yet reduced to desperation. Gustavus stood alone in perceiving the conditions indispensable to success. In the first place, a military force strong enough to defy opposition must be brought together. In the second place, within the larger league of the political opponents of the House of Austria, there must be a narrower league of those who specially aimed at a Protestant restoration in Germany, which would be able to speak with the authority of conscious strength if any attempt were made by France to snatch from it in the hour of victory the object at which it had aimed. In England, for different reasons, neither James nor Buckingham were capable of taking so broad a view of passing events. James, wishing to recover the Palatinate of James, with as little cost as possible to his impoverished exchequer, was drawn on, half against his will, from one step to another, always selecting that policy which would involve him as little as possible in the war, and which would spare him something at least of those terrible demands upon his purse and of Buck which even the most economical mode of conducting ingham. military operations was certain to make. Buckingham, on the other hand, with Charles following in his wake, desired a vigorous and all-embracing war. Yet for the very reason that he had no idea of the strength gained by the concentration of effort in one direction, he shrank almost as much as James had shrunk from the large demands of Gustavus. If war was to be carried on here, there, and everywhere, it must of necessity be starved in each separate locality. If Gustavus stood alone in perceiving the way to victory, he also stood alone in resolutely refusing to take part in a war in which the probabilities of victory appeared to him to be small. As soon as the English resolution was reported to him, he informed Spens that he would take no part in the German war turns against on such conditions. Those who thought it so easy Polard. a task to overpower the resistance of the House of Austria might do their best.1 The negotiation was thus brought Gustavus ' Gustavus Adolphus to Spens, March 13, S. P. Sweden. This characteristic letter will be published in the next volume of the Camden Society's Miscellany. 16252 to a close. BUCKINGHAM'S SCHEMES. 301 When the spring came to an end, Gustavus embarked to carry on his hereditary feud with the King of Poland, hoping at least to prevent the Poles from coming to the assistance of the Emperor. Even if Buckingham's policy had been far surer of a favourable reception in Parliament than it was, the demands for money for Mansfeld, for the Netherlands, and for Cuckingliam's further Germany, would have strained his late popularity to schemes. the utmost. Yet these projects, involving as they did an annual expenditure of more than 500,000l., formed only a part of the magnificent schemes upon which Buckinghain was launching the English nation. After all, if he was not a great military commander even in his own eyes, he was Lord High Admiral of England, and the war would be sadly incomplete if the navy were to take no part in it.. Though the armament of the fleet had been postponed from want of money, and on account of the cessation of any fear of an attack from Spain, orders had been given which pointed to the employment of the ships in the following spring.1 What was the exact use to which these ships were to he put was still undecided. When Wake had set out in May 1624 for 1624. May. Proposed attack upon Turin, he had carried with him instructions to sound the Duke of Savoy on the subject of the co-operation of an English fleet with a French and Savoyard army Genoa in an attack upon Genoa similar to that which had been suggested by Raleigh before he started on his expedition to Guiana. When Wake arrived at his destination, August. he found Charles Emmanuel already prepared with a design of his own. Let the King of England, he said, lend him twenty ships of war, and pay twenty thousand soldiers for three months. The whole expense would be about 126,000l. In return for this, James should have a third part of the booty; or, if he preferred certainties to uncertainties, the Duke would engage to pay him 900,000l. after the surrender of the city. Genoa had so notoriously merged her interests in those of 1 Survey of the Fleet, Aug. 31, 1624, S. P. Dom. clxxi. 36. Spain, that she could hardly claim the privilege of neutrality. October. In England, as soon as the Duke's proposition was Hesitation in known, doubts were expressed, from a financial point England. of view, of the soundness of the proposed investment. Wake was told to ask the Duke what were his grounds for thinking the enterprise an easy one, but at the same time to assure him that it would be seriously taken into consideration if he could succeed in showing it to be feasible.1 By this time, however, a French army under the command of old Marshal Lesdiguières was preparing to take part in the Lesdiguières' offers. attack upon Genoa, as a diversion in favour of the troops invading the Valtelline, and Lesdiguières, sorely in need of a naval force, had despatched agents to England and Holland to recommend the plan in another shape. He proposed that the fleet should sail in the name of the King of France, though it was to be composed of English and Dutch vessels. They were simply to be hired by Louis as he might hire them from a merchant; and if neither James nor the States-General would be able to lay claim to any share of the splendid profits of which the Duke of Savoy had held out hopes to the English Government, neither would they be called upon to take any part in the expense. To this plan the Dutch at once gave their consent, and agreed to lend twenty ships for the purpose.2 In England Buck December Dutch and English ships to be lent for the attack. ingham warmly supported the agent of Lesdiguières, and persuaded James to follow the example set by the States-General. It was therefore understood that the French commander would have twenty English ships at his disposal. The fleet for Merely to lend a few vessels, however, was a trifle hardly worth mentioning in the midst of Buckingham's far-reaching schemes. In the course of a conversation with Villeaux-Clercs and Effiat on the subject of this arrangement, he flashed before their eyes the grand project which, in the following summer, was to occupy so large a space in the thoughts of men. Another fleet, he said, there must be. It I Wake to Conway, Aug. 9; Conway to Wake, Oct. 20, S. P. Savoy. 2 Treaty with M. de Bellujon, Dec. 14, S. P. Holland, 1624 BUCKINGHAM'S DIFFICULTIES. 303 December. should be sent to sea in the name of the King of Bohemia, and should carry a land army strong enough to seize some fortified post on the Spanish coast. Afterwards it could look out for the treasure ships which annually returned to Spain with their precious freight from the mines of America. When that was taken-and there could be no real difficulty in the way-the power of Spain would be crushed. Mansfeld and the Prince of Orange-at the time when Buckingham was speaking, Mansfeld was still in England-would have an easy task; and France and England would be the joint arbiters of Europe.1 ham's selfconfidence. Truly it was a bright and glorious vision. When Genoa had been taken, when Mansfeld had won his victorious way into Bucking the heart of Germany, when city after city of the Spanish Netherlands was surrendering to the armies of the Dutch Republic, then, even if the wealth of the Indies were not there to pay for all, Buckingham would have small need to fear the persistent opposition of the House of Commons. It was true that he had made no allowance for difficulties, or even for accidents. But how could difficulties or accidents be thought of when he was there to guide the State ? Buckingham's vainglorious forecast was uttered in the middle of December. A month later he learned that even his Difficulties path was beset by obstacles. By that time he knew arise. that Gustavus at least did not think victory easy of attainment. He knew also that the French had ideas of their own about Mansfeld's employment. Finally he knew, too, that if they liked to control the march of English troops according to their own convenience, they were also quite ready to appeal to England for the aid which they needed in their own domestic difficulties. For a long time the condition of the Huguenots had been The French such as to forebode a catastrophe. Too weak to trust Huguenots. themselves to the protection of the common laws of the realm, they had yet been strong enough to wrest from their Ville-aux-Clercs and Effiat to Louis XIII., Dec. 4596, fol. 208 b. 16 26' Harl. MSS. J sovereign the right of maintaining garrisons in certain fortified places, so as to secure at least a local independence. Such a situation was full of danger. To surrender their privileges was to place their religion at the mercy of a jealous, perhaps of a bigoted, master. To keep them was to exist as a state within a state, and to flaunt the banners of a group of urban republics in the face of the growing popularity of a monarchy which had undertaken the task of founding the unity of France upon the ruins of a self-seeking aristocracy. French Go vernment. Whatever may have been the right solution of the problem, the French Government, before Richelieu's accession to power, Encroach- made no attempt to discover it. The Peace of Montments of the pellier, by which the last civil war had been brought to a conclusion, had been violated again and again. Amongst other promises the King had engaged to pull down Fort Louis, a fortress erected during the war to command the entrance to the port of Rochelle; but the Rochellese knew only too well that the walls and bastions thus solemnly devoted to destruction in word, were being strengthened under their eyes. Marshal Lesdiguières is reported to have said that either the Rochellese must destroy the fort, or the fort would destroy Rochelle. Richelieu, there is little doubt, would have counselled the fulfilment of the terms of the treaty, in order that France might have her arms free to operate against Spain; but he had to consult his master's mood, and would find it hard to wring from Louis a consent to an act which looked like the abandonment of all control over a French city. Dec. 26. Soubice seizes the At last, whilst the more prudent among the Huguenots were still counselling submission, two brothers, the Dukes of Rohan and Soubise, both of them alike ambitious and incompetent, resolved upon once more fighting French fleet out the old quarrel in arms. On December 26 Soubise sailed into the harbour of Blavet in Brittany, and capturing six vessels of war, carried his prizes safely to Rochelle: The seafaring population of the great city welcomed him as their deliverer, and the civil war once more began. Great was the indignation at the French Court when the |