enterprises by first subduing the Hugonots, and thence to proceed, by
mature counsels, to humble the house of Austria. The prospect, however,
of a conjunction with England was presently embraced, and all imaginable
encouragement was given to every proposal for conciliating a marriage
between Charles and the princess Henrietta.

Notwithstanding the sensible experience which James might have acquired
of the unsurmountable antipathy entertained by his subjects against an
alliance with Catholics, he still persevered in the opinion, that his
son would be degraded by receiving into his bed a princess of less than
royal extraction. After the rupture, therefore, with Spain, nothing
remained but an alliance with France; and to that court he immediately
applied himself.[*] The same allurements had not here place, which had
so long entangled him in the Spanish negotiation: the portion promised
was much inferior; and the peaceable restoration of the palatine could
not thence be expected. But James was afraid lest his son should be
altogether disappointed of a bride; and therefore, as soon as the French
king demanded, for the honor of his crown, the same terms which had
been granted to the Spanish, he was prevailed with to comply. And as the
prince, during his abode in Spain, had given a verbal promise to allow
the infanta the education of her children till the age of thirteen,
this article was here inserted in the treaty; and to that imprudence is
generally imputed the present distressed condition of his posterity. The
court of England, however, it must be confessed, always pretended, even
in their memorials to the French court that all the favorable conditions
granted to the Catholics, were inserted in the marriage treaty merely
to please the pope, and that their strict execution was, by an agreement
with France, secretly dispensed with.[**] [60]

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 152.

** See note HHH, at the end of the volume.

As much as the conclusion of the marriage treaty was acceptable to the
king, as much were all the military enterprises disagreeable, both from
the extreme difficulty of the undertaking in which he was engaged, and
from his own incapacity for such a scene of action.

During the Spanish negotiation, Heidelberg and Manheim had been taken by
the imperial forces; and Frankendale, though the garrison was entirely
English, was closely besieged by them. After reiterated remonstrances
from James, Spain interpo