prince, had treated Gerbier coolly; and observed, that "God in
these days did not send prophets more to the protestants than to others,
to fight against nations, and to second pretences which public
incendiaries propose to princes, to engage them into unnecessary wars
with their neighbours." France would not go to war, and much less the
Danes, the Swedes, and the Hollanders. James was calumniated for his
timidity and cowardice; yet, says Gerbier, King James merited much of
his people, though ill-requited, choosing rather to suffer an eclipse of
his personal reputation, than to bring into such hazard the reputation
and force of his kingdoms in a war of no hopes.

As a father and a king, from private and from public motives, the
restoration of the Palatinate had a double tie on James, and it was
always the earnest object of his negotiations. But Spain sent him an
amusing and literary ambassador, who kept him in play, year after year,
with merry tales and _bon mots_.[231] These negotiations had languished
through all the tedium of diplomacy; the amusing promises of the courtly
Gondomar were sure, on return of the courier, to bring sudden
difficulties from the subtle Olivarez. Buckingham meditated by a single
blow to strike at the true secret, whether the Spanish court could be
induced to hasten this important object, gained over by the proffered
alliance with the English crown, from the lips of the prince himself.
The whole scene dazzled with politics, chivalry, and magnificence; it
was caught by the high spirit of the youthful prince, who, Clarendon
tells us, "loved adventures;" and it was indeed an incident which has
adorned more than one Spanish romance. The panic which seized the
English, fearful of the personal safety of the prince, did not prevail
with the duke, who told Gerbier that the prince ran no hazard from the
Spaniard, who well knew that while his sister, the fugitive Queen of
Bohemia, with a numerous issue, was residing in Holland, the protestant
succession to our crown was perfectly secured: and it was with this
conviction, says Gerbier, that when the Count-Duke Olivarez had been
persuaded that the Prince of Wales was meditating a flight from Spain,
Buckingham with his accustomed spirit told him, that "if love had made
the prince steal out of his own country, yet fear would never make him
run out of Spain, and that he should depart with an equipage as fitted a
Prince of Wales." This was no empty vaunt. An En