While France carried her arms into Italy, in order to force back the Spanish influence there, the King of England was to direct his forces to North Germany, in order to check the spreading power of the Emperor and the League. Maritime affairs at that time principally attracted the general attention. Wallenstein advanced a claim to sovereignty over the Baltic, but at the same time he intended to hold the ports of the German Ocean and the mouth of the Elbe in behalf of the Empire: and a combination between the Hanseatic shipping and the Spanish naval power was [A.D. 1629.] contemplated. Roused by this unexpected danger, the Kings of Sweden and Denmark held a conference in February 1629 on the confines of the province of Halland, and united to defend the ‘Regalia of the northern crowns on the Baltic sea[10].’ The Danish ambassador exerted himself most zealously to kindle the sympathies of the Dutch and English also. And in fact the King of England, in transmitting the official notification of the peace with France, announced to the States-General that he had sent a squadron under Pennington and Colonel Mackay to the Elbe in order to encourage the King of Denmark[11], and he invited the Dutch likewise to support him. A short time before, Colonel Morgan with another considerable body of troops, among whom were newly enlisted French and Scots, had started from the islands of Sylt and Föhr and made an attack upon the troops of the Empire and of Gottorp at Nordstrand. But at this moment, when a new coalition embracing the South, West, and North of Europe, was again just about to be formed to check the advance of the house of Austria, Denmark, which was to have been supported in the first instance, came to an agreement with that power. In the beginning of June, at Lübeck, King Christian IV renounced his operations against the German empire; but in return he received back without loss of a foot of land his possessions in Holstein and Jutland, the greater part of which was in the hands of the enemy. If we ask what induced the Imperialists to make so extensive a concession, it was no doubt anxiety about that maritime coalition, for which great exertions were being made at Copenhagen. Even without this aid the Danish fleet was able to defend itself with much more success than the army: the Imperial and German navies, with all their combined force, were still far from being a match for it. The generals were afraid of reverses, and of a mischievous [A.D. 1629.] action of the Danish fleet upon the coast towns of which they had taken possession, and upon the German empire in general[12]. Charles I had just sent one of his ablest and most zealous diplomatists, Thomas Roe, a particular friend of his sister the Electress Palatine, to Hamburg, in order to bring about a northern alliance between the two kings, the Republic, and the Hanse towns[13]. He hoped still to delay the ratification of the treaty between Denmark and