Aspiration Deferred: the Spanish Match, the Outbreak of the Thirty Years' War and Domestic Political Polarization, 1619–29

This chapter explores the political polarization from 1619 to 1629 by analyzing the shifts in the public sphere related to the outbreak of confessional war on the Continent. Criticism of the Spanish match and of Jacobean foreign policy emerged among many formerly associated with the court of Prince Henry and many who migrated from Henry to Frederick V. The Edinburgh diarist paid a great deal of attention to the machinations of the English Parliament and of significant courtiers such as the Duke of Buckingham when it came to foreign policy. Thomas Scott addressed the English Parliament in a petition for war on behalf of Scottish ministers in his tract Boanerges. The petition called for an immediate undertaking of war against all Catholic powers, France, Rome and Spain, warning that God will not endure any disobedience especially the pollutions of idolatry. The disappointments associated with the early Caroline period reverberate all the way to the Civil Wars.