t
whether the interests of the Protestants were to be supported against
the Roman Catholics, but which of two religions equally detested, the
Calvinistic and the Popish, was to triumph over the other; to which of
the two enemies, equally dangerous, the Palatinate was to be assigned;
and in this clashing of opposite duties, it was natural that private
hate and private gain should determine the event. The born protector of
the liberties of Germany, and of the Protestant religion, encouraged the
Emperor to dispose of the Palatinate by his imperial prerogative; and to
apprehend no resistance on the part of Saxony to his measures on the
mere ground of form. If the Elector was afterwards disposed to retract
this consent, Ferdinand himself, by driving the Evangelical preachers
from Bohemia, was the cause of this change of opinion; and, in the eyes
of the Elector, the transference of the Palatine Electorate to Bavaria
ceased to be illegal, as soon as Ferdinand was prevailed upon to cede
Lusatia to Saxony, in consideration of six millions of dollars, as the
expenses of the war.

Thus, in defiance of all Protestant Germany, and in mockery of the
fundamental laws of the empire, which, as his election, he had sworn to
maintain, Ferdinand at Ratisbon solemnly invested the Duke of Bavaria
with the Palatinate, without prejudice, as the form ran, to the rights
which the relations or descendants of Frederick might afterwards
establish. That unfortunate prince thus saw himself irrevocably driven
from his possessions, without having been even heard before the tribunal
which condemned him--a privilege which the law allows to the meanest
subject, and even to the most atrocious criminal.

This violent step at last opened the eyes of the King of England; and as
the negociations for the marriage of his son with the Infanta of Spain
were now broken off, James began seriously to espouse the cause of his
son-in-law. A change in the French ministry had placed Cardinal
Richelieu at the head of affairs, and this fallen kingdom soon began to
feel that a great mind was at the helm of state. The attempts of the
Spanish Viceroy in Milan to gain possession of the Valtelline, and thus
to form a junction with the Austrian hereditary dominions, revived the
olden dread of this power, and with it the policy of Henry the Great.
The marriage of the Prince of Wales with Henrietta of France,
established a close union between the two crowns; and to this alliance,