Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.Phillimore, Lucy
History
Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.
Phillimore, Lucy
Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714 -- Biography; Wren family; Wren, Christopher, Sir, 1632-1723
A full list followed of vestments for the clergy, ornaments and hangings
for the altar, and altar lights, Latin service books, directions for a
room to be adorned chapel-wise, and for frequent services, all to be
read in Latin so that the Spaniards might comprehend them. All this
careful provision seems to have been defeated by the fact of the Prince
and his suite being lodged in the palace at Madrid, so that there was no
public service, only bed-chamber prayers. Contemporary letters show that
the chaplains' position was not an easy one, though the Prince remained
steadfast, and in the congenial atmosphere of the dignified Spanish
court became every day more gracious. 'Dr. Wren forbears,' says one of
these letters, 'to write any particulars, but intimates all is not as it
should be.' It was no doubt a necessary precaution on the chaplain's
part to preserve this discreet silence, but it is tantalising to have
only a hint concerning the transactions in Spain. How the negotiations
were delayed, how the King recalled the Prince and the marriage was
broken off, are historical facts too well known to need repetition here.
One result seems to have been a strong bond of affection between the
Prince and those who went with him on this singular expedition.
[_RETURNS FROM SPAIN._]
That his departure was attended with some sea-peril appears from one of
Edmund Waller's[8] early poems on 'the Danger which His Majesty, being
Prince, escaped in the Road at S. Andero':--
'Now had his Highness bid farewell to Spain,
And reached the sphere of his own pow'r, the main;
With British bounty in his ship he feasts
The Hesperian princes his amazed guests,
To find that wat'ry wilderness exceed
The entertainment of their great Madrid.'
A description follows of the Prince being rowed in a barge to his own
ship, a sudden storm arises in which there is a great difficulty in
making the ship; at length the Fates allow the rope to be successfully
thrown, knowing it to be for England:--
'Whose prince must be (as their own books devise)
Lord of the scene where now his danger lies.'
On October 8, 1623, Dr. Wren's diary records 'we landed at Portsmouth,'
and his first and only journey out of Great Britain was over.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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