What it was really to be swayed by was the
self-sufficient incapacity of the young favourite.

[Sidenote: The king's policy.]

A few months of action had shown Buckingham to England as he really was,
vain, flighty, ingenious, daring, a brilliant but shallow adventurer,
without political wisdom or practical ability, as little of an
administrator as of a statesman. While projects without number were
seething and simmering in his restless brain, while leagues were being
formed and armies levied on paper, the one practical effort of the new
minister had ended in the starvation of thousands of Englishmen on the
sands of Holland. If English policy was once more to become a real and
serious thing, it was plain that the great need of the nation was the
dismissal of Buckingham. But Charles clung to Buckingham more blindly
than his father had done. The shy reserve, the slow stubborn temper of
the new king found relief in the frank gaiety of the favourite, in his
rapid suggestions, in the defiant daring with which he set aside all
caution and opposition. James had looked on Buckingham as his pupil.
Charles clung to him as his friend. Nor was the new king's policy likely
to be more national in Church affairs than in affairs of state. The war
had given a new impulse to religious enthusiasm. The patriotism of the
Puritan was strengthening his bigotry. To the bulk of Englishmen a fight
with Spain meant a fight with Catholicism; and the fervour against
Catholicism without roused a corresponding fervour against Catholicism
within the realm. To Protestant eyes every English Catholic seemed a
traitor at home, a traitor who must be watched and guarded against as
the most dangerous of foes. A Protestant who leant towards Catholic
usage or Catholic dogma was yet more formidable. To him men felt as
towards a secret traitor in their own ranks. But it was to men with
such leanings that Charles seemed disposed to show favour. Bishop Laud
was recognized as the centre of that varied opposition to Puritanism,
whose members were loosely grouped under the name of Arminians; and Laud
now became the king's adviser in ecclesiastical matters. With Laud at
its head the new party grew in boldness as well as numbers. It naturally
sought for shelter for its religious opinions by exalting the power of
the Crown; and its union of political error with theological heresy
seemed to the Puritan to be at last proclaimed to the world when
Montague, a court chaplain