He undertook, however, to accomplish
the object in another way. The King of Spain, being one of the most
powerful of the Catholic sovereigns, had great influence in all their
councils. He had also a beautiful daughter, Donna Maria, called, as
Spanish princesses are styled, the Infanta. Now James conceived the
design of proposing that his son Charles should marry Donna Maria, and
that, in the treaty of marriage, there should be a stipulation
providing that the Palatinate should be restored to Frederic.

These negotiations were commenced, and they went on two or three years
without making any sensible progress. Donna Maria was a Catholic, and
Charles a Protestant. Now a Catholic could not marry a Protestant
without a special dispensation from the pope. To get this
dispensation required new negotiations and delays. In the midst of it
all, the King of Spain, Donna Maria's father, died, and his son, her
brother, named Philip, succeeded him. Then the negotiations had all to
be commenced anew. It was supposed that the King of Spain did not wish
to have the affair concluded, but liked to have it in discussion, as
it tended to keep the King of England more or less under his control.
So they continued to send embassies back and forth, with drafts of
treaties, articles, conditions, and stipulations without number. There
were endless discussions about securing to Donna Maria the full
enjoyment of the Catholic religion in England, and express agreements
were proposed and debated in respect to her having a chapel, and
priests, and the right to celebrate mass, and to enjoy, in fact, all
the other privileges which she had been accustomed to exercise in her
own native land. James did not object. He agreed to every thing; but
still, some how or other, the arrangement could not be closed. There
was always some pretext for delay.

At last Buckingham proposed to Charles that they two should set off
for Spain in person, and see if they could not settle the affair.
Buckingham's motive was partly a sort of reckless daring, which made
him love any sort of adventure, and partly a desire to circumvent and
thwart a rival of his, the Earl of Bristol, who had charge of the
negotiations. It may seem to the reader that a simple journey from
London to Madrid, of a young man, for the purpose of visiting a lady
whom he was wishing to espouse, was no such extraordinary undertaking
as to attract the attention of a spirited young man to it from love of
a