baron Wentworth; and before the end of the year he was made a viscount, and lord president of the council of the north. From the moment that Wentworth put his hand to the plough of despotism, he never looked back. Without a visible sense or sentiment of his odious apostacy, he became as prominent and as resolute in the destruction of liberty and the prosecution of his former colleagues, as he had been for its advancement and for their friendship.
The contagion of this apostacy spread. Sir Dudley Digges had taken a conspicuous part in the contests which we have detailed, and had distinguished himself by his abilities in debate, sufficient to render him worth purchasing. His colleagues had long felt, notwithstanding his zeal, that he would not be proof to temptation. It was tried in the shape of master of the rolls, and he at once accepted it. Noye and Littleton, both lawyers, were as ready to advocate despotism as liberty, and the offer of the attorney-generalship to Noye, and the solicitor-generalship to Littleton, convinced them instantly that the court was right, and their old cause and companions wrong. They testified their capacity for seeing both sides of an argument, by persecuting their old opinions and associates with the zeal of proselytes.
The rest of Charles's ministers were the lord keeper Coventry, who, though he appeared on several occasions as the instrument of Charles's arbitrary measures, was thought not to approve very much of them, and who, therefore, kept himself as much as possible from mixing in political matters. The earls of Holland and Carlisle were of the council, whose history we have already traced, the pusillanimous earl of Montgomery, his brother, the earl of Pembroke, and the earl of Dorset. These noblemen were rather men of pleasure than of business, and attended the council without caring for office. The earl of Arundel was earl marshal, a proud and empty man, whom Clarendon describes as living much abroad, because the manners of foreign nations suited him better than his own, and who "resorted sometimes to court, because there only was a greater man than himself, and went thither the seldomer because there was a greater man than himself." He was careless of pleasing favourites, and was therefore almost always in disgrace. Lord Weston, already mentioned, was lord treasurer, and the earl of Manchester privy seal. Weston was an able lawyer, who succeeded Coke as lord chief justice, and then purchased the office of lord treasurer for twenty thousand pounds, only to have it wrested from him again by Buckingham, in about twelve months; but he was courtier enough to suppress his resentment, and had now again ascended to his present office, in which he was a very pliant servant of the king. Besides these, Sir John Coke or Cooke, and Sir Dudley Carleton, were secretaries of state. Carleton had spent too much time in foreign embassies to understand well the state of parties at home, but he understood the will of the king, and took good care to obey and promote it. Coke was "of narrow education, and narrower nature," says Clarendon, who adds that "his cardinal perfection was industry, his most eminent infirmity covetousness." He knew as little of foreign relations as Carleton did of domestic ones; but their office was one of far less rank and importance than such office is now, their real business being to enter the minutes and write the despatches of the council, not to participate in its discussions. Such were the instruments by which Charles trusted to render parliaments superfluous. By their aid, but far more so by that of Laud and Wentworth, he soon raised the nation to a state of exasperation, which was only appeased by the blood of all three.
During the violent transactions with his parliament at home, Charles had made peace with France. In fact, neither France nor Spain had shown a disposition to prosecute the disputes which the king of England had entered into with them. Louis sent home the prisoners he had taken in the Rochelle expedition, under the name of a present to his sister, and Philip did the same with regard to those captured at Cadiz. Buckingham had been at the bottom of both these wars, and now that he was gone, all differences were soon arranged. Louis of France made a demand for the restoration of a man-of-war, the St. Esprit, which had been illegally captured by Sir Sackville Trevor; but he gave up the claim, and Charles was not very importunate in his demands of protection to the French protestants. Richelieu, however, treated them far better than Charles treated the puritans in England. He took measures to prevent the possibility of another coalition, by destroying the castles of the nobles and the fortifications of the towns, prohibited the convention of deputies from the churches, and abolished the military organisation of the Huguenots in the south of France; but he left them the exercise of their worship, and attached no disability to a profession of it. This peace was concluded in the spring of 1629, and in the following year that with Spain was also accomplished. The queen Henrietta was violently opposed to this peace, because France was still at war with Spain and the kindred house of Austria. When she found that she could not prevail on Charles, she is said to have shed tears of vexation.
It is curious that the first overtures to this peace were made through two Flemish painters; the celebrated Sir Peter Paul Reubens, and Gerbier, a native of Antwerp, who had been master of the horse to Buckingham. Cottington was despatched to Spain, spite of the strenuous endeavours of the queen and the French ambassador; and in November 1630, Coloma arrived as ambassador from Madrid. Philip accepted the same terms as were proposed in 1604, pledging himself to restore such parts of the palsgrave's territory as were occupied by the troops of Spain—no very important extent,—and never to cease his endeavours to procure from the emperor the restitution of the whole. In consideration of this Charles once more agreed to that mysterious treaty against Holland, which had been in negotiation during the visit of Charles and Buckingham to Spain. This was no other than to assist Philip to regain possession of the seven United States of the Netherlands, which had cost Elizabeth so much to aid in the establishment of their independence, and which had always been, as protestant states, so much regarded by the English public, with which a great trade was, moreover, carried on. The knowledge of such a piece of treachery on the part of Charles, would have excited a terrible commotion amongst the people. For his share of the booty he was to receive a certain portion of the provinces, including the island of Zealand. Lucidly for the king, his treason to protestantism remained a profound secret, and at length himself perceiving the difficulties and
