15. Bad to Worse

The end of James Stuart's reign over Scotland and England was no more impressive than the earlier part. One of the wonderful, crazy and ultimately futile episodes was the 'Spanish Match', involving the future Charles I and his father's favourite, the future Duke of Buckingham, travelling to Madrid to try and grab a bride for Charles. An attempt which involved a bit of stalking, understandably rejected by the lady involved. And it was a total failure, unsurprisingly.

And yet... Charles was greeted by cheering crowds on his return to England.

Illustration: Maria Anna of Spain, by Diego Velázquez

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License