Chap. 11. SIR ROBERT discredit attachable to COTTON for this agency in promoting BOOK I, a scheme pregnant with dishonour to England, that little LIFE OF evidence of the share he took in it is now to be derived from any English source. His own extant correspondence yields very little, though it suffices to establish the fact of the agency, apart from that testimony of GONDOMAR, which will be cited presently. Under COTTON's own hand we have the fact that in a conversation with himself the Ambassador of Spain on one occasion held out (by way, it seems, more immediately, of inducement to the English Government to shape certain pending negotiations on other matters into greater conformity with Spanish counsels) the threat that, if such Cotton to a course were not taken, 'turbulent spirits of which Spain (undated) 'wanteth not-might add some hurt to the ill affairs of 'Ireland, or hindrance to the near affecting of the great 'work now in hand;' a threat which COTTON transmits to SOMERSET without rebuke or comment. Early in 1615, COTTON had an interview with GONDOMAR in relation to the progress of the marriage negotiation in Spain. Of what passed at this interview we have no detailed account other than that which was sent to the King of Spain by his Ambassador. The way in which COTTON'S name is introduced, and the singular misstatement that he had the custody of all the King's archives,' seem to imply that GONDOMAR had still but little knowledge of the messenger now employed by JAMES and by SOMERSET to confer with him. Throughout, the reader will have to bear in mind that the narrative is GONDOMAR's, and that all the material points of it rest upon his sole authority. Somerset; Harleian MS. 7002, fol. 378. (B.M.) 'The King and the Earl of SOMERSET,' writes the 1615. Ambassador, have sent in great secrecy by Sir Robert April 18. COTTON who is a gentleman greatly esteemed here, and BOOK I, Chap. II. LIFE OF COTTON, with whom the King has deposited all his archives-to tell me what Sir John DIGBY has written about the marriage SIR ROBERT of the Infanta with this Prince. COTTON informed me that he was greatly pleased that the negotiation had been so well received in Spain, because he desired its conclusion and success. He enlarged upon the conveniencies of the marriage, but said that the King considered DIGBY not to be a good negotiator, because he was a great friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of the Earl of PEMBROKE, who were of the Puritan faction, and was in correspondence with them.' . . . . 'In order to make a beginning,' continued COTTON, as GONDOMAR reports his conversation, the King must beg your Majesty to answer three questions: (1.) Does your Majesty believe that with a safe conscience you can negotiate this marriage ?" (2.) “Is your Majesty sincerely desirous to conclude it, upon conditions suitable to both parties ?" (3.) Will your Majesty abstain from asking anything, in matters of Religion, which would compel him to do that which he cannot do without risking his life and his kingdom; contenting yourself with trusting that he will be able to settle matters quietly?" When an answer is given to these questions he will consider the matter as settled, and will immediately give a commission to the Earl of Somerset to arrange the points with me. This Sir Robert COTTON is held here, by Gardiner, in many, to be a Puritan, but he told me that he was a Catholic, and gave me many reasons why no man of sense could be anything else.' He afterwards adds: Sir Robert COTTON, who has treated with me in this business, tells me that after the marriage is agreed upon, [and] before the Infanta arrives in England, matters of Religion will be in a much improved condition.' The writer of this remarkable despatch, it may be well to mention, had asserted with Gardiner Transcripts of Simancas MSS. See also S. R. Letters of Condomar, giving au de tomat of the hair of the h' of JAMES BOOK I, doubt Chap. II. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT Simancas Transcripts). equal roundness, but a few months before, that himself had said, at the dinner-table: 'I have no that the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church.' Nor is it unimportant, as bearing on the degree of credibility to be assigned to GONDOMAR's despatches, when they MSS. 2590, chance to be uncorroborated,-to remark that a despatch 10 (Gardiner addressed by him to the Duke of LERMA, in November, contains an express contradiction of an assertion addressed to PHILIP, in the preceding April. To the King, as we have just seen, he narrates COTTON's communication of despatches written by DIGBY. To the Minister he writes, six months later, that a traitor had given information' against COTTON, for communicating Papers of State to the Spanish Ambassador, and that the charge is false.' Discrepancies like this (howsoever easily explained, or explain- Simancas able) suffice to show that GONDOMAR's testimony, when (Gardiner unsupported, needs to be read with caution; and of such discrepancies there are many. Consummate as he was in diplomatic ability of several kinds, this able statesman was nevertheless loose (and sometimes reckless) in assertion. He was very credulous when he listened to welcome news. It is impossible to study his correspondence without perceiving that to him, as to so many other men, the wish was often father of the thought. On the 22nd of June, Sir, Robert paid another visit to GONDOMAR. He told me, says the Ambassador, that the King's hesitations had been overcome; that JAMES was now willing to negotiate on the basis of the Spanish articles, with some slight modifications; that Somerset had taken his stand upon the match with Spain, had won the co-operation of the Duke of Lennox, and was now willing to stake his fortunes on the issue. Sir Robert COTTON, adds GONDOMAR, 'assured me of his own satisfaction at the turn MS. 2534, 61 Transcripts). BOOK I, SIR ROBERT which things had taken, as he had no more ardent wish than to live and die an avowed Catholic, like his fathers and ancestors.* Whereupon I embraced him, and said that God would guide.' Thus far, I have, advisedly, followed a Spanish account of English conversations. Although believing that there exists, already ample, evidence (both in our own archives and elsewhere) for bringing home to the Count of GONDOMAR wilful misstatements of fact—in the despatches which SIR ROBERT he was wont to write from London-as well as very pardonable misapprehensions of the talk which he reports, I have preferred to put before the reader the Ambassador's own GONDOMAR. Story in its Spanish integrity. COTTON'S ACCOUNT OF The mere fact, indeed, that an English historian†, deservedly esteemed for his acute and painstaking research, as well as for his eminent abilities, has honoured GONDOMAR'S story by endorsing it, is warrant enough for citing these * Tambien me dijo que el Conde de Somerset havia puesto todo su resto en este negocio, y ganado el Duque de Lenox, . . . . aventurandose el Conde.. a ganarse y asegurarse si se hazia, o a perderse si no se hacia; concluyendo esta platica el Coton con decirme que el estava loco de contento de ver esto en este estado, porque no pretendia ni desseava otra cosa mas que vivir y morir publicamente Catolico, como sus padres y abuelos lo havian sido.'-Gardiner Transcripts of MSS. at Simancas, vol. i, p. 102 (MS.). † Mr. S. R. Gardiner. His account is contained in the able paper entitled On Certain Letters of the Count of Gondomar giving an Account of the Affair of the Earl of Somerset, read to the Society of Antiquaries in 1867. Comp. the same historian's Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage (Vol. I, c. 1, and especially the passage beginning Sarmiento was surprised by a visit from Sir Robert Cotton,' and so on). In these pages I use Sarmiento's subsequent title of Gondomar,' simply because English readers are more familiar with it than with the Spaniard's family name. Mr. Gardiner needlessly deepens the stain on Cotton's memory, arising -all allowance duly made-out of this intercourse with Gondomar, by the remark that 'twenty months before' the interview occurred, Sir Chap. II. SIR ROBERT despatches as they stand. But they have now to be com- BOOK I, pared with another account of the same transaction given by LIFE OF authority of Sir Robert COTTON himself. It was given COTTON. upon a memorable occasion. The place was the Painted Chamber in the Palace of Westminster. The hearers were the assembled Lords and Commons of the Realm.* The Spaniard, it seems, was far, indeed, from holding— as he says that he held his first conference with COTTON Robert had argued his case' [i. e. a tract on the question of the right treatment, by the State, of Romanist priests and recusants] from a decidedly Protestant point of view, and had taken care to put himself forward as a thorough, if not an extreme, Protestant.' But, unfortunately for Mr. Gardiner's trenchant conclusion on that point, the pamphlet he refers to-by whomsoever written-was certainly not written by Sir Robert Cotton. * "[Then the Duke] came to the Relation of Sir Robert Cotton [of the intercourse] that he had with the Spanish Ambassador in 1614 [O.S.]. The Spanish Ambassador came to his house pretending [a desire] to see his rarities. On the 10th of February he acquainted His Majesty with it. Somerset [had] warrant then to sound the life of the intention. [Gondomar] told him he doubted he had no warrant to set any such thing on foot. [On the] 16th of March the Spanish Ambassador dealt with him and endeavoured to make Somerset Spanish, and to further this match. [He] answered him that there were divers rubs and difficulties in it. [On the] 9th of April he gave [Gondomar] a pill in a paper-viz. three reasons: If the King of Spain would not urge unreasonable things in Religion, then,' &c. [as in Gondomar's letter, which I have already quoted]. Afterwards Sir Robert Cotton was questioned [for shewing] to the Ambassador of Spain a packet [received] from Spain [In the year] 1616, His Majesty told Sir Robert Cotton that Gondomar had counterfeited those letters, and that he was a "juggling jack.'" Here Sir Edward Coke interposed. He was one of the Managers of the Conference for the Commons. He spoke thus: "This matter has a little relation to me. I committed Sir Robert Cotton, when I was Chief Justice. For I understood he had intelligence with the Spanish Ambassador, and questioned him for it. For no subject ought to converse with Ambassadors without the King's leave. For the offence [for which] I committed him [Sir Robert had] afterwards his general pardon from the King.' Journals of the House of Commons, 4 March, 1624. Vol. I, pp. 727, 728. |