no mind to be tricked out of his friendship with Spain;
he exacted a pledge against any attack on Spanish territory, and told
Ralegh that the shedding of Spanish blood would cost him his head. The
threat told little on a man who had risked his head again and again; who
believed in the tale he told; and who knew that if war could be brought
about between England and Spain a new career was open to him. He found
the coast occupied by Spanish troops; and while evading direct orders to
attack, he sent his men up the country. They plundered a Spanish town,
found no gold-mine, and soon came broken and defeated back. Ralegh's son
had fallen in the struggle; but, heart-broken as he was by the loss and
disappointment, the natural daring of the man saw a fresh resource. He
proposed to seize the Spanish treasure ships as he returned, to sail
with their gold to England, and like Drake to turn the heads of nation
and king by the immense spoil. But the temper of the buccaneers was now
strange to English seamen; his men would not follow him; and he was
brought home to face his doom. James at once put his old sentence in
force; and the death of Ralegh on the scaffold atoned for the affront to
Spain.

[Sidenote: The troubles in Bohemia.]

The failure of Ralegh came at a critical moment in German history. In
1617, while he was traversing the Southern seas, Ferdinand was presented
by Matthias to the Diet of Bohemia, and acknowledged by it as successor
to that kingdom. As had been foreseen, he at once began the course of
forcible suppression of Protestantism which had been successful in his
other dominions. But the Bohemian nobles were not men to give up their
faith without a fight for it; and in May 1618 they rose in revolt, flung
Ferdinand's deputies out of the window of the palace at Prague, and
called the country to arms. The long-dreaded crisis had come for
Germany; but, as if with a foresight of the awful sufferings that the
struggle was to bring, the Germans strove to look on it as a local
revolt. The Lutheran princes longed only "to put the fire out"; the
Calvinistic Union refused aid to the Bohemians; the Catholic League
remained motionless. What partly accounted for the inaction of the
Protestants was the ability of the Bohemians to hold their own. They
were a match for all Ferdinand's efforts; through autumn and winter they
held him easily at bay. In the spring of 1619 they even marched upon
Vienna and all but surprised their e