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Updated: September 10, 2025
And while Gondemar 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.
It was not the Parliament nor the people of Great Britain that would be in fault when the question arose of paying in money and in blood for the defence of civil and religious liberty. But if James should venture openly to oppose Spain, what would the Count of Gondemar say, and what would become of the Infanta and the two millions of dowry?
But his wrath was likely to cool under the soothing communications of Gondemar, and the rumour of the marriage of the second infanta with the Prince of Wales soon afterwards started into new life.
The League was rolling up its forces in all directions; its chiefs proposed absurd conditions of pacification, while war was already raging, and yet scarcely any government but that of the Netherlands paid heed to the rising storm. James, fatuous as ever, listened to Gondemar, and wrote admonitory letters to the Archduke.
Gondemar at least refused to acknowledge Noel de Caron as his diplomatic equal or even as his colleague, and was vehement in his protestations on the subject. But James, much as he dreaded the Spanish envoy and fawned upon his master, was not besotted enough to comply with these demands at the expense of his most powerful ally, the Republic of the Netherlands.
But was not Gondemar ever at his elbow, and the Infanta always in the perspective? And it is strange enough that, at the same moment, Spanish marriages were in France as well as England the turning-point of policy. Henry had been willing enough that the Dauphin should espouse a Spanish infanta, and that one of the Spanish princes should be affianced to one of his daughters.
Gondemar at least refused to acknowledge Noel de Caron as his diplomatic equal or even as his colleague, and was vehement in his protestations on the subject. But James, much as he dreaded the Spanish envoy and fawned upon his master, was not besotted enough to comply with these demands at the expense of his most powerful ally, the Republic of the Netherlands.
He was sorry, he said, if the affair had caused discontent to the King of Great Britain; he intended in all respects to maintain the Treaty of Truce of which his Majesty had been one of the guarantors, but as that treaty had but a few more years to run, after which he should be reinstated in his former right of sovereignty over all the Netherlands, he entirely justified the conduct of Count Gondemar.
But was not Gondemar ever at his elbow, and the Infanta always in the perspective? And it is strange enough that, at the same moment, Spanish marriages were in France as well as England the turning-point of policy. Henry had been willing enough that the Dauphin should espouse a Spanish infanta, and that one of the Spanish princes should be affianced to one of his daughters.
But his wrath was likely to cool under the soothing communications of Gondemar, and the rumour of the marriage of the second infanta with the Prince of Wales soon afterwards started into new life.
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