“The Emperor will never permit the, princes to remain nor Leopold to withdraw,” said the Envoy to Jeannin.

Jeannin replied that the King was always ready to listen to reason, but there was no use in holding language of authority to him.  It was money he would not accept.

“Fiat justitia pereat mundus,” said the haggard Hohenzollern.

“Your world may perish,” replied Jeannin, “but not ours.  It is much better put together.”

A formal letter was then written by the King to the Emperor, in which Henry expressed his desire to maintain peace and fraternal relations, but notified him that if, under any pretext whatever, he should trouble the princes in their possession, he would sustain them with all his power, being bound thereto by treaties and by reasons of state.

This letter was committed to the care of Hohenzollern, who forthwith departed, having received a present of 4000 crowns.  His fierce, haggard face thus vanishes for the present from our history.

The King had taken his ground, from which there was no receding.  Envoys or agents of Emperor, Pope, King of Spain, Archduke at Brussels, and Archduke at Julich, had failed to shake his settled purpose.  Yet the road was far from smooth.  He had thus far no ally but the States-General.  He could not trust James of Great Britain.  Boderie came back late in the summer from his mission to that monarch, reporting him as being favourably inclined to Brandenburg, but hoping for an amicable settlement in the duchies.  No suggestion being made even by the sagacious James as to the manner in which the ferret and rabbits were to come to a compromise, Henry inferred, if it came to fighting, that the English government would refuse assistance.  James had asked Boderie in fact whether his sovereign and the States, being the parties chiefly interested, would be willing to fight it out without allies.  He had also sent Sir Ralph Winwood on a special mission to the Hague, to Dusseldorf, and with letters to the Emperor, in which he expressed confidence that Rudolph would approve the proceedings of the possessory princes.  As he could scarcely do that while loudly claiming through his official envoy in Paris that the princes should instantly withdraw on pain of instant war, the value of the English suggestion of an amicable compromise might easily be deduced.

Great was the jealousy in France of this mission from England.  That the princes should ask the interference of James while neglecting, despising, or fearing Henry, excited Henry’s wrath.  He was ready, and avowed his readiness, to put on armour at once in behalf of the princes, and to arbitrate on the destiny of Germany, but no one seemed ready to follow his standard.  No one asked him to arbitrate.  The Spanish faction wheedled and threatened by turns, in order to divert him from his purpose, while the Protestant party held aloof, and babbled of Charlemagne and of Henry II.