to
allay the necessary alarm of the States at such a disaster. Nor was it
much more tranquillizing for them to be assured, not that the marriage
was off, but that, when it was settled, they, as the King's good friends
and neighbours, should have early information of it.

"I told him," said the Ambassador, "that undoubtedly this matter was of
the highest 'importance to your Mightinesses, for it was not good for us
to sit between two kingdoms both so nearly allied with the Spanish
monarch, considering the pretensions he still maintained to sovereignty
over us. Although his Majesty might not now be willing to treat to our
prejudice, yet the affair itself in the sequence of time must of
necessity injure our commonwealth. We hoped therefore that it would never
come to pass."

Caron added that Ambassador Digby was just going to Spain on
extraordinary mission in regard to this affair, and that eight or ten
gentlemen of the council had been deputed to confer with his Majesty
about it. He was still inclined to believe that the whole negotiation
would blow over, the King continuing to exhort him not to be alarmed, and
assuring him that there were many occasions moving princes to treat of
great affairs although often without any effective issue.

At that moment too the King was in a state of vehement wrath with the
Spanish Netherlands on account of a stinging libel against himself, "an
infamous and wonderfully scandalous pamphlet," as he termed it, called
'Corona Regis', recently published at Louvain. He had sent Sir John
Bennet as special ambassador to the Archdukes to demand from them justice
and condign and public chastisement on the author of the work--a rector
Putianus as he believed, successor of Justus Lipsius in his professorship
at Louvain--and upon the printer, one Flaminius. Delays and excuses
having followed instead of the punishment originally demanded, James had
now instructed his special envoy in case of further delay or evasion to
repudiate all further friendship or intercourse with the Archduke, to
ratify the recall of his minister-resident Trumbull, and in effect to
announce formal hostilities.

"The King takes the thing wonderfully to heart," said Caron.

James in effect hated to be made ridiculous, and we shall have occasion
to see how important a part other publications which he deemed
detrimental to the divinity of his person were to play in these affairs.

Meantime it was characteristic of this sovere