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354 a Spanish force, at the invitation of the Chapter of Trier, had entered the Archbishopric of Trier, and, pressing on from the Moselle to the Rhine, captured Speyer in the Palatinate. Wallenstein had been induced, on extraordinary terms, to get an army together; the final agreement had been made in April, and when this letter was written Wallenstein was already moving on Prague from his headquarters at Znaim in Moravia. The allusion to the Landgrave of Hesse's defeat is not very clear: William, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, was Gustavus's most steadfast supporter in the Rhenish territory, and probably had attempted to check the Spanish advance on the Palatinate. For English policy (1630-1635) with respect to a Spanish alliance, as criticized in this letter, see Cambridge Modern History, vol. iv., 1906, pp. 275, 276.

Sir Henry Vane's negotiations with Gustavus were not successful: England had not enough money to offer. Sir Henry's son, afterwards the famous Sir Henry Vane of Commonwealth times, had been attached to the English Embassy at Vienna, and had returned to England shortly before Suckling. Of the other persons referred to, Maxfield and Murray were gentlemen of the King's bedchamber, William Murray being created Earl of Dysart in 1643. Sir Isaac Wake was English Ambassador at Paris in 1631-32; he died in 1632. Sir Thomas Roe, a personal friend of Charles I.'s sister, the Electress Palatine, was employed throughout the period in missions on behalf of the Protestant cause, and, as Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, had prevented an alliance between the Emperor and the Sultan in 1628; presumably his friends regarded his influence with Gustavus as likely to be injured by Vane. 'My Lord Marquis' is James, Third Marquess of Hamilton, the leader of the English volunteers in the Lutheran army; he appears to have been at Mainz with Gustavus, while his troops, or a remnant of them, remained with David Leslie in Silesia. 'Jacob Ashley' is Sir Jacob, afterwards Baron, Astley, who, in spite of his advanced years, did good service with the King in the Civil War. 'My Lord of Middlesex' was, of course, Suckling's uncle, Lionel Cranfield, who at this time occupied no official position. The sense of the passage implies that, by 'my Lord Vane,' Suckling referred to the younger Henry, though neither he nor his father were peers.

The allusion to the appointment of a Cofferer of the Household is obvious, but who actually received that appointment at this time the editor has not discovered. 'Pharneses'' case is doubtful: the allusion is certainly to one of the House of