The Spaniards for all their poverty had never ceased to send men and money in plenty to the Emperor for his eternal war against freedom of conscience in Germany, and to the Infanta Isabel {215} against Holland. But Richelieu, hampered with a war with England about the unfulfilled conditions of Henrietta Maria's marriage contract, had kept the peace with Spain since January 1626. An English fleet co-operated with the Huguenots at Rochelle, but Richelieu was equal to the occasion, and he and Marshal Schomberg together sent back Buckingham and his fleet disgraced and defeated, with a loss of two-thirds of his force, after which--late in 1628--Richelieu, relieved of the terrible siege of Rochelle, could turn his attention again to the doings of Olivares and the Spaniards. The pretext for fighting this time was the old question of the duchy of Mantua, which, being vacant, was claimed by a French and an Italian imperial pretender; and Olivares, thinking in any case to grab something for Spain, seized the strong place of Casale in Montferrat, aided and abetted on this occasion by the Duke of Savoy, who, greedy and discontented as usual, had again changed sides. As soon as Richelieu was partially free from the struggle with the Huguenots, he sent a French army to oust the invaders from Mantuan territory; and once more Philip saw himself pledged to a national war with France for a cause which was of no interest whatever to his Spanish subjects; a war in which if he were victor he could gain little or nothing, whilst if he were vanquished he might lose enormously. Olivares began by concentrating his resources, recalling Spinola from Flanders to meet the French in Italy; and once more smiling upon England, where Buckingham, smarting under his ignominious defeat at Oleron by Richelieu, in the previous year, {216} was raising another fleet at Portsmouth to relieve Rochelle. He was assassinated by Felton in August 1628, and the fleet under Lord Lindsay arrived too late to succour the heroic Huguenots, who had been at last obliged to surrender in October 1628. France was then free to launch her whole force against Spain, and peace with England, which had been desirable for Spain before, became an absolute necessity. The need was a bitter one for Olivares, for friendship and alliance with a heretic power was an open confession to the world that Spain's proud claim to the possession of a divine mandate to crush heterodoxy throughout the world could not be enforced. [Sidenote: Reconciliation with England]