ruggle for life and death, the English Parliament
would approve of the wavering policy of James I, which aimed at
compromise and had hitherto been without results?[414] Quite the
contrary: starting with the view that England was the centre of
Protestantism and must avert the dangers which assailed it, Parliament
declared itself ready, it is true, to pay the King new subsidies, but
not until the following year, and on the presumption that he should
have accepted and ratified the bills for the welfare of the people
which had passed the House.[415] They thought that the common danger
to religion arising from the alliance between the Pope and the King of
Spain had been brought upon England also by the indulgence hitherto
shown to the recusants. Parliament invited the King to draw the sword
without further circumlocution for the rescue of the foreign
Protestants; in the first instance to break with the power whose army
had carried on the war in the Palatinate, but above all to marry the
Prince his successor to a lady of the Protestant faith.

The King wished to avoid war because he was anxious lest he should be
constantly compelled by Parliament, owing to his repeated want of
subsidies, to make fresh concessions, which would affect and diminish
the substance of his authority. The Parliament wished for war because
it expected that such a proceeding would furnish it with great
opportunities for establishing its power.

As soon as the rival powers encountered each other on this ground, all
agreement between them was at an end. Parliament interfered still more
vigorously than before with the affairs which the King reserved for
himself: it wished to induce him to adopt those very measures which he
was resolved to avoid. He was expected to break with that power with
which it was his principal ambition to become most closely connected.
He was expected to take the sword in order to defend the common cause
of Protestantism. He was expected to put an end to the indulgence
which he had hitherto shown to his Catholic subjects; to do what ran
counter to all the expectations which he had raised at Rome and
Madrid; and what perhaps, considering the strength of the Catholic
element in England, was not without danger to the maintenance of quiet
at home. Meanwhile the payment of the subsidies, which he required at
once in order to maintain his political position, was indefinitely
deferred. Although it was not actually stated, yet it was quit