1640

Strafford and the Spanish alliance.

SPANISH DIPLOMACY.

131

From the London citizens Strafford turned to the Spanish Court. He had always supported an alliance with Spain, and the recent occurrence in the Downs had strengthened him in his desire to break the maritime superiority of the Dutch. For the present, however, the conflict for empire must be waged in Scotland, and it was to gain the money rather than the fleets of Spain that his efforts Spanish ambassadors were directed. There were now no less than three

in England. Spanish ambassadors in England. The Marquis of Velada and the Marquis Virgilio Malvezzi 1 had come to the assistance of Cardenas, who, though he had been re-admitted to his right of audience, was in no good odour at the English Court. So great a diplomatic display was regarded by Charles as a sign that the new ambassadors were instructed to accept the proposals of marriage of which he had communicated hints to Olivares a few months before.2 On this point, however, the ambassadors remained obstinately silent. They declared that the object of their mission was solely to treat of a league against the Dutch. Before the dissolution, commissioners, of whom Strafford was the leading spirit, had been appointed to negotiate with them on this subject. At once it appeared that there Negotiation was a radical difference of opinion between the two on the pro- parties. The Spaniards insisted that, by accepting the secret treaty of 1630, the English Government should bind itself to an open rupture with the States-General, with a view to the ultimate partition of the territory of the republic. The English diplomatists preferred to start from Necolalde's articles of 1634, which would not involve an avowed breach with the Dutch.

posed

alliance.

Under ordinary circumstances this radical difference of opinion would probably have brought the negotiation to an end. On May 10, however, the day of the imprisonment of

ham's News-Letter, May 12, S. F. Dom. ccccliii. 24. Rossetti to Barberini, May 15, R. O. Transcripts.

25'

This visit explains Milton's reference to him as 'their Malvezzi, that can cut Tacitus into slivers and steaks.' Ref. of Church Gov. Malvezzi must have been a well-known personage in London.

2 See page 89.

May 11. Strafford

asks for a loan from Spain.

the aldermen, Strafford discovered the improbability that he would succeed in obtaining any considerable sum of money from the City. The next morning he visited the ambassadors in person. His master, he told them, was indeed ready, as soon as it was in his power, to join them in that league against the Dutch which was the object of their wishes; but it was not in his power to do so as long as Scotland was unconquered. To conquer Scotland a large sum of money was needed. Why should not the King of Spain lend 300,000l. for that purpose? As soon as Scotland was subdued war should be declared against the Dutch. Even for the present the English fleet could be used in conveying supplies to Flanders, and in protecting Dunkirk against a siege. Permission, too, would be given for the levy of 3,000 Irishmen for the Spanish service. The King of Spain should have ample security for the repayment of the loan, and, even if that failed, Philip might easily recompense himself by the seizure of the property of English merchants whose vessels happened at the time to be in Spanish harbours.1

The end of his tragic struggle against the world must have been drawing very near before even Strafford could have ventured on so audacious a proposal. The days which followed must have been for him the saddest in his life-far sadder than those in which, after the lapse of a year, he stood proudly conscious of the rectitude of his cause on the scaffold on Tower Hill. In vain was the iron will and the ready wit given him if he could not breathe his own hardihood into the breast of the

Hesitation of Charles.

drew back.

man without whom he was as powerless as an infant. In the very crisis of the struggle Charles hesitated and Strafford stood alone as the champion of the cause

of monarchy.

It was not entirely without reason that Charles was terrified. On the 6th papers were posted up calling on the apprentices to

1 Windebank to Hopton, May 11, Clar. S. P. ii. 83. Velada to the Cardinal Infant, April Velada to Philip IV., May May 28'

15, 16 25, 26'

18

2, 8 12, 18°

II, 12, 21, 23,

Brussels MSS. Secr. d'Etat Esp. cclxxxiv. fol. 153, 201, 214, 248, 258, 268, 276.

1640

Placards

against Laud.

May 11. Riots at Lambeth.

THE LAMBETH RIOTS.

133

join in hunting' William the Fox' for breaking the Parliament.1 May 6. Three days later a placard was placed up in the Exchange inviting all who were faithful to the City, and lovers of liberty and the commonwealth, to assemble in St. George's Fields in Southwark, on the early morning of the 11th. Warned in time, the Council ordered that St. George's Fields should be occupied on the 11th by the Southwark trained bands.2 The apprentices were not so easily baffled. They waited quietly till the trained bands had retired in the evening. A little before midnight a mob of some five hundred persons, for the most part journeymen and apprentices, answered to the summons. In this class the general dislike of Laud was sharpened by its own special grievances against the new monopolies.3 With a drum beating in front, the rabble took its way to Lambeth. Laud, warned in time, had placed his house in a state of defence, and had crossed the river to Whitehall for safety. The rioters, finding that their prey had escaped them, retired with threats of

returning to burn down the house. Next morning May 12. the Council gave directions that watch should be kept by night as well as by day, and that the trained bands of Middlesex and Surrey should be called in to help in preserving Insulting order. Several persons were arrested on suspicion. placards. Insulting placards continued to be posted in the streets, threatening an attack on the apartments of the Queen's mother at St. James's, and calling on the mob to pull down her chapel and do what mischief they could to her priests. Others urged that Laud should be dragged out of Whitehall and murdered. One went so far as to announce that the King's palace was to let. Nor were these tumults confined to the mob alone. At Aylesbury some soldiers mutinied against their officers, and twenty-two houses were burnt down

May 12. before the disturbance was quelled. In Kent the yeomen and farmers who had been pressed declared that they were not bound to go beyond the limits of their county, and left

3

Laud's Works, iii. 284.

Joachimi to the States-General,

fol. 190

2 Rushworth, iii. 1173.

May 2, Add. MSS. 17,677 Q, 4 Laud's Works, iii. 284.

31

May 14. General nsecurity.

the ranks in a body. On the night of the 14th the Court was startled by a fresh outrage. The prisons in which the rioters were confined were broken open by a mob, and the prisoners were set at liberty. It was plain that something must be done, if the country was not to lapse into anarchy. Orders were given to the deputy-lieutenants and the justices of the peace of several counties who happened to be in London, to return home to preserve order. Doubts, however, were freely expressed whether the guardians of the peace could be depended on. It was said that they had been sent from London to keep them from the temptation of imitating the Covenanting Tables. The support of the lower ranks was still more doubtful. The recent imprisonment of the aldermen had been felt by the City as an insult. The freeholders and farmers of Middlesex and Surrey had no love for Laud. They were heard to mutter that, if they must fight, they would rather fight against the Government than for it. The defence of the Queen's mother was especially distasteful. It was known that she had urged her daughter to use her influence with the King during the sitting of the late Parliament, and it was taken for granted that this influence had been used to hasten the dissolution. For the first time in the reign the name of Henrietta Maria herself was drawn into the political conflict. It could not well be otherwise. It had been so natural for her to take the part of her husband's Roman Catholic subjects; so natural, too, for her to urge their cause in contemptuous disregard of a public opinion of which she

The Queen asks the

Pope for aid.

neither understood the meaning nor estimated the weight. Yet, when all allowance has been made for the ignorance of a woman and a foreigner, it is difficult to speak with patience of the rash act of which Henrietta Maria, if not Charles himself, was now guilty. At the height

Laud's Diary, Works, iii. 235. Rushworth, iii. 1173. Rossetti to Barberini, May 5, R. O. Transcripts. Salvetti's News-Letter, May 15.

25

Giustinian to the Doge, May Ven. Transcripts. Rossingham's News

15 25'

Letter, May 19, Sloane MSS. 1,467, fol. 198. Deputy-Lieutenants of Kent to the Council, May 11, S. P. Dom. ccccliii. II.

1640

CHARLES HESITATES.

135

of the alarm Windebank appeared before Rossetti, conjuring him to write to Rome for help in money and men. The Pope, it was probably thought, would be ready to assist the King, especially as the subjects who now endangered his throne were always ready to clamour for the persecution of the Catholics, whilst Charles had extended to them some measure of protection.1

Strafford blamed.

May 15. Fresh precautions.

Whilst overtures so ruinous were being made to Rome, voices were raised at Whitehall in condemnation of Strafford. Why, it was asked, had he brought things to such a pass without sufficient forces at his disposal to compel submission. The attack on the prisons brought matters to a crisis. Six thousand foot were ordered up from the trained bands of Essex, Kent, and Hertfordshire. It was impossible to fall back thus on popular support without conceding something to the popular Concessions agitation. On the 15th, the day after the attack on the prisons, Hotham and Bellasys, together with the four aldermen, were set at liberty, though the latter were required to enter into bond to appear in the Star Chamber when called on. The next day, when the Lord May 16. The loan not Mayor and aldermen repeated their refusal to rate pressed. any man to the loan, they were sent away without further reproaches. On the 17th the sheriffs of London were ordered to make a bonfire of a large number of Roman Catholic

made.

25

20

20,

1 Rossetti's letter of May is not to be found amongst the Record Office Transcripts, but its purport is clear from Barberini's reply of June 30, and from Rossetti's answer to Barberini of Aug. Windebank is directly stated to have made the overture. It is impossible that he should have done so without orders from the Queen or the King. That the Queen knew of this seems made out by the fact that Rossetti as a matter of course communicated Barberini's reply to her, and also by the part she subsequently took in pressing for similar help in the course of 1641. On the other hand, the long conversation with Windebank, related in the lastnamed letter, turns so entirely on the King's proceedings, that it seems very likely that the secretary was originally commissioned by him. Indeed, if the Queen had opened the negotiation without her husband's knowledge she would hardly have employed a Secretary of State.

2 Montreuil's despatch, May

24'

Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15,995, fol. 87.