o
its views.

James I could no longer put off the question what steps he was to
take. The tidings reached him at Newmarket, where he was spending the
cold and gloomy days in hunting. He broke off this amusement and
hastened to Westminster, in order to attend council with his
ministers.

Towards the end of December a meeting was held, in which the secretary
Naunton depicted the whole position of the foreign policy of England,
and drew from it the conclusion that the King must above all arm, as
in that case he could carry on war, or at least negotiate with
firmness and some prospect of success. King James himself brought the
affair of Bohemia under discussion. He complained, and seemed to feel
it as an injury to his paternal authority, that the Elector Frederick
even now continued to make the acknowledgment of his right to the
crown of Bohemia a condition of his accepting the mediation offered by
the King. Viscount Doncaster, who had just returned from a mission to
Germany, fell on his knees before him, in order to remark to him that
Frederick deserved no blame for clinging to a right which he supposed
to be valid: that his refusal was not addressed to James as a father,
but as King of England.[406] James I distinctly stated afresh that he
could not and would not espouse the cause of his son-in-law in
Bohemia. But by this time not only was Frederick's new crown as good
as lost, but his whole existence was endangered; the greater part of
his hereditary territory was in the enemy's hands. James declared with
unusual decision that he would not allow the Palatinate, which would
one day descend to his grandchildren, to be wrested from them; that he
was resolved to send to the Continent in the next year an army
sufficient to reconquer it. It might be asked if this measure also
would not inevitably lead to a breach with Spain. King James did not
think so. He thought that he could carry on a merely local quarrel,
and yet at the same time avoid a war on the part of the one power
against the other. He did not intend to attack the King of Spain's own
dominion, so long as that sovereign did not meddle with his.

But however that might be, whether he was to begin war, though only on
a limited scale, or whether he wished to prosecute negotiations with
success, in any case it was necessary for him to arm. But for this
purpose he required other means besides those of which he could
dispose at his own discretion.

NOTES:

[400] Me