Note 8 — Chapter III
Reading edition
From a somewhat ungenerous letter from Charles to Bristol (who was made the scapegoat), written on the 21st January 1625, he says: "you will remember how at our first coming into Spain, when taking upon you to be so wise as to foresee our intention to change our religion, you were so far from dissuading us that you offered your services and secrecy to concur in it; and in many other open conferences pressing to show how convenient it was for us to be Roman Catholic, it being impossible in your opinion to do any great action otherwise." The letter is full of reproaches and condemnation of Bristol's conduct, but it is quite clear that Bristol saw the only condition under which the match was possible from the first, which Charles and Buckingham, deceived by Olivares, did not. Cabala (ed. 1691) p. 188.