He was walking through pitfalls with a crowd of invisible but relentless foes dogging his every footstep.

In his household or without were daily visions of dagger and bowl, and he felt himself marching to his doom.

How could the man on whom the heretic and rebellious Hollanders and the Protestant princes of Germany relied as on their saviour escape the unutterable wrath and the patient vengeance of a power that never forgave?
In England the jealousy of the Republic and of France as co-guardian and protector of the Republic was even greater than in France.

Though placed by circumstances in the position of ally to the Netherlands and enemy to Spain, James hated the Netherlands and adored Spain.

His first thought on escaping the general destruction to which the Gunpowder Plot was to have involved himself and family and all the principal personages of the realm seems to have been to exculpate Spain from participation in the crime.
His next was to deliver a sermon to Parliament, exonerating the Catholics and going out of his way to stigmatize the Puritans as entertaining doctrines which should be punished with fire.