gotiations for the marriage with the Infanta were pressed more busily. Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, who had become all-powerful at the English court, was assured that no effectual aid should be sent to the Palatinate. The English fleet, which was cruising by way of menace off the Spanish coast, was called home. The King dismissed those of his ministers who still opposed a Spanish policy; and threatened on trivial pretexts a war with the Dutch, the one great Protestant power that remained in alliance with England, and was ready to back the Elector. But he had still to reckon with his Parliament; and the first act of the Parliament on its re-assembling was to demand a declaration of war with Spain. The instinct of the nation was wiser than the statecraft of the King. Ruined and enfeebled as she really was, Spain to the world at large still seemed the champion of Catholicism. It was the entry of her troops into the Palatinate which had first widened the local war in Bohemia into a great struggle for the suppression of Protestantism along the Rhine; above all it was Spanish influence, and the hopes held out of a marriage of his son with a Spanish Infanta, which were luring the King into his fatal dependence on the great enemy of the Protestant cause. In their petition the Houses coupled with their demands for war the demand of a Protestant marriage for their future King. Experience proved in later years how perilous it was for English freedom that the heir to the Crown should be brought up under a Catholic mother; but James was beside himself at their presumption in dealing with mysteries of state. "Bring stools for the Ambassadors," he cried in bitter irony as their committee appeared before him. He refused the petition, forbade any further discussion of state policy, and threatened the speakers with the Tower. "Let us resort to our prayers," a member said calmly as the King's letter was read, " and then consider of this great business." The temper of the House was seen in the Protestation which met the royal command to abstain from discussion. It resolved "That the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England; and that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the King, state, and defence of the realm, and of the Church of England, and the making and maintenance of laws, and redress of grievances, which daily happen within this

realm, are proper subjects and matter of council and debate in Parliament. And that in the handling and proceeding of those businesses every member of the House hath, and of right ought to have, freedom of speech to propound, treat, reason, and bring to conclusion the same."

The King answered the Protestation by a characteristic outrage. He sent for the Journals of the House, and with his own hand tore out the pages which contained it. "I will govern," he said, “according to the common weal, but not according to the common will." A few days after he dissolved the Parliament. "It is the best thing that has happened in the interests of Spain and of the Catholic religion since Luther began preaching," wrote the Count of Gondomar to his master, in his joy that all danger of war had passed away. "I am ready to depart," Sir Henry Savile, on the other hand, murmured on his death-bed, "the rather that having lived in good times I foresee worse." Abroad indeed all was lost; and Germany plunged wildly and blindly forward into the chaos of the Thirty Years' War. But for England the victory of freedom was practically won. James had himself ruined the main bulwarks of the monarchy. In his desire for personal government he had destroyed the authority of the Council. He had accustomed men to think lightly of the ministers of the Crown, to see them browbeaten by favorites, and driven from office for corruption. He had disenchanted his people of their blind faith in the monarchy by a policy at home and abroad which ran counter to every national instinct. He had quarrelled with, and insulted the Houses, as no English sovereign had ever done before; and all the while the authority he boasted of was passing, without his being able to hinder it, to the Parliament which he outraged. There was shrewdness as well as anger in his taunt at its "ambassadors." A power had at last risen up in the Commons with which the Monarchy was henceforth to reckon. In spite of the King's petulant outbreaks, Parliament had asserted its exclusive right to the control of taxation. It had attacked monopolies. It had reformed abuses in the courts of law. It had revived the right of impeaching and removing from office the highest ministers of the Crown. It had asserted its privilege of free discussion on all questions. connected with the welfare of the realm. It had claimed to Ideal with the question of religion. It had even declared its

will on the sacred "mystery " of foreign policy. James might tear the Protestation from its Journals, but there were pages in the record of the Parliament of 1621 which he never could tear out.

Section III. The King and the Parliament, 1623-1629.*

In the obstinacy with which he clung to his Spanish policy James stood absolutely alone; for not only the old nobility and the statesmen who preserved the tradition of the age of Elizabeth, but even his own ministers, with the exception of Buckingham and the Treasurer, Cranfield, were at one with the Commons. The King's aim, as we have said, was to enforce peace on the combatants, and to bring about the restitution of the Palatinate to the Elector, through the influence of Spain. It was to secure this influence that he pressed for a closer union with the great Catholic power; and of this union, and the success of the policy which it embodied, the marriage of his son Charles with the Infanta, which had been held out as a lure to his vanity, was to be the sign. But the more James pressed for this consummation of his projects, the more Spain held back. At last Buckingham proposed to force the Spaniard's hand by the arrival of Charles himself at the Spanish Court. The Prince quitted England in disguise, and appeared with Buckingham at Madrid to claim his bride. It was in vain that Spain rose in its demands; for every new demand was met by fresh concessions on the part of England. The abrogation of the penal laws against the Catholics, a Catholic education for the Prince's children, a Catholic household for the Infanta, all were no sooner asked than they were granted. But the

* Authorities.-For the first part of this period we have still Mr. Gardiner's "History of England from the Accession of James I.," which throws a full and fresh light on one of the most obscure times in our history. His work is as valuable for the early reign of Charles, a period well illustrated by Mr. Forster's “Life of Sir John Eliot." Among the general accounts of the reign of Charles, Mr. Disraeli's "Commentaries on the Reign of Charles I." is the most prominent on the one side; Brodie's "History of the British Empire," and Godwin's "History of the Commonwealth," on the other. M. Guizot's work is accurate and impartial, and Lingard of especial value for the history of the English Catholics, and for his detail of foreign affairs. For the ecclesiastical side see Laud's "Diary." The Commons' Journal gives the proceedings of the Parliaments. Throughout this period the Calendars of State Papers, now issuing under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, are of the greatest historic value. Ranke's "History of England in the Seventeenth Century" is important for the whole Stuart period.

marriage was still delayed, while the influence of the new policy on the war in Germany was hard to see. The Catholic League and its army, under the command of Count Tilly, won triumph after triumph over their divided foes. The reduction of Heidelberg and Mannheim completed the conquest of the Palatinate, whose Elector fled helplessly to Holland, while his Electoral dignity was transferred by the Emperor to the Duke of Bavaria. But there was still no sign of the hopedfor intervention on the part of Spain. At last the pressure of Charles himself brought about the disclosure of the secret of its policy. "It is a maxim of state with us," Olivares confessed, as the Prince demanded an energetic interference in Germany, "that the King of Spain must never fight against the Emperor. We cannot employ our forces against the Emperor." "If you hold to that," replied the Prince, “there is an end of all."

His return was the signal for a burst of national joy. All London was alight with bonfires, in her joy at the failure of the Spanish match, and of the collapse, humiliating as it was, of the policy which had so long trailed English honor at the chariot-wheels of Spain. Charles returned to take along with Buckingham the direction of affairs out of his father's hands. The journey to Madrid had revealed to those around him the strange mixture of obstinacy and weakness in the Prince's character, the duplicity which lavished promises because it never purposed to be bound by any, the petty pride that subordinated every political consideration to personal vanity or personal pique. He had granted demand after demand, till the very Spaniards lost faith in his concessions. With rage in his heart at the failure of his efforts, he had renewed his betrothal on the very eve of his departure, only that he might insult the Infanta by its withdrawal when he was safe at home. But to England at large the baser features of his character were still unknown. The stately reserve, the personal dignity and decency of manners which distinguished the Prince, contrasted favorably with the gabble and indecorum of his father. The courtiers indeed who saw him in his youth, would often pray God that "he might be in the right way when he was set; for if he was in the wrong he would prove the most wilful of any king that ever reigned." But the nation was willing to take his obstinacy for firmness; as it took the pique which inspired