r
abandon them on any consideration. So near, indeed, that he meant to
bring them still nearer, but this was not then suspected by the Spanish
court; Henry, the while, repelling as a personal insult to himself the
request that he should secretly labour to reduce the United Provinces
under subjection to the archdukes. It had even been proposed that he
should sign a secret convention to that effect, and there were those
about the court who were not ill-disposed for such a combination. The
king was, however, far too adroit to be caught in any such trap. The
marriage proposals in themselves he did not dislike, but Jeannin and he
were both of a mind that they should be kept entirely secret.

Don Pedro, on the contrary, for obvious reasons, was for making the
transactions ostentatiously public, and, as a guarantee of his master's
good faith in regard to the heritage of the Netherlands, he proposed that
every portion of the republic, thenceforth to be conquered by the allies,
should be confided to hands in which Henry and the archdukes would have
equal confidence.

But these artifices were too trivial to produce much effect. Henry
remained true, in his way, to the States-General, and Don Pedro was much
laughed at in Paris, although the public scarcely knew wherefore.

These intrigues had not been conducted so mysteriously but that Barneveld
was aware of what was going on. Both before Jeannin's departure from the
Hague in June, and on his return in the middle of August, he catechised
him very closely on the subject. The old Leaguer was too deep, however,
to be thoroughly pumped, even by so practised a hand as the Advocate's,
so that more was suspected than at the time was accurately known.

As, at the memorable epoch of the accession of the King of Scots to the
throne of Elizabeth, Maximilian de Bethune had flattered the new monarch
with the prospect of a double marriage, so now Don Fernando Girono had
been sent on solemn mission to England, in order to offer the same
infants to James which Don Pedro was placing at the disposition of Henry.

The British sovereign, as secretly fascinated by the idea of a Spanish
family alliance as he had ever been by the proposals of the Marquis de
Rosny for the French marriages, listened with eagerness. Money was
scattered as profusely among the English courtiers by Don Fernando as had
been done by De Bethune four years before. The bribes were accepted, and
often by the very personages who