force, but on a moral basis, on an appeal from opinion ill
informed to opinion, as he looked on it, better informed. What he relied
on was not the soldier, but the judge. It was for the judges to show
from time to time the legality of his claims, and for England at last to
bow to the force of conviction.

[Sidenote: Peace.]

He was resolute indeed to free the Crown from its dependence on
Parliament; but his expedients for freeing the Crown from a dependence
against which his pride as a sovereign revolted were simply peace and
economy. With France an accommodation had been brought about in 1629 by
the fall of Rochelle. The terms which Richelieu granted to the defeated
Huguenots showed the real drift of his policy; and the reconciliation of
the two countries set the king's hands free to aid Germany in her hour
of despair. The doom of the Lutheran princes of the north had followed
hard on the ruin of the Calvinistic princes of the south. The selfish
neutrality of Saxony and Brandenburg received a fitting punishment in
their helplessness before the triumphant advance of the Emperor's
troops. His general, Wallenstein, encamped on the Baltic; and the last
hopes of German Protestantism lay in the resistance of Stralsund. The
danger called the Scandinavian powers to its aid. Denmark and Sweden
leagued to resist Wallenstein; and Charles sent a squadron to the Elbe
while he called on Holland to join in a quadruple alliance against the
Emperor. Richelieu promised to support the alliance with a fleet: and
even the withdrawal of Denmark, bribed into neutrality by the
restitution of her possessions on the mainland, left the force of the
league an imposing one. Gustavus of Sweden remained firm in his purpose
of entering Germany, and appealed for aid to both England and France.
But at this moment the dissolution of the Parliament left Charles
penniless. He at once resolved on a policy of peace, refused aid to
Gustavus, withdrew his ships from the Baltic, and opened negotiations
with Spain, which brought about a treaty at the end of 1630 on the
virtual basis of an abandonment of the Palatinate. Ill luck clung to
Charles in peace as in war. He had withdrawn from his efforts to win
back the dominions of his brother-in-law at the very moment when those
efforts were about to be crowned with success. The treaty with Spain was
hardly concluded when Gustavus landed in Germany and began his wonderful
career of victory. Charles at once strove