Catalonia was more uneasy even than Portugal. There had been a talk all the summer of the King's going thither to ask for more money, and the Catalans were in anger at the very idea. So great was the ill-feeling, that the Viceroy, the Duke of Cardona, a humble servant of Olivares, thought it safer to keep out of the way of his subjects; and the Castilian soldiers were daggers-drawn with the people, in whose houses they were billeted, in defiance of the Catalonian constitution.
The growing danger from these provinces, and the busy intrigues of Richelieu with the Dutch, to the intended detriment of Spain, again drove Olivares to seek a renewal of the suspended negotiations intended to draw Charles I. into the Catholic camp. At the end of July, Olivares sent for Hopton in great excitement, to show him an intercepted letter of the Prince of Orange, which, he said, disclosed a dangerous plan against England and Spain. "Ah!" said the Count-Duke, "we ought to have carried out that league of ours." "It { 288} was your fault," replied Hopton, "that it was not concluded. Nicolalde in London was not authorised to give the necessary pledges." "Well," retorted. Olivares, "the matter may be arranged now, if you like." The hint was enough for Charles. The first thing, he said, was to get rid of Nicolalde, who was unsympathetic; and he sent an English agent named Taylor to Madrid to recommend this course to Philip.
Soon negotiations were in full swing again. Some great personage, the Count of Humanes probably, was to be sent to England, whilst the Duke of Medina Celi was to go to France, and endeavour to secure the return of Marie de Medici the Queen-Mother and her son Orleans to France, which of course would have meant the paralysation of Richelieu. When the news came of the decisive battle of Nördlingen (page 260), gained over the Swedes and Weimar by the Infante Fernando, the great rejoicings and festivities with which Philip greeted the victory (October 1634), the bonfires and bull-fights and _Te Deums_, did not disguise the fact that war with France sooner or later must now be inevitably faced, and the efforts to come to an agreement with England proceeded more warmly than ever.