mperial ambassador,
Count Khevenhiller, however rejected these proposals, for no other
reason than that King James was not the proper person to make
arrangements for his grandson. He did not accept the supposition that
the youth, whose education it was proposed to complete in Vienna,
would join the Catholic faith, for he said that his mother would never
allow that. He set aside the expectation that the Imperial court might
send to Spain a full authorisation to negotiate for the marriage. He
moreover affirmed that, if the Imperial court wished to secure its
influence in Germany, it could not allow the opinion to gain ground
that it depended on Spain and was guided by her.

And in Spain also, after the fall of Lerma, which was brought on by
this affair, the old aspirations after the supremacy of the world had
again obtained the upper hand.

It is true that at the moment a feeling prevailed in favour of
maintaining peace on the very advantageous footing which had then been
obtained. Cardinal Zapata, Don Pedro of Toledo, and above all Count
Gondomar, who had at that time been made a member of the Council,
declared before that body that Spain ought to have no higher political
aim than to secure her union with England. These were men of
experience in European affairs, who recollected the evils which had
sprung from the policy of Philip II. But there were others who were
again seized with the old ambition, so interwoven with Catholicism,
and who would not separate themselves from the interests of the
Emperor at any price--men like the Marquis de Aytona, Don Augustin
Mexia. And Count Olivarez, under the influence of the Imperial
ambassador, now espoused the same opinion, a man who, as favourite of
the King and chief minister, filled the same position in Spain that
Buckingham did in England. At the decisive meeting of the Council, he
stated that the King of Spain would not venture to separate from the
Emperor, even if he had been mortally affronted by him: if he could
stand in friendly relations with the Emperor and the King of England
at the same time, well and good; but if not, he must break with the
King of England without any regard to the marriage: this step was
demanded of him for the preservation of Christendom, of the Catholic
religion, and of his family. He added that a marriage between the
young Count Palatine and a daughter of the Emperor was only to be
thought of, if the former became a Catholic: that the complete