The expiry of the truce with the Hollanders, and the evident approach of war after the departure of Charles Stuart from Spain, made necessary the {142} raising of large funds somehow. It has been shown how terribly exhausted the national resources of the Castilian realms were; and the poverty of the country had wrung a cry from the Cortes of Castile, which met late in 1623 to vote new supplies for three years. They could not vote, nor could Castile pay, more than the usual amount, which for the needs of a new war, in addition to the resumed struggle with Holland, was quite insufficient. It would be necessary, therefore, for Philip soon to go and face the independent Parliaments of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia; and, whilst renewing and taking the usual oaths, beg for generosity from his eastern subjects. There is extant a paper,[11] bearing date of 1625, in which Olivares unfolds to Philip his ideas of the relations that ought to exist between the various dominions of which Spain consisted: the object in view, as he says, being to arrange that "in case any of the States was at war, the rest should be obliged to come to its aid and defence." He cites many examples, ancient and modern, of the need for national unity in the matter of finance and reciprocal obligation, and points out for the benefit of the outer realms of Spain that they can only expect to form a great Power by making such sacrifices for their King as other subjects are obliged to make. His idea, evidently, was to use the obligation of mutual defence as the first step to a complete political fusion of the crowns, and he tried to gild the pill by saying that each of the outer realms may now be considered feudatories of Castile, whereas if they were all united {143} each would be the head. There was, and is, no sentiment or tradition so strong in these regions, especially in Catalonia, as that of political independence of Castile, and any such argument as that of Olivares was bound to meet with stout resistance if he attempted to enforce it. The very rumour was sufficient, and even before the journey of Philip to the eastern realms was begun, in January 1626, ominous murmurs came that Castile might fight her own battles. The crowns of Aragon would provide money and men to defend themselves, and pay their stipulated tribute to their King on the ancient conditions; but that if an attempt was made to coerce any further payment trouble would ensue. How this threat was carried out to the bitter end the later pages of this book will tell; but before we accompany Philip and his mentor on their first regal visit to the stubborn realms of the east, the further progress of events in the capital must be told.