Long discussions with the Council of State and with Olivares kept Hopton busy in Madrid for months; the while the great betrayal proposed was kept from the Secretary of State and all the responsible ministers in England, a good foretaste of the policy that led Charles Stuart to ruin and the block. To the official Secretary of State, Hopton had much to say about the great preparations being made in Spain for war, but no word about the secret plan for England to join in it on the Catholic side. Great loans and levies are constantly being raised, he reported in April 1634.
"This great ship," he wrote, meaning of course Spain, "contains much water (_i.e._ money), but many leaks, and is always dry. It is certain that they have made loans this year for 13 millions (of ducats), and are still treating of more, yet at the end of the year they will neither have money in their purse, nor army paid, nor nobody contented; which is to be attributed to the hard terms wherewith they do their business. For being masters of the mines of gold and silver, and withal having but few friends, nobody will serve them but for their interests: and their own subjects are so well conceited of themselves, as they think they cannot be paid enough."[14] "In their present levies," he continues, "though they are sorry men, they give them 3 reales a day, which is 18 pence English, and yet have all they can do to keep them from running away. Subjects are fearfully hardly pressed. The hard usage of business men in the Indian trade has made concealment general, which has greatly reduced the { 278} revenue of the crown. Great measures were taken to discover unregistered treasure in the last fleet, and they found 600,000 ducats, and will yet find more. But this again will stop trade."
Everything possible was done by Olivares to please the English at this juncture. The prisoners of the Inquisition at Cadiz were released, Hopton was made much of, King Charles was the most popular potentate amongst the idlers of Madrid; whilst the French ambassador, stoned and insulted in the streets, was fain to take refuge in a monastery twelve miles away to avoid scandal. "They want our friendship now," wrote Hopton, "and we may make our market." The English ambassador had his head quite turned by so much attention, and, to the anger of King Charles, was drawn by the superior diplomacy of Olivares into going beyond his instructions in his promises to the Spaniards. The King of England had been bitten too often by Spanish plausibility not to be distrustful; and Windebank's letter to Hopton, in May 1634, was almost violent in its scolding. Hopton had gone so far as to say that the English had decided to put a powerful army in the field to punish the insolence of the Dutch, whereas King Charles had only broached it as a proposition, and Nicolalde in the meanwhile was pledging the Spaniards to nothing. When Olivares was pressed for guarantees in return for the English aid he craved, the usual story was told; and by the middle of July Hopton wrote to Windebank--