Bristol's

in the main.

On the question of personal honour, few will probably be found to hesitate in deciding between Charles and Bristol. Opinions are likely to be more divided on the larger policy right question of the general policy of the ambassador; for it is plain that Bristol considered the offers of the Spanish Court on the whole satisfactory, and that he was prepared to enter upon the negotiations in Germany, with confidence in the diplomatic support of Spain. That he was wrong in supposing that Spain had renounced all exorbitant pretensions is, to us at least, undeniable; for we know that it would have been difficult to content either Spain or the Emperor without imposing a Catholic Prince upon the Palatinate. But in the main point, Bristol was undoubtedly in the right. Standing almost alone among his countrymen, he never ceased to maintain that there were faults on both sides, and he saw in the promised negotiations at Cologne a golden opportunity for putting his master's son-in-law in the right, If Frederick could have understood the times in which he lived; if he could have cast away those pretensions to independence which had been so ruinous to himself and to his country; if, in short, he could have separated the cause of his religion from the cause of anarchy, he would either have forced both Spain and Austria to relinquish their schemes of armed proselytism, or would have united all Protestant States in a resistance to which his enemies would be compelled to bow. If Bristol failed signally, it was because he was so entirely unsupported. Frederick regarded the part which he was called upon to play with the utmost loathing, and signs were not wanting that, before many weeks, James, long-suffering as he had been, would throw up the game in despair.

Nov. 12. Arrival of the Pope's

At last, on November 12, the Pope's approbation arrived at Madrid,' and the 19th, the Prince's birthday, was talked of as the day for the ceremony of the marriage. Bristol, however, discovered means to interpose a short delay. approbation. Fresh conditions had been sent, together with the approbation, and till it was ascertained whether they would be accepted, the Nuncio refrained from placing the papal brief in Bristol to Calvert. Nov. 13, S. P. Spain.

1623

THE WEDDING-DAY FIXED.

-151

the King's hands. His orders were, however, not to insist upon them if he found that they were likely to be refused, and after a week had passed away, he retired from the contest.' On the 19th he surrendered the document to Philip, who at once took the required oath to the observance of the articles by the King of England.

Nov. 23. The day fixed for the

Bristol did his best to put off the ceremony as long as possible. It would be well, he said, to give time for the news to reach England before the day appointed, in order that it might be celebrated there as a day of triumph marriage. and festivity; but to all such suggestions the Spaniards turned a deaf ear. The King, he was told, intended punctually to perform his own engagements, and he expected the same accuracy on the other side. It had been expressly

agreed that the marriage should take place within ten days after the arrival of the dispensation, and though he had consented to reckon the time from the day on which it was given into his hands, no further concession would be made. He would not force his sister upon the Prince, but if the marriage had not taken place on the 29th it must be understood that the promises made were no longer binding. Thus pressed, Bristol consented to fix the ceremony for the 29th, and waited anxiously for the courier, who, unless some unusual accident occurred, would be certain before that day to bring him more precise orders than had yet been sent."

That those orders would be otherwise than favourable to the

Answer promised about the Palatinate.

marriage he could not bring himself to believe. At the same time he hoped much from the professions of good. will which were addressed to him by the Spaniards. The Council of State, he was informed, had lately taken into consideration his renewed application about the Palatinate, and the King's answer would be in his hands before the day appointed for the ceremony. That answer, he was solemnly assured, should be everything that he could desire. It was

1 Bristol's Answer to the Interrogatories, Hardwicke State Papers, i. 520. 2 Bristol to the King, Nov. 23, S. P, Spain Aston to Buckingham, Nov. 23, Harl. MSS. 1580, fol. 10.

3 Bristol to Conway, Jan. 23, 1624, S. P. Spain.

indeed not likely that Philip would again engage to take up arms against the Emperor, but it is not improbable that an effort would have been made to obtain some further concessions in Frederick's favour.

Whether, under existing circumstances, the attempt to obtain the conversion of the young Prince would have been abandoned, it is impossible to say; but it is certain that Olivares was beginning to open his eyes to much to which, six months before, he had been wilfully blind. In the summer he had imagined that the conversion of England and the Palatinate were such mere trifles as hardly to be worth any extraordinary effort. Since the Prince had left Madrid he had begun to suspect that the prize might even now elude his grasp. He had begun to conceive the possibility that Charles might have ccased to set his heart upon the Infanta, and not a word was now uttered on the subject of those Parliamentary guarantees for religious liberty for the sake of which he had done so much to alienate the Prince. Upon the failure of the marriage, indeed, both he and Philip would probably have looked with considerable equanimity. What they really dreaded was a war with England, and as the tales reached them of Buckingham's frenzied denunciations, and of Charles's moody silence, they could not but regard such a war as likely to break out at no distant time. To avert this catastrophe they were ready to make any reasonable concession. There were some things, indeed, that they could not do. They could not readmit Mansfeld into the heart of Germany; and they could not, whatever they might have said in a moment of heedlessness, take arms against the Emperor. But whatever gave promise of a firm and stable peace, they were prepared to advocate. Let Frederick show that he could again be trusted in the Palatinate, and the Court of Madrid would not have been the last to relinquish those airy dreams of ecclesiastical supremacy which had seemed so lifelike a few short months before.

It is seldom possible for one who has woven such a web of falsehood as that at which Olivares had been labouring ever since his uncle's death, to regain the solid ground of truth.

1623

Nov. 26. The order for the post

ponement of the marriage reaches Madrid.

THE MARRIAGE POSTPONED.

153

Even now, when Bristol was nodding approbation at his golden promises, the blow reached him which levelled his toilfullyconstructed edifice to the dust. His empty professions, which had been intended to serve the purpose of the moment, had been taken as equivalent to the most solemn covenant. On November 26, three days before the ceremony of the marriage was to have taken place, the despatches containing peremptory commands for its postponement were placed in Bristol's hands. The ambassador was deeply chagrined at an order so fatal to his policy and his hopes. He at least did not, like his master or Olivares, flatter himself with the idea that it ment of the was possible to insult a friendly sovereign, and at the same time to retain his friendship. Not doubting for an instant that the letter which he held in his hands was ominous of evil for his own country and for the whole of Europe, his first act was to write back to James an announcement that his directions would be punctually carried into effect. His next act was to inform Olivares that the marriage must be postponed, on the ground that his master wished the ceremony not to be separated from the foundation of a thorough amity between the Crowns.

Postpone

marriage.

Such an insult, thus publicly administered in the sight of the world, was not likely to lay the foundation of a thorough amity. The temporary gallery, along which the Infanta was to have walked to the church in which the ceremony was to be performed, was dismantled and removed. She herself ceased to be addressed by the style of Princess of England. The Prince's letters were no longer allowed to reach her. Her English grammars and dictionaries were restored to the shelf. The marriage was considered as indefinitely postponed, if not as broken off altogether.1

It was with little hope, therefore, that Bristol and Aston delivered the summons for the restitution of the Palatinate, which they had been instructed to present. They first asked

'Bristol to James, Nov. 26, Hardwicke State Papers, i. 488, Bristol and Aston to Calvert, Nov. 30, S. P. Spain.

Nov. 29. The summons to restore the Palatinate.

for an explicit answer to their last request, in which they had begged for information as to what the King would do if the Emperor refused to grant entire restitution to Frederick upon due submission? They then proceeded to complain generally of Philip's conduct, of his allowing the reduction of Heidelberg and Mannheim, of his permitting the surrender of the Bergstrasse, and of his recognising the Electoral title of the Duke of Bavaria. They now wished to ask for his Majesty's good offices and mediation, and begged him to fix a time after which, if no satisfactory result followed, he would assist the King of Great Britain with his arms.2

Dec. 2.

Three days after this decisive summons was delivered, the ambassadors received an evasive answer to their former proposition, to the effect that it was unbefitting for a Philip's first mediator to take part in a quarrel. Bristol was plainly told that this was not the reply which had been prepared for him a week before. How was it possible, it was added, for the King to give a more pleasing answer, when he was summoned to do so on pain of his sister's rejection ? 3

answer.

Dec. 9.

Second reply.

The tone of the reply to the last memorial was far more defiant. If Heidelberg and Mannheim had been taken, said Philip, it was the fault of the Count Palatine himself, who had continued to call himself King of Bohemia, had had two armies fighting on his side, and had tried to rouse the Princes of Germany, with Bethlen Gabor and the Turks, against the Emperor. As to his own recognition of the Elector of Bavaria, it was a courtesy due to him on account of the many services done by him to the House of Austria, though it could never be said that his private interests had ever been considered at Madrid to the injury of the public good and the peace of Germany.

"As to the proposition of giving armed assistance against the Emperor," the King proceeded to say, "it is an unnecessary

1 Proposition of the Ambassadors, Nov. 13, S. P. Spain.

2 Proposition of the Ambassadors, Nov. 29, ibid.

Reply to the Ambassadors' Proposition, Dec. 2, Dated

Bristol to the King, Dec. 6, ibid.

Nov. 26

Dec. 6