CAMEO VII.

DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY.

(1612-1614.)

Henry and
Elizabeth.

CAMEO VII. THE great interest and delight of Henry and his sister was the building The of a great ship of war, of 114 feet long, which they often visited. whole family went to Woolwich to be on board at the launch, but in spite of a great flourish of drums and trumpets, the untoward vessel stuck fast in the stays. The royal party were obliged to go back to Greenwich, but Henry, returning early in the morning, had the pleasure of seeing the vessel glide safely into the Thames.

The King made a present of the Manor of Woodstock to his eldest son, and there were some delightful days of sylvan festivities in a large summerhouse built of green branches in the chase. Indeed these were very happy days for all the young people, and there are pleasant memorials of them extant in little notes in Latin, French, and Italian, written by them to their parents and to each other. There is a book in the British Museum in which each of the three wrote a motto-Henry's is in Latin, "Glory is the touch of an upright mind"; Elizabeth's is in Italian, "Uprightness and cheerfulness content me"; Charles's in English, "If you would conquer all things, submit yourself to

The brother and sister enjoyed one another's society with the knowledge that they must soon part. James was resolved that his daughter should have a husband of princely rank, and refused her to two of his nobles who ventured to aspire to her hand.

The King of Sweden proposed his son, the young Gustavus Adolphus, but unfortunately the enmity between Sweden and Denmark prevented Elizabeth from having for her husband the noblest and greatest man in Europe. Maurice of Nassau proposed for her, but his

Projected Spanish marriage. 1612.

age was not suitable, nor his rank and position sufficiently assured, since | CAMEO VII. he was not even Prince of Orange, and he was not of a character to have made her happy, being silent and morose. The Queen was foolish enough to set her heart on seeing her daughter Queen of Spain, though Philip III., besides the objection on the score of religion, was old enough to be Elizabeth's father, and had a daughter who was thought of for the Prince of Wales. An ambassador, Don Pedro de Zuniga, was actually sent to England ostensibly to inform the King of an intended alliance between the royal families of Spain and France, but with secret orders to report on the Princess, and whether there were any chance of her changing her religion. James received him in July, 1612, and was much disappointed and very angry that he said nothing about this part of his mission, only asked permission to remain in England till the weather should be cooler for travelling. It was hinted that he hoped to carry back tidings of the Princess's conversion, whereupon James swore that she should never go a Papist out of England.

Henry, however, took a more decided part, and said publicly that he esteemed a man a traitor who should advise the marrying his sister to a Roman Catholic ("he is a great heretic," wrote the ambassador); and he likewise declared that he would himself never marry any save a Protestant. James was disappointed, but Lord Salisbury persuaded him that the whole scheme was impracticable, and that the greatness of his throne was better secured by heading the Protestant powers rather than by becoming an ally of Spain.

This was the last service rendered to the country by Salisbury's clear, shrewd sense. He was much annoyed at the deficiency in the treasury, caused by the King's lavish gifts to favourites, and the refusal of the Parliament to grant further supplies unless the King would make concessions which were not considered as consistent with the dignity of the Crown. He had always been feeble and deformed, though he took great care of his health, and the change from the wealth that had been in his hands under Elizabeth so affected his spirits that he sank into a decline, went in vain to try the waters of Bath, and died on his way back to London on the 24th of May, 1612.

James had already attached himself to a favourite, Robert Carr, a handsome young Scottish page, who had been thrown from his horse when attending him on a hunting party, and had broken his leg. James took so much interest in him in his convalescence as even to teach him the Latin grammar. He was made Viscount Rochester, and became

for the time the most influential person at court.

A Protestant match was proposed in the person of Frederick the Pfalzgraf, or Elector Palatine of the Rhine, who was a fine handsome youth, highly educated, and well trained in all exercises, eighteen years of age, and looked upon as the natural leader of the Protestant interest in Germany. His mother, Juliana of Nassau, was a daughter of William the Silent, and she was extremely anxious for the connection.

Palatine. 1612.

CAMEO VII. The Duke of Bouillon, whose wife was Juliana's sister, had arranged The Elector the terms, and Count Meinhard of Schomberg was sent to ask permission for the young Elector to come and press his suit in person. James granted it graciously, but Queen Anne was greatly chagrined at the exchange of the King of Spain, Naples, and the Indies for a petty German prince, and, falling into one of her fits of ill-humour, refused to see Count Schomberg, and teased her daughter by calling her "Goody Palsgrave." Elizabeth, who had a youthful dread of Philip's age, as well as of the Oriental seclusion and etiquette of the Spanish Court, added to strong Protestant feelings, declared that she had much rather marry the Elector than be the greatest Popish Queen in Europe, and King James defended the suitor's pedigree, which was in fact equal to any in Europe, and reckoned in it one Emperor who had been married to an English princess, Blanche, the daughter of Henry IV.

Frederick prepared himself by borrowing the dancing master of Tübingen for a month in order that he might take lessons in an art which was practised most elaborately at the English Court. He arrived in the September of 1612, attended by his uncle, Prince Henry of Nassau, a good many noblemen, and a suite numbering a hundred and fifty. On the 16th he arrived at Gravesend, and wished there to wait for his baggage; but the Duke of Lennox was sent to overcome his scruples, and bring him to Whitehall, where Prince Charles met him at the water-gate, and all the rest of the family were drawn up in state to receive him in the banqueting hall.

He was a dark-eyed, graceful youth, and James received him cordially. Anne relaxed her countenance of fixed ill-humour, and let him kiss her hand; Elizabeth, gentle and blushing, smiled as he whispered in her ear; and Henry gladly accepted him as a brother-all speaking French, their common language.

Thenceforth Frederick attended the Court in all their entertainments. There came however a fatal blow. Prince Henry had outgrown his strength, being, at seventeen, over six feet high, and his exertions in the tilt-yard seem to have in some degree injured him. Superstition declared that he had begun to droop from the time that the remains of his grandmother, Mary, Queen of Scots, had been transported from Peterborough to Westminster Abbey. He had already a cough, before the Elector Palatine arrived, and soon after an intermittent fever attacked him. He bore up against it with all his gallant spirit, and was engaged, with all the rest of the royal family, to dine at the Guildhall with the Lord Mayor on the 24th of October, but on the previous Sunday he fainted in church during the sermon, and speedily became very ill. On the 29th a lunar rainbow, lasting seven hours, stood over the part of the palace of St James's where he lay, and was thought to be an evil omen for his recovery. The fever, however, abated, and his sister, who visited him daily, left him on the Ist of November with good hopes; but after this a violent increase of fever set in; it was pronounced to be putrid and very infectious, and though Elizabeth made many attempts to gain admittance to St.

James's, the guards always turned her back, and she had seen her CAMEO VII. brother for the last time.

The King and Queen were both afraid of infection, and kept themselves apart. The Queen was frantic with anxiety, and sent to the Tower to beg Sir Walter Raleigh for some specific he had once mentioned to her against ague. Could it have been any of the forms of quinine from America? It was sent, and for a few hours the Prince appeared better, but on the 5th of November he was evidently sinking, and in the thanksgiving service of that day, the heir of England was prayed for as one in extremity. The streets from Somerset House to St James's were blocked with crowds who wept and groaned as tidings of his state were brought out to them, while far off in the parks and the open country bonfires were lighted and the rabble shouted round Guy Fawkes's effigy, and the Roman Catholics, keeping close to their homes, deemed that retribution had fallen on the royal family for the barbarities practised on those connected with the plot.

At midnight, the last breath of the pure-minded and noble-hearted young Henry was drawn, perhaps the happiest of all the Stuarts.

The Queen in her first despair exclaimed that he must have been poisoned, and this was remembered against the King's present favourite, Robert Carr, Earl of Rochester, nay even against the King himself, as if he had been jealous of his son, and hushed up an investigation. But there is no reasonable doubt that the Prince had been for some time threatened with decline, and that his constitution had no power to resist a malignant fever which proved fatal to many besides himself, in especial to one young man who, in his delirium, fancied himself the ghost of Henry! The remedies applied were likewise such as to do more harm than good. The last was a cock split down the back, and applied while yet warm to the soles of his feet.

James's impatience of the sight of mourning, and his endeavours to escape from the grief that crushed him, shocked his subjects. He did not attend the funeral, which was delayed till the 7th of December, but Charles and the Elector Palatine walked side by side as chief mourners to the grave in Westminster Abbey, where Henry was laid near his grandmother, Queen Mary, and his two infant sisters.

On the 18th, Frederick was installed a Knight of the Garter with Henry's own collar and star, and on the 27th he was married to the Princess Elizabeth in full state and splendour.

The Tempest was Shakespeare's contribution to the pastimes in honour of their bridal-the final pageant to which Ariel and Prospero treat Ferdinand and Miranda being intended to apply to Frederick and Elizabeth.

James, though giving his daughter to a decided Calvinist, made her take her own chaplains, and forbade her to receive the Holy Communion from any unauthorised hands; so, though she heard plenty of sermons from Scultetus, Frederick's chaplain, she attended the English service in her own chapel.

Death of Henry. 1612.

It seems as if with Prince Henry and his sister some wholesome restraint had departed, more especially as his mother's health and spirits sank so low that she was forced to be absent at Bath, taking the waters for her recovery-and with her went the elegance and decorum, which, in spite of all her weaknesses, she had been able to maintain.

Robert Carr, whom James had made Viscount Rochester, exerted a baneful influence over the King, who lavished gifts on him, and was led by him to promote a most disgraceful affair. The son of the unfortunate Earl of Essex had been restored to his honours, and by family compact married to Lady Frances Howard, the daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, when he was fourteen and she thirteen. The young bridegroom was sent to school and then to travel abroad; the bride returned to her home. The religious tone of the family had sadly declined since the days of Sidney and "sweet Robin," and there had been a great scandal respecting Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich, the object of Philip Sidney's romantic admiration, who was divorced by her husband, and immediately after married Lord Mountjoy, who had been made Earl of Devonshire. James himself told the Earl that she was a wife, fair of face, but black of heart. The chaplain who performed the ceremony was William Laud, the son of a clothier at Reading. He had become a scholar of much ability and learning at Oxford, and was looked on as one of the most rising men of the Church party. Chaplains were at that time looked on almost as domestic servants, especially if their birth was not gentle, and Laud appears to have obeyed his lord as a matter of course, but he bitterly repented of his weak compliance, and ever after observed the anniversary as a fast day. It was S. Stephen's feast, 1605, and in his diary a prayer of the deepest humiliation is extant which he always used on that day.

Before the young Essex had returned from his travels, his Countess, who was very beautiful, had been admired and sought by Rochester, the King's lawless favourite, and her passionate desire was to be free from her husband. He was a grave and melancholy youth, in bad health, and he had a severe illness immediately after his return, giving her hopes that he would not live to claim her. He did, however, recover, and the illassorted pair set up house together, but Frances did nothing but weep and storm against her Puritanical young lord, and to the amazement of the Court, demanded a divorce from him.

The King was for the time wholly under the influence of Rochester, and consented that the cause should come on. The lady's family, wishing to gain such powerful support as Rochester's, also were ready to promote the proceedings; and its chief opponents were Sir Thomas Overbury, hitherto a ready and unscrupulous friend of Rochester's, who seems to have feared loss of influence; and, from high and pure motives, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

A Court for deciding on the matter was formed of five laymen and four Bishops, of whom the Primate was one. All the four petitioned the King to suffer no such perversion of justice as the sentence of divorce, but James was exceedingly angry. He sent for the Archbishop and rated him so