stroke of thunder', which he himself witnessed, and which was the beginning of such a strange history of crime. He writes also an interesting account of the burning of the Globe Theatre, 'the fatal period of that virtuous fabric,' in which he had probably often seen Shakespeare act. He was at Cambridge in March, when the King and Court were there. In July he returned thither, on his way to visit Sir Edmund Bacon at Redgrave, and passed by Ware Park, the residence of his friend Sir Henry Fanshawe. We get from Chamberlain's letters a glimpse of elaborate gardens being planned, and in the midst Wotton arriving, and proposing new devices, much to the disgust of the splenetic Chamberlain, to whom, whether as politician or landscape-gardener, Wotton was equally obnoxious.3

But he was not at this time without political and diplomatic business of a half-official kind. The Duke of Savoy, in spite of the death of Prince Henry, had by no means given up the project of an English marriage, and sent as special ambassador the Marchese Villa, to renew for Prince Charles the proposals that had been made for Prince Henry. Villa arrived in April, 1613, and remained till nearly the end of June, and Wotton, Chamberlain writes, 'was never from his elbow' during his stay in England. Wotton, as we have seen, was deeply committed to the project of a Savoy marriage; and indeed, with the somewhat dubious morality of the time, both he and Albertus Morton were in the receipt of pensions from the Duke 1ii, p. 19.

2 ii, p. 32.

* Chamberlain to Carleton, Aug. 1, 1613 (C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 260). Wotton mentions the gardens at Ware Park, and his friendship for Sir Henry Fanshawe, in his Elements of Architecture (Reliq., 4th ed., p. 64).

'Sir Henry Wotton was never from his elbow during his being here; and indeed these employments of Savoy are his only business that keeps him in breath. He hath reason to entertain them, and blow the coals, as being his own and only work, which hath cost the King many a fair penny. But the world marvels what use we can make of this strict intercourse with Savoy, a Prince every way so decried and weak.' Chamberlain then mentions the journey of William Parkhurst to Geneva (see Appendix III), and adds, 'But it is suitable that Discipulus should not be supra Magistrum, but follow him in those gross errors and extravagant causes, which he shuffles and shifts withal well enough, and procures fortunes and favours for his followers: as I hear his nephew Morton is like to be Clerk of the Council, and that it is looked every day when he shall be sworn.' Chamberlain to Winwood, July 8, 1613 (Winwood Mem., iii, p. 469). This outburst of spleen on the part of so prejudiced a person as Chamberlain is referred to by Mr. Sidney Lee, in his Life of Wotton in the Dictionary of National Biography, as a justification for the remark, 'Through 1613 Wotton persistently sought official employment in vain, and his obsequious bearing diminished his reputation.' (D. N. B., lxiii, p. 53.) Mr. Lee gives an additional reference to Nichols, Jas. I, ii, p. 66, but as Wotton is not mentioned on p. 66, I take this for a misprint for p. 667, where the above letter to Winwood (with portions of a similar letter to Sir Dudley Carleton) is printed.

of Savoy, in payment for their assistance in his projects.1 These matrimonial negotiations came to nothing, but Wotton was soon in favour with the King once more, and occupied with important affairs. The good-natured James I was, indeed, not capable of long resentments; and by October 21 Wotton was at Court by command of the King, and expected to be employed as ambassador again.2 There was, however, some delay about his appointment, and he remained in England till the summer of 1614. At Easter he was at Ware Park once more with Chamberlain, who, finding no pleasure in his conversation, succeeded in putting him to silence for a day by lending him a manuscript to read by the well-known traveller John Pory.3

In the Undertakers' or 'Addled' Parliament of 1614, which met on April 5, Wotton was member for Appleby. This Parliament, after a fruitless debate on impositions, and a quarrel with the House of Lords about Bishop Neile's attack on the Commons, was soon dissolved by the King. On May 21, during the debate on the right of the Crown to levy impositions on merchandise without the consent of Parliament, Wotton made a speech which attracted some attention. Sir Roger Owen had maintained that the right of imposing, without the consent of the three estates, was not allowed by law in any European country. Wotton answered him in what Chamberlain called 'a very mannerly and demure speech', pointing out that the right of imposing did belong to hereditary, though not to elective monarchies.5

Wotton was once again member of Parliament in 1625, but this was the only occasion on which he took any important part in debate. As a diplomatist, and an Englishman living for the most part abroad, his main care was for the maintenance of the dignity and power of the English King in Europe. He was thus out of sympathy with the movement for parliamentary freedom in England, and the efforts to limit the

This is proved by a document in the Turin Archives (Lettere Ministri Inghilterra, Feb. 12, 1613), where, among a list of presents to be given to the King and Queen, and various English courtiers, these items appear, Al Cav. Wotton un' annata di sua pensione 2,000 D.; Albert Morton 1,000 D.'

Biondi to Carleton (S. P. Dom. Jas. I, lxxiv, No. 87).

3 C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 311.

Return of Members of Parliament, pt. i, Appendix, p. xl.

Gardiner, ii, p. 239; C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 312. Chamberlain writes that on the day Parliament was dissolved (June 7), Wotton, 'for some indiscreet and indecent language used to Sir John Savile, was cried down, and in great danger to be called to the bar, but escaped narrowly.' (Ibid., p. 322.)

royal prerogative, which for us are the main interests in this period of English history. That a free country, ruled by a constitutional monarch, might impose its will on Europe with a force equal to or greater than that of an absolute king, was a conception to which no contemporary, certainly no survivor of the Elizabethan age, could have easily attained.

CHAPTER VII

AMBASSADOR AT THE HAGUE; THE TREATY OF XANTEN.

1

1614-1615

As late as June 18 Wotton believed that he was to go to France; but the King finally decided to send him as extraordinary ambassador to the Hague, to try to settle, in conjunction with the Dutch statesmen and the representatives of France, the famous Juliers-Cleves controversy, then on the point, as it seemed, of breaking into open war. He expected afterwards to go to Spain, to succeed Sir John Digby; for as he wrote, his training and constitution would 'symbolize better' with Spain than with France, whither the King had first destined him.2

Wotton, familiar with the ancient Commonwealth of Venice, was now accredited to a Republic of a very different character. The Dutch United Provinces, with the great John of Barneveldt ruling their councils, and the famous Count Maurice of Nassau at the head of their armies, formed perhaps the best governed and most powerful State in Europe. But hardly had they won peace and triumphant independence by the Truce of 1609, than they found themselves threatened on their borders by a danger which was destined to tax all their resources, and which became in the end one of the main causes of the Thirty Years' War.

This was the Juliers-Cleves controversy, that great nightmare of history, which baffled for centuries the efforts of all the peace

1 C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 325.

2 S. P. Holland, Aug. 18, 1614. Wotton's appointment was dated from June 1, and on July 15 he was paid £244; being £4 a day (the pay of a special ambassador) with some other sums for transport. (Docquet Book VI.) 'Sir Henry Wotton goes away out of hand,' Chamberlain wrote to Carleton on July 21, 'to see if he can compound this business of Cleve without blows, in persuading the States to resign the fort of Gulick (Juliers) into a third hand. His allowance is £4 a day, with forty days' advancement; but he complains of hard measure in both, yet he is very earnest that the place of residence there should not be disposed of till he had signified his liking, so that you may see his stomach is come down. But I hope you are beforehand with him,' Chamberlain adds, Carleton himself wishing to be transferred from Venice to the Hague. (C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 333.)

makers of Europe. As Sir Henry Wotton is numbered among these peacemakers, some account of the affair will be necessary. The inheritance of the childless Duke of Cleves, (who died in 1609), formed a territory which lay like an apple of discord between the great Catholic and Protestant powers of Europe. If the Duchies of Juliers and Cleves and their appanages fell into the hands of the Catholics, then the Dutch were cut off from their neutral allies; if the Protestants possessed them, then Brussels and the Spanish provinces were hemmed in and divided from the Empire. The Emperor, after the death of the Duke, had attempted to take possession, until it could be decided who was the rightful heir; while Henry IV, seeing his opportunity was now come to carry out his attack on the Austro-Spanish power, collected a great army, and prepared to invade the disputed territories. The States-General got ready an army to co-operate with the French King; while James I, who wished to protect the German Protestants, sent four thousand English troops under the command of Sir Edward Cecil. In spite of the assassination of Henry IV just as he was about to march from Paris, his plan, as far as it related to Juliers, was carried out; the allied troops drove the Emperor's representative, the Archduke Leopold, from that fortress, and settled the two principal claimants in joint possession of the disputed territories. These claimants were the Elector of Brandenburg, who was represented by his son Ernest, and the Count Palatine of Neuburg, represented by his son and heir, Wolfgang William. This joint government of the two princes, or Condominium as it was called, naturally led to endless disputes; the Brandenburg party, favoured by the Dutch, gained ground; in 1613 Wolfgang William of Neuburg became a Catholic, married a sister of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, and claimed the protection of the Catholic League. The Brandenburgers in Juliers drove out the troops of Neuburg, and gained complete possession of the town; the Neuburgers retaliated by driving the Brandenburgers out of Düsseldorf. The Dutch, at the invitation of Brandenburg, and under the pretence of guarding the peace, put a garrison into Juliers. This occupation of Juliers was regarded, and not unjustly, by the Spanish party as an open violation of faith, and gave them the excuse they wanted to establish themselves in the places which would be of the most vital importance in the impending war against the Protestant powers.