State Papers, vol. clxiii., No. 59.--April 10, 1623.
Several Catholics who had worn a mask of Protestantism now threw it off, and in hopes of toleration, avowed themselves Romanists; amongst these were Sir John Wentworth and Lord Vaughan. “Everyone,” Lady Hatton wrote to Carleton, “was on the wing for Spain;” but, “in spite of her walks and talks with Gondomar,” she would ever, she said, oppose his country.[105]
Nor were the Catholics without reason in their dreams of enjoying a degree of security and toleration long most unjustly and cruelly withheld. Even after James had begun to listen to the changed tone adopted by Buckingham, preparations had been going on, both for the reception and maintenance of the Infanta, which might well afford hopes of religious liberty. It was reported that the marriage conditions were to be, the liberation of the Catholics and the abandonment of the Hollanders. The Spanish ambassador surveyed Denmark House and St. James’s, where “lodgings,” as they were styled, were prepared for the Infanta. At each place, he ordered a new chapel, and Inigo Jones was to prepare each with great costliness. The Spanish ambassador laid the stone of a new chapel for the Infanta at St. James’s, whilst the Savoy chapel was to be given up to the Infanta’s suite.
“After the London bonfires,” adds Mr. Chamberlain, who tells in the same tone good and bad tidings, “Oxford lit fires and rung bells, and wrote verses in honour of the match.”[106] It appears, indeed, from a letter of Lord Treasurer Middlesex to Secretary Conway, that it was even in contemplation to decorate the chapel with jewels; "Sir Peter Lore’s jewels, and others of the Countess of Suffolk, now in pawn, should," wrote the Lord Treasurer, immediately after referring to his preparing the chapel, "be submitted to His Majesty’s inspection, though he hoped the King would not declare which he preferred, as advantage would be taken of his preference, but leave the Chancellor himself, and others, to bargain for them, as there was great necessity for frugality."[107]
Lord Middlesex to Secretary Conway.--State Papers, vol. cxliii., No. 20.
The King, indeed, up to the very moment of his son’s return, had been sanguine of the marriage, and delighted to talk over the adventures of the journey, during which Buckingham had had seven falls, Sir Francis Cottington twelve, and the Prince not one; but his tone was now beginning to alter, which seemed strange to those who knew the King’s circumstances, and who considered how splendid a dower was expected with the Infanta. Lord Middlesex, who was afterwards discovered to have embezzled public money, had declared himself “sick at heart” with the idea of all these extraordinary charges, when the King was so ill able to meet even his ordinary expenses. Like all servants who rob their masters, his zeal was laudable; he could not, he wrote, “hold out, unless some extraordinary reply be thought of, or some large sums come in from Spain with the fleet; but would pawn his whole estate for the present.”[108]