The next mission entrusted to Buckingham was one which, accompanied by the Earl of Holland, he undertook to the States-General, who had bound themselves to restore by force of arms the Palatinate to the King’s only sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia, “whose dowry,” Sir Henry Wotton observes, “had been ravished by the German eagle mixed with Spanish feathers.” “A princess,” he adds, “resplendent in darkness, and whose virtues were born within the chance, but without the power, of fortune.”
This mission occupied a month. The Duke and Lord Holland embarked at Harwich, and after a dangerous passage, in the course of which three ships were foundered, they arrived on the fifth day at Harwich. It was during the absence of Buckingham that the unfortunate expedition to Cadiz failed, and the public expressions of disappointment at that misfortune were the first news to greet him on his return.
It was at this period that the seeds of many of the erroneous and unjustifiable principles of action which were originally implanted in the mind of Charles I. by his father, and which had been fostered by Buckingham, were seen to produce their first effects; and that the long course of mistakes and oppressions which preceded the great Rebellion was commenced.
In order to comprehend the manner in which the complicated questions of foreign policy in those days affected the line of conduct adopted by England, it will be necessary to refer briefly to the question which was the grand theme of the day--the loss of the Palatinate.
The misfortunes of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, her rare qualities, and her romantic story, are well known by every one conversant with English history. The affairs connected with the Palatinate afford the first instance in which Great Britain was involved in the politics of Germany, and with the various religious parties into which that country was divided.
In 1612, a league had been cemented between this country and the German Protestants, by the marriage of Elizabeth Stuart with Frederic, the Elector Palatine. Bohemia, persecuted by the Emperor Mathias of Austria, had invited the Elector Palatine to accept the crown, which was elective, under a conviction that Frederic, being supported by an alliance with England, would support them in their struggles with the intolerant Catholic Council who governed the kingdom of Bohemia.