ABSTRACT
The assassination of Henry IV of France in 1610 severely impacted Anglo-Spanish relations. The new French government turned from the late king’s general policy of hostility towards Habsburg interests and embraced a double marriage alliance with Madrid. King James of England, who had expected a marriage alliance of his own between his heir and the same Spanish infanta, felt betrayed by this turn and denounced what he saw as a “popish cabal” of France and Spain aimed at international Protestantism. He moved to embrace a more confessional policy of his own by marrying his daughter Elizabeth to the leading Calvinist prince in Germany. Spain, hoping to head off this English-Palatine alliance, hinted at a counter match between King Philip himself, recently made a widower, and the English princess, and sent a special ambassador to England. The Zúñiga mission, however, was a signal failure and left a legacy of mistrust and bitterness. The government in London, in the meantime, suspicious that much of the English Catholic community was potentially treasonous, stepped up their persecution, tightening the enforcement of existing anti-Catholic law and strictly imposing an oath of allegiance in an effort to sort out loyal and disloyal Catholics.
