ourite
allowed his intimate friend to fall is a proof of the weakness of the
highest authority, which moreover ought itself to have attacked abuses
of this kind. Bacon justly remarked that reform would soon reach
higher regions.

But while Parliament, which the government had no inclination to
withstand openly, thus obtained the ascendancy in domestic matters, it
was also already turning its eyes in the direction of foreign affairs.
These were times in which a warm religious sympathy was awakened by
the advance which the counter-reformation was making in the hereditary
dominions of Austria, as well as in France, and by the persecutions
which befell the Protestants in both countries. The Spaniards were
again engaging in war for the subjugation of the Netherlands. In
Parliament, on the other hand, it was thought necessary to combine
with the Republic, and to equip a fleet to assist the Huguenots, and
even to attack Spain, in order thus to make a diversion in favour of
the Palatinate. At the very time of the opening of Parliament the ban
of the empire was pronounced against Frederick Elector Palatine amid
the sound of trumpets and drums in the Palace at Vienna. This was
regarded in the whole Protestant world as an injustice, for it was
thought that Ferdinand II had been injured by Frederick only as King
of Bohemia, and not as Emperor: and on the same grounds the English
Parliament was of opinion that the execution of the ban ought to be
hindered by force of arms; and it showed itself dissatisfied that the
King sought to meet the evil only by demonstrations and embassies.

We can easily understand that the attitude of Parliament aroused the
anxiety of the King. He caused the debates on the war to be put a stop
to, remarking that they infringed his prerogative, for which great
affairs of this kind were exclusively reserved. And yet, so
extraordinary was the complication of affairs that the declarations
made in Parliament were not altogether displeasing to him. In June he
adjourned Parliament, without formally proroguing it. What was the
reason of this? Because Parliament had brought in a new bill
containing the severest enactments against Jesuits and Catholic
recusants. The King refused to accept it, as by this means the
persecution of Protestants in Catholic countries would receive a new
impulse. But he was also unwilling to express his refusal in a final
shape, because he knew that the wish to hinder the adoption of hars