was
making these ingenuous assertions in London, his colleagues at Paris and
at Brussels distinctly and openly declared that there was no authority
whatever for them, that the Ambassador had received no such instructions,
and that there was no thought of giving up Wesel or any other of the
Protestant strongholds captured, whether in the duchies or out of them.
And Gondemar, still more to keep that monarch in subjection, had been
unusually flattering in regard to the Spanish marriage. "We are in great
alarm here," said the Advocate, "at the tidings that the projected
alliance of the Prince of Wales with the daughter of Spain is to be
renewed; from which nothing good for his Majesty's person, his kingdom,
nor for our state can be presaged. We live in hope that it will never
be."

But the other marriage was made. Despite the protest of James, the
forebodings of Barneveld, and the mutiny of the princes, the youthful
king of France had espoused Anne of Austria early in the year 1616. The
British king did his best to keep on terms with France and Spain, and by
no means renounced his own hopes. At the same time, while fixed as ever
in his approbation of the policy pursued by the Emperor and the League,
and as deeply convinced of their artlessness in regard to the duchies,
the Protestant princes of Germany, and the Republic, he manifested more
cordiality than usual in his relations with the States. Minor questions
between the countries he was desirous of arranging--so far as matters of
state could be arranged by orations--and among the most pressing of these
affairs were the systematic piracy existing and encouraged in English
ports, to the great damage of all seafaring nations and to the Hollanders
most of all, and the quarrel about the exportation of undyed cloths,
which had almost caused a total cessation of the woollen trade between
the two countries. The English, to encourage their own artisans, had
forbidden the export of undyed cloths, and the Dutch had retorted by
prohibiting the import of dyed ones.

The King had good sense enough to see the absurdity of this condition of
things, and it will be remembered that Barneveld had frequently urged
upon the Dutch ambassador to bring his Majesty's attention to these
dangerous disputes. Now that the recovery of the cautionary towns had
been so dexterously and amicably accomplished, and at so cheap a rate, it
seemed a propitious moment to proceed to a general extinction of what