Hardly had Richelieu emerged in triumph from his first contest with the nobles, than he found himself involved in an unnecessary war with England and the Huguenots. The treaty between France and England on the occasion of the marriage between Henrietta Maria and Charles I. contained provisions which were absolutely certain to lead to mutual recriminations sooner or later. Charles had promised publicly to permit his wife to keep her French household, and have complete control over the education of the children till they were thirteen years of age. Privately he had bound himself to tolerate Roman Catholicism in England. But he very soon found that, in the excited and unreasonable temper of the English people, it was impossible for him even to pardon Roman priests condemned under the penal laws. Neither in the interests of his domestic life could he permit a band of mischief-making women to alienate from him the affections of his child-wife. In both these matters he found himself compelled to break his word. Louis on his side set at naught his own verbal promise to permit Mansfeld and the English contingent to march across France to attack the Palatinate, and so in the eyes of the English court became largely responsible for the terrible misfortunes of the year 1626 in Germany. When Richelieu in further pursuance of the treaty had demanded from Charles a loan of ships to use against Soubise and the revolted Huguenots, Buckingham had set his wits against those of Richelieu to avoid carrying out his obligation in fact, while he outwardly professed to be eager to do so, and even condescended to the trick of organising a sham mutiny on board the fleet. But in the end he was outwitted, and the spectacle of English ships in the French fleet, which defeated Soubise and the Huguenots, so exasperated the Protestant party in the English Parliament, that Buckingham from motives of self-defence as well as from those of wounded pride declared war against France in order to shift the odium from himself to Richelieu, and to pose before the world as the champion of the Protestant cause. [Sidenote: =Siege of La Rochelle, 1627.=] In July 1627 Buckingham, at the head of a large but ill-appointed fleet, appeared before La Rochelle, and occupying the island of Rhé besieged the fort of S. Martin. The Rochellois much against their will felt compelled to make common cause with the English, and the Huguenots in the south of France seized the opportunity once more to rise into revolt under Rohan. Richelieu found himself again threatened by a formidable combination of foreign and domestic enemies, and determined this time to have recourse to no half measures. In November Buckingham was obliged to withdraw from before the unconquered S. Martin and sail back to England for reinforcements. Richelieu himself formed the siege of La Rochelle. Recognising at once the impossibility of capturing a city open to the sea and surrounded