484.
** Kennet, p.

749.
It was not from his negotiations with the emperor or the duke of Bavaria, that James expected any success in his project of restoring the palatine: his eyes were entirely turned towards Spain; and if he could effect his son's marriage with the infanta, he doubted not but that, after so intimate a conjunction, this other point could easily be obtained.

The negotiations of that court being commonly dilatory, it was not easy for a prince of so little penetration in business, to distinguish whether the difficulties which occurred were real or affected; and he was surprised, after negotiating five years on so simple a demand, that he was not more advanced than at the beginning.
A dispensation from Rome was requisite for the marriage of the infanta with a Protestant prince; and the king of Spain, having undertaken to procure that dispensation, had thereby acquired the means of retarding at pleasure, or of forwarding the marriage, and at the same time of concealing entirely his artifices from the court of England.
In order to remove all obstacles, James despatched Digby, soon after created earl of Bristol, as his ambassador to Philip IV., who had lately succeeded his father in the crown of Spain.

He secretly employed Gage as his agent at Rome, and finding that the difference of religion was the principal, if not the sole difficulty, which retarded the marriage, he resolved to soften that objection as much as possible.

He issued public orders for discharging all Popish recusants who were imprisoned; and it was daily apprehended that he would forbid, for the future, the execution of the penal laws enacted against them.