The results then of the embassy of 1618 were disappointing to both parties. The English resented the continued presence of the Dutch fishermen both in the home waters and in the Northern Seas, for they not only carried off the profits from what were regarded as British industries, but behaved with overbearing arrogance as if in their own domain. The Hollanders found themselves permitted, as it were on sufferance, to continue an occupation which supplied a large part of their population with sustenance and was the basis of their prosperity. The States-General, though they were committed by their envoys to send a fresh embassy to deal with the question of the Great Fisheries, as soon as the internal troubles of the country were settled, were in no hurry to move in the matter. It was in vain that Carleton in the early months of 1620 reminded them of their undertaking. The general opinion in Holland, and in this Prince Maurice himself shared, was that there could be no surrender of the treaty right to free fishing, even though it should be at the cost of war.
Their position was greatly strengthened by the momentous events that had been occurring in Germany. The Elector Palatine, Frederick--King James's son-in-law--had accepted the Crown of Bohemia (November, 1619) but a year later his forces were crushed by the Imperial army at the White Hill near Prague (November 5). Meanwhile his hereditary dominions had been invaded and conquered by a Spanish force under Spinola. Frederick was head of the Protestant Union, but the forces of the Union were disunited (indeed it was soon afterwards dissolved), and although Sir Horace Vere, at the head of a fine body of 2,000 English volunteers, escorted by a strong Dutch force, made his way to the scene of conflict, he was unable to prevent the Spanish conquest of the Lower Palatinate. The unfortunate King of Bohemia, a homeless fugitive, was compelled with his wife, Elizabeth of England, to seek refuge with his uncle, the Prince of Orange, at the Hague. The Dutch were greatly disturbed, as the twelve years' truce was drawing to an end, at the prospect of the Spaniards being able through their alliance with the Emperor to march from their post of vantage on the Rhine straight upon the Netherlands, and were therefore anxious to secure the goodwill and help of England in the serious struggle which they saw before them. They felt confident that, despite his love of peace, James would be forced to take active steps to defend his son-in-law's lands from conquest, and the cause of Protestantism in Germany from ruin. The news of the complete defeat of Frederick at the White Hill therefore, together with the necessity of renewing the treaty between the two countries, which expired in April, 1621, at the end of the truce, had more effect than Carleton's remonstrances and threats in hastening a renewal of negotiations. The English ambassador was instructed to assure the States that James would lend assistance for the recovery of the Palatinate, and it was resolved by them that a special mission should be dispatched as soon as possible. It was well known that the King was still on the most confidential terms with Gondomar, and that the Spanish envoy continued to exercise a strong influence upon the royal policy, and that the project of a Spanish marriage had not been abandoned. It was felt therefore that a strong effort should be made to counteract this secret leaning of James to listen to the subtle counsels of the Spaniard, and to persuade him to break with Spain and to take decisively the Protestant side in the war against the allied forces of the House of Habsburg.