An interview was quickly arranged, its locality to be
the coach of the king. Meanwhile, Olivares sought Buckingham.
"Let us despatch this matter out of hand," he said, "and strike it up
without the pope."
"Very well," answered Buckingham; "but how is it to be done?"
"The means are very easy," said Olivares, lightly. "It is but the
conversion of the prince, which we cannot conceive but his highness
intended when he resolved upon this journey."
This belief was a very natural one. The fact of Charles being a
Protestant had been the stumbling-block in the way of the match. A
dispensation for the marriage of a Catholic princess with the Protestant
prince of England had been asked from the pope, but had not yet been
given. Charles had come to Madrid with the empty hope that his presence
would cut the knot of this difficulty, and win him the princess out of
hand. The authorities and the people, on the contrary, fancied that
nothing less than an intention to turn Catholic could have brought him
to Spain. As for the infanta herself, she was an ardent Catholic, and
bitterly opposed to being united in marriage to a heretic prince. Such
was the state of affairs that prevailed. The easy pathway out of the
difficulty which the hopeful prince had devised was likely to prove not
quite free from thorns.
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