over, he was dissuaded. At his baptism, December 23, 1600, Charles had received the titles of duke of Albany, marquis of Ormond, earl of Ross, and lord Ardmanach. He was now, January 1605, honoured with the second title of the English royal family—duke of York.
King James, whatever may have been the frivolity of his character in some respects, is undeniably entitled to the credit of having carefully educated his children. Prince Henry, the elder brother, and also Charles, were proficients in English, Latin, and French, at an amazingly early age. Although, from their living in separate houses, he did not see them often, he was perpetually writing them instructive and encouraging letters, to which they replied, by his desire, in language exclusively supplied by themselves. The king was also in the habit of sending many little presents to his children. "Sweete, sweete father," says Charles, in an almost infantine epistle, yet preserved in the Advocates' Library, " I learn to decline substantives and adjectives. Give me your blessing. I thank you for my best man. Your loving son, York." The character of Charles was mild, patient, and serious, as a child is apt to be who is depressed by ill health, or an inability to take a share in youthful sports. His brother Henry, who was nearly seven years his senior, and of more robust character, one day seized the cap of archbishop Abbot, which he put upon Charles' head, telling him, at the same time, that when he was king, he would make him archbishop of Canterbury. Henry dying in November 1612, left a brighter prospect open before his younger brother, who, in 1616, was formally created prince of Wales. At this splendid ceremony the queen could not venture to appear, lest the sight should renew her grief for the amiable Henry, whom she had seen go through the same solemnity only a short time before his death. As he grew up towards manhood, Charles gradually acquired strength, so that at twenty lie was well skilled in manly exercises, and accounted the best rider of the great horse in his father's dominions. His person was slender, and his face but the majestic melancholy of that face is too deeply impressed on every mind to require description. It was justly accounted very strange that the marquis of Buckingham, the frivolous favourite of king James, should have become equally agreeable to the grave temperament of the prince of Wales. Charles was perpetually in the company of that gay courtier, and the king used to consider them both as his children. He always addressed the prince by the epithet "Baby Charles," and in writing to Buckingham, he as invariably subscribed himself as "his dear dad." James had high abstract notions as to the rank of those who should become the wives of princes. He considered the sacred character of a king degraded by a union with one under his own rank. While his parliament, therefore, wished him to match his son to some small German princess, who had the advantage of being a good protestant, he contemplated wedding him to the grand-daughter of Charles V., the sister of the reigning king of Spain. Both James and Charles had a sincere sense of the errors of Rome; but the fatality of matching with a Catholic princess was not then an established maxim in English policy, which it is to be hoped it ever will be in this realm. It was also expected that the Spanish monarch would be instrumental in procuring a restoration of the Palatinate of the Rhine for the son-in-law of the king of Great Britain, who had lost it in consequence of his placing himself at the head of the Bohemians, in a rebellion against the emperor of Germany. The earl of Bristol, British ambassador at Madrid, was carrying on negotiations for this match, when Charles, with the romantic feeling of youth, resolved to travel into Spain, and woo the young princess in person. In February 1623, he set out with the marquis of Buckingham, and only two other attendants, himself bearing the incognito title of Mr John Smith, a union of the two most familial
