Christian's ideas were framed on a more moderate scale. He thought that 30,000 men would be sufficient altogether, and that 6,000 would be enough to fall to the share of England. Both James and Charles declared that if they must make a choice they preferred the Danish plan. Even 6,000 men would cost them 30,000_l._ a month, and, though the French marriage was settled, Parliament had not yet been summoned to vote the subsidies on which alone such an expenditure could be based. But they did not yet understand that a choice was necessary. They thought that Gustavus might still come in as an auxiliary to the Danish armament. To this suggestion, however, Gustavus turned a deaf ear. He had no confidence in Christian, or in allies who had taken so scant a measure of the difficulties before them. It was true, he replied to a remonstrance from the English ambassador, that he had asked for hard conditions. 'But,' he added, 'if anyone thinks it easy to make war upon the most powerful potentate in Europe, and upon one, too, who has the support of Spain and of so many of the German princes, besides being supported, in a word, with the whole strength of the Roman Catholic alliance; and if he also thinks it easy to bring into common action so many minds, each having in view their own separate object and to regain for their own masters so many lands out of the power of those who tenaciously hold them, we shall be quite willing to leave to him the glory of his achievement, and all its accompanying advantages.' [Sidenote: § 7. Gustavus attacks Poland.] With these words of bitter irony Gustavus turned away for a time from the German war to fight out his own quarrel with the King of Poland, a quarrel which he always held to be subservient to the general interests in so far as it hindered Sigismund from taking part in the larger conflict. [Sidenote: § 8. Attempt of Charles to fulfil his engagements.] Christian's more sanguine ideas were soon to be put to the test. In March James of England died, and two months later Charles I. entered into an engagement to supply the king of Denmark with 30,000_l._ a month, and scraped together 46,000_l._ to make a beginning. Mansfeld, it was arranged, should abandon his hopeless attempt to reach the Palatinate along the Rhine, and should convey the remnants of his force by the sea to the assistance of Christian. [Sidenote: § 9. Commencement of the Danish war.]