en as was shown at that time in the wish to ally
themselves with England. Already agents of Mansfeld and Brunswick were
seen at Court: an intended mission to Maximilian of Bavaria was given
up on the representation of the English ambassador. Envoys from the
expelled King of Bohemia also soon arrived, in order to gain the
co-operation of the French in his restoration. The negotiations with
England actually began: they were directed to an alliance and a
marriage at the same time: in each case it was made a preliminary
condition that England should openly and completely break with Spain.

But this condition could not be fulfilled in England quite easily and
without opposition.

And how indeed could it have been expected that the members of the
Privy Council, who had followed the King in the direction given to his
policy in favour of Spain, if not without any reserve, yet with an
ardour which might be turned to their reproach, would now, as it were,
turn round, and follow the example of the favourite in entering on
another path? A commission chosen from their body was appointed in
order to take into consideration the complaints made by Buckingham
about the behaviour of the Spanish court. But the report which
Buckingham made was by no means so convincing as to win their
concurrence. He rather depended on impressions, which had no doubt in
his own eyes a certain truth, than on facts which might have served as
evidence for others as well. The commission declared itself almost
unanimously against him.[435] Its sentence was, that Philip IV had
seriously intended to marry his sister to the Prince; and that in the
affair of the Palatinate he had behaved, if not as a friend, yet at
any rate not as an enemy. The first part is undoubtedly correct; with
regard to the second however, neither the members of the Privy Council
had any suspicion, nor had Buckingham himself any real information,
that the Spaniards had made the interests of Austria in the Palatinate
so decidedly their own. The Council was moreover in an ill humour with
the favourite on account of the arbitrary authority which he arrogated
to himself. When Lord Bristol came to England in the beginning of the
year 1624, and then laid all the blame on Buckingham himself, a party
was formed against the latter, which sought to overthrow him, and was
even thought to have already secured a new favourite, with whom to
replace Buckingham, just as he had formerly stepped into the pla