On the day following the state entry, Charles and Buckingham wrote to the King—
"For our chief business, we find them by outward shows as desirous of it as ourselves, yet they are hankering upon a conversion; for they say that there can be no firm friendship without union in religion, but they put no question in bestowing their sister, and we put the other quite out of the question, because neither our conscience nor the time serves for it."[[40]]
Delay, as they said, was the worst denial; for King James was in a hurry,—in a hurry to get his heir married, in a hurry for the Infanta's dowry, and in a hurry to get the Palatinate back for his son-in-law; and as yet the priests were still squabbling over the dispensation in Rome, and Olivares, equally with his master, was determined to delay until either England became practically Catholic, or the English themselves broke off the negotiations by refusing the terms upon which Rome, prompted by the Spanish agents, alone would consent to the match. This, indeed, as Olivares saw, was the only slender chance of preventing war with England, and to avoid throwing James into the arms of France.
[[1]] Novoa, who was present at the scene described, Documentos Ineditos, lxi.
[[2]] Especially Gil Blas, Guzman de Alfarache, Marcos de Obregon, Estevanillo Gonzales, and El Diablo Cojuelo.
[[3]] This was constantly denied by his many enemies, but original documents, to which I shall refer later, will prove that in this as in so many other things they did him an injustice, whatever his real aim might have been.
[[4]] Cambridge Modern History, vol. iv. "Spain," by Martin Hume.
[[5]] Fragmentos Historicos MSS., by Vera y Figueroa, also Novoa, and Yañez,; and Relazioni degli Ambassciatori Veneti, British Museum MSS., Add. 8701.
[[6]] Discursos y Apuntamientos, by Lison y Biedma, a member of this Parliament. (Secretly printed book of the period in my possession, which gives a sad picture of affairs.)
[[7]] There are two letters in Cabala—the first from Philip to Olivares, and the second the minister's reply to the King—which show that there was never any intention on their part of carrying the English match through. The long letter from Olivares to the King is an adaptation of a Spanish original which is well known, and to which I shall refer later, proposing the marriage of Charles with the Emperor's daughter; but the King's letter which produced Olivares' reply is not, to my knowledge, printed elsewhere.