The mood of the King was not likely to last long in so comfortable a state.  Meantime he took the part of Conde and the other princes, justified their proceedings to the special envoy sent over by Mary de’ Medici, and wished the States to join with him in appealing to that Queen to let the affair, for his sake, pass over once more.

“And now I will tell your Mightinesses,” said Caron, reverting once more to the dreaded marriage which occupies so conspicuous a place in the strangely mingled and party-coloured tissue of the history of those days, “what the King has again been telling me about the alliance between his son and the Infanta.  He hears from Carleton that you are in very great alarm lest this event may take place.  He understands that the special French envoy at the Hague, M. de la None, has been representing to you that the King of Great Britain is following after and begging for the daughter of Spain for his son.  He says it is untrue.  But it is true that he has been sought and solicited thereto, and that in consequence there have been talks and propositions and rejoinders, but nothing of any moment.  As he had already told me not to be alarmed until he should himself give me cause for it, he expressed his amazement that I had not informed your Mightinesses accordingly.  He assured me again that he should not proceed further in the business without communicating it to his good friends and neighbours, that he considered My Lords the States as his best friends and allies, who ought therefore to conceive no jealousy in the matter.”

This certainly was cold comfort.  Caron knew well enough, not a clerk in his office but knew well enough, that James had been pursuing this prize for years.  For the King to represent himself as persecuted by Spain to give his son to the Infanta was about as ridiculous as it would have been to pretend that Emperor Matthias was persuading him to let his son-in-law accept the crown of Bohemia.  It was admitted that negotiations for the marriage were going on, and the assertion that the Spanish court was more eager for it than the English government was not especially calculated to allay the necessary alarm of the States at such a disaster.  Nor was it much more tranquillizing for them to be assured, not that the marriage was off, but that, when it was settled, they, as the King’s good friends and neighbours, should have early information of it.

“I told him,” said the Ambassador, “that undoubtedly this matter was of the highest ’importance to your Mightinesses, for it was not good for us to sit between two kingdoms both so nearly allied with the Spanish monarch, considering the pretensions he still maintained to sovereignty over us.  Although his Majesty might not now be willing to treat to our prejudice, yet the affair itself in the sequence of time must of necessity injure our commonwealth.  We hoped therefore that it would never come to pass.”

Caron added that Ambassador Digby was just going to Spain on extraordinary mission in regard to this affair, and that eight or ten gentlemen of the council had been deputed to confer with his Majesty about it.  He was still inclined to believe that the whole negotiation would blow over, the King continuing to exhort him not to be alarmed, and assuring him that there were many occasions moving princes to treat of great affairs although often without any effective issue.