by the articles, he was obliged to do within fifteen days after the arrival of the dispensation) until he should receive further orders from the prince, or king, after his return into England.

Mr. Clark was not to deliver this letter to the ambassador, till he was sure the dispensation was come; of which he could not be advertised in the instant. But he lodging in the ambassador's house, and falling sick of a calenture, which the physicians thought would prove mortal, he sent for the earl to come to his bedside, and delivered him the letter before the arrival of the dispensation, though long after it was known to be granted; upon which all those ceremonies were performed to the infanta.

By these means, and by this method, this great affair, upon which the eyes of Christendom had been so long fixed, came to be dissolved, without the least mixture with, or contribution from, those amours, which were afterwards so confidently discoursed of. For though the duke was naturally carried violently to those passions, when there was any grace or beauty in the object; yet the duchess of Olivarez, of whom the talk was, was then a woman so old, past children, of so abject a presence, in a word, so crooked and deformed, that she could neither tempt his appetite, or magnify his revenge. And whatever he did afterwards in England was but tueri opus, and to prosecute the design he had, upon the reasons and provocations aforesaid, so long before contrived during his abode in Spain.

The other particular, by which he involved himself in so many fatal intricacies, from which he could never extricate himself, was, his running

violently into the war with France, without any kind of provocation, and upon a particular passion very unwarrantable. In his embassy in France, where his person and presence was wonderfully admired and esteemed, (and in truth it was a wonder in the eyes of all men,) and in which he appeared with all the lustre the wealth of England could adorn him with, and outshined all the bravery that court could dress itself in, and overacted the whole nation in their own most peculiar vanities; he had the ambition to fix his eyes upon, and to dedicate his most violent affection to, a lady of a very sublime quality, and to pursue it with most importunate addresses: insomuch as when the king had brought the queen his sister as far as he meant to do, and delivered her into the hands of the duke, to be by him conducted into England; the duke, in his journey, after his departure from that court, took a resolution once more to make a visit to that great lady, which he believed he might do with great privacy. But it was so easily discovered, that provision was made for his reception; and if he had pursued his attempt, he had been without doubt assassinated; of which he had only so much notice, as served him to decline the danger. But he swore, in the instant, ،، that he "would see and speak with that lady, in spite of "the strength and power of France.' And from the time that the queen arrived in England, he took all the ways he could to undervalue and exasperate that court and nation, by causing all those who fled into England from the justice and displeasure of that king, to be received and entertained here, not only with ceremony and security,

but with bounty and magnificence; and the more extraordinary the persons were, and the more notorious the king's displeasure was towards them, (as in that time there were very many lords and ladies of that classis,) the more respectfully they were received and esteemed. He omitted no opportunity to incense the king against France, and to dispose him to assist the Hugonots, whom he likewise encouraged to give their king some trouble.

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And, which was worse than all this, he took great pains to lessen the king's affection towards his young queen, being exceedingly jealous, lest her interest might be of force enough to cross his other designs and in this stratagem, he so far swerved from the instinct of his nature and his proper inclinations, that he, who was compounded of all the elements of affability and courtesy towards all kind of people, had brought himself to a habit of neglect, and even of rudeness, towards the queen.

One day, when he unjustly apprehended that she had shewed some disrespect to his mother, in not going to her lodging at an hour she had intended to do, and was hindered by a very accident, he came into her chamber in much passion, and, after some expostulations rude enough, he told her, "she should repent it." And her majesty answering with some quickness, he replied insolently to her, "that there had been queens in England who "had lost their heads." And it was universally known, that, during his life, the queen never had any credit with the king, with reference to any public affairs, and so could not divert the resolution of making a war with France.

The war with Spain had found the nation in a surfeit of a long peace, and in a disposition inclinable enough to war with that nation, which might put an end to an alliance the most ungrateful to them, and which they most feared, and from whence no other damage had yet befallen them, than a chargeable and unsuccessful voyage by sea, without the loss of ships or men. But a war with France must be carried on at another rate and expense. Besides, the nation was weary and surfeited with the first, before the second was entered upon; and it was very visible to wise men, that when the general trade of the kingdom, from whence the support of the crown principally resulted, should be utterly extinguished with France, as it was with Spain, and interrupted or obstructed with all other places, (as it must be, in a war, how prosperously soever carried on,) the effects would be very sad, and involve the king in many perplexities; and it could not but fall out accordingly.

Upon the return from Cales without success, though all the ships, and, upon the matter, all the men were seen, (for though some had so surfeited in the vineyards, and with the wines, that they had been left behind, the generosity of the Spaniards had sent them all home again ;) and though by that fleet's putting in at Plymouth, near two hundred miles from London, so that there could be very imperfect relations, and the news of yesterday was contradicted the morrow; besides the expedition had been undertaken by the advice of the parliament, and with an universal approbation of the people, so that nobody could reasonably speak loudly against it; yet, notwithstanding all this, the

ill success was heavily borne, and imputed to ill conduct; the principal officers of the fleet and army divided amongst themselves, and all united in their murmurs against the general, the lord viscount Wimbledon; who, though an old officer in Holland, was never thought equal to the enterprise, and had in truth little more of a Holland officer than the pride and formality. In a word, there was indisposition enough quickly discovered against the war itself, that it was easily discerned it would not be pursued with the vigour it was entered into, nor carried on by any cheerful contribution of money from the public.

But the running into this war with France (from whence the queen was so newly and so joyfully received) without any colour of reason, or so much as the formality of a declaration from the king, containing the ground, and provocation, and end of it, according to custom and obligation in the like cases, (for it was observed that the declaration which was published was in the duke's own name, who went admiral and general of the expedition,) opened the mouths of all men to inveigh against it with all bitterness, and the sudden ill effects of it, manifested in the return of the fleet to Portsmouth, within such a distance of London, that nothing could be concealed of the loss sustained; in which most noble families found a son, or brother, or near kinsman wanting, without such circumstances of their deaths which are usually the consolations and recompenses of such catastrophes. The retreat had been a rout without an enemy, and the French had their revenge by the disorder and confusion of the English themselves; in which great