s a lawful prize. Buckingham
proceeded on the supposition that the foundation of the Spanish power
and its influence would be undermined by the interruption of the
Spanish trade with America, and that in the next year the Spaniards
would be able to effect nothing. He did not perceive that this would
have no decisive influence on that undertaking on which in the first
instance everything depended, that of the King of Denmark, as
meanwhile in Rome, Vienna, and Munich, native forces, independent of
Spain, had been collected. But while he preferred the more distant to
the more immediate end, it was his fate to achieve neither the one nor
the other. In December 1625 the fleet returned without having effected
anything at sea or on the Spanish coasts. On the contrary it had
suffered the heaviest losses itself.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1626.]

The discredit into which Buckingham fell with those whom he had
desired to win over, and whose wishes were fixed on the struggle with
Spain, is exhibited in a very extraordinary enterprise which sprung up
at this time, and which had for its object the formation of what we
may almost call a joint-stock war company. A wish was felt to form a
company for making war on Spain, upon the basis, it is true, of a
royal charter, but under the authority of Parliament, with the
intention of sharing the booty and the conquests, as well as the costs
among the members.[462]

By the late enterprise moreover the means had been wasted which might
have been used for supporting the German allies of England. Left
without sufficient subsidies in his quarrel with Parliament, the King
was unable to pay the arrears due both to the seamen who were
returning from Spain, and to his troops in Holland. He could not
repair his fleet; he could hardly defend his coasts: how could he be
in a position to make any persevering effort for the conduct of the
war in Germany? The King of Sweden asked for only L15,000 in order to
set his forces in motion; but at that time this sum could not be
raised. The King of Denmark was the more thrown on England, as the
French also made their services depend on what the English would do:
but Conway, the Secretary of State, declared himself unable to pay the
stipulated sum. Could men feel astonished that the Danish war was not
carried on with the energy which the cause seemed to demand?
Christian IV had not troops enough, and could not pay even those which
he had. The cavalry, which constituted