Postscript
My grandfather took his bride home in the summer of the year 1603, and there they lived in great happiness and contentment, rarely stirring abroad save to make brief and sudden visits to London and to their many friends. My father, their sole child, was born in October of the year 1604, and when he came to the age of eleven, he was sent to the school at Winchester, whence in due order he proceeded to the New College at Oxford.
All these years did my grandfather hold himself aloof from the Court, being much troubled in his mind about the foolish and heady courses of King James. My lady grandmother told me, I remember, how that on the day when he had news of the beheading of his old captain Sir Walter Raleigh, he shut himself up in his chamber, and for very sorrow would neither see nor speak with any of his household. And methinks I hear still his full round voice rehearsing to me the famous verses which Sir Walter wrote, the night before his death, in the Bible of the Dean of Westminster. “He lived and died a gentleman, boy,” said he to me; “and if you would know the true signification of that word ‘gentleman,’ read Castillo’s Book of the Courtier, in Mr. Hoby’s translation, though in truth you will find all and more in the 15th Psalm.”
In the summer of the year 1623 there came to him a gentleman post-haste from London, bearing a letter from a very great person bidding him journey without delay to Westminster. Being beholden to the writer, he must needs comply, though apprehensive of trouble in his quiet life. And after two days a messenger brought from him a letter wherein he wrote that he had been commanded to cross over to France, and ride with all imaginable speed into Spain, on an errand of great moment. My grandmother was sorely disquieted at this news, more especially because he told her no more, nor indeed did she learn the cause of his going until he returned in time to keep my father’s birthday.
It was on this wise. There had been talk for many years of a marriage between the Infanta Maria, daughter of King Philip IV of Spain, and our Prince Charles (now King, though a prisoner), a match very little to the liking of our English people. But King James hoped by this alliance to aid the cause of his son-in-law the Elector Palatine, and he carried the business so far as that nothing was wanting except the Pope’s dispensation, whereby alone could a Catholic princess wed with a heretic.
Now the Prince of Wales, at that time three and twenty years of age, was a thoughtless unsteady youth, deserving well the fond name of Baby Charles bestowed upon him by his doting father. In consort with his boon friend the Marquis (afterwards Duke) of Buckingham, he conceived the lunatic fancy of going himself to Madrid, with the intent to hasten the match, and woo the Princess in person. Wherefore in February of that year the two headstrong young men, disguised with false beards, and calling themselves Tom and John Smith, set forth from Newhall, crossed the sea from Dover, and rode through France into Spain, where they were received, having thrown off their disguise, with due honour. But, being light-minded, they ran foul of the stiff ceremoniousness of the Spanish Court and gave deep offence, the Prince by his levity, the Marquis by his insolency. It was deemed fit that the Infanta should be approached only with the forms of State; yet the Prince, seeing her walk alone in a garden, leapt over the wall and made love to her, whereat she screamed and fled from this too ardent wooing. The Spaniards, moreover, held it unseemly that the Marquis, a subject, sat in his dressing-gown at the Prince’s table, turned his back upon him in public places, and bent himself forward to stare unmannerly at the Infanta. And the Marquis was continually at odds with Olivarez, the Spanish minister, used him haughtily, and browbeat him without measure whether in word or deed. To be brief, they played the fool.
In the summer, when a month had gone by without any word arriving from the Prince, who had been wont before to write often to his father, King James, then afflicted with the gout, and sick also in mind, conceived that his dear Baby Charles stood in peril of captivity, and went about wringing his hands, and crying with tears that his only sweet son would never see his old dear dad again. Whereupon the great person aforesaid resolved to send some staid and discreet person privily to Madrid to have an eye upon the Prince, and to bring him away, even by kidnapping, if he were in truth menaced by any danger. And bethinking him of my grandfather, and how he had acquit himself well in many divers adventures, and moreover had had dealings with the Spaniards, he sent for him and dispatched him forth on that errand.
As it fell out, my grandfather had his pains for nought. The Prince, with that deceitfulness which has brought his present woes upon him, having made promises which he knew he could never perform, departed from Madrid, leaving, as the custom with royal persons is, a proxy to wed the Infanta, ten days after the Pope’s dispensation should come to hand, although he was in truth already minded to break off the match. Upon his return, the great person acquainted King James with what he had done, and the King sent for my grandfather, and blessed him with many tears, and dubbed him knight.
Thereafter Sir Christopher dwelt only in the country, beholding with troubled eyes the headlong gait of Baby Charles after that he became King.
In the year 1624 my father, having proceeded Master of Arts at Oxford, became parson of a parish in Wiltshire, and wedded the daughter of a neighbour gentleman, and in the next year I was born. When I was sixteen, and a scholar of Winchester, my grandfather related to me the passages of his life which I have set forth in these writings. Five years afterward, when the Rebellion was at its height, and my father held obstinately for the King, he was haled before the Committee of Sequestration, and charged in that he had incited his parishioners to attend the King’s rendezvous at Austin’s Cross and also helped the royal garrison at Longford Castle. By this Committee being ejected from his living, he returned to his father’s house, and there abode. And in the next year, on November 15, the very day when King Charles crept into Carisbrooke Castle, my grandfather died, to the sorrow of us who had the chiefest cause to love him, and of the friends and neighbours among whom he had lived in all honour and righteousness.