124 TWO CHAPTERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF 



give vent to his indignation at the poltroonery of his father-in-law : 

 " If his Majestie would have bestowed the money which he hath 

 spent in treaties, and upon the Navy to Algiers in behalf of the Spa- 

 niards, upon his daughter and children, their inheritance had been 

 preserved, and need not to have sued to their enemies ; whereat his 

 majestie was offended not a little." * 



After this statement, we think there is no occasion to waste any 

 more words in proving, that the first part of Burnett's paragraph is 

 supported by the best authorities of the day. While in respect to the 

 latter, nothing can be more demonstrative of the malignant spirit with 

 which the whole of Higgons' book is written, than what we shall now 

 quote. The following sentences may be regarded as specimens in- 

 deed of that compound of audacity and falsehood hardly to be matched 

 even in those writers who are most notorious for their partiality and 

 unfaithfulness: — " In the first place ; we must consider that the beha- 

 viour of Fredric towards his father-in-law was so disrespectful, in not 

 asking his advice in a matter of so great consequence, nay not so 

 much as acquainting him with his resolutions to accept the crown of 

 Bohemia, as might make King James, and not without reason, the 

 cooler in his concerns. Yet notwithstanding the justice of any re- 

 sentment which he might have on this occasion, we find that this 

 prince, left no stone unturned to serve the Palsgrave, by mediations, 

 treaties, and advantageous proposals, made to the house of Austria, 

 in order to restore him to his patrimony, though he could not in ho- 

 nour support his pretensions to the crown of Bohemia, the possession 

 of which had been founded on a revolt of the Bohemians from their 

 lawful prince the emperor, but without any considerations of the di- 

 vine right of kings, as our author pretends, he had better reason to 

 justify his conduct ; his experience had shewn him how fatal this po- 

 litic in queen Elizabeth had been to his own mother."t 



Precisely and distinctly we shall endeavour to prove, that the very 

 reverse of all this is the true state of the facts. In the Harleian Ma- 

 nuscript, 1583,J there is preserved the original of the Baron Donas' 

 letter to Buckingham, including a copy of the offer of the crown by 

 the states of Bohemia, dated at Prague, 11 — 12, August 1619. The 

 same volume also contains a letter§ from Frederic to James, dated 

 Wolfenbuttle, 31st January, 1621, in which he assigns to the king 



* See Ellis's Letters, second series, vol. iii., p. 238. 

 ■f Remarks, p. 24. 

 J Fol. 210. 

 § Fol. 219. 



