Though the restitution of the Palatinate had ever been considered by
James as a natural or necessary consequence of the Spanish alliance,
he had always forbidden his ministers to insist on it as a preliminary
article to the conclusion of the marriage treaty. He considered, that
this principality was now in the hands of the emperor and the duke of
Bavaria and that it was no longer in the king of Spain's power, by
a single stroke of his pen, to restore it to its ancient master. The
strict alliance of Spain with these princes would engage Philip, he
thought, to soften so disagreeable a demand by every art of negotiation;
and many articles must of necessity be adjusted, before such an
important point could be effected. It was sufficient, in James's
opinion, if the sincerity of the Spanish court could, for the present,
be ascertained; and, dreading further delays of the marriage, so long
wished for, he was resolved to trust the palatine's full restoration to
the event of future counsels and deliberations.[*]

This whole system of negotiation Buckingham now reversed; and he
overturned every supposition upon which the treaty had hitherto been
conducted. After many fruitless artifices were employed to delay or
prevent the espousals, Bristol received positive orders not to deliver
the proxy, which had been left in his hands, or to finish the marriage,
till security were given for the full restitution of the Palatinate.[**]

* Parl. Hist. vol. vi. p. 57.

** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 105. Rennet, p. 776.

Philip understood this language. He had been acquainted with the disgust
received by Buckingham; and deeming him a man capable of sacrificing to
his own ungovernable passions the greatest interests of his master and
of his country, his had expected, that the unbounded credit of that
favorite would be employed to embroil the two nations. Determined,
however to throw the blame of the rupture entirely on the English,
he delivered into Bristol's hand a written promise, by which he
bound himself to procure the restoration of the Palatinate either by
persuasion, or by every other possible means; and when he found that
this concession gave no satisfaction, he ordered the infanta to lay
aside the title of princess of Wales which she bore after the arrival
of the dispensation from Rome, and to drop the study of the English
language.[*] Any thinking that such rash counsels as now governed the
court of England, would not stop at t