"Who can they be?" queried Sir Lewis Lewknor, one of the noblemen.
His companion, who was no less a personage than Sir Henry Mainwaring, lieutenant of Dover Castle, looked questioningly after the fugitives.
"They are well mounted and have the start on us. We cannot overtake them," he muttered.
"You know them, then?" asked Lewknor.
"I have my doubt that two of them are the young Barneveldts, who have just tried to murder the Prince of Orange. They must be stopped and questioned."
He turned and bade one of his followers to ride back with all speed to Canterbury, and bid the magistrates to detain three suspicious travellers, who would soon reach that town. This done, the train moved on, Mainwaring satisfied that he had checked the runaways, whoever they were.
The Smiths and their attendant reached Canterbury in good time, but this time they were outridden. Mainwaring's messenger had got in before them, and the young adventurers found themselves stopped by a mounted guard, with the unwelcome tidings that his honor, the mayor, would like to see them.
Being brought before his honor, they blustered a little, talked in big tones of the rights of Englishmen, and asked angrily who had dared order their detention. They found master mayor cool and decided.
"Gentlemen, you will stay here till I know better who you are," he said.
"Sir Henry Mainwaring has ordered you to be stopped, and he best knows why. Nor do I fancy he has gone amiss, for your names of Tom and John Smith fit you about as well as your beards."
At these words, the one that claimed the name of John Smith burst into a hearty laugh. Seizing his beard, he gave it a slight jerk, and it came off in his hand. The mayor started in surprise. The face before him was one that he very well knew.
"The Marquis of Buckingham!" he exclaimed.
"The same, at your service," said Buckingham, still laughing.
"Mainwaring takes me for other than I am. Likely enough he deems me a runaway road-agent. You will scarcely stop the lord admiral, going in disguise to Dover to make a secret inspection of the fleet?"
"Why, that certainly changes the case," said the mayor. "But who is your companion?" he continued, in a low tone, looking askance at the other.
"A young gallant of the court, who keeps me company," said Buckingham, carelessly.
"The road is free before you, gentlemen," said the mayor, graciously. "I will answer to Mainwaring."
He turned and bade his guards to deliver their horses to the travellers.
But his eyes followed them with a peculiar twinkle as they left the room.
"A young gallant of the court!" he muttered. "I have seen that gallant before. Well, well, what mad frolic is afoot? Thank the stars, I am not bound, by virtue of my office, to know him."
The party reached Dover without further adventure. But the inspection of the fleet was evidently an invention for the benefit of the mayor.
Instead of troubling themselves about the fleet, they entered a vessel that seemed awaiting them, and on whose deck they were joined by two companions. In a very short time they were out of harbor and off with a fresh wind across the Channel. Mainwaring had been wrong,--was the ferryman right?--was a duel the purpose of this flight in disguise?
No; the travellers made no halt at Boulogne, the favorite duelling-ground of English hot-bloods, but pushed off in haste for Montreuil, and thence rode straight to Paris, which they reached after a two-days' journey.
It seemed an odd freak, this ride in disguise for the mere purpose of a visit to Paris. But there was nothing to indicate that the two young men had any other object as they strolled carelessly during the next day about the French capital, known to none there, and enjoying themselves like school-boys on a holiday.
Among the sights which they managed to see were the king, Louis XIII., and his royal mother, Marie de Medicis. That evening a mask was to be rehearsed at the palace, in which the queen and the Princess Henrietta Maria were to take part. On the plea of being strangers in Paris, the two young Englishmen managed to obtain admittance to this royal merrymaking, which they highly enjoyed. As to what they saw, we have a partial record in a subsequent letter from one of them.
"There danced," says this epistle, "the queen and madame, with as many as made up nineteen fair dancing ladies; amongst which the queen is the handsomest, which hath wrought in me a greater desire to see her sister."
This sister was then at Madrid, for the queen of France was a daughter of Philip III. of Spain. And, as if Spain was the true destination of the travellers, and to see the French queen's sister their object, at the early hour of three the next morning they were up and on horseback, riding out of Paris on the road to Bayonne. Away they went, pressing onward at speed, he whom we as yet know only as Tom Smith taking the lead, and pushing forward with such youthful eagerness that even the seasoned Buckingham looked the worse for wear before they reached the borders of Spain.
Who was this eager errant knight? All London by this time knew, and it is time that we should learn. Indeed, while the youthful wayfarers were speeding away on their mad and merry ride, the privy councillors of England were on their knees before King James, half beside themselves with apprehension, saying that Prince Charles had disappeared, that the rumor was that he had gone to Spain, and begging to know if this wild rumor were true.
"There is no doubt of it," said the king. "But what of that? His father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather all went into foreign countries to fetch home their wives,--why not the prince, my son?"
"England may learn why," was the answer of the alarmed councillors, and after them of the disturbed country. "The king of Spain is not to be trusted with such a royal morsel. Suppose he seizes the heir to England's throne, and holds him as hostage! The boy is mad, and the king in his dotage to permit so wild a thing." Such was the scope of general comment on the prince's escapade.
While England fumed, and King James had begun to fret in chorus with the country, his "sweet boys and dear venturous knights, worthy to be put in a new romanso," as he had remarked on first learning of their flight, were making their way at utmost horse-speed across France. A few miles beyond Bayonne they met a messenger from the Earl of Bristol, ambassador at Madrid, bearing despatches to England. They stopped him, opened his papers, and sought to read them, but found the bulk of them written in a cipher beyond their powers to solve. Baffled in this, they bade Gresley, the messenger, to return with them as far as Irun, as they wished him to bear to the king a letter written on Spanish soil.
No great distance farther brought them to the small river Bidassoa, the Rubicon of their journey. It formed the boundary between France and Spain. On reaching its southern bank they stood on the soil of the land of the dons, and the truant prince danced for joy, filled with delight at the success of his runaway prank. Gresley afterwards reported in England that Buckingham looked worn from his long ride, but that he had never seen Prince Charles so merry.
Onward through this new kingdom went the youthful scapegraces, over the hills and plains of Spain, their hearts beating with merry music,--Buckingham gay from his native spirit of adventure, Charles eager to see in knight-errant fashion the charming infanta of Spain, of whom he had seen, as yet, only the "counterfeit presentment," and a view of whom in person was the real object of his journey. So ardent were the two young men that they far outrode their companions, and at eight o'clock in the evening of March 7, seventeen days after they had left Buckingham's villa at Newhall, the truant pair were knocking briskly at the door of the Earl of Bristol at Madrid.
Wilder and more perilous escapade had rarely been adventured. The king had let them go with fear and trembling. Weak-willed monarch as he was, he could not resist Buckingham's persuasions, though he dreaded the result. The uncertain temper of Philip of Spain was well-known, the preliminaries of the marriage which had been designed between Charles and the infanta were far from settled, the political relations between England and Spain were not of the most pacific, and it was within the bounds of probability that Philip might seize and hold the heir of England. It would give him a vast advantage over the sister realm, and profit had been known to outweigh honor in the minds of potentates.
Heedless of all this, sure that his appearance would dispel the clouds that hung over the marriage compact and shed the sunshine of peace and union over the two kingdoms, giddy with the hopefulness of youth, and infected with Buckingham's love of gallantry and adventure, Charles reached Madrid without a thought of peril, wild to see the infanta in his new role of knight-errant, and to decide for himself whether the beauty and accomplishments for which she was famed were as patent to his eye as to the voice of common report, and such as made her worthy the love of a prince of high degree.
Such was the mood and such the hopes with which the romantic prince knocked at Lord Bristol's door. But such was not the feeling with which the practised diplomat received his visitors. He saw at a glance the lake of possible mischief before him; yet he was versed in the art of keeping his countenance serene, and received his guests as cordially as if they had called on him in his London mansion.
Bristol would have kept the coming of the prince to himself, if it had been possible. But the utmost he could hope was to keep the secret for that night, and even in this he failed. Count Gondomar, a Spanish diplomat, called on him, saw his visitors, and while affecting ignorance was not for an instant deceived. On leaving Bristol's house he at once hurried to the royal palace, and, filled with his weighty tidings, burst upon Count Olivares, the king's favorite, at supper. Gondomar's face was beaming. Olivares looked at him in surprise.
"What brings you so late?" he asked. "One would think that you had got the king of England in Madrid."
"If I have not got the king," replied Gondomar, "at least I have got the prince. You cannot ask a rarer prize."
Olivares sat stupefied at the astounding news. As soon as he could find words he congratulated Gondomar on his important tidings and quickly hastened to find the king, who was in his bed-chamber, and whom he astonished with the tale he had to tell.
The monarch and his astute minister earnestly discussed the subject in all its bearings. On one point they felt sure. The coming of Charles to Spain was evidence to them that he intended to change his religion and embrace the Catholic faith. He would never have ventured otherwise. But, to "make assurance doubly sure," Philip turned to a crucifix which stood at the head of his bed, and swore on it that the coming of the Prince of Wales should not induce him to take a step in the marriage not favored by the pope, even if it should involve the loss of his kingdom.
"As to what is temporal and mine," he said, to Olivares, "see that all his wishes are gratified, in consideration of the obligation under which he has placed us by coming here."
Meanwhile, Bristol spent the night in the false belief that the secret was still his own. He summoned Gondomar in the morning, told him, with a show of conferring a favor, of what had occurred, and bade him to tell Olivares that Buckingham had arrived, but to say nothing about the prince. That Gondomar consented need not be said. He had already told all there was to tell. In the afternoon Buckingham and Olivares had a brief interview in the gardens of the palace. After nightfall the English marquis had the honor of kissing the hand of his Catholic Majesty, Philip IV. of Spain. He told the king of the arrival of Prince Charles, much to the seeming surprise of the monarch, who had learned the art of keeping his countenance.
During the next day a mysterious silence was preserved concerning the great event, through certain unusual proceedings took place. Philip, with the queen, his sister, the infanta, and his two brothers, drove backward and forward through the streets of Madrid. In another carriage the Prince of Wales made a similarly stately progress through the same streets, the purpose being to yield him a passing glimpse of his betrothed and the royal family. The streets were thronged, all eyes were fixed on the coach containing the strangers, yet silence reigned.
The rumor had spread far and wide who those strangers were, but it was a secret, and no one must show that the secret was afoot. Yet, though their voices were silent, their hearts were full of triumph in the belief that the future king of England had come with the purpose of embracing the national faith of Spain.
At the end of the procession Olivares joined the prince and told him that his royal master was dying to speak with him, and could scarcely restrain himself. An interview was quickly arranged, its locality to be the coach of the king. Meanwhile, Olivares sought Buckingham.
"Let us despatch this matter out of hand," he said, "and strike it up without the pope."
"Very well," answered Buckingham; "but how is it to be done?"
"The means are very easy," said Olivares, lightly. "It is but the conversion of the prince, which we cannot conceive but his highness intended when he resolved upon this journey."
This belief was a very natural one. The fact of Charles being a Protestant had been the stumbling-block in the way of the match. A dispensation for the marriage of a Catholic princess with the Protestant prince of England had been asked from the pope, but had not yet been given. Charles had come to Madrid with the empty hope that his presence would cut the knot of this difficulty, and win him the princess out of hand. The authorities and the people, on the contrary, fancied that nothing less than an intention to turn Catholic could have brought him to Spain. As for the infanta herself, she was an ardent Catholic, and bitterly opposed to being united in marriage to a heretic prince. Such was the state of affairs that prevailed. The easy pathway out of the difficulty which the hopeful prince had devised was likely to prove not quite free from thorns.
[Illustration: THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID.]
The days passed on. Buckingham declared to Olivares that Charles had no thought of becoming a Catholic. Charles avoided the subject, and talked only of his love. The Spanish ministers blamed Bristol for his indecision, and had rooms prepared for the prince in the royal palace.
Charles willingly accepted them, and on the 16th of March rode through the streets of Madrid, on the right hand of the king, to his new abode.