Buwinckhausen's mission

The details of these deliberations were veiled in profound secrecy. But it was notorious that negotiations were in progress of which Maximilian kept the key, and the movement of troops in the Low Countries had excited serious apprehension in Germany. The Princes of the Union knew that an attack upon the Palatinate would be a crushing blow to themselves, and in January they resolved upon sending an ambassador to London and the Hague, to demand the succour to which they were entitled by the existing league, as soon as they could show that their territories were exposed to unprovoked attack.1

His recep

The ambassador thus despatched was Buwinckhausen, a councillor of the Duke of Würtemberg. He had no reason to February. complain of his reception in Holland. The Dutch had regularly remitted to Bohemia a contribution of 50,000 florins a month. They now promised to give a similar subsidy to the Princes of the Union, and declared that, if necessity for further aid should arise, they would send four thousand men to their assistance.2

tion in Holland.

His arrival

No

On February 21, Buwinckhausen arrived in London.3 mission of equal importance had ever been received by James. The demand which the ambassador was directed to in England. make may well have appeared at first sight unreasonable; it was hard that Englishmen should be called upon to shed their blood in defence of a territory which was only endangered by the senseless folly of its own rulers. But to inflict penalties for past errors is no part of a statesman's work. His duty is to frame his measures so as to produce the greatest possible amount of good, at the expense of the least possible amount of evil.

Question of the defence

of the

It was undeniable that the occupation of the Palatinate by a Spanish force would be an evil of no Palatinate. ordinary magnitude. Heidelberg was the key of the Protestant position in the Empire. The victory of Ferdinand

Trumbull to Carleton, Feb. 5, Letters and Documents, Ser. ii. 161. 2 Carleton to Naunton, Feb. 17, ibid. Ser. ii. 169.

Feb. 25, Venice MSS. Desp. Ingh.

8 Lando to the Doge, March 6.

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PROSPECTS OF INTERVENTION.

331

in Bohemia would be a local success, and nothing more. His victory on the Rhine would carry with it the dissolution of the Union, and the dissolution of the Union would be followed by a struggle for the resumption of the secularised domains, and for the re-establishment of the Imperial authority over the whole of Germany. A blow would have been struck, of which every Protestant state in Europe would feel the consequences.

Nor was it likely that the sacrifices which the defence of the Palatinate would demand of James would be in any degree disproportionate to the results. If the Spaniards could be. assured that war with England and Holland would be the consequence of an invasion, the military reasons for the proposed diversion would be at an end. It is evident that without the prospect of the neutrality of England, the Spanish Government would have turned a deaf ear to Maximilian's entreaties, and would have refused to light up the flames of a continental war merely to satisfy the Duke of Bavaria's ambition. When the struggle in Bohemia was at last brought to a close, James would have a chance of realising the great object of his life. He might fairly earn the honourable title of The Peacemaker. The sympathies of Northern Germany, which had been estranged by Frederick's acceptance of the Bohemian crown, might be regained, when the only question at issue was the defence of the Protestant populations of the Palatinate from Catholic aggression. It is possible that the settlement of the Peace of Westphalia might have been anticipated by more than a quarter of a century.

Such statesmanship was not to be found in James. If he could not be led to do injustice by the temptations of avarice or ambition, he was always prone to pass over the James investigates broader aspects of a problem, and to fix his eyes Frederick's title. upon some side issue by which his personal reputation was affected, or his personal feelings touched. He did not, therefore, ask himself how he might best provide for the good of Europe as a whole, or whether his own country was sufficiently interested in the struggle to take part in it at all. In the midst of the convulsions by which the Continent was

shaken to its centre, he fixed his eyes mainly upon two points: on the fact that Frederick was his son-in-law, and on the fact that Frederick was a usurper. When he thought of one of these facts, he persuaded himself that he ought to do something. When he thought of the other, he persuaded himself that he ought to do nothing.

James had now for some weeks been busily engaged in an investigation of Frederick's title. Early in January, Doncaster had returned to England, eager to embark his master in a crusade against the Catholic powers. At the same time Christopher Dohna's brother, Achatius, had arrived to perform the duties of ambassador from the new King of Bohemia, and had brought with him documents by which he hoped to make good his master's claim.1

January.

Dohna's arguments, however, were not left without an answer. Lafuente plied the King with reasonings on the other side. James was sadly perplexed. Ali he wanted, he said, was to learn the truth. He was in great straits. Affection for his own flesh and blood urged him in one direction; justice and his friendship for the House of Austria urged him in the other.2

February.

At last, after two or three weeks' consideration, James announced that he had convinced himself of the groundlessness of Ferdinand's claim to reign in Bohemia by hereditary right. But he had still to consider whether the deposition of a king, once elected, was valid by the constitution of Bohemia. Buckingham carried away by the tide of feeling around him, was now found urging his master to stand forth in defence of the Palatinate. Both he and Doncaster were delighted at the progress which had been

Proposed loan for Bohemia.

made, and Dohna, in order to strike while the iron was hot, told James that he was authorised to raise a loan of 100,000l. in the City, and asked him to assist him with his recommendation. The request was met

1 Lando to the Doge, Jan. 7, 20, Venice MSS.

17, 30,

2 Edmondes to Carleton, Jan. 25, S. P. Dom. cxii. 35. Lafuente to Philip III., Feb. 4 Letters and Documents, Ser. ii. 157.

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333

by a refusal. It was equally in vain that Buckingham asked permission to visit the Aldermen, and at least to hint that His Majesty would not be displeased if they opened their purses to his son-in-law. Dohna, compelled to go in his own name, was told that, without the King's permission, the loan could not be raised.1

Equally hesitating was James's treatment of Sir Andrew Gray, a Scotch officer in the Bohemian service, who came to Gray asks ask leave to levy a regiment for his master, the expermission penses of which were intended to be met out of to levy troops. the City loan. Together with his credentials,2 he placed in the King's hands a letter from his little grandchild, in which the boy had been taught to appeal in piteous terms for help. For a moment James was deeply moved. But he could not be induced to give any positive reply to Gray.3 Something however, he said, should be done. He would order Trumbull, his agent at Brussels, to send in a protest to the Archduke, as soon as it appeared clearly that Spinola's army was directed against the Palatinate. To this order Trumbull respectfully replied, that by the time that it was positively known in what direction the army was marching, it would be too late to interfere.'

Such was the position of affairs when Buwinckhausen arrived. He soon found that his very presence irritated James.

Buwinckhausen's reception.

The King met him with a torrent of abuse; he would scarcely suffer him to speak, and he kept him waiting for his answer more than a fortnight. He then told him that the present danger of the princes was the result of the Elector's aggression upon Bohemia, and that he was not bound to furnish any assistance whatever.5

1 Nethersole to Carleton, Feb. 20, Letters and Documents, Ser. ii. 176. 2 Frederick to the King, Jan. 16. Elizabeth to the King, Jan. 17, Letters and Documents, Ser. ii. 142, 144.

Salvetti's News-Letter, Feb. 18, Feb. 25

28, March 6

Trumbull to Naunton, Feb. 26, Letters and Documents, Ser. ii. 185. 5 Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 26, S. P. Dom. cxiii. 104. Salvetti's News-Letter, March Trumbull to Carleton, March 7, Letters and

13.

March.

In a few days, however, James's language assumed a more favourable tone. Gray received permission to levy a thousand men in England, and a similar force in Scotland.1 Sir Robert Anstruther was ordered to get ready to go to the King of Denmark, to borrow a large sum of money to be placed at Frederick's disposal, upon condition that it should be employed in the defence of the Palatinate.2 At the same time, James announced that he intended to cooperate with the French in an attempt to put an end to the war in Germany.3

3

It was, it would seem, in part at least, to Digby's advice that these resolutions were owing, and we shall hardly be Digby's wrong in attributing to him the whole of a plan policy. which would have held out the olive branch to Spain, but which at the same time would have shown that the olive branch concealed the sword.4

19,

Documents, Ser. ii. 188. Lando to the Doge, March 2 Venice MSS. Desp. Ingh.

'Chamberlain to Carleton, March 11, S. P. Dom. cxiii. 18.

2 Nethersole to Carleton, March 10, ibid. cxiii. 33. Naunton to Carleton, March 10, S. P. Holland.

66

In the following August Nethersole, in giving an account of his reception by Frederick and Elizabeth, stated that he had delivered a letter from Digby, and had said that the King, his master, Having found my Lord Digby mistaken by some of his own people at home by occasion of his being by him employed in the affairs with Spain, and having thereupon conceived a jealousy that the same noble lord might be also misrepresented hither to their Majesties, had in that respect given me a particular commandment to assure His Majesty that he had no more nor more truly affectionate servant in England; and for proof thereof to let His Majesty understand that, whereas the Baron Dohna had, since his coming thither, obtained but three general points for His Majesty's service: to wit, the loan of money from the King of Denmark, the contributions in England of the city and country, and the sending of ambassadors to the contrary parts, that the Lord Digby had been the first propounder of all this to the King, my master, before his Majesty's ambassador or any other of his servants in England, although his lordship had been contented that others (who were but set on) should carry away the thanks and praise, because his being known to be the first mover therein might possibly weaken the credit he hath in Spain, and so render him the more unable to serve both his own master