22. =Digby's Mission, and the Dissolution of Parliament. 1621.=--The king announced to Parliament that he was about to send an ambassador to Vienna to induce the Emperor Ferdinand to be content with the re-conquest of Bohemia, and to leave Frederick undisturbed in the Palatinate. Parliament was therefore adjourned, in order to give time for the result of this embassy to be known; and the Commons, at their last sitting, declared--with wild enthusiasm--that, if the embassy failed, they would support Frederick with their lives and fortunes. When Lord Digby, who was the chosen ambassador, returned, he had done no good. Ferdinand was too anxious to push his success further, and Frederick was too anxious to make good his losses for any negotiation to be successful. The Imperialists invaded the Palatinate, and in the winter James called on Parliament--which had by that time re-assembled after the adjournment--for money sufficient to defend the Palatinate till he had made one more diplomatic effort. The Commons, believing that the king's alliance with Spain was the root of all evil, petitioned him to marry his son to a Protestant lady, and plainly showed their wish to see him at war with Spain. James replied that the Commons had no right to discuss matters on which he had not consulted them. They drew up a protestation asserting their right to discuss all matters of public concernment. James tore it out of their journal-book, and dissolved Parliament, though it had not yet granted him a penny. 23. =The Loss of the Palatinate. 1622.=--In =1614=, James, being in want of money, had had recourse to a benevolence--the lawyers having advised him that, though the Act of Richard III. (see p. 342) made it illegal for him to compel its payment, there was no law against his asking his subjects to pay it voluntarily. He took the same course in =1622=, and got enough to support the garrisons in the Palatinate for a few months, as many who did not like to give the money feared to provoke the king's displeasure by a refusal. Before the end of the year, however, the whole Palatinate, with the exception of one fortress, had been lost. [Illustration: Costume of a lawyer: from a broadside, dated 1623.]