous suggestion, that Charles should become king of Scotland, was informally put forward by the king of France, Henri IV, who wished to prevent a formal Anglo-Scottish Union in order to preserve the ‘auld alliance’ with Scotland.69 HMC Hatfield, xxiii. 201-2; xvi. 367. Carlton claims, incorrectly, that the idea that Charles should inherit the throne of Scotland emanated with the king’s secretary, Sir Thomas Lake^‡: Carlton, 5. However, as early as June 1604 James was contemplating making Charles lord admiral of England in due course.70 A.J. Loomie, Toleration and Diplomacy (Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. liii, pt. 6), 53. Such an arrangement would not be unprecedented, as Edward IV’s brother, Richard Plantagenet^†, duke of Gloucester, and Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy^†, duke of Richmond, had both served as admiral. Charles himself preferred the idea of becoming a soldier in the service of the Venetian Republic. His young mind was evidently outraged at the pope’s treatment of the republic, and, from the age of six, he frequently offered his services to the Venetian ambassador, to the great amusement of his father, who once had him greet the ambassador with an arquebus slung over his shoulder.71 CSP Ven. 1607-10, pp. 95, 188, 414, 425; 1610-13, p. 115.

In June 1605 Charles’s education was entrusted to the classical scholar and Scottish presbyterian Thomas Murray, under whose watchful eye he would ultimately learn to speak Latin and French fluently.72 Ibid. 1621-3, p. 452. The following September, while his parents were on their summer progress, Charles and his elder brother Henry were the guests of the elderly John Lumley^*, Lord Lumley, at the latter’s country house.73 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 226; Cal. of Talbot Pprs. 329. Lumley was the foremost collector of pictures of his age and boasted an impressive library, which he subsequently bequeathed to Prince Henry.74 Strong, 154. It may be that it was during this visit that Charles’s well-known interest in art was first kindled.

In July 1606 Charles, now five-and-a-half, helped greet his uncle the king of Denmark when Christian IV paid a brief visit to England.75 CSP Ven. 1603-7, p. 383. Shortly before Christian’s departure the following month, James composed a memorandum for his chief minister Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury, in which he listed various points for consideration by the lord treasurer. The third item on this list reads: ‘my son Charles his style to be put to a point’.76 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 398. The memo has been assigned to 1604 by the editor of the calendar; internal evidence clearly points to early August 1606. Precisely what this refers to is now unclear, but it may hint at continuing dissatisfaction, either in the Privy Council or at court, at James’s earlier decision to create Charles duke of York.

Throughout these years Charles learned to ride, hunt and handle firearms but, as a series of undated letters by him testify, what he most wanted to do was to share in these activities with his older brother Henry, whom he clearly worshipped. However, Henry was more than six-and-a-half years older than Charles, and at the peak of physical fitness. Far from revelling in the company of his sickly younger sibling, Henry sometimes acted unkindly towards him, to Charles’s evident distress. Indeed, on one occasion Charles pathetically offered to give ‘anything that I have’ to Henry, if only Henry would ‘love me’.77 Orig. Letters Illustrative of English Hist. ed. H. Ellis (ser. 1), iii. 92-4. One reason for Henry’s disdain was jealousy, as Charles was clearly cleverer and more studious than himself. Within a few months of Charles’s arrival in England, an exasperated James told Henry that unless he knuckled down to his studies he would leave the crown to Charles, whereupon Henry angrily retorted that if Charles proved to be a great scholar he would make him archbishop of Canterbury when he was king.78 SP14/12/16. Carlton claims that Charles was nine, but the episode is reported in a letter dated 10 Jan. 1605: Carlton, 10. The Venetian ambassador recounted the same story in 1607: CSP Ven. 1603-7, p. 513. Henry clearly relished this thought, for on a later occasion, when the two brothers were waiting to see their father, he plucked the square hat from the head of the archbishop of Canterbury, placed it on Charles’s head and told him that ‘if he continued a good boy, and followed his book, he would make him archbishop of Canterbury’.79 The author, Peter Heylyn, dates the episode to 1610 and claims that the archbishop concerned was George Abbot. However, Heylyn’s account of Charles’s life is littered with minor errors. Given the tantrum that Henry’s jibe provoked and the similarities between this story and James’s earlier rebuke it seems likely that the incident occurred much earlier. Heylyn, 9-10. In one account of this episode he is said to have added spitefully that a bishop’s gown would clearly suit Charles as it would serve to hide his crooked legs.80 T. Birch, Life of Henry, Prince of Wales (1760), 302. Henry’s jealousy of his brother was one reason why James, fearing that he could not rely on Henry to advance Charles’s interests after his death, decided to bestow upon his younger son the duchy of York.81 SP14/12/16.

Fortunately for Charles, the king and queen were not inclined to be cruel like Henry, but rather doted on their younger son. As has been noted James, perhaps seeing in Charles a mirror image of himself as a small boy, fiercely defended ‘poor Baby Charles’ from the spiteful remarks made about him by Northampton. Moreover, in February 1608 the Venetian ambassador Giustinian declared Charles to be ‘the joy of the king, the queen and all the court’ after seeing James laughing and playing with his son. Anne, too, was enthralled by Charles, whom she preferred over Henry and her daughter, Princess Elizabeth. When she spoke to Giustinian’s successor Foscarini in February 1611, the latter could not help but notice that it was the duke of York ‘whom she especially praised’.82 CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 95; 1610-13, pp. 151, 182. Peter Heylyn, too, later recalled that Anne expressed more affection to Charles ‘than to all the rest of her children’, and that to him at least she was always ‘a tender and indulgent mother’.83 Heylyn, 17. This picture is at variance with the image presented by Charles Carlton, who dismisses Anne’s public protestations of love for Charles as a sham and draws attention to Weldon’s remark that Anne was wont to call her son ‘a fool and wilful’.84 Carlton, 7. Weldon did say this, of course, but he also remarked that Anne ‘loved him [Charles] so dearly, that she said she loved him as she did her soul’.85 Secret Hist. of Jas. I, ii. 63. These feelings were warmly reciprocated: in one undated letter Charles expressed great affection for his mother, who was temporarily laid up with gout. Describing her as his ‘most worthy mistress’, he lamented her illness which had deprived him not only of ‘your most comfortable sight’, but also ‘of many good dinners’, for the two of them often ate together.86 Letters, Speeches and Proclamations of King Chas. I ed. C. Petrie, 2-3. Given this mutual affection, it is astonishing that the belief that Charles was unloved by his parents has gained widespread acceptance.87 See for instance A. MacInnes, Chas. I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement, 1.

Carlton has claimed not only that Anne did not love Charles but also that she neglected him during his boyhood. Anne, he says, did not visit her son very often nor did she spend much time with him.88 Carlton, 7. However, since we do not possess a detailed itinerary for the prince it is impossible to say precisely how long he spent in Anne’s company. Charles was undoubtedly separated from his mother for much of the time, but it was normal for royal children to be brought up away from their parents. It seems unlikely that Anne spent extended periods away from her son, if only because Charles’s governess was a member of her own bedchamber.

Another modern biographer has suggested that Charles, as well as seeing little of his mother, had only limited personal contact with his brother and sister.89 B. Quintrell, Chas. I, 8. So far as Henry is concerned, there was certainly some truth in this, as Charles’s own letters demonstrate. However, as we have seen, in February 1607 Charles moved into St James’s Palace to be closer to his brother, and there is some evidence that the two boys took riding lessons together. Even when Henry spent time away from London, his younger brother sometimes accompanied him or was sent to visit him. In July 1607 Charles was sent to stay with Henry at Nonsuch Palace, and in August 1611 he visited Henry at Richmond. In May 1612 the two brothers visited the 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel (Thomas Howard*) at Highgate together.90 CSP Ven. 1603-7, pp. 11, 14; 1610-13, pp. 194, 196; Strong, 43; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 334. The amount of time Charles spent in his sister’s company is more difficult to establish, but it would be mistaken to suppose that the two barely knew one another. When Henry went away with his father in November 1609, Charles was not left to his own devices but accompanied his mother and sister.91 CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 379. All three royal children visited the Tower together in June 1609 to see a great bear pitted against a lion.92 Annales, 894. Far from being neglected, as modern biographers assume him to have been, Charles was never far from members of his immediate family. On one occasion, he evidently had his father all to himself, as in August 1609 he alone accompanied James on a tour of the Isle of Wight.93 Oglander Memoirs ed. W.H. Long, 121n.

During these early years Charles, despite his obvious disability, was encouraged to develop his physical strength. From the age of nine he learned to play tennis, and from at least the summer of 1611 he received dancing lessons.94 E351/543, rot. 227; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 64, 86. However, it was in the saddle, where he could be free of the restraints imposed by his poorly developed legs, that the young duke felt most at home, and soon he developed into an excellent rider. From the autumn of 1609 he learned how to tilt, perhaps under the guidance of his brother, a passionate rider himself whose accomplishments in the jousting arena were well known.95 E351/543, rot. 227; Strong, 42-6.

Charles contracted the measles in May 1610, but by early June he had recovered sufficiently to attend the creation of Henry as prince of Wales, on which occasion he sat on the left hand side of his brother.96 Eng. as seen by Foreigners in the Days of Eliz. and Jas. I ed. W.B. Rye, 227; Harl. 5167, f. 204. The next day, as part of the celebrations to mark the investiture, he and his mother and sister performed in a masque in the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall.97 E. Green, Eliz. of Bohemia, 21. In September 1610 Charles and the rest of the royal family journeyed to Woolwich to witness the launch of the Prince Royal, but the proceedings turned into a fiasco, as the ship stuck fast in the dock gates, and he left before the ship was floated.98 Autobiog. of Phineas Pett ed. W.G. Perrin (Navy Recs. Soc. li), 81-2.

At the start of the following year Lady Carey surrendered her position as governess, as James had decided that Charles should from henceforth be brought up exclusively by men. The duke of York was now to be attended by a household consisting almost entirely of Scots. At the head of this new establishment were Sir Robert Carey, who became chief gentleman of Charles’s bedchamber and master of the robes, and Sir James Fullerton^‡, who was appointed master of the privy purse. Fullerton, a Scottish gentleman of great learning, had been brought to England the previous year specifically in order to take charge of Charles’s household, and had it not been for the intervention of the lord chamberlain, Thomas Howard*, 1st earl of Suffolk, Carey would have been unceremoniously shunted aside.99 Mems. of Robert Cary, 85; J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, i. 461-3; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 21.

In 1611 Charles found himself briefly at the centre of events over which he had no control. That summer his father decided that the time was now ripe to put into effect the plan he had had in mind since 1604, which was to appoint Charles lord high admiral of England. The present incumbent, the earl of Nottingham, had served as admiral ever since 1585 and was now in his mid seventies. His authority had been gravely weakened by the findings of the 1608-9 commission of inquiry into the Navy, which had uncovered widespread corruption and maladministration. Although Charles was not yet old enough to exercise the office in person, there was nothing to prevent him from being granted the necessary letters patent and allowing another to act on his behalf until he attained his majority. Nottingham was only too willing to resign in return for generous financial compensation, and in August 1611 he went on a short progress with Charles in southern England, perhaps with the intention of arousing Charles’s enthusiasm for James’s plan. The young prince and the elderly Elizabethan sea dog spent a thoroughly enjoyable eight days together, staying out all night hunting deer and drinking ‘many good carouses’.100 SP14/65/70. It does not require much imagination to suppose that Nottingham also regaled his youthful companion with tales of the Spanish Armada. However, James’s plan to elevate Charles aroused the resentment of Prince Henry, who had been obsessed with the Navy ever since he was ten and coveted the office of lord admiral himself.101 Strong, 35-8. In late September it was reported that Henry had cleverly persuaded James to let him execute the office during his brother’s minority; a few weeks later it was said that Henry had secured the office entirely for himself. However, Henry’s scheming went awry, as James belatedly realized that he was being manipulated. When Nottingham offered up his patent in mid October James refused to accept it, telling the old earl that he could keep it for the rest of his life in recognition of his former services.102 HMC Downshire, iii. 147, 171; CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 227. Instead, in January 1612 James granted Charles the office of lord admiral in reversion, thereby circumventing Henry altogether.103 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 111.

Although Henry’s jealous behaviour meant waiting until Nottingham’s death before he became lord admiral, Charles remained pathetically devoted to his selfish older brother, and wished only to please him. When Henry and his followers abandoned French fashions in favour of Italian dress in 1611, Charles slavishly followed suit.104 CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 122. At the end of February 1612, Charles asked Henry to ‘ever keep me in your favour’, and in March he sent him a note in which he declared that ‘I long to see you, and hope you will return shortly’.105 Harl. 6986, f. 174; Orig. Letters (ser. 1), iii. 96. Henry, however, continued to show little affection towards his younger brother, although later biographers have claimed that he had an ‘entire affection’ for Charles, to whom he was ever ‘indulgent’.106 Strong, 11; Birch, Henry, Prince of Wales, 301; Gregg, 19. When Sir Edward Cecil* (later Viscount Wimbledon) suggested that Henry might give Charles a little horse from a collection of bronze statues that Henry had just received from Florence in June 1612, Henry responded sharply, ‘no, no, I want everything myself’.107 Strong, 149. Despite this shabby treatment, Charles was heartbroken following the unexpected death of Henry from typhoid fever five months later.108 CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 449.

Teenage years, 1613-18

Henry’s sudden death sent shock waves through the Jacobean court. Charles was now James’s heir apparent, and although he was currently in good health his physique was so slight that one Catholic newsletter writer described him as ‘a weakling’. Were he to die the throne would pass to James’s only remaining child, Princess Elizabeth. Believing that his remaining son would somehow be safer if he were closer, a panic-stricken James ordered Charles to leave St James’s Palace and occupy an apartment near his own in Whitehall.109 Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead (Cam. Soc.5th ser. xii) ed. M. C. Questier, 202-3; CSP Ven. 1610-13, pp. 452-3.

Although Henry’s death was a major blow to the Stuart dynasty, it was not entirely unwelcome to James. Over the last few years James had found it difficult to control his eldest son, who made no secret of his contempt for James’s addiction to hunting and whose household was increasingly seen as a rival to the king’s own court.110 Strong, 8-9. James was determined that Charles should be kept on a tighter leash than Henry,111 Chamberlain Letters, i. 394; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 160. and perhaps because of this he resolved to reorganize the prince’s household. This precipitated speculation that James would soon appoint a new governor for Charles, which office had, of course, been vacant ever since the beginning of 1611. Among the contenders for this post was none other than the queen herself. Over the winter of 1612-13 Anne begged James to allow Charles to come and live with her and let her assume the duties of his governor.112 HMC Downshire, iii. 436; CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 472. However, James refused to accede to this request, perhaps because Anne, for all her outward conformity to the Church of England, still harboured Catholic sympathies.113 P.E. McCullough, Sermons at Court, 169-70. As if to underline this fear, in December 1612 James assigned to Charles two of his chaplains, Richard Milbourne^* (later bishop of Carlisle) and George Hakewill, so as to keep his son from popery. These two divines may also have helped prepare Charles for his confirmation, which took place the following spring.114 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 160; SP14/72/109; Nichols, ii. 626-7.

Though he was only 12 years old, Charles served as chief mourner at the funeral of his brother, since neither of his parents could bear to attend.115 Harl. 5176, f. 209; CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 468. One of the guests at the funeral was the Elector Palatine, Frederick V, who had recently arrived in England in order to marry Charles’s older sister, Princess Elizabeth. Charles’s relationship with Frederick has been the subject of much scholarly speculation. Carlton, for instance, affirms that the two became fast friends, and that the brief period prior to Frederick’s departure in April 1613 was an idyllic time for Charles.116 Carlton, 14. However, while it is true that Frederick on one occasion referred to Charles as ‘his dearest prince’, there is no firm evidence to suppose that Charles developed a close friendship with Frederick. All that can be said for certain is that Charles spent a considerable amount of time in Frederick’s company, presumably on the orders of his father. In January 1613 he and Frederick went on a boating trip to Putney together; the following month, after the wedding (at which he acted as brides-man), the two young men visited Royston and Newmarket; and in early March they stayed briefly in Cambridge, where they were obliged to sit through a comedy that lasted more than seven hours and where Charles accepted an honorary master’s degree.117 Heylyn, 12; A. Wilson, Hist. of Gt. Britain (1653), 64; Green, 47; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 229, 233; C.H. Cooper, Annals of Camb. iii. 56-7; HMC Downshire, iv. 67. Yet if it is unclear whether Charles developed a deep friendship with Frederick, it is certain that he was reluctant to see the married couple leave, for whereas the king and queen accompanied the newly-weds only as far as Rochester, Charles travelled with them to Canterbury, where he lingered for a week before being summoned to Windsor for the Garter ceremony.118 Chamberlain Letters, i. 442.

Charles could have had no way of knowing then that he would never see his sister again. On the contrary, he expected that she would return to England in the autumn, for at around the time of his sister’s wedding it was decided that, after a brief spell in the Palatinate, the Elector and his wife would reside in England for a couple of years until Charles had grown stronger, for he was still very far from being robust.119 CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 493. On Charles’s continued underlying physical weakness see Eng. as seen by Foreigners, 155; CSP Ven. 1613-15, p. 98. However this plan, which was devised in case James died within the next few years and involved bestowing an English peerage upon the king’s cousin Ludovic Stuart*, 2nd duke of Lennox [S] (later duke of Richmond), ultimately came to nothing, as Elizabeth almost immediately became pregnant.120 Chamberlain Letters, i. 462; CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 524; LUDOVIC STUART. Because Charles expected to see his sister and her husband again fairly soon, it seems unlikely that their departure occasioned a moment of crisis, as has sometimes been claimed. There is certainly no evidence to substantiate Pauline Gregg’s statement, that the parting plunged Charles into a state of depression which caused him to be ill and to refuse all medicine.121 Carlton, 15; Gregg, 32. On the contrary, Charles was well enough to be installed as lieutenant of the order of the Garter on 29 Apr. and to receive the Flemish ambassador on 6 May. Moreover, in late May he took part in a tournament before his father.122 CSP Ven. 1610-13, pp. 537, 547. This tournament is omitted from the list printed in A. Young, Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments, 207.

Now that Elizabeth had left for the Palatinate, James finally turned his attention to Charles’s household. Over the summer of 1613 this was not only remodelled but also expanded to take account of the fact that Charles was now the heir apparent. Many of the late prince’s servants were found places, but James declined to appoint a governor, preferring to retain Sir Robert Carey and Sir James Fullerton at the helm instead.123 HMC Portland, ix. 14; Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 256-7. As his father’s heir, Charles was now styled duke of Cornwall rather than duke of York. This title was not formally confirmed until February 1613, though, as many lawyers questioned whether Charles was capable of assuming a title which, they said, was reserved only for the king’s first-born son.124 Chamberlain Letters, i. 389; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 172. It was not until June 1615 that Charles was granted possession of the duchy of Cornwall’s estates, worth £60,000 a year.125 G. Haslam, ‘Jacobean Phoenix’, Estates of the English Crown ed. R. Hoyle, 275; Chamberlain Letters, i. 389.

Ever since the death of his brother in November 1612, Charles had become the focus of his father’s dynastic ambitions and financial hopes. James had planned to marry off Prince Henry to a Savoyard princess,126 R. Strong, ‘Eng. and Italy: the Marriage of Henry, Prince of Wales’, For Veronica Wedgwood These: Studs. in English Hist. ed. R. Ollard and P. Tudor-Craig, 84-6. thereby securing the Stuart succession and shoring up the crown’s increasingly desperate finances by means of a dowry, but now that Henry was dead, he was left with little alternative but to offer Charles as bridegroom instead. However, the Savoyard infanta concerned was eight years older than Charles, and thus far from suitable.127 CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 534. For this reason, James entered into negotiations with France for a marriage between Charles and Princess Christine, the six-year old sister of the French king, Louis XIII. These talks commenced in December 1612, but it was only from the spring of 1613, after Princess Elizabeth was safely settled at Heidelberg, that they assumed a state of urgency. By mid January 1614 it appeared as though the basis of an agreement had been reached. However, at the last moment the negotiations stalled, as France descended into political chaos, leaving James with no alternative but to summon a Parliament in the hope of solving his deepening financial difficulties.128 A. Thrush, ‘Origins of the 1614 Parl.’, Crisis of 1614 and the Addled Parl. ed. S. Clucas and R. Davies, 27-32.

This Parliament opened on 5 Apr. 1614. Charles rode in the procession, the first time he had ever done so, and sat, during James’s address to both Houses, on the king’s left in the seat traditionally reserved for the prince of Wales.129 Procs. 1614 (Commons), 6; Chamberlain Letters, i. 522. However, he played no other part in the assembly, having not been issued with a writ of summons, nor was the Parliament permitted to debate his marriage, though many Members of the Commons, anxious at the prospect of an alliance with Catholic France, were certainly keen to do so.130 Thrush, ‘Origins of the 1614 Parl.’, 25.

Shortly after the Parliament ended, Christian IV of Denmark paid a brief, unannounced visit to England. Charles was among the first members of the royal family to greet his uncle, whom he had not seen since he was five, as his father was then on progress. Along with Lord Admiral Nottingham, he also accompanied Christian to the harbour side when the Danish king set out for home in early August.131 CSP Ven. 1613-15, p. 166; Autobiog. of Phineas Pett, 114. The young man who introduced himself to Christian in 1614 was very different from the sickly youth the Danish king had first encountered in 1606. In the wake of the death of his brother, Charles was acutely aware of the fears at court concerning his fragile physical condition, and that the future of the Stuart dynasty now rested on his insubstantial shoulders. Far from accepting the hand that fate had dealt him, he was determined to overcome his physical weakness by strenuous exercise. As early as April 1613, Foscarini noticed a marked improvement in Charles’s physique since Henry’s death.132 CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 524. Over the winter of 1614/15 Charles took to running around the grounds of St James’s Palace with a dozen or so of his servants, most of whom proved unable to keep up with him or finish the course. He also continued to delight in horsemanship, and was now so accomplished that he rode the larger horses just as well as his instructors.133 SP14/80/27. He was particularly adept at the event known as running at the ring. Indeed, as early as February 1613 he was reported in one particular tournament to have carried the ring five times out of seven, ‘no man else passing three or four’.134 SP14/72/32. See also Nichols, i. 550. In September 1615 Foscarini, who only 18 months earlier had expressed concerns about the prince’s frailty, reported that recent improvements in his physique were so dramatic that Charles was now robust.135 CSP Ven. 1613-15, p. 98; 1615-17, p. 13. As we know from his armour, Charles ultimately attained a height of about five feet four inches which, though not tall, was hardly short for the time, as some have alleged. (Allan MacInnes, describing him as ‘the diminutive king’, has claimed that he was ‘no more than 5 feet tall’. Glyn Redworth, too, thinks that he was ‘extremely short’).136 Gregg, 12; A. MacInnes, 1; G. Redworth, Prince and the Infanta, 39. On seeing him for the first time in 1623, the Savoyard ambassador in Madrid remarked favourably not only on Charles’s strength but also on his height, which he described as good.137 H.G.R. Reade, Sidelights on the Thirty Years’ War, ii. 145. An early biographer described Charles as being ‘of a just height, rather decent than tall’: R. Perrinchief, Royal Martyr (1676), 262.

This extraordinary transformation in Charles’s physical health was accompanied by a growing confidence in the young prince. It is often said that Charles lived in fear of his father, and there is certainly some truth in this, but in March 1615 Charles openly questioned James’s decision to appoint as cofferer of the royal household Sir Arthur Ingram^‡, whose selection had led to widespread unrest. Supported by his mother, Charles told James that ‘there was discontentment enough otherwise, and that it were pity for one man or cause to bring a general discontentment into his own house’.138 Chamberlain Letters, i. 585. Six months later, Charles inspected the London trained bands, pointedly ignoring the wishes of his father, who remained terrified that his son might come to some harm.139 CSP Ven. 1615-17, p. 38.

In September 1616, James decided that it was high time that his son, who was almost 16, became prince of Wales.140 NLW, Clenennau 339. The creation was consequently scheduled to take place on 4 November. However, as the royal finances were now severely depleted, it was decided that the celebrations would not be on such a lavish scale as those which had accompanied Henry’s creation six years earlier.141 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, v. 410; CSP Ven. 1615-17, p. 328. In the event, these were even less impressive than planned. This was partly because the weather was so foul that the festivities had to be performed indoors, but also because, the day before his investiture, Charles fell ill. (It was rumoured, absurdly, that Charles was ‘subject ... to the green sickness’, or chlorosis, which is absurd, as this condition, found in some young women, is caused by excessive menstrual bleeding). Since Charles was not well enough to participate in the sporting activities, no courtier felt able to do so either.142 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 31; SP14/89/35; Holmes, 83. To make matters worse, the evening entertainment, provided by 40 gentlemen of the Inns of Court, was performed very indifferently.143 Nichols, iii. 215; Chamberlain Letters, i. 33; HMC Downshire, vi. 51. Not surprisingly, therefore, the whole spectacle was widely considered a disappointment.144 CSP Ven. 1615-17, p. 350; Diary of Lady Anne Clifford, 60.

Charles, who made a rapid recovery from his illness, had high hopes of accompanying his father to Scotland the following year, as he was desirous ‘to see the country where I was born and the customs of it’. However, James would not hear of it, but insisted that he and the queen should remain in England.145 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 51-2; Letters to King James the Sixth, unpag., Charles to James, 28 May 1617. This was not the request made by his son that James refused at around this time, for in October 1616 he declined to appoint Charles’s chaplain George Carleton^* to the vacant bishopric of Chichester, even though Charles pressed ‘earnestly for him’.146 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 399; SP14/89/35. For this rebuff Charles had to thank the royal favourite, George Villiers^*, Viscount Villiers (later 1st duke of Buckingham), who had instead procured the see for one of his own clients.

Charles had been acquainted with Villiers, who was eight years his senior, ever since 1614, when the latter had wormed his way into the king’s affections. Indeed, he was present both at the knighting of Villiers in April 1615 and at his elevation to the peerage 16 months later.147 Lockyer, Buckingham, 17-18; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 22. However, his relations with the favourite were not entirely cordial, and because of this he began to lose his father’s favour. One day in March 1616, in the presence chamber at Newmarket, he idly took a ring from Villiers and forgot to return it. When Villiers asked for it back the following day, Charles protested that he did not know what he had done with it, whereupon Villiers flew into a rage and complained to the king. Far from defending his son, James ‘used such bitter language’ that he reduced Charles to tears, telling him that he would not see him again until the ring had been restored. A few months later Charles again incurred his father’s displeasure after he splashed Villiers in the face with water from the fountain in the garden at Greenwich. ames was furious, telling Charles ‘that he had a malicious and dogged disposition’, and boxing him twice on the ears.148 SP14/86/95; 14/87/40. It may have been because James suspected that his son disliked Villiers that declined to take Charles with him on progress that summer. To his credit, Charles was not prepared take this lying down, and in July 1616 he undertook a 30-day tour of his own, travelling through Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and south-western Hertfordshire. He went on a second 30-day tour in August.149 Carlton, 17; E351/344, rot. 57d.

Following James’s departure for Scotland in May 1617, Charles spent a couple of weeks with the queen at Greenwich before decamping to Richmond.150 Diary of Lady Anne Clifford, 86; CSP Ven. 1615-17, pp 538, 540. In late June he stayed briefly at St James’s Palace, where he attended the christening of the child of his master of the horse, Sir Thomas Howard^* (later 1st Viscount Andover).151 Diary of Lady Anne Clifford, 87; SC6/JASI/1680, rot. 5. Over the summer he again went on progress, but this time restricted his perambulation to Surrey and Berkshire. In September he journeyed to Woodstock, presumably to greet the king on the latter’s return.152 SC6/JASI/1680, rot. 5r-d. For evidence that James returned via Woodstock, see CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 484. Three months’ absence seems to have softened James’s feelings towards his son. Later that month he and Charles went hunting wild boar at Windsor; and over the autumn father and son enjoyed a holiday together at Huntingdon. Although James was troubled with gout, this trip proved so successful that the Tuscan resident Salvetti remarked that Charles was steadily rising in his father’s affections, a development which, he added shrewdly, is ‘a danger for some other great person’.153 Lockyer, Buckingham, 34. For the Huntingdon trip, see SC6/JASI/1680, rot. 5; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 493; Lismore Pprs. ed. A.B. Grosart (2nd ser.), ii. 106.

Far from allowing himself to be unceremoniously elbowed aside by Villiers, now earl of Buckingham, Charles was evidently determined to fight to retain his rightful place as the apple of his father’s eye. Over the next few months he seems to have stuck to James like glue. In early February 1618, for example, shortly after Buckingham was elevated to the rank of marquess, he not only spent time with his father at Newmarket but also returned with him to Whitehall.154 SC6/JASI/1680, rot. 5; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 521. Charles’s attempts to resist being eclipsed by Buckingham evidently irritated the latter, whose strategy for success had hitherto depended on monopolizing the king’s favour. In June 1618 the favourite feasted the king at his newly acquired house at Wanstead, in south-west Essex, but pointedly failed to invite Charles, even though the prince was staying only about a mile away. Unwilling to be thus humiliated, Charles protested to the marquess, who was obliged to apologize in person after the supper.155 HMC Bath, ii. 68; CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 251.

Buckingham now realized that he had more to gain by friendship with the prince than enmity, and invited Charles to stay with him at Wanstead. Furthermore, on 26 June he proceeded to hold a second banquet, this time for both James and Charles. Dubbed the ‘friends’ feast’ by one observer, the occasion was by all accounts highly successful,156 Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 78; ‘Camden Diary’ (1691), 33. for from that moment onwards Charles and Buckingham became fast friends. One of the earliest signs of the marked improvement in the relationship between the two young men is that in mid October Charles assigned his interest in the admiralty to Buckingham.157 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 585. As heir apparent, Charles no longer had any use for his reversion to the office of lord admiral, whereas Buckingham was now anxious to succeed the aged earl of Nottingham himself.

The friends’ feast was a pivotal moment in Charles’s life. In the short term it meant that he no longer needed to follow the king around like a shadow. Although he accompanied James on progress that summer, Charles spent at least part of this time apart from his father.158 For Charles’s itinerary, see SC6/JASI/1681, rot. 5. His journey took him to Beaulieu, in Hants, where James is known to have been on 15 Aug.: CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 565. For evidence that Charles and James spent the final part of their progress apart, see CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 306. In the longer term, the feast marked the beginning of a friendship which helped fill the void left by the death of Charles’s much-loved brother. Indeed, the prince soon began to regard Buckingham, who was only 18 months older than Henry, as his confidant, adviser and protector. Two episodes in particular point to this conclusion. The first occurred towards the end of 1618 or the beginning of 1619, when the queen was unwell, and concerned James’s reaction to the news that Charles had tried to persuade his mother to make a will and leave him all her jewels. Charles was mortified at the king’s reaction, as he had only done what James had earlier suggested, and appealed to Buckingham to intercede on his behalf. Describing himself as ‘your true constant friend’, Charles candidly confessed that ‘there is none knows me so well as yourself’.159 Orig. Letters (ser. 1), iii. 102. The second episode occurred in about January 1619, when James, Charles and Buckingham went to Newmarket to visit Anne, the daughter of the late Sir Bassingbourne Gawdy^‡. All three of them were very taken with this young lady, none more so than Charles, who was so besotted that he penned some verses in which he compared Anne to a blazing star.160 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 209. James, however, was not pleased at Charles’s infatuation, and gave his son a ‘good sharp potion’ as a curative. Buckingham, by contrast, sent the prince some ‘comfits’, which were ‘well relished’, and secretly encouraged Charles to meet the Anne again the following Saturday.161 Beresford Chancellor, 31. Gregg thinks the letter was written in 1615, but this is impossible: Gregg, 57. In matters of the heart Charles seems to have had little previous experience – as late as March 1620 the Spanish ambassador reported that the prince had not ‘yet anything to do with love affairs’162 Narrative of the Spanish Marriage Treaty ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. ci), 321. - and naturally therefore looked for guidance to Buckingham, whose good looks and charm won him many female admirers.

By 1617 Charles was said to resemble his mother in appearance.163 CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 80. Comparison of Paul van Somer’s portrait of Anne painted at about that time, with a portrait of Charles in tilting armour, certainly bears out this observation; both had the same oval-shaped face and long, aquiline nose.164 For the portrait of Anne, see NPG, 127; for that of Charles, see Leeds Armouries, accession no. AL.15.4. However, in terms of character, Charles more closely resembled his father, whose amiability and gentleness he shared. Some contemporary observers suggested that Charles sought to emulate his father, particularly in his devotion to the chase.165 Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead, 202; CSP Ven. 1617-19, pp. 393, 421. In 1615 Sir Francis Nethersole^‡ publicly implied that Charles was little more than a miniature version of his father.166 Carlton, 20.

Although Charles resembled his father in character, it would be mistaken to suppose that he was without personality. His fondness for hunting was genuine, and he developed intellectual and cultural tastes that were distinct from those of his father. Although he penned verses for Anne Gawdy, and also for Lady Diana Cecil, the beautiful daughter of William Cecil^*, 2nd earl of Exeter, with whom he also became briefly infatuated, Charles, like Henry before him, preferred pictures to poetry, his father’s passion.167 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 452. For the poem on Diana Cecil, see Harvard Univ., Houghton Lib., ms Eng. 703, f. 77. We are grateful for this latter reference to Richard Cust. By the early 1620s he had begun to amass a collection, which he displayed in a gallery at St James’s Palace. He commissioned works from Rubens, and in 1623, while in Spain, bought numerous paintings by other artists at inflated prices. It is even possible that Charles dabbled in oils himself, for in January 1625 Rubens described him as ‘the greatest amateur of paintings among the princes of the world’.168 Phillips, 12, 17-21; Orig. Unpublished Pprs. Illustrative of the Life of Sir Peter Paul Rubens ed. W. Noel Sainsbury, 57-60; Letters of Peter Paul Rubens ed. R.S. Magurn, 101. Carlton claims that Charles began collecting pictures aged 15, but his evidence merely shows that Charles took delivery of three pictures painted by Isaac Oliver – presumably portraits of Charles himself: Carlton, 16; APC, 1615-16, p. 508. Charles’s cultural interests also extended to music. As a three year-old he had imitated the sounds of his favourite instruments, and as a young man he became a skilful musician, who ‘could play his part exactly well on the bass-viol’.169 HALS, ms 65447; J. Playford, An Introduction to the Skill of Musick (1700), in the chapter headed ‘Of Musick in general’ (we are grateful to Lynn Hulse for this reference). See also Mr. William Lilly’s True History of King James the First, and King Charles the First (1715), 3. Indeed, unlike his father, he became an important patron of musicians, rapidly eclipsing the musical accomplishments of his brother’s court. During the late 1610s and early 1620s his household became renowned for its string-consort music. In fact, fantasias with violins were first to be heard in England in Charles’s household, developed by a special ensemble with the ‘personal interest and participation’ of the prince.170 P. Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court 1540-1690, pp. 211-13. We are grateful to Lynn Hulse for drawing this work to our attention.

Another striking difference between Charles and his father was their attitude to the profession of arms. James famously abhorred violence, whereas Charles, though placid by nature, was brought up to handle weapons such as the lance and the pike,171 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 222; HMC Downshire, vi. 428. and found the study of modern warfare absorbing. Under the guidance of soldiers like Sir Horace Vere^* (later Lord Vere) and Sir Edward Cecil (later Viscount Wimbledon), Charles acquired a detailed knowledge of weapons, fortifications and military encampments. In 1616 he paid £100 for a detailed model ‘of certain squadrons or quarters’ of the camp of Maurice of Nassau, and also purchased some models of warlike engines made by a Dutchman. This was almost certainly the military engineer Cornelius Drebbel, who had formerly been employed by Prince Henry, and received £30 from Charles at about this time for his ‘special use and service’.172 Perrinchief, 253; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 368, 383, 395, 397, 398; SC6/JASI/1680, rot. 3; Strong, 140, 162. However, Charles also patronized another foreign military engineer, Arnold Rotispen, who invented a new type of artillery.173 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 171. Developments in ordnance fascinated Charles, who obtained from the prince of Orange some newly invented pieces in 1621.174 SP14/119/101.

Political apprenticeship, 1619-21

Early in 1619 the queen fell seriously ill. Charles was so concerned that he abandoned his plans to take part in the accession day tilt, for which he had been practising and which would have marked his public debut.175 Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 132; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 15. On learning that her condition had deteriorated, he rushed to be by her side, and (unlike her husband) was present when she died on 2 March. Shortly before Anne’s death, Charles persuaded his mother, who had still not made a will, to leave to him all her personal property.176 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 21; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 219; Add. 72275, f. 46. According to Peter Heylyn, Charles bore the loss of his mother ‘with great equanimity’, and did not spend his time ‘in too much womanish lamentation’. Many contemporaries, however, were taken aback that Charles attended a sermon preached by the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (Thomas Morton^*) only five days after her death.177 Heylyn, 17; ‘Camden Diary’, 42. Moreover, three weeks after the funeral, it was noticed that Charles was dressed ‘more like a wooer than a mourner’.178 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 242. On the face of it, this reaction to Anne’s death suggests that Charles did not care for his mother very much. However, it seems more likely that Charles deliberately suppressed his feelings of grief in public. If so, then this lack of outward emotion was the first sign that he, like his brother before him,179 Strong, 7. had learned to exercise the emotional self-control so conspicuously lacking in his father.

Three weeks after Anne’s death, James fell gravely ill at Newmarket. He immediately summoned his son, who met him while he was being conveyed to Royston. There, surrounded by the Privy Council, James entreated his son to uphold the Church and its bishops.180 ‘Camden Diary’, 42; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 224-5; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 28. This speech, delivered by a king who believed himself to be dying, was almost certainly prompted by Lancelot Andrewes*, bishop of Winchester. At Royston, Andrewes confessed to James that he was worried that if Charles became king the Church was likely to fall into a ‘sad condition’. Charles, he pointed out, had been educated by Scots, who formed the largest contingent in his household, and consequently had little knowledge of either the government or liturgy of the Church of England. According to Heylyn, whose recollection forms the sole basis for this story, Andrewes made a strong impression on James, who promised that, should he recover, he would take Charles ‘into his own immediate care, instruct him in the controversies of religion and set him on so tight a bottom that there should be no fear of his disaffection either unto the hierarchy or the rites and ceremonies of the Church’.181 Heylyn, 17-18.

The fears attributed by Heylyn to Andrewes require close scrutiny. Although Charles’s tutor Thomas Murray was certainly closely associated with the Scottish presbyterian Andrew Melville, it must not be forgotten that Charles received such a thorough grounding in the doctrines of the Church of England that at his confirmation in 1613 he impressed both George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury, and James Montagu^*, bishop of Bath and Wells.182 Nichols, ii. 626-7; Old Cheque-Bk., or Bk. of Remembrance of the Chapel Royal ed. R.F. Rimbault (Cam. Soc. n.s. iii), 172-3. Since then, his commitment to the doctrines of the Anglican Church had been safeguarded by his chaplains George Hakewill, Richard Milbourne and George Carleton, all of whom were English ecclesiastics. Charles had been brought up with the liturgy of the Church of England since the age of three, and had consequently never seen the forms of worship practised in Scotland, which country he had been prevented from visiting in 1617. Andrewes’ claim, as reported by Heylyn, that Charles was poorly acquainted with the Church of England, must therefore be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Perhaps Andrewes’ real complaint was not Charles’s lack of familiarity with the Church of England but the extent of Scottish influence on the young prince. If so, then Andrewes was reflecting a view widely held at court. In December 1618 the Venetian ambassador observed that Charles, because he was attended mainly by Scots, was ‘naturally more inclined to that nation’, a matter ‘which is very distasteful to the English’. He added that once he became king, Charles would probably be ‘popular with his subjects, especially the Scots’.183 CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 393. With hindsight we know that this prediction was very wide of the mark, and that, as Allan MacInnes has observed, Charles ascended the throne possessed of ‘an unparalleled lack of understanding’ of Scottish government and politics.184 MacInnes, 2. However, in 1619 English fears of Scottish dominance were acute, and it was these fears, rather than the worry that Charles was ignorant of the Church of which he would one day become head, to which Andrewes was giving expression.

In the event, the belief that James was about to die proved unfounded, as by May the king had fully recovered. However, James, who had a morbid fear of all things concerned with death, refused to attend his wife’s funeral on 13 May. Consequently it was once again left to Charles to perform the duties of chief mourner.185 SP14/109/23; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 237; Harl. 5176, f. 237; CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 552. Shortly thereafter, James granted Charles his late mother’s dower lands in Scotland, including the lordship of Dunfermline.186 HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 86; CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 558. See also Reg. PC Scot. 1619-22, pp. 7-8. He also helped establish a ten-man council to manage these properties on Charles’s behalf. Headed by Charles’s former governor Lord Fyvie, now earl of Dunfermline [S], this board included Sir James Fullerton, Thomas Murray and Sir Robert Carr, all of whom were, of course, members of Charles’s household.187 Reg. PC Scot. 1619-22, pp. 59-61. In addition, Charles was also granted many of Anne’s former English properties, including Denmark House, on the Strand, which, like his Scottish lands, were held in trust until he attained his majority.188 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 81. Charles now had cash to spare, unlike the king, and in July 1619 the board of the East India Company agreed to allow the prince to invest £6,000 in their business.189 CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, p. 286.

Over the summer of 1619 Charles went on progress with his father. Unlike previous journeys the prince had undertaken at this time of year, this progress was not restricted to the counties immediately to the south and west of London but was focussed instead on the Midlands. Starting in Hertfordshire, the royal party journeyed through Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Surrey. Those peers on whose hospitality they prevailed included the 4th Lord St John (Oliver St John^*), the 6th earl of Rutland (Francis Manners^*) and the 1st Lord Compton (William Spencer*). In addition, since James and Charles were both obsessed with riding, they visited Tutbury in Staffordshire, where the king maintained the royal stud, and Ollerton in Nottinghamshire, the home of Gervase Markham, the celebrated poet, writer and horse-breeder.190 For Charles’s itinerary, see SC6/JASI/1682, rot. 5. Comparison with the king’s own itinerary indicates that the king and the prince travelled together: E351/344, rot. 100. See also Reg. PC Scot. 1619-22, p. 65. However, towards the end of the progress, which lasted 54 days, Charles found the company of his father too restrictive, and struck out on his own.191 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 260.

In March 1620 Charles finally made his debut in the accession day tilt, on which occasion he lavished more than £6,467 on costume, equipment and finery.192 E101/435/6, p. 28. His brother Henry had tilted publicly since the age of 12,193 Strong, 44. but the king’s fears for the succession had meant that James had not been prepared to allow Charles to risk serious injury in the jousting arena until the previous year. Even now, many members of the Privy Council begged Charles not to chance his luck, while James, worried that his son might be the victim of an assassination attempt, provided Charles with a large armed guard.194 CSP Ven. 1619-21, pp. 190, 227. However, these concerns for the prince’s safety proved groundless, for not only had Charles little to fear from the crowds, he was also an expert horseman and highly skilled with the lance. Indeed, during a practice session he wounded Philip Herbert^*, 1st earl of Montgomery (later 4th earl of Pembroke), in the arm.195 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 133; Add. 72275, f. 100. This was quite an accomplishment, as Montgomery was a former champion, having won the laurels at the tournament staged by Prince Henry in 1610.196 W.H., The True Picture and Relation of Prince Henry (Leiden, 1634), 29. During the tournament itself he proceeded to win every honour, to general applause.197 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 133; CSP Ven. 1619-21, p. 255; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 298. The only shadow to darken the proceedings was cast by the French ambassador, who refused to attend because his seat was less important than that provided for his Spanish counterpart. In order to soothe French feelings, Charles diplomatically suggested that a second tournament should be held after Easter exclusively for the French ambassador.198 Archivio di Stato, Florence, file 4193, Salvetti dispatch, 31 Mar./10 Apr. 1620. This offer was gratefully accepted, as a further joust took place on 18 April. Once again Charles bore off the palm, both in the judgement of the umpires and of the crowd.199 ‘Camden Diary’, p. 56; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 302. More importantly, however, his well-judged intervention succeeded in ending the quarrel between the French and Spanish ambassadors.200 CSP Ven. 1619-21, p. 241.

Charles’s public demonstrations of martial prowess could not have come at a more opportune moment. The previous summer the Protestant estates of the crown of Bohemia had deposed their Catholic king, Ferdinand of Austria, and elected in his stead Charles’s brother-in-law, Frederick V, thereby precipitating a major international crisis. Charles’s sympathies lay entirely with Frederick, of course, and although he grew jealous of the popularity of his sister and her husband, he assured his brother-in-law as early as June 1619 that he would be ready to assist him not only ‘with my countenance but also with my person, if the king my father will give me leave’.201 F. von Raumer, Hist. of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ii. 246; Letters and other Docs. Illustrative of Relations bet. Eng. and Germany ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. xc), 140. It was due to pressure applied by Charles that in March 1620 the king dispatched Sir Robert Anstruther as special ambassador to Denmark, in the hope that Anstruther, who knew the Danish court well, would induce Christian IV to intervene on Frederick’s behalf.202 46th DKR, ii. 20.

Over the summer of 1620, while Charles and his father were hunting together in the New Forest,203 SC6/JASI/1683, rot. 5d. the crisis deepened. In September a Spanish army invaded and overran much of the lower Palatinate, the principal part of the Elector’s lands, situated on the Rhine, as a result of which the king and the Privy Council met in emergency session at Hampton Court. Although not formally a member of the Council, Charles was permitted to attend this meeting, at which it was decided that the measures taken thus far by the German Protestant princes to defend the Palatinate were legitimate and that the king should join in the war himself. According to the Venetian ambassador, Charles had ‘a large share’ in shaping these conclusions, for despite his youth and inexperience he was not afraid to speak forcefully.204 CSP Ven. 1619-21, pp. 417, 428, 431. The following day James asked his Council to advise him how to raise the money he would need to pay for an army to intervene in the Palatinate. His own resources were negligible, for despite recent efforts at financial retrenchment the crown was more than £711,000 in debt.205 Add. 34324, f. 119r-v; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 158. The Council swiftly concluded that only Parliament was capable of providing the level of funding that would be needed. However it also suggested that, since it would take time for a Parliament to meet, voluntary contributions should be sought from the nobility. Charles, who was outraged at Spain’s behaviour and whose finances were considerably more secure than his father’s, immediately pledged £10,000 towards this benevolence.206 CSP Ven. 1619-21, p. 441.

Although James was reluctant to convene a Parliament, he had little choice but to comply with his councillors’ wishes, and in mid November 1620 he ordered the issue of the necessary writs. However, the officers responsible for drafting these documents were uncertain whether to issue a writ of summons to Charles as prince of Wales. On the face of it, Charles, being under the age of 21, was barred from sitting in the House of Lords. Indeed, Charles’s own brother Henry had not been summoned to the first Jacobean Parliament because he was a minor. However, medieval precedent indicated that the prince of Wales was permitted to sit, regardless of his age. Although these self-same precedents had not persuaded James to issue a writ to the 16-year old Prince Henry in 1610, the situation now was different, as Charles would be in his 21st year when the Parliament met, and peers were normally permitted to sit under these circumstances. Consequently, it is not surprising that Charles was summoned to the forthcoming Parliament.207 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon ed. J. Spedding, vii. 143-4. On the attempt to persuade James to summon Prince Henry in 1610, see SP14/53/70.

Shortly after the writs for the Parliament were issued, news reached England that Frederick’s army in Bohemia had been destroyed at the battle of the White Mountain. James was ‘stupefied’, while Charles was so upset that he shut himself in his room for two days.208 Add. 31112, f. 259. See also Add. 72275, f. 110. Preparations for the Parliament nevertheless continued. In December Charles’s servants spent four days making ready a suite of rooms in the upper House for the prince to use.209 SC6/JASI/1684, rot. 5. That same month the council responsible for administering the duchy of Cornwall on Charles’s behalf drew up a list of candidates considered suitable for election to the Commons by various boroughs where the duchy owned land. How far Charles himself was involved in this process is unclear, but the ensuing campaign was broadly successful, for of the 18 boroughs approached up to 13 accepted nominations made by the duchy council.210 P.M. Hunneyball, ‘Prince Charles’s Council as Electoral Agent, 1620-4’, PH, xxiii. 318, 321, 326.

One of the chief consequences of the Spanish invasion of the lower Palatinate was to cast doubt over the king’s plans for the marriage of Prince Charles. For the last four years negotiations for marrying Charles to a Spanish infanta had been underway (the earlier plans for a French Match having been finally abandoned in 1616). Aside from creating an alliance with the most powerful king in Christendom and bridging the gulf that existed between Protestants and Catholics, one of the chief advantages to James of such a match was that Spain offered to provide a dowry of £600,000, a sum far greater than the one previously offered by the French and one that would serve to reduce the crown’s debts to more manageable proportions. The marriage would also help secure the succession, which had been thrown into doubt in the spring of 1619 by the king’s serious illness.211 H.G.R. Reade, Sidelights on the Thirty Years’ War, i. 223. Charles himself was thought to be privately averse to such a marriage, but unlike Prince Henry, who once famously remarked that no papist would share his bed, he had no wish to antagonize his father.212 CSP Ven. 1619-21, p. 238; 1621-3, p. 453. Publicly at least, therefore, he was an enthusiast for a Spanish Match and so, like James, was ‘wonderfully angered’ in May 1620 when, contrary to command, Capt. Roger North set sail for South America with the intention of establishing a colony there in spite of Spanish hostility.213 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 100; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 145. However, his attitude towards the Match hardened after the Spanish invasion of the Palatinate and the defeat of Frederick’s forces at the White Mountain. When an ambassador extraordinary arrived from France in December with the offer of a French princess, Charles and his father went out of their way to entertain and impress their guest.214 Autobiog. of Sir Simonds D’Ewes ed. J.O. Halliwell, i. 166; Finetti Philoxenis (1656), 71; ‘Camden Diary’, 65. A fresh tournament was staged, in which members of the French entourage were encouraged to participate, and once again Charles showed himself off to best effect, performing ‘very well and gracefully’.215 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 333.

Charles attended the opening of Parliament on 30 Jan. 1621, walking alone and bareheaded in the procession and sitting in the seat reserved for the prince of Wales next to the throne.216 Coll. of Arms, Heralds VII, p. 737; ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 8. Almost immediately he attempted to stamp his authority on the assembly. On 8 Feb., the king having left for Theobalds for a few days, he processed to Parliament on foot from St James’s Palace, accompanied by his guard and ‘a fair retinue’. At the same time he announced that he intended to sit regularly in the upper House.217 Add. 72254, f. 11; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 343. Over the coming weeks and months Charles was as good as his word, being seldom absent from the chamber for more than a few days at a time. Indeed, during the first of the Parliament’s two sittings there was only one long period when he was not to be found in the House, and that was between 24 May and 4 June inclusive. From time to time some of Charles’s commitments outside the House necessarily kept him from the chamber, but whenever this happened he expected the Lords to adjust their business accordingly. On learning, on the afternoon of 21 Mar., that a message had arrived from the Commons regarding the forthcoming Easter adjournment, Charles, who was then practising hard for the accession day tilt (in which he once again excelled), asked his fellow peers to delay its reading until he was able to be present.218 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 31; LJ, iii. 60a; CJ, i. 567a. For his outstanding performance in the tilt, see Chamberlain Letters, ii. 359; ‘Camden Diary’, 70; CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 13. The Lords agreed, and also consented, on 24 Apr., to a motion of the House’s acting Speaker to allow the prince to attend any committee that he desired, irrespective of whether he was one of the named members. For this reason, as Chris Kyle has observed, it is impossible to say with any certainty on which committees Charles sat.219 PA, HO/PO/JO/5/1/1, p. 42; Kyle, 611.

Just as Charles made it clear that he wished to attend the Lords regularly, so too it became apparent that he was not content to be merely a passive observer. Though the size of his tongue made public speaking difficult, he frequently contributed to debate, even during the early stages of the Parliament. On 16 Feb., for instance, when the Lords deliberated in grand committee whether to ask the king to issue a proclamation against recusants, Charles intervened no less than three times, twice to say that the matter should be left to the king and once to second the motion of the 1st earl of Cambridge (James Hamilton^*, 2nd marquess of Hamilton [S]), who said precisely the same thing.220 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 7; CSP Ven. 1619-21, p. 577; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 344. Despite being a parliamentary novice, he also proved keen to ensure that debates were held in an orderly fashion, for more than once he reminded the House of its standing orders when he observed them being broken.221 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 33; LD 1621, pp. 29, 38. Indeed, throughout the Parliament Charles was, in effect, one of the chief managers of business in the Lords, though his influence was usually felt behind the scenes. When Lord Chancellor Bacon (Francis Bacon^*, Viscount St Albans) was notified by the king late on the night of 28 Feb. that the Commons were about to request a conference with the Lords concerning the notorious monopolist Sir Giles Mompesson^‡, he and the lord treasurer went to Whitehall to discuss tactics with Charles early the next morning, before the House assembled.222 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 190.

Charles’s presence in the upper House had the effect of overawing many of the peers,223 A. Wilson, Hist. of Gt. Britain (1653), 161. but it also made him an obvious conduit to the king, and more than once he conveyed a request from the Lords to his father. This was a sensible arrangement, for as James told a deputation from the upper House on 26 Mar., ‘the Lords have taken the right way to catch a king ... by speaking to him by his son’.224 LJ, iii. 72a. However, not all the requests Charles carried to his father were welcome, as an episode towards the beginning of the Parliament demonstrates. Many of the younger peers had arrived at Westminster incensed that the king, for financial reasons, had recently bestowed Irish and Scottish titles of nobility upon a number of Englishmen. These new creations threatened to undermine the position of English barons in their own localities, since many were of the rank of viscount and above. Several of these discontented peers met privately during the early days of the Parliament and drafted a petition in which they resolved to ask the king for permission to disregard these titles in the day-to-day running of their counties.225 Raumer, ii. 250; CD 1621, vii. 579. For the text of the petition, see Wilson, 187. A number of them also tried to force their way into the king’s presence at court, but were rebuked by James, ‘whereat they were not well pleased’.226 SP14/119/99. On 19 Feb. Charles and the Privy Council examined some of the peers involved, but were unable to obtain from them the offending petition. Since the petitioner-peers now found their way to the king blocked and their activities subjected to official investigation, they decided that the only course open to them was to lay the matter before Parliament. Consequently, the following morning the petition, which bore the signatures of around a third of the House, was put before the Lords with a request that it should be formally delivered to the king. In so doing, they immediately triggered a debate regarding the petition’s status. Those who were its signatories naturally argued that the petition should either be regarded as originating with the upper House or that it should be adopted by the Lords after a formal reading. Ranged against them were Charles, the lord chancellor and the earl marshal, the earl of Arundel, all of whom declared that the petition had nothing to do with Parliament. Matters then turned rather ugly, for when the lord chancellor attempted to bring the curtain down on the debate by adjourning the sitting he was prevented from doing so. In order to avoid any further deterioration in the situation, Charles promised the 3rd earl of Dorset (Richard Sackville*), one of the leading malcontents, that he would obtain access to the king that afternoon for the petitioners.227 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 10-11; APC, 1619-21, p. 352. The proceedings of the Council board for 20 Feb. are incorrectly dated 19 Feb. in the Council register.

Charles’s promise to Dorset has been described as ‘rather naïve and ill-judged’, since James subsequently proved unwilling to receive the petition.228 Cust, Chas. I, 7. This judgement seems unduly harsh, however, for in reality Charles’s intervention defused the crisis in the Lords. Nevertheless, it is certainly true that Charles’s attempt to find a solution was undermined by James, who was incensed that his prerogative had been called into question. When the petitioner-peers arrived at Whitehall that afternoon they were not admitted into the king’s presence but were instead instructed to submit their petition to the Privy Council. This precipitated a lengthy and quite unnecessary stand-off, as the petitioner-peers refused to submit their petition to the board while James refused to grant them a collective audience. The matter was only resolved because of the presence of the prince himself, for it was eventually agreed by all sides that the petition should be delivered to Charles, who would then take it to the king without first showing it to the Council.229 Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 231-2; APC, 1619-21, pp. 352-3; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 348.

Despite the rather bruising nature of this episode, Charles remained in the thick of things whenever matters of major importance were debated by the Lords. The fate of Sir Giles Mompesson, which occupied the House throughout most of March, serves as a case in point. Charles was a member of the committee that was appointed in the wake of Mompesson’s escape from custody, and subsequently reassured the Commons that no effort would be spared to apprehend Sir Giles. In addition, he helped consider the evidence against Mompesson, explaining to his fellow peers on 23 Mar. that a witness against the monopolist was fearful lest the bribe he had paid in a lawsuit that had been mentioned in his testimony would redound to his disadvantage. Charles was also in the forefront of the 26 Mar. debate concerning the nature of the punishment to be inflicted on Mompesson. Some Members thought that Mompesson should be dealt with in the same way as Empson and Dudley, who had been executed at the beginning of Henry VIII’s reign, but Charles dismissed this suggestion on the grounds that these men had been found guilty of treason rather than corruption. Like the 3rd earl of Pembroke (William Herbert^*), Charles thought the punishment should not involve the loss of life. However, when Lord Howard de Walden (Theophilus Howard^*, later 2nd earl of Suffolk) proposed instead that Parliament should strip Mompesson of his knighthood, Charles objected, incorrectly, that only the king possessed this power. The following day Charles, along with Buckingham and Arundel, penned the House’s report on Mompesson.230 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 42, 44, 49.

Perhaps because the practice of granting monopolies inevitably reflected on the government of his father, Charles took an equally close interest in the cases of other monopolists that came before the House. On the afternoon of 26 Apr. he was present during the examination of Matthias Fowles, the gold and silver thread patentee who was charged with using inappropriate chemicals in the dyeing of silk. Before the examination began he asked whether it had been proved that Fowles was guilty of ‘sophistication’, and during the examination itself he interrupted when more than one peer asked questions at the same time, demanding that the orders of the House be observed. The next day, Charles advised that it would be useful to find out whether Fowles’s use of white lead and arsenic in the dyeing process was in fact legitimate. He was adamant that patentees who abused their positions should be punished. When the 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton (Henry Wriothesley^*) suggested on 27 Apr. that proceedings against the alehouse patentee Sir Francis Michell should be stayed, he was opposed by Charles, who pressed the House to suggest material points on which they might examine him.231 LD 1621, pp. 27, 29, 34-5, 37-8.

Although willing to see the patentees punished, Charles naturally did not wish that the abuses they had committed should form the basis of an attempt to topple Buckingham. However, during April 1621 it became clear that this was precisely what the favourite’s enemies had in mind, their instrument being the disgraced former attorney general Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, who had been ordered by the king to stand trial in the Lords. Addressing the upper House on 30 Apr., Yelverton claimed that he had been forced to imprison unlicensed manufacturers of gold and silver thread because he had received a message from Mompesson that Buckingham would have him dismissed if he did not. Accusing Buckingham of exercising ‘regal power’, he likened the marquess to Hugh, Lord Le Despenser^†, the hated favourite of Edward II.232 Lockyer, Buckingham, 101; LD 1621, pp. 47-8. On hearing this, many of those present were so incensed that they interrupted Yelverton, but both Charles and Buckingham coolly insisted that the prisoner be allowed to finish. Once Yelverton had left the chamber, however, Charles observed that the former attorney general had, in effect, compared his father to the notoriously weak king Edward II. He also remarked that he was ‘not able to endure his father’s government to be so paralleled and scandalized’.233 LD 1621, p. 52; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 369. Chamberlain states, incorrectly, that Charles interrupted Yelverton himself.

Like Charles, James was affronted by Yelverton’s outburst, and when he learned of it he ordered that its author be imprisoned. Several peers were deeply unhappy at this turn of events, among them the bishop of Bangor, Lewis Bayly^*, who claimed that Yelverton had said nothing to impugn the king’s honour, that a ‘hard construction’ had been made of his comments regarding Lord Le Despenser, and that there should not be any ‘squeezing blood out of words, when a benign construction can be made’. These remarks were clearly directed at Charles himself, for when Bayly subsequently declared that he had not meant any harm by them it was Charles who pardoned him, though not before retorting that the bishop had ‘laid an heavy imputation on others’. Despite Bayly’s retreat, many in the House nevertheless shared the bishop’s concerns, and were aggrieved that James, having earlier referred Yelverton to their justice, had now deprived them of the right to punish him themselves. Consequently Charles was asked to approach his father. Charles agreed to this request, but warned his fellow peers that the king would be displeased if the Lords subsequently decided that Yelverton had said nothing detrimental to his honour. Not surprisingly the House was unwilling to give Charles an assurance that it would not reach this conclusion, whereupon the prince politely but firmly declined to act until it did so.234 LD 1621, pp. 55, 58; Lockyer, Buckingham, 102.

In the event the king, on the advice of Buckingham, decided to remit Yelverton to the House for judgement without first receiving the assurance that Charles had sought.235 Lockyer, Buckingham, 102-3. During the ensuing proceedings, Charles kept Yelverton firmly within his sights. When, on 8 May, the 1st Lord Spencer (Robert Spencer^*) proposed that Yelverton be given a further hearing, he was opposed by Charles, who declared that they should confine themselves to the words already spoken by him rather than consider any ‘new matter’. One week later, after Yelverton had in fact been permitted to answer the charges against him, Charles pressed the House to deliver its verdict, whereupon the Lords decided that the former attorney general should be fined 10,000 marks and imprisoned at the king’s pleasure. However, they also resolved to ask the king to reduce the fine, at which point Charles offered to carry this message himself.236 LD 1621, pp. 72-3, 85-6.

One of the most startling features of the 1621 Parliament was the Commons’ investigation of Lord Chancellor Bacon for bribery. Like the rest of the House, Charles was reduced to the status of a spectator while the investigation unfolded. However, once the charges against Bacon had been formulated he, like several other peers, suggested that Bacon, who was no longer permitted to sit, should be provided with notes on their contents so that he might prepare his answer.237 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 52. Bacon evidently regarded Charles as a friend, or at least not as an enemy, for it was to the prince that he entrusted his letter of submission on 22 April. The Lords, with whom the responsibility for passing judgment on the lord chancellor now rested, were dissatisfied with this document, which they received on 24 Apr., describing it as ‘a doubtful answer’. The following day, led by Charles, they demanded to know whether the lord chancellor would confess his guilt plainly. It soon became apparent that he would not, and five days later Charles transmitted to the king the Lords’ request that Bacon be deprived of the great seal.238 LJ, iii. 84a; LD 1621, pp. 22, 41, 42; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 48v.

Although the Lords had now decided that Bacon would forfeit his office, it was also expected that he should suffer some additional punishment. Charles recommended that precedents relating to former chancellors be investigated, but his suggestion was politely brushed aside as it was far from clear that there were any such precedents to guide them. Instead, many peers were determined that Bacon should not only be fined and imprisoned but also degraded. For Charles, depriving a man of his titles of honour was a step too far, as he had made clear during the debates over the punishment of Mompesson. In concert with Buckingham and his allies, and also the bishops, he protected Bacon from this most humiliating of punishments when the matter was put to the vote on 3 May, for which act of kindness he later received Bacon’s warm thanks. However, Charles proved to be less successful the following day when, despite his opposition, the Lords voted to strip Sir Francis Michell of his knighthood.239 LD 1621, pp. 62, 63, 65; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 371; Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 287.

In passing judgement on Bacon, Yelverton, Mompesson, Michell and Fowles the Lords were exercising a judicial function which had long lain dormant. Although the Commons were entitled to investigate malefactors and bring charges against them, final responsibility for passing judgement lay with the Lords alone. However, in May 1621 the lower House, anxious to demonstrate its zeal for the king and his family, attempted to punish on its own authority the Catholic barrister Edward Floyd for disparaging the king and queen of Bohemia. The Lords understandably protested at this intrusion into their own sphere of competence, and were not persuaded by the argument advanced by Sir Edward Coke^‡, that the lower House was entitled to act in a judicial capacity on the grounds that it was a court of record. Charles, though he greatly admired Coke both for his learning and his pleasing style of speaking,240 CD 1621, ii. 231. shared the general sense of grievance in the Lords. On 7 May he seconded Arundel, who not only denied that the House of Commons was a court of record but also claimed that the right of judicature belonged exclusively to the Lords. However, he initially attempted to steer a middle course between Arundel, who thought the Commons should be required to give satisfaction for the offence they had caused, and the bishop of Durham, Richard Neile^* (later archbishop of York), who thought that it would be better to require the Commons to desist from proceeding any further against Floyd. He proposed that the Commons should remove from their records any account of their proceedings against Floyd. However, on sensing that this would be insufficient to mollify his colleagues, he once again seconded Arundel.241 LD 1621, pp. 69-70.

Charles was responsible for two items of legislation that were laid before the Lords in 1621. The first was a bill to confirm leases made by the duchy of Cornwall, which was introduced on 22 Feb. and completed its passage in both Houses in the space of a month.242 LJ, iii. 26b, 29b, 31a, 45a, 56b. The second was a bill to give statutory confirmation to an exchange of lands between Charles and the Northamptonshire gentleman Sir Lewis Watson^† (later 1st Lord Rockingham). In return for full possession of Rockingham Castle, Watson agreed to give Charles the manor of Garthorpe in Leicestershire, a few miles east of Melton Mowbray. (The attraction for Charles of possessing Garthorpe was almost certainly the proximity of this property to the Villiers estate of Goadby Marwood, where Buckingham had spent his later childhood).243 Lockyer, Buckingham, 9-10. However, this measure was introduced relatively late in the first parliamentary sitting of 1621, and though it proceeded smoothly in the Lords it got no further than a first reading in the Commons before Parliament adjourned for the summer.244 LJ, iii. 114b, 126a, 127b, 130a, 130b; CJ, i. 627a. For the background to the bill, see HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 688; Kyle, 617.

As well as these two items of legislation, Charles also supported a bill to enfranchise County Durham, which was laid before the Commons by one of his tenants, who received £20 from the prince towards his costs. Among the boroughs that the bill sought to benefit was Castle Barnard, which formed part of the duchy of Cornwall.245 Kyle, 618. In early May Charles presented to the clerk of the parliaments a petition he had been handed by a poor man named Matthew Neville, but the press of business meant that it was never read.246 HEHL, EL 6473.

Charles emerged from the first sitting of the 1621 Parliament having acquired a considerable degree of popularity. His father, though normally suspicious of those who courted favour with the populace at large through their parliamentary representatives, was delighted. His own earlier experiences of Parliament had given him little cause to love the institution and he now looked on Charles as something of a bridge between himself and his people.247 CSP Ven. 1621-3, pp. 36, 67-8. Moreover, the enthusiastic reception Charles had received in Parliament served to counter-act the widespread popularity of the Elector Palatine, thus damping down any fears that James may have had for the succession. (In December 1619 the Venetian ambassador had observed that if succession to the throne depended upon a beauty contest, Frederick would certainly beat Charles).248 CSP Ven. 1619-21, p. 92.

Charles also emerged from the sitting as a firm defender of Buckingham. However, the relationship between the two men was not always entirely harmonious. Over the summer the two friends quarrelled after Buckingham proposed that the newly appointed lord keeper, John Williams^*, dean of Westminster (later archbishop of York), should be made bishop of London in succession to John King^*, who had died at the end of March. Charles was keen that the vacant bishopric should be conferred elsewhere. His preferred candidate was almost certainly George Montaigne^*, then bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of York), whom the prince had visited at Buckden in October 1619. He spoke so sharply on the subject, and so bitterly against the favourite, that James deferred to his wishes. Montaigne was thus elevated to the bishopric of London, while Williams was obliged to make do with the lesser see of Lincoln.249 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 88. On Charles’s visit to Buckden, see SC6/JASI/1682, rot. 5d.

James was clearly alarmed at the rift between Charles and Buckingham, for with the exception of a short-lived quarrel over a game of tennis in January 1620,250 Add. 72275, f. 94v. the two men had got along famously ever since the summer of 1618. However, the storm clouds soon passed, for by the end of August 1621 all was sweetness and light once more. Nonetheless, this episode undoubtedly helped fuel the belief of the Venetian ambassador that ‘at bottom’ Charles hated Buckingham.251 CSP Ven. 1621-3, pp. 117, 451. It also demonstrated the growing influence of Charles over his father, who in June 1621 was persuaded by the prince to defer the appointment of Williams as lord keeper. James himself tacitly acknowledged the influence that Charles now wielded when, later that same month, he asked Charles to reconcile the earl of Arundel and Lord Spencer, who had publicly fallen out during the Parliament.252 Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 262; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 381.

Over the autumn of 1621 the military situation facing the king’s daughter and her husband deteriorated rapidly. Earlier that year a truce had been signed which had led to the partial withdrawal of Spanish forces from the lower Palatinate, but hostilities had resumed in August. Furthermore, in October, Bavarian forces acting under the authority of the Emperor Ferdinand II (formerly Ferdinand of Austria) had invaded the upper Palatinate.253 B. Pursell, ‘Jas. I, Gondomar and the Dissolution of the Parl. of 1621’, History, lxxxv. 433-4. At the end of the month England’s ambassador to Vienna, Lord Digby (John Digby^*, later 1st earl of Bristol) returned to England with the news that Ferdinand was not interested in a negotiated settlement. It was now plain that James had either to take up arms in defence of his daughter and her husband or accept that the Palatinate was lost. Unfortunately for him, the Parliament that had recently met had voted just two subsidies, worth only £160,000. This was very far from being the size of grant that was needed, and therefore James determined that when Parliament reassembled in a few weeks time its first priority must be to vote him subsidies on the necessary scale. He was confident that the House of Commons would do so, for at the end of the previous sitting its Members had passed a declaration in which they had resolved to assist him ‘to the utmost of their powers, with their lives and fortunes’.254 JOHN DIGBY.

Because James was confident that the Commons would vote the money necessary to pay for a war, he decided that neither he nor Buckingham needed to remain at Westminster. Consequently, he and the favourite decamped to Newmarket, where they intended to stay until Christmas.255 CSP Ven. 1621-3, pp. 168, 172. Charles, meanwhile, was charged with keeping watch over the Parliament and told that if the Commons decided to meddle in any matters other than the supply of money for the Palatinate he should adjourn the assembly, making use of a dormant commission he had been given for this purpose. In effect, Charles, who attained his majority the day before the session recommenced, was being entrusted with the overall management of the Parliament himself. In light of this, Lord Keeper Williams suggested that the power to grant peers leave of absence should be given to the prince rather than to him.256 R. Cust, ‘Prince Chas. and the Second Session of the 1621 Parl.’, EHR, cxxii. 427, 438; Fortescue Pprs. ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. n.s. i), 166.

Although Charles was now in the driving seat, matters did not begin well for him when the Parliament reopened on 20 November. Messengers were sent to the Commons from the Lords to let them know that the lord keeper would address both Houses the following afternoon, but someone forgot to ensure that the Commons were told that they would also be addressed by both Digby and the lord treasurer, Lord Cranfield (Lionel Cranfield^*, later 1st earl of Middlesex). As soon as the messengers left Charles realized the mistake, but though he drew the House’s attention to the oversight ‘little was said’ about this embarrassing omission.257 LJ, iii. 163a. When the messengers returned Charles again tried to remedy the situation, this time by suggesting that a further message should be sent, but after a brief debate his proposal ‘was generally thought to be more than [was] needed’.258 Northants. RO, Montagu 29/62. In the event this assessment proved to be sound, as both Digby and Cranfield were permitted to speak without question. Between them they explained that the two subsidies that had been voted in the previous meeting had already been spent, that the king was unable to pay for a war out of his own pocket, and that in order to maintain an army for one year the sum of £900,000 would be required.259 Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 189.

Despite the urgency of the situation, the Commons did not immediately turn their attention to supply, as both James and Charles wanted, but allowed themselves to be diverted by the absence of one of their leading lights, Sir Edwin Sandys^‡, who had been arrested following the end of the previous parliamentary sitting. Many Members arrived at Westminster believing that Sandys was prevented by the government from taking his seat, whereas in fact his absence was entirely due to illness, the order restricting him to the area around his home in Kent having been lifted on 6 November. However, on 23 Nov. several Members demanded to know why Sandys had been arrested, as they suspected with good cause that his earlier detention was attributable to his previous actions in Parliament. It was only after Secretary of State Sir George Calvert^‡ gave an assurance to the contrary that the matter was allowed to drop.260 HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 187.

These events did not augur well for the Parliament, and following the end of business that day Charles wrote to Buckingham at Newmarket after speaking with several of the most trusted members of the Council. The Commons, he noted, had been ‘a little unruly’, and though he believed that some Members were now ashamed of themselves he advised the king to authorize him to imprison those whom he styled ‘seditious fellows’ so that he might make an example of them, an idea which he confessed was his alone.261 G. Goodman, Ct. of Jas. I, ii. 209-10. Charles misdated his letter 3 November. It seems unlikely that James ever supplied the requested commission. Since it had been the imprisonment of one Member that had given rise to the discontent, it was difficult to see how imprisoning additional Members would serve to make the Commons any more biddable. In the event, Charles was saved from making a grave mistake by the earl of Pembroke and Archbishop Abbot, who evidently used their influence to initiate a supply debate in the Commons.262 C. Russell, PEP, 129.

The outcome of this debate was profoundly disappointing for the crown, as the Commons, mindful that they had already voted supply, agreed on 28 Feb. to give just one subsidy.263 CJ, i. 650a; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 315. Charles was naturally displeased, and in a further letter to Buckingham he described the grant as so paltry that only the need to make the king appear strong on the international stage justified keeping the Parliament in being. He also asked that the Commons be instructed to desist from discussing foreign policy, whether in respect of war with Spain or his own intended marriage to the infanta, as these were matters for the king alone to decide.264 Misc. State Pprs. 1501-1726 (1778) ed. P. Hardwicke, i. 456-7. This request was precipitated by the news that, the previous day, Sir Edward Coke had delivered a violently anti-Spanish speech to the Commons, many of whose Members were not only incredulous that James was contemplating war with Spain while at the same time pursuing a Spanish marriage for the prince, but also deeply worried at the implications for the future of the Church of England if the prince’s wife was openly Catholic. Charles may also have heard that another leading Member, Sir Thomas Crewe^‡, had not only advocated war with Spain but also publicly expressed the hope that Charles might be ‘matched to one of our religion’.265 HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 580, 742.

Before James could act on Charles’s advice the Commons, on 1 Dec., drew up a petition which echoed Crewe’s motion. They intended to present it to James, but under pressure from the privy councillors in the lower House further consideration of the petition was postponed until Monday 3 December. On the evening of 1 Dec. these same councillors reported to Charles, who was so enraged that he immediately dispatched a copy of the petition to James at Newmarket with a complaint that ‘his marriage was continually prostituted in the House’. Consequently, by the time that the Commons reassembled on the 3rd, an angry James had already written to the Speaker requiring him to instruct the lower House to desist from debating his son’s marriage. The Commons were predictably incensed, and not simply because the petition had not yet been formally presented, and over the next few days they prepared a declaration in justification of their customary right to free speech. Once again the councillors in the Commons looked to Charles for guidance, and on the evening of 7 Dec. he suggested that James should receive the petition on condition that his response to it would depend on the future behaviour of the lower House. The king subsequently took his son’s advice, and as a result Charles managed to prevent an immediate adjournment.266 Cust, ‘Prince Chas. and the Second Session of the 1621 Parl.’, 433-6; Russell, PEP, 137.

While the Commons were increasingly focussed on matters of foreign policy, the Lords struggled to find meaningful business with which to occupy themselves. On 30 Nov. the peers debated the fate of the papers that had been confiscated over the summer from the lawyer John Selden^‡, whereupon Charles intervened to say that the officials involved had been acting on royal authority. In early December the 3rd Lord Sheffield (Edmund Sheffield^*, later 1st earl of Mulgrave) submitted to the House a petition from Sir John Bourchier^‡, who claimed that he had not received a fair hearing in Chancery and that Lord Keeper Williams had passed judgement in his case with undue haste. An unsympathetic Charles argued that the matter was not worth the consideration of the House. When Sheffield objected that the Lords had only recently been willing to look into the complaints against Lord Chancellor Bacon, Charles pointed out that this was because the charges involved had been rather more serious. However, as the House was unwilling to dismiss the petition without further consideration the matter was debated more fully eight days later, when once again Charles crossed swords with Sheffield. This time it was the prince’s view that prevailed, as the House ordered that Bourchier be censured.267 LD 1621, pp. 107-8, 113, 116-20; HP Commons 1604-29, iii. 264.

One significant matter that did come before the Lords was the monopolies bill. Charles had been highly critical of individual monopolists in the previous sitting, but he was dissatisfied with this bill, which originated in the Commons and sought to outlaw monopolies. At the third reading debate on 1 Dec. he declared that, while he did not oppose the substance of the bill, the measure needed to be redrafted. As this view was widely shared in the House, the bill was subsequently rejected.268 LD 1621, pp. 104-5.

Charles laid only one bill of his own before the House during the sitting. This was a measure to confirm his recent purchase, for £4,000, of the manor and castle of Kenilworth, in Warwickshire, from Lady Alice Dudley. The bill rapidly sped through the upper House and, following its third reading on 7 Dec., was passed unanimously.269 E403/2562, f. 44r-v; LJ, iii. 172a, 173b, 185a. In the Commons the bill to give statutory confirmation to the exchange of lands between Charles and Sir Lewis Watson, introduced before the summer adjournment, received a second reading on 30 Nov. and was committed.270 CJ, i. 652a. However it proceeded no further before the king angrily adjourned Parliament on 19 Dec., having finally lost patience with the Commons’ defence of its right to debate Charles’s marriage. Shortly thereafter the Parliament was dissolved, and as a result none of the bills promoted by Charles reached the statute book.

Charles and the Spanish Match, 1622-3

During the final stages of the Parliament Charles made no secret of the fact that he thought that the Commons, in seeking to debate his marriage, were acting ultra vires. In consequence the popularity which he had previously enjoyed in Parliament largely evaporated. Charles was now seen as little more than an extension of his father, and was thought to be taking his cue from those ministers who were most hated.271 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 185. He himself was happy to be regarded as his father’s alter ego in respect of the Spanish Match, for in a light-hearted note addressed to the Spanish ambassador in January 1622 he described himself as ‘le petit James’.272 G. Redworth, ‘Of Pimps and Princes’, HJ, xxxvii. 405, n.17. However, it would be unwise to suppose that Charles, who now saw eye to eye with his father over Parliament and the Spanish Match, had ceased to exercise any independent thought. At Royston in late February or early March, he had a furious altercation with James, possibly over Buckingham, with whom he had once again quarrelled. A few weeks later it was rumoured at court that James had actually struck his son.273 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 261; Add. 72299, f. 65v.

One consequence of the parliamentary opposition to the Spanish Match was that Charles’s resolve in respect of the marriage hardened. Indeed, from the beginning of 1622 he was more determined than ever to secure the hand of the infanta. On Twelfth Night the prince staged a masque at court on the subject of the marriage, and a few weeks later he and Buckingham began to learn Spanish.274 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 420; G. Redworth, The Prince and the Infanta, 51. The masque was Ben Jonson’s Masque of Augurs. In April 1622, after the accession day tilt was postponed for a second time, Charles expressed disappointment because, aside from being unable to joust, he had wanted to use the occasion to show off a feather he had received from the infanta.275 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 433. However, elements within Charles’s own household did not share their master’s enthusiasm for the intended match. Indeed, as early as August 1620 some of the prince’s players landed themselves in trouble for staging a play entitled ‘Pittie him though he be a Spaniard’, in which ‘they spared neither match nor nature’.276 Add. 72253, f. 140v. In April 1622 one of Charles’s chaplains, Thomas Winniffe^† (later bishop of Lincoln), publicly compared the commander of the Spanish army that had invaded the lower Palatinate to the Devil. Since his sermon was obviously intended to disrupt the marriage negotiations, he was not surprisingly committed to the Tower.277 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 432. To offset the influence of men like Winniffe, in January 1622 Charles obtained the services of Matthew Wren^† (later bishop of Ely) domestic chaplain to Lancelot Andrewes.278 Cust, Chas. I, 15. Like Andrewes, Wren belonged to the anti-Calvinist wing of the Church of England, whose adherents were not automatically disposed to be hostile to Spain. Perhaps the key figure within the prince’s household opposed to the Spanish Match was Thomas Murray, Charles’s secretary and former tutor. In October 1621 it was decided to replace the presbyterian Murray with the pro-Spanish Francis Cottington^† (later Lord Cottington), who took up his new duties one year later.279 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 296; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 460. During this interval Murray still enjoyed some favour at court, as the king helped him to obtain the provostship of Eton in February 1622, but he was no longer permitted to attend the prince.280 CSP Dom. 1619-23, pp. 349, 350; Add. 72275, f. 116v.

Although Charles was now considerably less popular than he had been in the spring of 1621, his power was on the rise since James, who had already suffered a major bout of illness in 1619, increasingly found himself incapacitated by arthritis and kidney stone disease.281 Holmes, 46-7, 51. James did not suffer from either gout or porphyria, as is sometimes supposed. In March 1622 the king announced that from henceforth he would be assisted in government by his son, whom he praised for his ‘dutiful carriage and filial demeanour’. To give colour to this statement, Charles was formally appointed to the Privy Council.282 Redworth, Prince and the Infanta, 43, 153n.18; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 429; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 362. In effect he was now the leading member of the Council, although the titular head of that body was Henry Montagu^*, Viscount Mandeville (later 1st earl of Manchester). Moreover, in early June he and a number of select councillors were admitted to membership of a specially created ‘cabinet council’, whose principal duty was to focus on the marriage negotiations and the Palatinate.283 Add. 72275, f. 141v; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 438.

In September 1622 news reached England that Heidelberg, the capital of the lower Palatinate, had fallen to a Bavarian army acting under imperial orders. Charles was outraged, and when a further embassy to the emperor was rebuffed he went down on his knees before his father and offered, with tears in his eyes, to raise an army and lead it to the Palatinate himself. However, James was reluctant to go to war, and was certainly not prepared to risk the life of his only son, and therefore insisted that diplomacy should be given one last chance.284 Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 344; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 451; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 138; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 457; CSP Ven. 1621-3, pp. 488, 510. At around the same time Charles, recognizing that the king lacked the means to pay for a war himself, sounded out the Council about the possibility of summoning another Parliament.285 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 484. However, the likelihood that a Parliament would look favourably on a fresh demand for money for a war over the Palatinate while the king continued to pursue a match with Spain was nil, as the Venetian ambassador realized. The only other way to raise money was to borrow it, but when Charles suggested to the Council in October that the nobility should lend to the king his proposal was ‘so coldly entertained’ that he walked out of the meeting before everyone present had replied.286 Add. 72275, f. 17v.

Although Charles had persuaded himself that he was in love with the infanta, having ‘seen her picture and heard the report of her virtues by a number whom I trust’,287 Redworth, ‘Of Pimps and Princes’, 408. the desperate condition of the Palatinate forced him to rethink his former enthusiasm for the Spanish Match. Indeed, during the interview with his father at which he had sought permission to lead an army in person, he urged James not to let himself ‘to be abused with treaties’ any longer.288 Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 344. However, to general surprise, Spain, far from siding with the emperor, declared that she would be willing to assist James in restoring the Palatinate, if necessary by force.289 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 138-40. Although widely discounted, this offer was taken seriously by James and Charles, particularly as Spain, having no wish to see Elizabeth and her husband succeed to the throne, also sought to bring the marriage negotiations to a successful conclusion.290 Redworth, Prince and the Infanta, 54-5; B. Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, HJ, xlv. 708; HMC 8th Rep. I, 214. For this reason, in early November Charles sent his intended bride a token of his love, together with a request that she come to England with all haste.291 Stuart Dynastic Pols. 1621-5 ed. M. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xxxiv), 202. Charles did not have long to wait for a response to his plea. In December Lord Digby, now earl of Bristol and England’s ambassador to Madrid, reported that the marriage would be concluded upon the issue of a papal dispensation the following spring.292 Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 703. Early the following month Buckingham’s servant Endymion Porter^‡ arrived from Spain with the news that terms were now agreed and that an ambassador would shortly be sent to the emperor from Madrid to demand the restoration of the Palatinate.293 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 543; Lockyer, Buckingham, 133; Redworth, Prince and the Infanta, 59. Charles was so overjoyed that he sent Bristol a warm letter of thanks.294 Misc. State Pprs. i. 502.

These dramatic developments suggested that the marriage was now a foregone conclusion. All that seemingly remained was for the pope to issue the necessary dispensation and for the infanta to be brought to England. The time therefore appeared ripe for Charles to put into effect a plan that he had been contemplating for the last six months. In early May 1622 he had secretly told Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, that he would be willing to ‘come to Madrid with two servants’ once Gondomar, whose embassy was almost complete, had returned to Madrid. There he would place himself in the hands of the Spanish king, Philip IV, in the expectation that Philip would then deliver to him the infanta,295 Redworth, ‘Of Pimps and Princes’, 406; Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 705. whom he was persuaded loved him quite as much as he loved her. Accordingly, that December, Charles, having obtained the support of Buckingham, went down on his knees and sought his father’s permission to journey to Madrid. He explained that he intended to travel unannounced and to take with him only Buckingham and two servants, as (fearing perhaps that the Spaniards might change their minds) there was no time to arrange a formal visit. Not surprisingly, James was aghast at this suggestion, which if carried out would expose both his heir and his chief minister to quite unnecessary risks. However, for Charles, who had never before been abroad, the thought of a foreign adventure was simply irresistible, and besides he was by now entirely consumed with notions of romance and chivalry. Seeing that his son was immoveable, and under pressure from both Charles and Buckingham, James was forced to give way. However he was reduced to tears, and lamented that ‘he was undone, and should lose Baby Charles’.296 Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion, i. 15-16, 18-21.

The rumour that Charles was intending to fetch the infanta himself was circulating at court by early January 1623, fuelled no doubt by the distressed state of the king, who dreaded being parted from Charles and Buckingham.297 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 472; D.M. Bergeron, King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire, 150. However, when the two friends finally took their leave of James at Theobalds on 17 Feb. they achieved complete surprise.298 Autobiog. of Phineas Pett, 125; Life and Works of Sir Henry Mainwaring ed. G.E. Manwaring (Navy Recs. Soc. liv), i. 91. Travelling under the assumed names of John and Tom Smith, and sporting false beards, they avoided detection at Rochester by leaping over a hedge, and though they were stopped at Canterbury by a suspicious mayor, they were released after Buckingham revealed his true identity. Following a turbulent six hour sea crossing, which caused them both to be sick, the two friends reached Boulogne on the 19th. Shortly thereafter James revealed to the Council that Charles and Buckingham had left for Spain. Many of those present were appalled, and pointed the finger of blame at Buckingham, but James disabused them, telling them that the idea had come from Charles alone.299 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 480, 484; Lockyer, Buckingham, 136-7; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 494; G. Goodman, Ct. of Jas. I, ii. 253. Buckingham later told the 1624 Parliament that the idea had been Charles’s: ‘Earle 1624’, f. 17v.

Two days after landing in France, Charles and Buckingham arrived in Paris, where they took lodgings above an inn. Though they intended to remain in the capital only briefly, Charles was determined to visit the French court. In order to remain incognito they blackened their skin and purchased periwigs and two large hats. However, their disguises were so preposterous that, once in the Louvre, they only succeeded in drawing attention to themselves, for on finishing his dinner the French king, Louis XIII, spotted the two suspicious looking characters and began rapping on the table with a large key. That evening, having made their escape, they returned to the court and witnessed the queen and her daughter, Henrietta Maria, rehearsing for a masque.300 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 585; Lockyer, Buckingham, 139; Reade, ii. 135; H. Wotton, Reliquiae Wottonianae (1672), 85; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 154-5. The next day (23 Feb.) they were forced to leave, as an express messenger arrived from England bearing the news that they had recently landed in France.301 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 585.

Although nearly arrested by the governor of Bayonne for taking gold and jewels across the Spanish frontier, Charles and Buckingham had an otherwise uneventful journey to Madrid, which they reached in early March.302 Ibid. 589. See also Autobiog. of Lord Herbert of Cherbury ed. S. Lee, 242. Their arrival in Spain’s capital came as a complete surprise to the king and his ministers who, far from expressing dissatisfaction at the arrival of two uninvited guests, were delighted at this sudden turn of events.303 Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 705-6. Indeed, their visitors were lavishly entertained, and Charles was granted the honour of a formal entry into Madrid.304 Lockyer, Buckingham, 141. Although not immediately introduced to the infanta, Charles was permitted to observe the object of his affections from a distance, and was instantly captivated by her appearance. Declaring there to be ‘no sweeter creature in the world’, he confessed to Buckingham that ‘all he ever yet saw is nothing to her’ and that if he could not have her ‘there shall be blows’.305 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 520; Misc. State Pprs. (1778), i. 410.

The initial euphoria which greeted Charles’s arrival did not last. The Spanish had assumed that Charles’s arrival presaged his conversion to Catholicism, which would have obviated the need for a papal dispensation, and they were taken aback to discover that he had no such intention. The king’s chief minister, the Count-Duke Olivares, reminded Charles that his grandmother, Mary queen of Scots, had died a Catholic martyr and he presented her portrait to the prince as a gift. Though reportedly much moved by this gesture, Charles refused to abandon his Protestant faith, and by 27 Mar. Charles and Buckingham felt confident enough to write that ‘neither in spiritual nor temporal things ... is anything pressed upon us more than is already agreed upon’.306 Narrative of the Spanish Marriage Treaty, 208; T. Rymer, Foedera, vii. pt. 4, p. 108; Misc. State Pprs. i. 413. However, in April Charles was taken to a royal palace at Aranjuez, south of Madrid, where four Catholic divines attempted to convert him. After a short discussion of the papal supremacy, one of the divines quoted to him Christ’s words to Peter: ‘Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and thou, when thou are converted, strengthen thy brethren’. Charles was thrown off balance, and twice asked for these words to be repeated, while Buckingham, who was present but unable to participate, was so angry at the suggestion that the prince followed a religion inspired by the Devil that he trampled on his hat.307 Redworth, Prince and the Infanta, 91-2. Pursell claims that Buckingham was enraged because Charles ‘began to show some understanding or sympathy for the Catholic arguments in favour of papal supremacy’: Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 711. Eventually the divines settled for a promise that Charles would not be an enemy to Catholicism when he became king, which promise Charles was obliged to repeat a few months later in a letter to the pope.308 ‘Ferrar 1624’, p. 30; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 613.

Due to the feast of Lent, Charles was not finally allowed to meet the infanta until mid April, by which time he had been in Madrid for six weeks.309 Add. 72276, f. 29v. When he finally did so, in the queen’s apartments, he was not permitted to wear certain items of clothing which he had brought with him from England as they were considered inappropriate, nor was he allowed to speak except from a script that had been prepared for him in advance, and then only through an interpreter. To make matters worse, this script, which took the form of a compliment, was so long that the infanta became visibly weary with listening.310 CSP Ven. 1621-3, pp. 638-9; ‘Ferrar 1624’, p. 29. The interpreter appears to have been Bristol. Despite the unpromising nature of this first encounter, Charles resolved to make the Infanta a gift of some jewels. However, the stones he had brought from England were of such poor quality they were not fit to be offered, and both he and Buckingham begged James to send them some finer pieces. Buckingham, like his Spanish hosts, was particularly aware that Charles, having ‘neither chain nor hatband’, had nothing to wear that would make him ‘appear like a king’s son’.311 Orig. Letters (ser. 1), iii. 145-7.

While Charles and Buckingham were fussing about jewels, the papal nuncio in Madrid received the long-awaited dispensation from Rome. Charles fully expected this to be the signal that he would at last be able to marry the infanta, but it soon became clear that the dispensation was ‘clogged with some new conditions’. Faced with the prospect of sending to England for fresh instructions, a course of action which would inevitably mean continuing the negotiations for several more months, Charles wrote to his father asking him to accept whatever undertakings he made on his behalf.312 Lockyer, Buckingham, 146; Misc. State Pprs. i. 417. On receiving this letter James, who only wished for his son to return home, did not hesitate, but promised ‘that whatsoever you my dearest son shall promise there in my name, I will punctually and faithfully perform’.313 Letters of King Jas. VI and I, 412.

Charles soon learned that the nuncio was under instructions to withhold the dispensation until the king of Spain obtained a formal guarantee that Catholics in England would be free to worship without financial penalty. This was a major setback but, rather than jeopardize the marriage treaty, Charles gave the Spanish in early May a formal assurance in the name of his father that the recusancy laws would be suspended.314 Lockyer, Buckingham, 146-7; Harl. 6987, f. 84. A majority on the council of state were now willing to allow the marriage to proceed, and although Olivares insisted that the infanta should remain in Spain until such times as the penal laws against Catholics were lifted, his view did not prevail. Nevertheless Philip IV demanded that Charles provide Spain with security that James would honour his undertaking. An enraged Buckingham thereupon publicly quarrelled with Olivares, and this in turn led to a short-lived rift between Charles and Buckingham, whom the prince accused of harshness in his methods.315 Lockyer, Buckingham, 147-8; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 53.

By the end of June Charles was at the end of his tether.316 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 59. He and Buckingham (who had now been created a duke) had expected to be able to leave Spain six weeks earlier, and they appeared to be no closer to completing the marriage negotiations than they had been when they arrived. To make matters worse, Pope Gregory XV died, which meant that it would be necessary to obtain a fresh dispensation from a new pontiff. However, on learning that Charles and Buckingham had now been ordered home, Philip agreed in early July to modify the terms of the settlement. He suggested that the marriage should take place at Christmas, by proxy, giving James the time he needed to suspend the penal laws, and if this proved acceptable the infanta would be handed over in the spring. After sitting up all night discussing the new proposals Charles and the duke decided to accept the revised Spanish offer, whereupon Philip embraced Charles ‘as a brother’.317 Lockyer, Buckingham, 158; Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 714; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 510-11; D. Townshend, Life and Letters of Mr Endymion Porter, 61.

The news that the negotiations had at last been concluded was the signal for widespread public rejoicing in Madrid. Charles, who had only recently resorted to climbing the wall of an orchard to get a closer glimpse of his intended bride, was now permitted to accompany the infanta to plays, while the infanta herself was accorded the style princess of Wales.318 J. Howell, Epistolae Ho-Elianae ed. J. Jacobs, i. 169; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 19v; Holles 1624, p. 50. See also Misc. State Pprs. i. 427, where the infanta is referred to as princess of England. On 20 July James and the Privy Council formally approved the marriage treaty and five days later Charles put his signature to the document.319 T. Cogswell, ‘Eng. and the Spanish Match’, Conflict in Early Stuart Eng. ed. R. Cust and A. Hughes, 125; Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 715. Olivares subsequently attempted to persuade Charles to stay on in Spain until Christmas so that he might consummate the marriage without delay, but Charles, though anxious to enjoy his bride, was determined to return home as soon as possible as he was concerned about his father.320 Lockyer, Buckingham, 159.

Before leaving, Charles asked Philip if he would now be willing to enter into a second treaty for the restoration of the Palatinate. Philip initially brushed aside this question, saying that the matter would be dealt with once the marriage had taken place, and that in any case no formal treaty was needed. However, Olivares subsequently suggested a further marriage alliance. Frederick must allow his eldest son to be educated in Vienna and married to the daughter of the emperor, and once the boy had attained his majority the Palatinate would be restored to him. Charles was horrified, and reminded Olivares that Spain had earlier indicated that she would be prepared to restore Frederick by force if necessary, whereupon the Count-Duke dismissed any such idea out of hand, to Charles’s great distress. Not surprisingly, when Charles relayed Olivares’ offer to his sister and her husband, he received a flat rejection. Shortly before taking his leave, at the end of August, Charles again appealed to Philip for assistance, but the Spanish king would say only that he would try to obtain the Palatinate for Charles as a wedding present.321 Ibid. 158-9; Pursell, 716-19; Misc. State Pprs. i. 449.

Charles now had serious doubts about proceeding with the Spanish Match.322 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 172. In his mind, the marriage treaty and the restoration of the Palatinate were inextricably linked,323 Lockyer, Buckingham, 169. but he now realized that the Spaniards regarded these matters as entirely separate. Moreover, he had now exposed Spanish promises of assistance to recover the Palatinate as hollow. In the short term, however, he was worried that once he had left Spain the infanta would enter a convent rather than be married to a Protestant. Consequently he instructed Bristol not to deliver his proxy to Philip until he had obtained assurances that this would not happen.324 Misc. State Pprs. i. 481-2.

In mid September Charles set sail from northern Spain, a fleet having been sent from England to fetch him. After a rough passage he landed at Portsmouth at 11a.m. on 5 Oct. and, following some hard riding, he and Buckingham reached Lambeth Palace early the next morning. There they were greeted by Archbishop Abbot, who gave them breakfast and had them rowed across the Thames to Buckingham’s riverside residence, where they rested for a few hours. Once he had recovered from his gruelling journey, Charles made ready to travel to Royston to see the king, but not before assuring the Palatine ambassador, Johan von Rusdorf, that he had left orders to delay the marriage indefinitely. However his return to England had been eagerly awaited, and by the time he left for Royston great crowds of excited people had gathered to see him. Though it was drizzling with rain he leaned out of his coach ‘with his hat in his hand and gave thanks to them all for their loves’.325 Autobiog. of Phineas Pett, 130, 132; D’Ewes Diary 1622-4 ed. E. Bourcier, 161-3; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 93; Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 721; Cogswell, ‘Eng. and the Spanish Match’, 108. Later that day Charles, along with Buckingham, was greeted by a tearful James, who stayed up all night with his son and the duke discussing the events of the past eight months.326 J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), i. 165.

Charles had returned from Spain noticeably older than when he had left.327 Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 721. In part this was because he had grown a beard while in Madrid,328 Reade, ii. 144; Orig. Letters (ser. 1), 160. but it also seems likely that the strains of recent months were now etched on his face. Certainly the boyish high spirits in which he and Buckingham left England had vanished. He was now in sombre mood, brimming with resentment at the treatment he had received in Spain – he had never once been invited to dine with any member of the Spanish royal family, for instance – and was in grave doubt about the wisdom of pursuing the match any further.329 Add. 72255, f. 84; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 183; Negotiations of Sir Thos. Roe (1740) ed. S. Richardson, 252. He wanted to know precisely ‘what the king of Spain will do concerning the business of the Palatinate before I be contracted’.330 PRO31/8/198, 8 Oct. 1623, Charles to Bristol. James listened sympathetically to Charles’s relation, and praised his son for his ‘exact carriage’, assuring him that there was no question that he would be required to marry the infanta at the expense of his own sister. Indeed, he immediately sent a letter to Bristol instructing him not to part with the prince’s proxy until he had received firm assurances that the Palatinate would be restored.331 Rymer, vii. pt. 4, pp. 116-17.

Despite his apparent agreement with his son, James was not about to abandon the Spanish Match, and with it the prospect of a large dowry. On the contrary, he seized upon the one glimmer of hope in Charles’s account, Olivares’ suggestion that Frederick’s eldest son should marry the emperor’s daughter, and wrote to his son-in-law accordingly.332 CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 158-9; Procs. 1626, i. 522-3. For the time being, therefore, Charles continued to strike an optimistic note, assuring the English diplomat Sir Walter Aston that, provided he received satisfaction concerning the Palatinate, ‘I really do intend this match’.333 Lockyer, Buckingham, 169. However, his pessimism increased after Frederick refused to consider a marriage between his son and the emperor’s daughter until such times as the Palatinate had been restored to him.334 CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 159-60. While remaining deferential towards his father, Charles announced at the beginning of November that he wanted the question of the Palatinate – and consequently the fate of the marriage negotiations - to be resolved by Christmas.335 Ibid. 145; Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 723. The strain thereby created proved too much for James who, at around the same time, temporarily suffered a physical and mental collapse.336 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 183; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 179.

James’s illness meant that Charles now took charge. He convoked the cabinet council that had been established before his departure for Spain, and during a four-hour long meeting of this body Buckingham explained what had transpired in Madrid.337 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 107; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 149; Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 723. Charles also began to explore the possibility of summoning another Parliament and of borrowing money from the City in case it proved necessary to fight to recover the Palatinate.338 Add. 72276, f. 64. James, however, was thoroughly alarmed at the prospect of a Parliament and, though unwell, he now rounded on his son and the favourite, blaming them for the fact that the negotiations were not more advanced.339 Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 723 and n. 153. This criticism was, of course, unfair, and a few weeks later, towards the end of November, Charles accused his father point blank of having been deceived by Spain. It was now time to take a stand, he declared, as Spain was aiming at nothing less than England’s ruin, a rebuke which reduced his sick father to tears.340 Lockyer, Buckingham, 174. During November Charles not only convinced James that a Parliament was inescapable but also that Olivares’ idea of a Palatinate-imperial marriage alliance was unacceptable, since it meant that Frederick’s heir, who might one day also become the heir to the thrones of England and Scotland, would be raised a Catholic.341 T. Cogswell, Blessed Rev. 127; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 164. Moreover, he persuaded James, and instructed Bristol, to make the marriage conditional upon the restoration of the Palatinate, a demand which was interpreted by the Spanish council of state as tantamount to a rejection of the match.342 Add. 72276, f. 74; Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 723; Lockyer, Buckingham, 171.

In order that a future Parliament voted the money needed to pay for war with Spain, it was essential to ensure that it assembled in a mood of cooperation and goodwill. For this reason Charles sought to reconcile Buckingham with his many enemies at court, among them the earl of Pembroke, who enjoyed extensive parliamentary patronage, John Williams^*, bishop of Lincoln, whose position as lord keeper made him a pivotal figure in managing the upper House, and William Fiennes*, 8th Lord Saye and Sele (later 1st Viscount Saye and Sele). Charles also made overtures to Henry Wriothesley^*, 3rd (and 1st) earl of Southampton, who had previously been in disfavour because of his conduct in Parliament but was one of the leading spokesmen for the protestant cause among the peerage.343 CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 169, 202; Cabala (1691), 273; Cogswell, Blessed Rev. 104. For his part, Buckingham stretched out his hand to leading Members of the Commons, such as Sir Robert Phelips^‡ and Sir Edwin Sandys^‡, hoping that the lower House would thereby be persuaded to vote subsidies. James, however, was determined that neither Sandys nor Sir Edward Coke, who had drawn up a Protestation defending the Commons’ right to free speech in December 1621, would sit. Indeed, in order to prevent them from doing so he decided to rusticate them to Ireland. Charles was aghast, as the enforced absence of these two doyens of the lower House would almost certainly poison the atmosphere of any new meeting from the outset. Consequently, supported by Buckingham and Pembroke, he persuaded James to relent.344 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 536; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 217. Over the winter, Charles and Buckingham created all the conditions needed for a favourable Parliament, which was accordingly summoned to meet in mid February 1624.

Although Charles was now contemplating war with Spain rather than marriage to the infanta, it was imperative for the sake of the succession that he should wed soon, as he was now aged 23. For this reason, and at the same time as the writs of summons were being drawn up, Henry Rich*, 1st Lord Kensington, was ordered to go to Paris, ostensibly to go hunting with Louis XIII but in reality to establish whether the French would be interested in a marriage alliance.345 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 184. It seems likely that the idea for this informal mission originated with Charles, who was reportedly very enthusiastic about pursuing a French marriage. Indeed, the fact that Kensington found it impossible to obtain clear instructions from the king suggests that it cannot have come from James,346 Ibid. 184; Fortescue Pprs. 195. whose earlier negotiations with France following the death of Prince Henry had ended in failure. Despite James’s lack of enthusiasm, Kensington’s initial report was promising, for in February 1624 he announced that Louis’s 15-year old sister Henrietta Maria, whom Charles had briefly glimpsed a year earlier, was not only available but also ‘the sweetest creature in France’.347 Cabala (1691), 287.

Charles and Buckingham were not slow to realize that James’s lukewarm attitude towards Kensington’s mission indicated that he still favoured the Spanish Match. They therefore attempted to deny him access to anyone who shared this preference, particularly the Spanish ambassadors. During early January the two friends kept the king in what the Venetian ambassador described as ‘a state of siege’, and though Spain’s representatives repeatedly tried to gain an audience alone with him they were, for a time, thwarted at every turn.348 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 201. However, on 14 Jan. 1624 the Spanish ambassadors finally obtained an hour-long audience with James, at which they presented fresh terms. Philip, they declared, no longer insisted on a Viennese upbringing for Frederick’s son and now gave an assurance that the Elector would be restored by June, if necessary with Spanish military aid. James was delighted that Spain had now modified her position, and declared himself satisfied with these new proposals. However, for the prince and the duke, who had been outflanked, the outcome of this meeting was nothing short of a disaster. Buckingham was so mortified when he learned of it that he took to his bed, while Charles, whose self-proclaimed Christmas deadline for the restoration of the Palatinate had now elapsed, subsequently failed to accompany his father to Theobalds as expected.349 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 539; Cogswell, Blessed Rev. 128. See also CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 247.

James’s enthusiasm for the new Spanish proposals now served to galvanize support for the Match in the cabinet council over which Charles presided.Prior to the king’s meeting with the Spanish ambassadors, the councillors had been outwardly united in believing that the marriage negotiations should be terminated, but following James’s warm endorsement of Spain’s latest proposals the councillors revealed their true colours. In mid January no less than five of them voted to continue the negotiations with Spain, while only three – Charles, Buckingham and the 1st earl of Carlisle (James Hay^*) – voted to end them. The remaining four abstained, among them Pembroke who, despite Charles’s earlier attempts to reconcile him with the duke, was consumed with envy of Buckingham for monopolizing Charles’s favour.350 S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. v. 177; CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 210-11; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 541-2. However, Charles had no intention of accepting the outcome of this vote. Like Buckingham he stormed out of the meeting and went to see the king at Newmarket. On his return a short while later he told the cabinet council that, although he retained the utmost respect for the infanta, he would not marry her under any circumstances.351 Gardiner, v. 177-8; Cogswell, Blessed Rev. 129-30; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 190-1. See also Add. 72255, f. 1. His announcement helped to precipitate a visit from one of the Spanish ambassadors, who demanded to know whether Charles had broken off the Match and, if he had not, why neither he nor his father had suspended the penal laws as they had promised.352 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 191.

The prince’s Parliament, 1624

Charles had made strenuous efforts before the meeting of Parliament to achieve a common front with his father, but it was now apparent that James was not only determined to press ahead with the Spanish Match but also that a number of influential members of the Privy Council – chief among them Lord Treasurer Middlesex – shared this objective. In addition, an attempt to increase the duchy of Cornwall’s representation in the Commons had gone badly, as the duchy council had managed to find seats for only 13 of its 28 candidates. In part this failure was attributable to a recent phenomenon, the distrust of any candidate who was too closely associated with the court, but it must also have owed much to the unpopularity and arrogance of the duchy council itself.353 Hunneyball, 327-8, 330-2; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 217. On the growing unpopularity of court candidates in the 1620s, see HP Commons 1604-29, i. 450-4. Charles’s only compensation was that he acquired the proxy votes of two peers who announced that they would not be able to attend the Parliament, those of the 1st Lord Danvers (Henry Danvers^*, later earl of Danby), who purchased artwork on his behalf, and his kinsman the 1st earl of March (Esmé Stuart^*).354 Add. 40087, f. 3.

On the day on which the new Parliament opened (19 Feb.), Charles rode on horseback in the customary procession to Westminster Abbey.355 ‘Ferrar 1624’, p. 11. On 23 Feb., the first day of business, he suggested that Buckingham, who had been instructed to provide the Lords with a detailed account of the state of the marriage negotiations, should address both Houses instead. This idea was approved by the Lords, and a message was accordingly sent to the Commons requiring them to join the peers the following afternoon.356 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 229. The next morning, the 1st earl of Northampton (William Compton*) proposed that the prince should also speak, whereupon Charles expressed himself ‘ready to assist and inform the duke’.357 Add. 40087, f. 19.

At this meeting, held at Whitehall, Charles sat facing the gathering, while Buckingham stood beside him, leaning against his chair. Over the course of the next few hours the duke set out the recent history of the Spanish Match, and in particular the events surrounding the trip to Madrid. He was interrupted from time to time by Charles, who had helped decide what the duke should say.358 Cabala (1691), 274. For instance, after Buckingham revealed that Olivares, expecting the Match to proceed, had said that from henceforth Spain and England ‘would be friends and divide the world between them’, Charles observed sarcastically that he had always supposed that the Spanish aimed at world domination, and now he saw that their generosity matched their ambition, since they ‘would at once part with half to us’. Later, when Buckingham discussed the Spanish supposition that Charles had come to Madrid with the intention of converting to Rome, Charles again interrupted to say that he had told Olivares ‘that he was come settled in his religion, which was dearer to him than all other things whatsoever’. Charles subsequently informed his listeners that he had also asked his hosts to refrain from trying to persuade him to change his religion, because ‘the least suspicion of any such thing in England would raise a rebellion’. He added that he had been obliged to rebuff Olivares’ offer to send him home with an army with the remark that ‘the remedy was worse than the disease’.359 ‘Ferrar 1624’, pp. 28, 35; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 13. Later in the proceedings, Charles not only translated a letter by Philip IV but also poured scorn on Philip’s claims to have little authority over the emperor.360 Rymer, vii. pt. 4, pp. 114, 121.

Between them Charles and Buckingham painted a picture of events that did not entirely agree with the facts. According to Buckingham, the prince had undertaken the trip to Madrid out of frustration at the lack of progress in the marriage negotiations and from a desire to discover whether the Spanish were negotiating in earnest or merely playing for time.361 ‘Earle 1624’, ff. 16, 17r-v. This claim, which was not contradicted by Charles even though the duke announced that the prince was welcome to ‘help and correct me’, has enjoyed widespread acceptance to this day, but appears to have little basis in fact.362 Lockyer, Buckingham, 133-4; Cust, Chas. I, 32-3. Its chief merit, of course, was that it spared the prince the embarrassment of having to admit to Parliament that he had journeyed to Madrid in the naïve belief that the marriage negotiations were all but complete. What might otherwise have seemed foolish and ill-judged was thus made to appear perceptive and timely. Indeed, Buckingham claimed that Charles should be thanked for risking his life in order to draw them all ‘out of darkness into light’.363 ‘Earle 1624’, f. 16. Buckingham and Charles also misled Parliament in one other important respect. The duke claimed (and the prince did not disagree with him) that while in Spain, Charles had declined to confer with a number of Catholic divines on the matter of his faith,364 Rymer, vii. pt. 4, p. 109. whereas in reality he had not only submitted himself to examination at Aranjuez but had also struggled to answer the points put to him. Equally absent from Buckingham’s speech was any mention of the fact that Charles, while in Spain, had agreed that the penal laws against Catholics should be suspended.365 Lockyer, Buckingham, 181.

The overriding impression created by Buckingham’s ‘Relation’ was that the Spanish had been negotiating in bad faith. Charles and Buckingham may have genuinely believed this to be true – indeed Buckingham had been accusing the Spanish of fraudulent dealing ever since his return to England - but since it was almost certainly false it is not surprising that the Spanish ambassadors protested to James that the duke had maligned the honour of their king.366 Pursell, ‘End of the Spanish Match’, 726; Lockyer, Buckingham, 181. However, the Lords, like the Commons, were deeply impressed by the favourite’s revelations and rushed to Buckingham’s defence, whereupon Charles helped to arrange a meeting between the two Houses. However, when Viscount Wallingford (William Knollys^*, later 1st earl of Banbury) suggested asking the ambassadors how they had come by their information, parliamentary debates being supposedly secret, Charles wisely remarked that this would be a waste of time.367 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 3-4.

Charles now helped to guide both Houses in their consideration of the Spanish Match, this being one of the purposes for which the Parliament had been summoned. Indeed, he and Buckingham were described by one observer as ‘the chief motor’ of that business, and soon the assembly itself was being referred to as ‘the prince’s Parliament’.368 Add. 72255, f. 123v; Holles 1624, p. 31. On the afternoon of 27 Feb. he suggested that although the marriage negotiations preceded the crisis over the Palatinate, consideration of the latter should take precedence. However, as Charles himself subsequently realized, this proposal was not entirely helpful, for as the Lords observed the next morning, ‘they cannot advise of one without the other’.369 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 6, 9; LJ, iii. 236a. Shortly thereafter Archbishop Abbot moved to consider whether they should counsel James to break off the negotiations, whereupon Charles added, this time rather more sensibly, that they should also ponder what to do next, as Spain would not remain idle but would ‘begin with us’.370 LD 1624 and 1626, p.10; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 20. This intervention helped to precipitate a debate about the state of the kingdom’s weapons, munitions and shipping. On 1 Mar. Charles advised the two Houses to set down reasons for breaking off the marriage negotiations and declaring war on Spain. This motion was approved by the Lords, and during the ensuing discussion about the documents to be laid before the lower House, Charles claimed that one of the papers in Bristol’s possession contained evidence that the Spanish had been negotiating in bad faith.371 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 15. The following day, at a meeting of both Houses, Charles proposed that Parliament’s list of reasons should be presented to the king by a deputation consisting of peers and Members of the lower House.372 ‘Ferrar 1624’, p. 48; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 43.

It did not take long for the list to be drafted, but James was initially unwilling to receive it, as once again he had been in touch with the Spanish ambassadors, who naturally sought to encourage him down the path of negotiation. However, following a last-minute intervention by Buckingham, he granted an audience to Parliament’s deputation on 5 March.373 Lockyer, Buckingham, 184-5. He thanked Parliament for its advice, but declared that, quite apart from his own abhorrence of bloodshed, there were many ‘difficulties’ that stood in the way of war with Spain. Not only were his debts enormous, but he had also incurred the cost of Charles and Buckingham’s recent trip to Madrid and the various embassies that had been dispatched in an attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the Palatinate crisis. Moreover, James observed, in the event of a war he would inevitably suffer a diminution in his income as a result of a decline in customs receipts. He further pointed out that a war to recover the Palatinate would necessarily involve financial assistance to the Dutch and the Protestant German princes, whose fortunes were at a low ebb, and the Navy would need to be strengthened and Ireland secured. Before he would consider entering into a war with Spain, therefore, it was incumbent on Parliament to ‘show me the means how I may do what you would have me [do]’. So far as his own debts were concerned, he was unwilling to dwell upon them as they were already well known. He therefore asked only that they should give him what they thought fit.374 LJ, iii. 250b, 251a.

James’s response, taken alongside a detailed statement of his debts delivered by Lord Treasurer Middlesex six days later, unsettled many of his listeners and forced Charles to offer words of reassurance on 11 Mar., both in the Lords and at a conference between both Houses. It was not James’s intention that the Commons should immediately consider how to reduce his debts, he explained. The king had merely said that he was unable to pay for a war out of his own resources; he was certainly willing to allow the settlement of his debts to take second place to the financing of a war. Those who feared that a generous grant of subsidies would lead to fewer parliaments were mistaken, for having recently spoken to the king on the subject he had found him ‘very willing’ to call parliaments more often. ‘If you go on with courage and show alacrity and readiness in this business’, he added, ‘you shall so oblige me unto you now, that I will never forget it hereafter’.375 Ibid. 257b, 258a; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 25; CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 185-6. According to the Venetian ambassador, Charles’s speech was greeted with ‘universal applause’ and succeeded ‘in great measure’ in undoing the harm done by James, who was clearly trying to prevent the outbreak of war. Similar satisfaction was expressed by Simonds D’Ewes^‡, then a law student in London, who confided to his diary that Charles had provided ‘much comfort’ to ‘all their hearts’.376 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 249; D’Ewes Diary 1622-4, p. 185. See also Add. 72255, f. 127v; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 233. The following day a grateful House of Commons passed a motion of thanks to the prince.377 CJ, i. 735a.

The Commons now resolved that once James announced that he had broken off the marriage negotiations, they would assist him, ‘both with our own persons and abilities, in a parliamentary manner’. Charles, however, was not entirely satisfied with the wording of this declaration, and on the 12th he suggested that the Lords should ask ‘what parliamentary way they mean’. He also recommended, most unusually, that any grant of subsidies should be given in the name of both Houses.378 Ibid. 733b; LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 30-1. However, his dissatisfaction with the wording of the declaration was seized upon on the 13th by Lord Treasurer Middlesex and the earl of Arundel, both of whom had voted two months earlier in the cabinet council chaired by the prince to continue with the Spanish marriage negotiations. They insisted that the Commons’ offer should be specific rather than couched in general terms. Charles, sensing that their true motive was to avoid a war, is reportedly said to have retorted ‘that seeing all the rest of the Lords were of a contrary opinion it must not be their two voices that should hinder the common resolution’. Both men were so shaken by this withering rebuke that they subsequently went to see Charles at St James’s Palace to excuse themselves, while Middlesex also decided to stay away from the upper House for the time being.379 SP14/160/89. This episode can be dated from the fact that Middlesex attended the Lords on the 13th but not when the House next sat, on the 15th.

Charles’s success in easing the concerns of the Commons and quelling the first signs of opposition in the Lords was short-lived, for on 14 Mar., before a committee of both Houses at Whitehall, James delivered his verdict on the Commons’ promised assistance. He now denied that Spain had been negotiating in bad faith,380 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 254; Add. 72255, f. 129. and, echoing Middlesex and Arundel, announced bluntly that he could not proceed on the basis of ‘generalities’, for ‘except particular means be set down it will neither be a bridle to the adversary of that cause, nor a comfort to my friends who shall join with me’. In order to field an army capable of re-taking the Palatinate he would need five subsidies and ten fifteenths, equivalent to about £650,000. In addition, because ‘my crying debts are so heavy’, he demanded an annual payment of one subsidy and two fifteenths – worth about £130,000 - until such times as his finances were restored to health.381 R. Ruigh, Parl. of 1624, p. 211; LJ, iii. 266a, 266b; Holles 1624, p. 36. Charles was so horrified by this last statement that he went pale, as James had now explicitly contradicted the assurances he had given to both Houses only three days earlier. Indeed, he was so troubled that he spoke barely a word for the rest of the day. However, he did not, as Conrad Russell has alleged, presume to interrupt the king, even though many other listeners shared his sense of dejection.382 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 234; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 255; SP14/160/90; D’Ewes Diary 1622-4, p. 186; Russell, PEP, 186.

That evening Charles persuaded Buckingham, who was no less astonished than the prince at James’s expectation that Parliament would vote subsidies to pay off his debts, to visit the king in his chamber and ask for a more acceptable reply to the Commons’ declaration. There, ‘shut in by the prince’ and kneeling before James, the duke pleaded to be allowed to explain the government’s position more clearly. Unable to resist a request from the favourite, or perhaps too frightened to do so, James agreed. At a conference between both Houses on 15 Mar. Charles and Buckingham announced that James’s words had been mistaken and that the prince had been given permission to clarify them. Charles was subsequently permitted to amend a text of the speech, which had been compiled from notes made at the time it was delivered. The resultant document was subsequently shown to the king, who declared that it expressed his meaning.383 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 255; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 189. However, as this bowdlerized version of James’s text did not satisfy everyone, Buckingham was forced on 16 Mar. to ride to Woking, where the king now lay, and bring back from James a written explanation of his words.384 SP14/160/89. Not until 17 Mar. was Parliament fully persuaded that James’s statements were in agreement with those of his son and the duke.385 SP14/160/90; LJ, iii. 265b.

Although Charles and Buckingham had narrowly rescued the situation, the Commons had still to debate subsidies. On 19 Mar., the day on which the lower House turned to consider supply, the Venetian ambassador recorded that the prince visited the Commons, which he had never done before. There, presumably in the lobby, Charles talked with Members ‘in a prudent, friendly and most praiseworthy manner, promising that he would remain eternally indebted for what they did for him at this juncture’.386 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 254. Following the supply debate, which lasted two days, the Commons resolved to give three subsidies and three fifteenths. This was less than the king had demanded, but more than sufficient to begin military preparations.

In the immediate aftermath of the Commons’ decision to grant supply, Charles played an important in the negotiations between the two Houses. At one point he persuaded the Commons to drop from their message to the king their statement that a war was to be undertaken for reasons of religion, as he knew that James was adamantly opposed to any such notion. At another, the prince told the lower House that it should not only say that subsidies were being given by the Commons alone but also relegate any mention of the Lords to second place.387 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 40; CJ, i. 746a; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 196. This was an extraordinary concession, since the Commons were normally required to play second fiddle to the Lords, and it says much about his sense of tact that Charles thought to make it. Charles nevertheless remained mindful of the honour of the House of Lords in all other respects. At around this time, for instance, he put himself in the vanguard of those who called for the punishment of Thomas Morley, a London woodmonger found guilty of spreading a libel against Star Chamber, many of whose members had seats in the upper House. No Member of the Lords, he declared on 20 Mar., should ‘suffer long under this burden of slander’.388 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 37, 43.

Charles was now devoting most of his time to parliamentary affairs. Indeed, he sat continuously from the opening of Parliament on 19 Feb. until 22 Mar., when he missed the morning (but not the afternoon) sitting.389 CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 242, 275; Add. 72255, f. 123v. He took no time off, even to prepare for the accession day tilt. This was just as well, for the event was initially postponed due to injuries sustained during practice by the 18th earl of Oxford (Henry de Vere^*) and Viscount Mansfield (William Cavendish^*, subsequently 1st duke of Newcastle), and later abandoned altogether.390 Works of Abp. Laud ed. J. Bliss, iii. 150; Fairfax Corresp. ed. G.E. Johnson, i. pp. lvi-liv; Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe, 250.

Although Charles was mainly focussed at Westminster on national politics, he also found time to lay his own business before the upper House. Two bills that had been presented to the 1621 Parliament received three readings in quick succession in the Lords. One concerned an exchange of lands between himself and Sir Lewis Watson and the other the purchase of Kenilworth from Lady Alice Dudley.391 LJ, iii. 243b, 254a, 257a, 260b, 268a. A third bill, also left over from 1621, sought to give Charles the power to renegotiate the leases held by the tenants of the duchy of Cornwall before he became duke. Laid before the Commons, it encountered some opposition in the lower House following its second reading, but was sent up to the Lords on 13 Mar. ‘with recommendation of affection’, where it was expedited in the course of a single day.392 Kyle, 615-16. On 19 Mar. a fourth bill, to eliminate all brewhouses near St James’s Palace, was introduced in the Lords. After Charles announced that it had the king’s support, the bill received two readings in swift succession.393 LJ, iii. 269a; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 35; Kyle, 617-18. Two other measures which concerned the prince were also considered by Parliament. The first dealt with the tenants of Charles’s manor of Goathland, in Yorkshire, and it too received two readings, this time in the Commons.394 CJ, i. 686a, 736b. The second was the bill to enfranchise County Durham, which had received consideration both in 1614 and 1621, and which now completed its passage through both Houses.

By the time that Parliament adjourned for Easter, on 25 Mar., Charles and Buckingham had succeeded in bringing the country one step closer to war with Spain. Charles, in particular, had won a great deal of popularity in Parliament, just as he had done during the first sitting of the 1621 assembly. On that occasion James had been pleased, because it had suited his purposes that Charles should be feted, but now that his son’s popularity had been achieved in a cause to which he was opposed he resented it. On 28 Mar. he reproved his son for making himself too popular, but Charles, nothing daunted, replied merely ‘that he would always behave as an honourable man’.395 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 268. Nonetheless, a few days later, at a meeting attended only by Charles and Buckingham, James informed the Spanish emissary Padre Maestro that the treaties of marriage were now dissolved.396 LJ, iii. 285a; Add. 72255, f. 133.

James was not alone in taking fright at the success enjoyed by Charles and Buckingham. Over the Easter recess Lord Treasurer Middlesex, supported by the earl of Arundel, attempted to topple the favourite and damage the war lobby by reintroducing to court his handsome young kinsman, Arthur Brett. The duke quickly discovered the source of the threat, and when Parliament reassembled in early April, he and his clients in the Commons set about impeaching the lord treasurer. For this part, Charles had no great reason to love Middlesex, who had told him a couple of months earlier at a meeting of the cabinet council that, regardless of his private wishes, it was his duty to marry the infanta for the good and honour of the kingdom. Moreover, in his eyes, any attack on Buckingham was necessarily an attack on him. Consequently, he gave the duke his enthusiastic support.397 Gardiner, v. 229; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 276; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 199. Indeed, so keen was he to bring about Middlesex’s downfall that on 12 Apr. he told the Lords that if they finished drawing up charges against the lord treasurer before the Commons they should undertake the prosecution alone.398 PA, HL/PO/JO/1/3, f. 16v. However, a rather different sense is conveyed in the clerk’s scribbled book: LD 1624 and 1626, p. 69. However, when James discovered that Buckingham was behind the impeachment and that Charles was supporting him, he was incandescent with rage. After warning Buckingham that by courting popularity in Parliament - the lord treasurer was widely hated for his greed and arrogance - he was making a rod for his own back, he rounded on Charles, telling him ‘that he would live to have his bellyful of parliaments’.399 Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion, i. 28. However, these prophetic words fell on deaf ears.

Later that month, Middlesex decided to appeal to the king in person. Taking advantage of the funeral of the duke of Lennox on 19 Apr., which event kept most peers in London, Middlesex rushed over to see James at Theobalds, accompanied by his broker, Abraham Jacob, whose testimony the lord treasurer hoped would clear him from the charge of bribery. Unfortunately for him, however, his plans were discovered by Charles, who followed him. Consequently, not only was the prince present when Middlesex met the king but he was also able to contradict the claims made by Jacob, ‘to the confusion of the other’.400 Add. 72276, f. 85.

Gate-crashing the lord treasurer’s meeting with James was not the only ill service that Charles did Middlesex at around this time. On 15 Apr. the king wrote to the Commons at Middlesex’s request to deny a rumour that the lord treasurer was responsible for the angry dissolution of the 1621 Parliament. Many Members were unhappy with James’s letter, and on 17 Apr. Charles announced that he and Buckingham would be willing ‘to clear all doubts’.401 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 26v. Whether their offer was taken up is unknown, but it seems unlikely that the two friends would have lost the opportunity to make trouble. After all, that same day Charles told representatives of the Commons that the reason Irish affairs had recently been so neglected was that a member of the Privy Council had concealed from the rest of the board the letters he had received from the lord deputy. He did not name the culprit, but everyone knew that ‘this pointed at the treasurer’.402 SP14/163/2. See also CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 219.

Parliamentary attacks on Spain had unleashed a wave of anti-Catholic feeling, particularly in the Commons, where many Members assumed that recusants were potential fifth columnists. A petition against recusant officeholders was drafted by the lower House and transmitted to the Lords, who considered the wording of this document on 5 Apr., the same day on which charges against Middlesex were laid in the Commons. Charles was unhappy that the Commons were continuing to try, through the preface to this petition, to depict conflict with Spain as primarily motivated by religion, as he knew that the very idea of a confessional war was anathema to James. Indeed, James was adamant that if the Commons made subsidies dependent on the acceptance of their petition he would prefer to reopen negotiations with Spain. This was a terrifying prospect, and consequently Charles declared the preface to be ‘too sharp’ and in need of amendment. However, he realized that the Commons were likely to resist any changes, for when Lord Houghton (John Holles^*, later 1st earl of Clare) proposed that the words ‘the papists [are] the engines of Spain’ be left out, Charles said he would agree were it not for the likelihood that ‘the Commons will not happily yield unto it’. Rather than alter individual words and phrases, Charles seconded the marquess of Hamilton, who suggested that the preface be left out altogether.403 Lockyer, Buckingham, 190; LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 52-5.

If Charles was unhappy with the petition’s suggestion that war with Spain was to be fought on grounds of religion, he was no less comfortable with the request that the king order the disarming of all recusants. ‘I am persuaded and have some cause to know it’, he observed, that James was more likely to do this if he were not pressed by Parliament, a point he reiterated five days later.404 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 56, 63. However, the Commons were not willing to abandon their hardline attitude towards England’s Catholic community, not least because it was now rumoured, correctly, that Charles had agreed to suspend the recusancy laws while in Spain. What was to prevent him from doing the same again, this time in relation to France? For this reason the prince felt obliged to reassure those who were anxious at the prospect that they might soon have an openly Catholic queen that once he was married the freedom of worship granted to his wife would be restricted to her and her servants.405 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 553; Add. 72255, f. 135v.

The acceptability to the king of the Commons’ petition, and its potential for causing a rupture between the Parliament and James, continued to weigh heavily on Charles’s mind as late as 10 Apr., when he declared that it would be easier to persuade James to acquiesce to its demands if he could see that the Commons were busy in voting supply. Although the number of subsidies to be granted had been agreed in principle, no bill had as yet materialized.406 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 64; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 14. Indeed, not until 22 Apr., the day after Charles agreed to make the arrangements for presenting the petition, did the Commons give the subsidy bill a first reading.407 CJ, i. 688b, 772b. Moreover, it took until 24 Apr., the day after James signified (with some reluctance) his formal acceptance of the petition, for the Commons to read the subsidy bill again.408 Ibid. 774b; LJ, iii. 317b, 318a.

Charles’s difficulties with the Commons over the recusancy petition demonstrate that, despite the existence of broadly similar objectives, there were limits to the prince’s influence over the lower House. This is not altogether surprising, as the House of Commons was notoriously difficult to control, and even those whom Buckingham had entrusted with its day to day management - Sir Edwin Sandys and Sir Robert Phelips - found themselves regarded with suspicion and even distaste by their parliamentary colleagues.409 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 549; Holles Letters (Thoroton Soc. xxxv) ed. P. Seddon, ii. 299. Yet if the dominance of the Commons in 1624 by Charles and Buckingham was something of an illusion, this was not appreciated by the Spanish ambassadors, who were by now desperate to strike at the heart of the ‘patriot coalition’. In mid March they made a final attempt to soften the mood of the prince by presenting to him three cartloads of provisions sent by Olivares. However, Charles gave away the contents without even looking at them, a slight that the Venetian ambassador described as ‘unmistakeable’.410 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 549-50; D’Ewes Diary 1622-4, p. 188; Add. 72255, f. 132; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 257.

Shortly after Buckingham’s clients launched their assault on Lord Treasurer Middlesex in the Commons, the Spaniards decided to go on the offensive. First, the archdeacon of Cambrai, Don Francisco de Carondelet, visited Lord Keeper Williams, whose relations with Buckingham were strained, and encouraged him to attack Buckingham in Parliament whenever an opportunity to do so arose. At around the same time the Spanish ambassadors also obtained a secret nocturnal audience with the king, in which James was informed that he was ‘a prisoner, or at leastwise besieged, so as no man could be admitted to come at him’. James was also told that the kingdom was now being ruled not by a monarchy but by a triumvirate, ‘whereof Buckingham was the first and the chiefest, the prince the second, and the king the last’. James was naturally deeply troubled by these words, as they seemed to confirm his own suspicions, and by the ambassador’s suggestion that Charles was in thrall to Buckingham. Though he ‘doubted nothing of the prince’, he found it difficult to understand how Charles, who had been ‘as well affected’ to Spain ‘as heart could desire’ before the trip to Madrid, had returned ‘strangely carried away with rash and youthful councils, and followed the humour of Buckingham, who had (he knew not how many) devils within him since that journey’.411 Cabala (1691), 275-6; JOHN WILLIAMS. Like the former lord chancellor, Viscount St Alban, James had come to believe that Charles was deeply impressionable - ‘"mollis cera", and somewhat "di ultima impression",’ to use Bacon’s words. However, though disturbed by the Spanish accusations, James declared that he was unwilling to act without concrete proof of Buckingham’s treachery.412 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 445.

It was at this point that Charles drove the Spaniards to an even more desperate course of action. On 14 Apr. the German mercenary commander, Count Ernst von Mansfeld, arrived in Westminster, where he soon attracted the attention of the prince. Mansfeld had previously fought for the Protestant cause on the Continent, and since his services might therefore prove useful Charles discussed with him the possibility of capturing and holding Cadiz. He also took him in his coach to see the king at Theobalds and, the following day, lodged him in an apartment in St James’s Palace which had earlier been earmarked for the infanta.413 Cogswell, Blessed Rev. 240; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 216; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 556; CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 293, 315-16; Add. 72255, f. 140. The Spanish ambassadors were outraged at this affront, and shortly thereafter Don Francisco de Carondelet and the Jesuit Padre Maestro, assisted by the hispanophile earl of Kellie [S], obtained secret audiences with the king while Charles and Buckingham were busy in Parliament.414 Hacket, i. 196. Precisely what the Spaniards told James at these meetings is unclear. According to one account, they declared that the duke was planning to marry his daughter Mary to the Elector Palatine’s eldest son, and that he intended to ensure that Charles should remain unwed. In that way, Frederick’s son would eventually inherit the thrones of England and Scotland and Mary Villiers would become queen.415 Lockyer, Buckingham, 194. However, some observers believed that James was informed that Buckingham was planning to use Parliament to depose him in favour of Charles.416 CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 224-5; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 557; Add. 72255, f. 142. Whatever the truth may have been, the Spanish allegations struck terror into James who, on departing for Windsor for the annual Garter ceremony on 24 Apr., failed to take Buckingham into his coach with him.417 Hacket, i. 196.

James’s sudden hostility towards Buckingham was of no small concern to Charles, especially as the king now offered to hand over to him the reins of power in return for being allowed to live out the rest of his life in peace.418 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 308. Neither he nor Buckingham knew precisely what James had been told by the Spaniards, nor did they know where the latter had got their information. Charles, however, was determined to find out, and while Buckingham went to Windsor to make his peace with James, the prince returned to London. From there he sent Buckingham a list of questions to put to James, counselled the duke (whom he described as ‘sweetheart’) to say nothing that might lead James to suspect that he was guilty of wrongdoing, and reassured him that no-one on the Council would perjure themselves in order to bring about his downfall.419 Harl. 6987, f. 211v, printed, with slight inaccuracies, in Misc. State Pprs. i. 455.

While in London Charles spoke with Lord Keeper Williams, who subsequently learned, with the help of a prostitute frequented by Carondelet, the nature of the Spanish plot. Williams subsequently arrested the diplomat’s favourite English priest, whom he released in return for something approaching a confession from Carondelet. Armed with this document, which suggested that the Spanish allegations were part of a plot to topple the duke, derail the Parliament and prevent James from issuing a proclamation banishing all Jesuits and seminary priests, Charles returned to Windsor and presented James with Williams’ findings. On realizing that he had been duped, James embraced both Charles and Buckingham, telling them ‘that it sorrowed him much that he had aggrieved them with a jealousy fomented by no better than traitors’.420 Hacket, i. 196-9; NLW, 9059E/1218. However, this was not the end of the matter, as the Spaniards now went one stage further. Padre Maestro put his allegations in writing, while the marquess de la Inojosa claimed that at the beginning of the Parliament Buckingham had discussed ‘with certain lords’ the possibility of forcing James to retire to a country house if he refused to break off the Spanish Match.421 CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 231-3. Once again James was devastated, while Charles was so shaken that for two days he was unable to eat or sleep.422 CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 308-9; Add. 72255, f. 144.

In order to counter these charges, Charles persuaded several councillors and peers in early May not only to swear that they were false but also to renew their oaths of allegiance. Moreover, he and the favourite demanded that the Spanish ambassadors be proceeded against by Parliament as disturbers of the public peace and for having violated their instructions. It may have been to pave the way for such proceedings that on 30 Apr. Charles revealed the Spanish allegations to Parliament.423 Memoires et Negociations Secretes de M. de Rusdorf (1789), i. 295-6; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 303. Although there was never any realistic prospect of arraigning the Spanish ambassadors before Parliament – Charles and Buckingham had to content themselves instead with snubbing Inojosa on his departure from England in June424 Finetti Philoxenis (1656), 139. - these measures, taken together, seem finally to have persuaded James that he had been hoodwinked. However, by now the strain on Buckingham had proved too much, and on 5 May he fell seriously ill, leaving Charles to manage the Parliament without him.

Although Charles had persuaded James that there was no truth in the Spanish claims, he and his father remained at loggerheads over the fate of Lord Treasurer Middlesex. James was determined to defend Middlesex, whose impeachment was now reaching its climax, whereas Charles was equally determined to destroy him and sought to deny him access to the king.425 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 555; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 302. On 5 May the king addressed the members of the upper House at Whitehall, where he declared that if the lord treasurer was being persecuted because he had laid an unpopular imposition on wines they might just as well arraign their sovereign. When Charles interrupted to say that this was not in fact the basis for the impeachment, James publicly rebuked his son, telling him that he lied.426 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 240. Though undoubtedly wounded by this affront, Charles nevertheless continued to press home his attack. On the morning of 11 May, after Middlesex announced that he was too ill to attend the Lords to answer the charges against him, Charles not only expressed irritation with the lord treasurer, saying that he ‘takes a course to be committed to the Tower’, but also suggested that he be summoned that afternoon.427 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 73; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 62. When Middlesex finally appeared later that same day, the lord treasurer used ‘such saucy and malapert language’ that many in the House thought he should be sent to the Tower without further ado. Charles dissuaded his fellow peers from adopting such a drastic course of action, but he shared their indignation, particularly as Middlesex complained that Attorney General Coventry (Thomas Coventry^*, later 1st Lord Coventry) had read only part of the charges against him. Coventry, he declared, had done only as he had been directed by the House, and unless Middlesex apologized ‘this aspersion will light very heavy upon him’.428 LJ, iii. 374a; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 559. The next day he accused Middlesex of having ‘played the extortioner upon the king’, and of having authorized payments ‘for his particular profit’ when he ‘would pay no money to furnish the king’s store of munitions’.429 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 80-2.

Middlesex was finally condemned by the House of Lords on 13 May. During the ensuing debate on his punishment, Charles insisted that it was appropriate that the earl should lose all his offices, as Middlesex had taken up the treasurer’s staff on the basis that he would retrench the royal finances only to enrich himself at James’s expense. He also agreed that Middlesex should be fined, but when Lord Saye and Sele proposed that there should be some correlation between the amount of money Middlesex had creamed off and the size of the fine Charles replied that any effort spent in trying to make such a calculation would be time wasted as ‘it is impossible to know what he hath gotten’.430 Ibid. 88-9. The Lords subsequently decided that Middlesex should pay the king £80,000 but Charles, who did not wish to appear vindictive, persuaded the House to reduce the amount to £50,000.431 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 244; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 325.

At the same time as he was playing a leading role in the final stages of the impeachment of Middlesex, Charles may have quietly fomented trouble in the Commons for Lord Keeper Williams. Although he had reason to be grateful to Williams for uncovering the Spanish plotting against Buckingham, Charles distrusted the lord keeper, who was unenthusiastic about the prospect of war with Spain. The attack began on 7 May, when the lower House began investigating the complaint of Lady Grace Darcy, who accused the lord keeper of denying her the right of presentation to a church in Surrey. Among the speakers was Thomas Gewen^‡ who, as auditor to the duchy of Cornwall, owed his seat in Parliament to the prince. Gewen claimed that Williams’ offences in this matter were considerable, since the lord keeper had violated Magna Carta and repeatedly ignored instructions from the king. Indeed, they were so serious that charges should be presented to the Lords.432 CJ, i. 700b. For a different reading of the evidence, see HP Commons, 1604-29, iv. 358. However, this attempt to commence impeachment proceedings against Williams ultimately came to nothing.

During this time, Charles also helped bring to fruition negotiations with the Dutch ambassadors for a military alliance. By the Treaty of London, England promised to maintain 6,000 troops to serve in the United Provinces for at least two years.433 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 245; Cogswell, Blessed Rev. 256. In addition, Charles frequently visited Buckingham, who remained very ill.434 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 318. Indeed, it may have been because of one such visit that he was absent from the upper House on 15 May. During the early stages of Buckingham’s illness James rediscovered all his former love for the duke, showing him great tenderness and showering him with small gifts.435 Lockyer, Buckingham, 196. Behind the scenes Charles ensured that James’s earlier doubts about the duke were not permitted to return. As a result, by the time Buckingham recovered his strength his standing with the king was reportedly much higher than it might otherwise have been.436 Add. 72276, f. 99v.

Charles remained at centre stage during the final weeks of the Parliament. On 19 May, for instance, he took a close interest in the complaint submitted to the Lords by the Commons against the bishop of Norwich, Samuel Harsnett^* (later archbishop of York) and in Harsnett’s petition against the man who had incensed the lower House against him. On hearing the bishop defend himself, he observed that Harsnett had failed to answer one of the charges; and after listening to the bishop set out six complaints against his tormentor he recommended that four of them be referred to High Commission. This last suggestion, though supported by Lord Keeper Williams and the lord president of the Council, was criticized by Hamilton, who declared that ‘we shall wrong our privileges’ by requiring High Commission to settle the matter. However, Charles was not persuaded, and replied that the House’s privileges were just as likely to suffer if Members decided that they were not entitled to delegate to other bodies.437 LJ, iii. 390a; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 96.

Another important subject in which the prince demonstrated a keen interest was the monopolies bill, which originated in the Commons. Towards the end of the 1621 Parliament Charles had declared that the Commons’ bill on this subject needed to be redrafted. Now he suggested that the bill required a proviso to prevent members of the Privy Council who did their duty from being charged with praemunire.438 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 97. Chris Kyle has suggested that Charles ‘got himself into a tangle’ over this subject,439 Kyle, 612. but the problem Charles was addressing had not been identified by him but by the lord keeper, and his motion was seconded by the earl of Arundel. If Charles did become confused, he was certainly not alone. Another piece of legislation in which Charles seems to have taken a close interest was the grace bill to repeal a clause in the 1543 Act of Union allowing the crown to make statute law for Wales by proclamation, which measure had first been presented to Parliament ten years earlier. When difficulties arose over the wording of a proviso to the bill, it was Charles who proposed that the two Houses appoint a subcommittee to resolve the matter. It was also Charles who subsequently suggested that a ruling by the judges, that the bill did not in any way prejudice the jurisdiction of the council in the Marches, should be entered in the Lords Journal.440 LJ, iii. 314b, 336b. For the 1614 bill, see Procs. 1614 (Commons), 45.

On 19 May the Commons, anxious that they would not manage to complete their legislative business before the prorogation, asked Charles to intercede with James on their behalf for an extension. James was initially unwilling to countenance a longer sitting, but following a second approach from the prince he agreed, on 20 May, to allow the Houses to sit one week longer, but only on condition that no new business was begun.441 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, ff. 82, 84v; CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 251-2, 254. One item of legislation that the lower House had so far failed to complete was the prince’s own brewhouses bill, which received its second reading on the same day the Commons asked Charles to intercede with the king on their behalf. On learning that Charles had succeeded in obtaining the desired extension, a grateful Commons ordered the bill’s committee to meet the next day. However, the lower House ultimately proved reluctant to proceed with the brewhouses bill on the grounds that it would damage too many livelihoods, and on the final day of the session it resolved to let the matter rest.442 CJ, i. 705b, 715b, 792a; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 254. The Commons were nevertheless mindful of Charles’s other legislative interests, for on 25 May they returned to the Lords the Kenilworth and Watson land exchange bills.443 LJ, iii. 405a. As a result both measures were finally enacted, unlike the bill to enfranchise County Durham, which James rejected on the grounds that the House of Commons was large enough already.444 HP Commons 1604-29, i. 46.

During the final stages of the Parliament Charles demonstrated considerable irritation with the Commons. On 22 May he criticized the lower House for insisting on the repeal of a piece of Edwardian legislation concerning the sale of wines which generated more than £3,000 each year for the royal coffers. He reminded the Lords that, at the beginning of the Parliament, the Commons had promised to take nothing from the king’s revenues until they had agreed to give an equivalent sum in return. He also pointed out that the Commons had actually agreed to continue the offending statute in the bill of monopolies. At a conference between both Houses, Charles publicly rebuked Sir Edward Coke over this matter, to Coke’s great distress. On 25 May Charles again took issue with the lower House, this time by objecting to a clause in the subsidy bill which appeared to uphold the Commons’ right to judicature.445 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 101-4; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 203-4.

These criticisms of the Commons, coming after such a long period during which Charles had bent over backwards to please the lower House, require explanation. Possibly Charles was angry that the Commons were dragging their feet over the brewhouses bill. However, it seems much more likely that his anger, particularly over the wine legislation, was calculated to please James, with whom he now wished to repair his damaged relations. On 28 May one well-informed observer remarked that Charles remained so troubled by the Spanish accusations against Buckingham that he increasingly complied with his father’s wishes, ‘being content to give way to that which he cannot safely withstand’.446 Add. 72276, f. 94v.

The final months of James’s reign, July 1624-Mar. 1625

Although the 1624 Parliament caused serious damage to Charles’s relations with his father, his reputation among those who were eager for war with Spain soared as a result of his successful management of the assembly. Writing to Sir Thomas Roe in mid June, Lord Carew (George Carew^*) declared that he had never ‘seen or known a young prince qualified with more excellent gifts, both of body and mind, than he is adorned withall’. Indeed, Charles was ‘the mirror of princes now living’. Archbishop Abbot, too, thought that Charles had shown himself to be ‘a brave young gentleman’, while the Venetian ambassador commented that the prince enjoyed ‘great esteem’.447 Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe, 251-2; CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 319-20. Only the partisans of Spain were downcast, among them the earl of Kellie, who was so appalled by Charles’s populism that he hoped not to live to see him become king.448 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 200, 202-3.

One serious consequence of the Parliament was that Charles and Buckingham had made an enemy of the earl of Bristol. While relating the recent history of the Spanish marriage negotiations to both Houses, Buckingham had suggested that Bristol’s enthusiasm for the match had led him to exceed his instructions and deliberately mislead the king into thinking that the Spanish were serious about a marriage. Moreover, Charles had claimed that Bristol had asked him, while he was in Spain, either to change his religion or at least seem to be Catholic.449 Add.72276, f. 78v; Hacket, i. 203. Bristol naturally resented these aspersions, and on returning to England early in 1624 he insisted that he should be allowed to speak publicly in his own defence. James, however, told him that the business was not to be brought before Parliament ‘because the prince hath showed himself a party’.450 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 558. Nonetheless, following the end of the session, he supported Bristol’s demand to be brought to trial without delay. Charles was terrified by this prospect, as Buckingham, whose help he would need in preparing the list of charges, was still seriously unwell. There was also the danger that Bristol, if put on trial, would reveal damaging information about Buckingham’s conduct in Spain. He therefore told Bristol to avoid the court and threatened to withdraw his favour from him if he did not.451 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 205; PRO31/8/198; Harl. 6987, f. 207; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 343. Bristol was unwilling to comply with this demand, and in June he and the Spanish ambassadors met James in secret at the earl of Arundel’s house in Highgate. However, although Bristol subsequently satisfied the king of his innocence, real power now lay with Charles, and therefore he remained, in effect, under permanent house arrest thereafter.452 K. Sharpe, ‘The Earl of Arundel, His Circle and the Opposition to the Duke of Buckingham, 1618-28’, Faction and Parl. ed. K. Sharpe, 226; JOHN DIGBY.

Now that the Spanish Match had been broken off the way was clear for James – or rather Charles – to negotiate an alternative marriage alliance with France. However, these negotiations were not conducted entirely smoothly or always with great amity because, like the Spanish before them, the French insisted on the suspension of the penal laws as a condition of any treaty. When Charles learned of this in mid August 1624 he was incensed. Writing to Lord Kensington, now extraordinary ambassador to Paris, he declared that ‘the Monsieurs have played you so scurvy a trick that if it were not for the respect I have for the person of Madame, I would not care a fart for their friendship’. The French were wholly untrustworthy, he added, and if they continued to insist on these new terms they could ‘go hang themselves’. A few weeks later, Charles was reportedly so disenchanted with the French that he no longer cared whether the marriage proceeded.453 S. Adams, ‘Spain or the Neths.?’, Before the English Civil War ed. H. Tomlinson, 89-90; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 210. See also S.R. Gardiner, A Hist. of Eng. under the Duke of Buckingham and Chas. I 1624-6, i. 95. However, Buckingham was desperate to secure the marriage alliance, even if this meant that Charles would have to renege on the promise he had earlier made to Parliament concerning the penal laws, for without French military assistance it would be extremely difficult for England to re-conquer the Palatinate. Within a few weeks he had won the prince around to his point of view, and on 7 Sept. James, once again under pressure from both his favourite and his son, bowed to their wishes. Charles was jubilant, and on 9 Sept. he informed James Hay^*, earl of Carlisle, who had been sent to France to assist Kensington, that, provided the pope did not make difficulties over the necessary dispensation, ‘the treaties will shortly be brought to a happy conclusion’. Nevertheless he and James decided to prorogue Parliament, which was due to reconvene on 2 Nov., to the following February so as to avoid angry scenes in the House of Commons.454 Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. i. 100-1.

In the event, Charles’s celebrations were somewhat premature, for when the French terms were finally delivered in mid October they were greeted with dismay. Indeed, James was so downcast that he suggested reopening negotiations with Spain, whereupon Charles declared that he would never match with Spain and that if marriage to Henrietta Maria was now impossible James would have to find him someone else more suitable.455 Carlton, 58; Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 479-81. By mid November it was being rumoured that James was on the verge of breaking off the French negotiations and opening discussions instead with one of the German princes or the duke of Savoy.456 CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 499. However, on 19 Nov., the day on which Charles celebrated his 24th birthday, news arrived not only that terms had finally been agreed but also that the marriage had been solemnized at the French court. Consequently, on 12 Dec. James and Charles signed the articles of agreement at Cambridge. In so doing, they committed themselves to suspending the penal laws against England’s Catholic community.457 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 383; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 588, 591; Lockyer, Buckingham, 209. Charles immediately borrowed £20,000 or £30,000 to enable Buckingham – who was deeply indebted – to sail to France to fetch Henrietta Maria once the papal dispensation had arrived.458 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 384; NLW, 9060E/1271. He also wrote to Henrietta Maria, assuring her that, though they had never met, he had already seen her and was perfectly satisfied with her physical appearance.459 Gregg, 106. The princess responded in February 1625 by sending him a silk knot in the shape of a rose taken from her dress, which Charles proceeded to wear in his hat.460 Add. 72276, f. 141v.

During the midst of the marriage negotiations Charles had an accident that almost altered the course of the succession. On 16 Sept. 1624, while hunting stags on Enfield Chase, he narrowly escaped being killed after falling heavily from his horse.461 Works of Abp. Laud, iii. 154; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 345; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 445. Badly bruised, and rendered temporarily speechless, he was carried to the nearest house, where he was treated by a former nonconformist minister who had taken up medicine. He was thereafter confined to his chamber for two weeks, and it was not until mid October that he was fully recovered.462 CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 346, 349; D. Calderwood, Hist. of the Kirk of Scotland, vii. 625; NLW, 466E/1254. Despite his injuries, Charles travelled to London in late September in order to discuss military operations with Count Mansfeld, who had now been recruited to lead an English army to the Continent. Frustrated with the slow pace of the preparations caused by the crown’s poverty, Charles devoted £20,000 of his own money in November to hasten the assembly of an expeditionary force.463 CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 453, 500. By January 1625 the army was ready to sail, but England’s new ally, France, now refused to permit Mansfeld’s troops to land on French soil as previously promised. Charles and Buckingham were furious, as this meant that the army would have to disembark in the United Provinces instead, contrary to assurances given to the Spanish Netherlands, and would be unable to link up with a force of French cavalry.464 Harl. 6987, f. 203; Lockyer, Buckingham, 227-8. However, the expeditionary force sailed from Dover at the end of the month regardless. The troops never saw action, as they succumbed to disease while in winter quarters in the Low Countries. Consequently, at James’s death on 27 Mar. 1625, it was not only the case that the French marriage had still to be concluded; the war with Spain had yet to begin in earnest too.

The young man Charles Stuart

In May 1622, the French ambassador, the comte de Tillières, predicted that when Charles became king, his subjects would quickly tire of him, ‘for he will exhibit all the vices of his father but display none of the qualities which his friends attribute to him’, having given ‘no proof of anything good or generous’. In hindsight, this observation was remarkably prescient. However, it almost certainly stemmed from bitterness at Charles’s new-found enthusiasm for the Spanish Match rather than from an objective assessment of the prince’s character. As Thomas Cogswell has observed, even a devot like Tillières would have appreciated that an Anglo-Spanish marriage alliance spelled disaster for France.465 F. von Raumer, Hist. of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ii. 270-1; Cogswell, Blessed Rev. 125.

Outwardly at least, by the time that he ascended the throne there was, in fact, little to suggest that Charles did not have the makings of a popular and successful king. After overcoming the physical afflictions of his childhood (an extraordinary achievement), he had ably supplied the place of the late Prince Henry, whose accomplishments on horseback and with the lance he not only equalled but excelled. Through the medium of Parliament he had earned the respect and gratitude of a wide section of the political nation, particularly in 1624, when, in alliance with Buckingham, he had wrested control of foreign policy from an ailing and increasingly unpopular king. However, within four months of his accession, Charles’s honeymoon period with his subjects was over,466 C. Russell, Causes of the English Civil War, 185. and he would never again be feted as he had been in 1624. One of the main reasons for this, of course, was that the Parliament of 1625 met in the shadow of the suspension of the penal laws and the failure of Mansfeld’s expedition.

During the second half of the 1620s many things that had their origins in Charles’s time as prince of Wales came back to haunt the new king. First and foremost among these was Charles’s friendship with Buckingham, which continued to arouse resentment at court. Had Buckingham enjoyed military success from 1625 his position would probably have been unassailable, but since he did not do so the king’s continued devotion to the duke served merely to poison relations between Charles and his parliaments. A further, related source of difficulty that originated in Charles’s time as prince of Wales concerned the earl of Bristol. In 1624 James and Charles had succeeded in keeping Bristol away from Parliament, but once Buckingham’s popularity collapsed it became impossible to do so. As a result, in 1626 Bristol was able to cast serious doubt upon the account presented to Parliament by Buckingham and Charles of their dealings in Spain in 1623.

Perhaps the greatest source of lasting damage to Charles that originated in his time as prince was his conversion to an anti-Calvinist theology. As has been mentioned, in order to ensure that Charles looked favourably on the Spanish Match, and to avoid giving offence to Spain, James surrounded the prince during the early 1620s with men whose religious views were not in tune with the Calvinist beliefs of the majority of his subjects. By the time Charles returned from Spain in 1623, the anti-Calvinist Matthew Wren felt certain that Charles was now doctrinally sound.467 Parentalia, or Mems. of the Fam. of Wren (1750) ed. S.Wren, 45-7. This development had a profound impact on Caroline religious policy, for under Charles anti-Calvinist bishops achieved a position of dominance within the Church. Had this not happened, it is difficult to see how the civil wars of the 1640s could ever have occurred.

It was not only in the field of religion that Charles, as prince of Wales, acquired attitudes that would later prove unhelpful to him when he was king. During his formative years he imbibed many of the ideas and prejudices of his father. Nowhere was James’s influence over his son more apparent than in the field of parliamentary politics. Following the failure of the Union (1607) and the Great Contract (1610), James developed an aversion for the English Parliament which he ultimately transferred to his son. Indeed, as Richard Cust has shown, it was James rather than Charles who first equated ‘popularity’ in Parliament with sedition.468 R. Cust, ‘Chas. I and Popularity’, Pols., Religion and Popularity ed. T. Cogswell et al., esp. p. 244. Although Charles was feted during the first sitting of the 1621 Parliament and helped to manage the 1624 assembly with considerable success, it is extraordinary how quickly he resorted to his father’s attitudes and methods when he encountered unwelcome opposition in the House of Commons. Echoing the immediate aftermath of the 1614 Parliament, when James caused several leading Members of the Commons to be imprisoned, Charles proposed in November 1621 locking up those whom he regarded as troublemakers. In 1628 he once again emulated James who, seven years earlier, had opened his third Parliament by threatening to close it down unless it acted as required.469 HP Commons 1604-29, i. 430. However, the clearest evidence that James’s dislike of the English Parliament had made a deep impression on Charles is the Personal Rule of the 1630s. During the middle years of his reign, James had consciously abandoned parliaments, and had only been driven to summon them again out of financial necessity.470 A. Thrush, ‘Personal Rule of Jas. I’, in Pols., Religion and Popularity, 84-102. As Richard Cust has observed, ‘Charles’s track record as prince of Wales ... did not necessarily point towards the prospect of a harmonious relationship with Parliament’.471 Cust, ‘Prince Chas. and the Second Session of the 1621 Parl.’, 439.

James’s baleful influence over his son should not be under-estimated. It is James who must surely take the blame for Charles’s woeful ignorance of Scotland, since he refused to allow Charles to accompany him to Scotland in 1617, a decision which has fairly been described as a lost opportunity.472 Quintrell, 8. It was also James who, in 1618, took the first step towards uniting the churches of England and Scotland on Anglican lines, a policy which Charles continued and which ended in defeat on the battlefield in 1640. And it is James who must share responsibility for Charles’s sympathy for English Arminianism, since it was he who foisted men like Matthew Wren on the prince in 1623.

The extent of James’s influence over his son is not surprising as, from about 1617, Charles ensured that he was rarely separated from his father. In the first instance this was because he wished to counter-act the corrosive influence of Buckingham. However, once he and Buckingham became friends he continued to remain physically close to James, either out of concern for the latter’s well-being or in order to control access to the king and so influence his decisions. Because Charles imbibed many of his father’s attitudes he grew to become like him. This has not always been appreciated, since James is often considered to have been wiser and more successful than his son. Thomas Cogswell, for instance, has concluded that ‘Charles was in some ways the mirror opposite rather than the carbon copy of his father’.473 Cogswell, Blessed Rev. 62. In fact, the similarities between them were at least as important as the differences: both men were remarkably single-minded, both found it difficult to abandon causes that were already lost and both found it hard to accept other points of view. What Conrad Russell dubbed Charles’s ‘tunnel vision’ can be glimpsed as early as January 1623, when Charles told William Laud over dinner that he could never have been a lawyer because ‘I cannot defend a bad, nor yield a good cause’.474 Russell, Causes, 195; Carlton, p. x.

How far it is possible to go beyond these arguments to suggest that Charles’s failings as a king reflected character defects that had their origins in his childhood is unclear. Both Charles Carlton and Martin Havran have argued that Charles was psychologically damaged during his childhood years. On the face of it, his theory is attractive. After all, Charles was separated from his mother and father at the age of two and not reunited with them for 16 months; removed from the loving care of his governess Lady Carey at the age of ten; deprived of a much loved elder brother just before his twelfth birthday; and parted from his elder sister and her husband shortly thereafter, never to see either of them again. On top of all this, it is widely supposed, his parents neglected him, his elder brother tormented him and he lived in fear of his father, all of which would help to explain why, in 1622, the Venetian ambassador found him emotionally cold.475 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 417. However, some of these claims are overdrawn while others are certainly false. By the standards of his day, Charles was not an unloved child, nor is there any evidence that he was traumatized by the departure of Frederick and Elizabeth in 1613, since he assumed that his sister and her husband would soon return. Moreover, although Charles was deeply affected by the death of his older brother, the emotional void thereby created was later filled by Buckingham. As for the prince’s speech impediment, this was not the result of some deep-seated neurosis but rather the product of a physical abnormality inherited from his father. The argument that Charles was psychologically damaged during his formative years is thus difficult to sustain.