Footnote 195: According to one account, the Duke of Anjou, the brother of Henrietta, was proxy for the King of England.--See Mr. Mead’s Letter to Sir Martin Stuteville, April 30; Ellis’s Letters, 1st series, p. 190. 1625. At his accession, Charles had manifested very decisively his disfavour of Catholics; he declared his intention to reform the Court, “as of unnecessary charges, so of recusant Papists.” He gave an order in his own hand-writing that no recusant Papist, of any rank whatsoever, should be presented with mourning for the late King; and he showed his zeal generally for the observance of the Church, by putting the High Sheriff of Nottingham out of his commission, for accompanying the judges on the circuit, who were attending the sermon, only to the church door, and there leaving them.[196] Hopes were entertained that Henrietta Maria might be converted, and several prayer-books in French were sent her by Sir George Goring for that end; but the news that a bishop and twenty-eight priests were to be included in her retinue, quickly dispelled that pleasing anticipation.[197] Footnote 196: Ellis’s Letters, vol. iii., p. 187. Footnote 197: Ibid. The part which Buckingham took in the promotion of this alliance lessened, therefore, greatly the popularity which his abandonment of the Spanish marriage was beginning to ensure to him; and the announcement of the King’s intention to despatch the Favourite, in order to bring off his royal bride, was, for many reasons, highly displeasing to the country. The chief ground of objection to the proposed journey was the expense. And here the nation separated the wishes and intentions of Charles from those of his minister. The King had, they observed, shown a disposition to economy; nay, more, he had displayed an honourable determination to pay his late father’s debts by disparking most of his remote parks and chases, which were then more numerous and extensive than any royal domains in Europe.[198] The lavish tendencies of Buckingham, therefore, and the heavy charges on the exchequer which had been incurred by the two ambassadors already at the French court, were not ascribed to the extravagance of the Monarch, but to the vanity and profuseness of his Minister. Footnote 198: Ellis’s Letters, vol. iii., p. 187. The preparations, therefore, made by Buckingham for this, his last foreign mission,--for, when he again visited the continent, it was with different intentions, and under another aspect,--were viewed with vexation, by the majority of those who were not bound to silence by interest, for the great and fruitless cost of the Spanish journey was fresh in remembrance. The Duke had, however, begun his arrangements before King James’s death: and the day[199] had been fixed for his departure. He did not forget that he was to appear at the most festive and splendid of all the courts of Christendom.[200] Footnote 199: The 31st of March. Footnote 200: