CHAP. IX - Assassination of Buckingham, Session of 1629

Summary

For some years nothing had surprised foreigners who came to England so much as the wide severance between the government and the nation. Upon the one side they saw the King, the favourite, and his adherents; upon the other every one else. The King had lost much of the popularity which he had enjoyed when he ascended the throne; but a genuine hatred was directed against the arbitrary government of the Duke. Although it had been repressed out of regard to the King, it had again broken loose: the less practical result it produced, the more it filled all hearts.

Burdened with this hatred, and with the ground shaking under him, Buckingham was nevertheless revolving the largest enterprises in his brain. He repelled with scorn the charge of still keeping up an intercourse with Spain; that was contrary to his obligations to the Protestants. He himself, so he said, had concluded the alliances between England and Denmark and the States - General; and he wished also to abide by them. Without doubt overtures had been made on the part of Spain, and had been responded to on the part of England; but their relations had in fact been such as had led to no result. On the contrary, negotiations with France, which certainly offered some prospect of success, had been opened through the mediation of the Venetian ambassadors resident at the two courts.