314 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



anxious to avoid further trouble with the Dutch. The Earl of 

 Arundel, who had been sent to Vienna on one of the king's 

 wild-goose missions, to negotiate a treaty with the Emperor for 

 the restoration of the Palatinate, returned unsuccessful to Eng- 

 land at the close of the year. He came back full of bitterness 

 at the perfidy of Spain, and persistently urged a French alliance, 

 even if it should lead to war with the former Power. The 

 strenuous arguments of Arundel, as well as the treatment of his 

 mission, caused Charles to turn again to France, the ally of the 

 Dutch Republic ; and Richelieu promptly proposed an alliance 

 against Spain and the Emperor, one result of which would have 

 been to range England and the States on the same side in a 

 maritime war. 1 



At such a conjuncture the promulgation of the edict of the 

 States -General would have been unfortunate, and Arundel 

 requested George Goring, who had gone to The Hague, to see 

 the Prince of Orange in order to get it suppressed. But the 

 Prince of Orange, while anxious enough to avoid further trouble 

 with England, desired, before he consented, to receive an assur- 

 ance that the king would cease from molesting the Dutch fisher- 

 men in the ensuing season. The Queen of Bohemia urged the 

 same course. She "humbly besought" her royal brother to 

 suspend further execution of his right, which, she said, he might 

 take up again when he would, without any prejudice, "as the 

 king, our father, did." Charles was loth to give an assurance 

 so wounding to his vanity, and so opposed to what he conceived 

 to be a chief prerogative of his crown. In the autumn Sir 

 Thomas Roe had declared that the difficulty in the way for the 

 benefit of the Prince Elector arose from the fishery dispute, 

 and that upon nothing was the will of the king more firmly 

 bent : if the Dutch did not yield, he feared " another procedure " 

 next season. Even in February, Archbishop Laud told Elizabeth 

 that the king was " so set to maintain the dominion of the sea " 

 that he durst not speak to him any more about it. At the same 

 time he gave a broad hint that nothing further would be at- 

 tempted against the Dutch fishermen in the approaching season. 

 He much wondered, he said, that the Prince of Orange and 

 the States should trouble themselves to gain an overt con- 

 cession from his Majesty to leave their fishing that year, since 



1 Gardiner, Hist. England, viii. 160, 163, 202, 205. 



