1628: A savage year for England—a year that sees the nation embroiled in three wars.
Just across the sea, Europe devours itself in a conflagration that started a decade before and is to burn ferociously for two more decades until it becomes a byword for brutality, devastation and death. The Thirty Years War. In terms of proportionate population loss, it would be more destructive than the two orld Wars of the Twentieth Century.
England was drawn into this maelstrom courtesy of the English princess Elizabeth, heir to the throne of England, and her husband the Elector Palatine, who have been at the heart of the conflagration since it began. English outrage at Elizabeth losing both her Bohemian crown and her status as Electress Palatine, brought donations of money and volunteer canon fodder. But even with English support and Elizabeth’s uncle, the King of Denmark, throwing the might of his army on the scales, it isn’t going well.
But in 1628 England is also at war with Spain.
Why?
State policy?
Or hurt feelings?
The Spanish Court snubbed King Charles and his favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, five years before when they travelled to Madrid in disguise, in a quixotic attempt to woo the Spanish Infanta. A slight Buckingham, at least, has not forgotten, and he is a man to bear grudges.
Whatever the motivation, the Spanish king is kin to the Emperor and the two are united in their desire for a Catholic Habsburg hegemony of all Europe. So yes, statecraft might argue that war against the Emperor made war against Spain a sensible choice, and by and large the English were pleased to support this war.
Spain having been the traditional enemy of England since before the Armada and memories of that Elizabethan success and ancestral pride originally fuelled enthusiasm in the breasts of true-born Englishmen! But such success was not to be repeated in this generation. An attempt to capture Cadiz, in a naval expedition organised by the Duke of Buckingham, failed completely with a third of the fleet being lost.
Well, even though King Charles recently married a French Princess and the French have been active allies in the anti-Habsburg Palatinate cause, England is now at war with France!
Yet only a short time ago they had been bosom pals.
Indeed, they had been such close friends that the English king agreed to provide ships to help the French king put down rebellion by his Protestant Huguenot subjects. This caused outrage amongst the English people and a horrified Parliament had objected to the notion of English forces attacking fellow Protestants. In the end it was the ships alone and not their crews which were provided.
It didn’t help Anglo/French relations that Buckingham was suspected of trying to seduce the Queen of France under the nose of her husband whilst on a diplomatic visit, and had been refused permission to return to the country as a result.
Amity with France collapsed altogether when it became clear the French had made a secret treaty with Spain, seemed to be abandoning the Protestant cause in the Empire—and were building their own navy.
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So was it state policy or more of Buckingham's slighted pride that sent his man Walter Montague to France as a secret agent, to encourage and foment a Huguenot rebellion, with the promise of English support? Though how such support could be forthcoming was unclear. There was no money for third war. Least of all one with scant benefit to England’s national interests.
In the end, the promised support for a Protestant uprising in La Rochelle came in the form of an expeditionary force commanded by Buckingham personally in the summer of 1627. The intent was to seize the fortress town of Saint-Martin-de-Ré which controlled the approach to La Rochelle, thus opening a sea route to the beleaguered city.
It was another disaster, a fiasco, foundering as badly as the Cadiz debacle—if not more so. The Isle-de-Ré became ‘the Ill Array’ on English lips. Buckingham, already despised for his monopoly farms and the excessive influence he had over the king, carried the full weight of blame for the extent of its failure in the popular mind, and was hated and derided in equal measure.
So now here we are.
It is 1628 and England is embroiled in three wars.
Buckingham is licking his wounds and raising a new fleet against the French, to redeem his honour and win back the love of the nation. But it’s not going to plan. England has had enough of war and more than enough of Buckingham himself. Monopoly farms, military catastrophe and incompetence are not the only charges set against him. Rumours that he poisoned King James have been taken seriously at the highest levels. Twice now, Parliament has tried to impeach Buckingham, and been prevented from doing so by the king dismissing it. This time, though, Parliament is bringing forward a Petition of Right addressing its grievances, and taking aim at the Royal favourite, which it insists must be agreed by the king if he wants to secure ongoing finance for his three wars. And Parliament holds the purse strings.
England in 1628: A stage set for tragedy, onto which our players must stride.
A young mercenary turned privateer, condemned for treason, but driven by an overriding ambition, and a nobleman’s daughter, in the service of the English heir, the exiled Queen of Bohemia, seeking to protect her mistress and herself from the machinations of an overpowerful enemy. Each must play out their part against the blood drenched backdrop of war, politics, intrigue—and murder…
Eleanor Swift Hook
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