A formal answer to this effect was communicated to Arundel at Ratisbon on September 12. The restoration of the Count Palatine to the Electorship was deferred until events should have happened, which seemed to Arundel about as near as the end of the world. He remarked that, if his sovereign had been told this before, he would never have sent him to Germany. He returned to England deeply incensed, for he thought that, personally as well as officially, he had not met with the consideration which he had a right to claim. This was the second time that the Austro-Spanish house refused to draw closer to England from regard to its relations with Germany. There is no doubt that, for the German branch in the present state of affairs, the maintenance of Catholicism and of an alliance with Bavaria outweighed all other considerations. But was this the case also with the Spanish branch? For it, both for the sake of the monarchy and its general position in European politics, a closer agreement with England even under the Stuarts would have been of inestimable advantage. Olivarez differed from Lerma, in that the latter studied most carefully the general and maritime interests of Spain, the former her interests in Germany and on the continent. The mistake of [A.D. 1636.] the first Stuarts lay in this, that they thought to find in Spain the centre of gravity of the joint relations of the two houses, even after it had been transferred to Austria. In that long and bloody conflict between all the continental powers, which we term the Thirty Years’ War, England also had her interest. James I and Charles I never wholly lost sight of the principal aim of their continental policy, the restoration of the Elector Palatine. But they never staked their whole power on the issue. They once stirred up Denmark to conduct the cause; they then allied themselves with Sweden in order directly to attain their object. But for all that they would never adopt as their own the common political point of view of the Protestant powers. They would far rather, from first to last, have procured from the Emperor the recovery of the Palatinate by means of Spanish influence. But even for securing this the means which they set in motion were not sufficient. Their misunderstandings with Parliament rendered strong measures on their part impossible, just where it was most necessary. In the great continental struggle which must be decisive as to the future condition of Europe, the Stuarts could not interfere to influence the result. Meanwhile they were pursuing their own special end. Whilst the agitation of the world was at high tide, Charles I in his insular domain, which was affected by it without feeling its full force, was scheming to establish for ever the kingly power. FOOTNOTES: [23] Roe to Henry Earl of Holland, in Bruce Calendar 1631-1633, Pref. x. [24] Report in Rushworth ii. 132. [25] Letter to Lechhausen, April 1632. Rushworth ii. 175.