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THE GROWTH 
 
 BRITISH POLICY. 
 
aotiDon: C. J. CLAY and SONS, 
 
 CAMBEIDGE UNIVERSITY PEESS WAREHOUSE, 
 
 AVE MARIA LANE. 
 
 (Blaasoto: 263, ARGYLB STREET. 
 
 %tmis: V. A. BROCKHATJS. 
 
 §.tia gork: MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 JSomiag; GEORGE BELL AND SONS. 
 
FroinaptDtograplibj Elliott &fty. 
 
 a 
 
 -e-r' 
 
 'Vtrr-ot^J 
 
THE GEOWTH 
 
 OF 
 
 BBITISH POLICY 
 
 AN HISTORICAL ESSAY 
 
 BY 
 
 Sm J. K SEELEY, Lttt. D., K.C.M.G. 
 
 FORMERLY REGIUS PROrESSOR OP MODERN HISTORY IN 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 
 
 FELLOW OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE 
 
 AND HONORARY FELLOW OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
 1895 
 
 [All Rights reserved.] 
 
 yp 
 
Vlll MEMOIE. 
 
 J. A. Barron, at Stanmore. No prizes were given at this 
 school, but there was a master who infected his pupils with 
 a taste for English poetry. Here Seeley acquired his first 
 love for Milton and Pope. 
 
 After a while he was sent to the City of London School, 
 then under Dr Mortimer. The school was already making a 
 name for winning scholarships at the Universities. Seeley, 
 being a precocious boy, was pushed on so fast that he 
 entered the sixth form when little over thirteen. His two 
 elder brothers were in the sixth at the same time, the 
 eldest — afterwards a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge 
 — being captain of the school. To keep up with the work 
 of the form involved a great effort in so young a boy. The 
 lessons had to be prepared at home. No attention was 
 paid to games, and the only exercise which Seeley got, 
 as a rule, was the daily walk between Bloomsbury and 
 Cheapside. 
 
 This pressure told upon his health, and there can be 
 little doubt that he never wholly recovered the strain. 
 For a time he had to leave school and to give up all work. 
 He passed a year in the family of the Rev. F. Fitch, Vicar 
 of Cromer. Latin and Greek were prohibited, but he spent 
 much time in reading English. In later life he delighted 
 in recalling this year of enforced idleness, for he owed to it 
 (he said) most of his knowledge of English literature. 
 
 In 1852 Seeley went up to Cambridge, entering as a 
 scholar of Christ's College. Among his contemporaries 
 at Christ's were several who were afterwards to attain 
 distinction — Calverley, Skeat, Peile, Sendall, Besant. He 
 was soon remarked as among the ablest of an able set. 
 In conversation he already displayed great analytical skill 
 and the power of epigrammatic expression. He had a 
 faculty for pricking bubbles, and his quick perception and 
 
MEMOIR. ix 
 
 dialectical subtlety made him a redoubtable opponent. 
 But though he did not shrink from controversy, he had no 
 fondness for it, nor did he seek to assert himself. He 
 joined the Union, but appears to have been a silent 
 member. Naturally somewhat shy and reserved, he never- 
 theless attached to himself during this time of life not a 
 few warm and constant friends. 
 
 He read classics with Mr Eobert Burn, and afterwards 
 with Mr Shilleto. With a great admiration for accuracy 
 and fine scholarship, he yet paid comparatively little 
 attention to philology in the narrower sense, but rather 
 set himself to grasp classical literature and history as a 
 whole. Ill health still pursued him, and he was forced to 
 defer his degree for a year. He graduated in 1857, when 
 his name appeared in a bracket with three others, at the 
 top of the Classical Tripos. His superiority was more 
 marked in the competition for the Chancellor's Medals, in 
 which he came out senior medallist. The prize was then 
 given to the best classical scholar of his year, who had 
 qualified by taking at least a second class in the Mathe- 
 matical Tripos. 
 
 In the following year he was elected a fellow of his 
 college, and appointed to a classical lectureship. This 
 post he held for two years, when he gave it up to accept 
 the position of chief classical assistant at his old school. It 
 was during the years immediately following his degree 
 that he began the serious study of German. He spent 
 one of his Long Vacations at Dresden, living with a 
 German family. French he had already learnt at school : 
 a knowledge of Italian he acquired later. 
 
 In 1859, while still at Cambridge, he made his first 
 literary venture — a volume of poetry, published by Messrs 
 Seeley, Jackson and Halliday, under the title " David and 
 S. b 
 
X MEMOIR. 
 
 Samuel ; with other poems, original and translated. By 
 John Robertson." This volume consists of a poem on the 
 choosing of David ; the " psalms of Moses, David and others, 
 versified"; "historic sketches"- — chiefly monologues by 
 historical personages, Nero, William the Silent, the Prince 
 of Orange in 1672, and others ; and " miscellaneous poems." 
 The contents show that his mind was at this time busy on 
 the two subjects which interested him most deeply through 
 life — religion and history. But the religious subjects are 
 all chosen from the Old Testament, and the aspect of 
 history presented is more personal than that which at- 
 tracted him in later years. 
 
 In 1863 Seeley was appointed Professor of Latin in 
 University College, London, as successor to Mr Frank 
 Newman. Here he remained for six years. In 1865 he 
 published the best known and in some respects the most 
 remarkable of his works—" Ecce Homo." The book at once 
 attracted attention, perhaps not less through its crispness 
 of style and limpidity of expression, than through the 
 interest of the subject and the novelty of its treatment. 
 Deliberately uncontroversial, it yet roused a storm of con- 
 troversy. Its restriction of the view of Christ to the human 
 side of his life and teaching was attacked by many as im- 
 plying the non-existence of any other side. Avoidance 
 was regarded, without warrant, as negation. In the preface 
 to a later edition Seeley made a spirited answer to these 
 attacks. They hardly touched the main gist of the book, 
 and only distracted attention from the author's chief aim 
 — to draw attention to a side of the subject which in the 
 heat of controversy on other points had been unduly neg- 
 lected. The book was published anonymously, but the 
 authorship soon became an open secret. 
 
 It was expected that the author would publish a sequel 
 
MEMOIR. XI 
 
 to "Ecce Homo," dealing with the questions which that 
 work put aside. But the sequel — if so it may be called — 
 when it did appear, disappointed these expectations. 
 "Natural Religion," published in 1882, after a lapse of 
 sixteen j'ears, was not so popular a book as " Ecce Homo." 
 It had the same charm of style as the earlier work, but its 
 subject was abstract instead of personal, and the attitude 
 adopted by the author was one which appealed to com- 
 paratively few minds. The attempt to reconcile religion 
 and science by relegating them to entirely different spheres 
 is not often satisfactory, and is perhaps least likely to 
 satisfy when the religion advocated is as devoid of the 
 supernatural as the science from which it is distinguished. 
 It ought, however, to be said that here again, as in " Ecce 
 Homo," the author expressly guards himself against the 
 assumption that, because religion may exist without a 
 supernatural element, the supernatural has no existence. 
 And his chief object was probably, after all, not so much 
 to advocate any particular form of religious belief, as to 
 show that much should be regarded as religion which 
 current conceptions exclude from it. 
 
 In 1869 Professor Seeley married Miss Mary Agnes 
 Phillott. While on his wedding-tour he received Mr 
 Gladstone's letter offering him the Professorship of Modern 
 History at Cambridge, then vacant through the resignation 
 of Charles Eangsley. The post was a congenial one, for 
 his interest in history was greater than his interest in the 
 classics, while the work of the chair was not such as to 
 preclude his paying considerable attention to other, more 
 or less cognate, subjects. 
 
 As a lecturer, he had already made a reputation. At 
 Cambridge his lectures achieved great and immediate 
 success. For many years — in fact, till illness began to 
 
Xll MEMOIR. 
 
 incapacitate him towards the close of his life — his classes 
 were very large, and were recruited from many other 
 departments besides his own. The lectures were carefullj' 
 prepared, and were delivered at first from notes only : 
 latterly they were written out in full. The originality of 
 his treatment, the clearness of his views, the terseness and 
 vigour of his language, the artistic form which he gave to 
 each address, combined to make Professor Seeley one of 
 the most impressive and stimulating of lecturers. To 
 many of those who heard him when he began to teach at 
 Cambridge, his views and methods were nothing short of 
 an inspiration, and left a mark which time and experience 
 have only deepened. 
 
 Before the introduction of the new statutes, the income 
 of the Modem History chair was very small, and marriage 
 had brought Seeley's fellowship to a close. He was there- 
 fore compelled to add to his income by lecturing in London 
 and in the chief provincial towns. His subjects were 
 mainly literary and historical. The lectures were some- 
 times published in magazines : some of them were collected 
 in a volume of "Lectures and Essays" published in 1870. 
 The most important of these are perhaps the essays on 
 the fall of the Roman Empire and on Milton, and the 
 Inaugural Lecture which he delivered at Cambridge. 
 
 In this lecture he laid down the lines which he 
 consistently followed throughout the whole tenure of 
 his professorship. Though he did not coin the phrase 
 " History is past politics, and politics present history," it 
 is perhaps more strictly applicable to his view of history 
 than to that of its author. " The indispensable thing," he 
 said, " for a politician is a knowledge of political economy 
 and of history." And again, "our University must be a great 
 seminary of politicians." History was, for him, not the 
 
MEMOIR. xiii 
 
 history of religion, or art, or society; still less was it a 
 series of biographies ; it was the history of the State. The 
 statesman was to be taught his business by studying poli- 
 tical history, not with a view to extracting arguments in 
 favour of particular political theories, but in order to 
 understand, by the comparative and historical method, 
 political science, the science of the State. 
 
 These views he was never tired of promoting by his 
 pen, and illustrating in his professorial lectures. When 
 the Historical Tripos was established, a few years after 
 he became professor, he gave it a strong political bias. 
 Modem history being specially applicable to existing 
 political problems, he lectured by preference on modem 
 times. For the same reason he devoted his attention 
 generally to international history — the history of the action 
 and reaction of States on each other. He dwelt with 
 especial fondness on the history of Great Britain as a 
 member of the European system, a side of our national 
 ;ife which, he maintained, had been unaccountably neg- 
 lected by most English historians. 
 
 The first product of his professorial life at Cambridge 
 was not, it is true, connected with modern history. It was 
 an edition of the first book of Livy, " with an Introduction, 
 Historical Examination and Notes," published in 1871. 
 But this was a book which he had been requested by the 
 Delegates of the Oxford University Press to undertake, 
 and which he had partially completed while Professor 
 of Latin at University College. The Introduction, while 
 showing familiarity with German research and an admira- 
 tion for German methods, is thoroughly original and 
 suggestive in its views on the misty origins of the Roman 
 state. But this kind of work was not congenial to him, 
 for he had a certain aversion from what is ordinarily called 
 
XIV MEMOIR. 
 
 research, especially antiquarian research, and he never 
 went farther than this one volume. 
 
 In 1878 he produced his most solid contribution to 
 historical knowledge— " The Life and Times of Stein, or 
 Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age." This 
 great work, to the composition of which he devoted much 
 research both in England and Germany, made known 
 to Englishmen a subject hitherto little studied in this 
 country. But it is the period rather than the man that 
 had a dominant interest for the author. It is not so 
 much Stein himself, as Stein in relation to Prussia and 
 Europe, that is the subject of the book. For biographical 
 details Seeley had not much liking, and the personal 
 character of Stein is unattractive. But the nature of the 
 anti-Napoleonic revolution, the share of Prussia in that 
 revolution, and the share of Stein in the revival of Prussia, 
 are subjects on which he dwelt with predilection. They 
 are nowhere treated with greater force or lucidity. 
 
 An arrangement with the Cambridge University Press, 
 to which he alludes with gratitude in the preface to the 
 " Life of Stein," had enabled Professor Seeley to devote 
 the whole of his leisure for some time past to the prepara- 
 tion of that work. About the time of its publication, an 
 anonymous benefactor requested permission to add to the 
 endowment of his chair for some years, until the new 
 statutes, then in contemplation, should come in. This 
 welcome generosity freed him from the necessity of adding 
 to his income by extraneous work, and from this time 
 forward he rarely lectured away from Cambridge. On the 
 introduction of the new statutes, in 1882, he was elected 
 a professorial fellow of Caius College, and remained a 
 member of that foundation until his death. 
 
 In the year 1883, Professor Seeley's lectures on 
 
MEMOIR. XV 
 
 the foreign policy of Great Britain in the 18th century 
 were published under the title "The Expansion of 
 England." This book aroused as wide-spread an interest 
 as " Ecce Homo,'' and its reception was more uniform. 
 The applause which it met with was almost universal. 
 So vigorous and thoughtful an apology for the British 
 Empire, and for the way by which it had been founded, 
 had never before appeared. It brought together in one 
 concise survey and regarded from one point of view a 
 number of occurrences which historians had previously 
 treated in a disconnected manner. Its conclusions were 
 easily grasped : they appealed to a large audience : they 
 were immediately applicable to one of the greatest 
 questions of the day. In its clear-cut, animated style, its 
 deliberate omission of all superfluous detail, its concentra- 
 tion of illustrative facts on the main thesis, and the 
 confidence with which that thesis is maintained, the book 
 is a model of what an historical essay, with a practical end 
 in view, should be. 
 
 These qualities are again to be seen, though perhaps 
 not quite to such advantage, in the " Short Life of 
 Napoleon the First," published in 1886. This little book 
 was expanded from an article on Napoleon in the Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica. It is a concise and rapid sketch — not so 
 much a biography of the man as a survey of his work in 
 relation to his time. Again, as in the case of Stein, it is 
 rather the setting than the portrait which interests the 
 author. Little is said about Napoleon as a commander or 
 as a man. The thesis defended is that Napoleon as a 
 statesman had no originality : his political ideas are all 
 traced either to the Revolution or the Ancien Regime. 
 
 Soon after bringing out his "Napoleon," Professor 
 Seeley began to work at the book which is here laid 
 
XVI MEMOIR. 
 
 before the public. His original intention was to write a 
 history of British foreign policy from the Kevolution of 
 1688. But it soon became evident to him that post- 
 revolutionary policy could not be adequately presented 
 without an examination of what went before. To place 
 England in her proper setting among the states of Europe, 
 and to display the effect of the Revolution on her relations 
 with the European powers, it was necessary to mark the 
 contrast between the years that preceded and those that 
 followed 1688. He therefore determined on giving an 
 introductory view, before entering on his main theme. 
 But it was difficult to fix upon a starting-point. At first 
 it seemed sufficient to go back to Cromwell. But 
 Cromwell's policy was itself a revival. More and more 
 impressed by the importance of religious differences on 
 the one hand and commercial considerations on the other, 
 as motors in international politics, he at length fixed on 
 the accession of Elizabeth as the date when the main lines 
 of British foreign policy were definitely laid down. It was 
 the principles then adopted which, developed by Elizabeth 
 herself, by Cromwell and William III, were eventually to 
 lead up to the triumphs of the 18th century. The 
 connexion between this book and a previous work is 
 obvious. Had it been completed, it would have given a 
 fuller presentation of the subject, one side of which was so 
 brilliantly lit up in the " Expansion of England." 
 
 It was a heavy task which he had undertaken. The 
 material was vast, and the bounds within which it was to 
 be compressed were narrow. It was difficult to avoid 
 letting it overflow the limits of an introduction. To pre- 
 sent the subject in the only form which Seeley thought 
 satisfactory — the form of an essay, bringing into high 
 relief the main lines of development only — involved con- 
 
MEMOIR. XVU 
 
 tinuous thought and application. The exceeding com- 
 plexity of the subject made the attempt to systematise 
 and generalise it very difficult. It may safely be said to 
 have been the hardest historical problem which Seeley ever 
 set himself to solve. The labour which it involved was too 
 much for his powers, weakened by long years of deficient 
 health. He gave himself no holiday in the summer of 
 1891. In the October of that year a sudden seizure of an 
 alarming kind showed that rest was imperatively required. 
 
 Nearly half his book was then in type ; a great part of 
 the remainder was written. But the work had perforce to 
 be laid aside, and he was never able to take it up again 
 except for short intervals. From this time forward his 
 health gradually grew worse. Late in 1892 the disease 
 which eventually proved fatal reappeared, after a long 
 interval, and necessitated frequent operations. In the 
 latter part of 1893 he was laid up for some months with 
 a severe attack of phlebitis. 
 
 During these years of growing weakness, his courage 
 and patience never faltered. He was never heard to 
 complain ; his temper remained as equable as before ; he 
 never even seemed to lose hope. Whenever not absolutely 
 incapacitated by illness, he insisted on discharging his 
 professorial duties. He continued to give his lectures and 
 to attend the meetings of the University Boards with 
 which he was connected. 
 
 In the intervals of comparative ease and vigour which 
 he still enjoyed, he struggled on with his book, and gradu- 
 ally got all that is here printed into tj^e. But he was 
 never able to revise it as he wished, and death came upon 
 him before he could bring it to a full end. 
 
 While laid up in the autumn of 1893 he employed 
 himself in revising and amplifying some papers on Goethe, 
 
XVni MEMOIR. 
 
 originally published in the Contemporary Review for 1884. 
 These were now reproduced in a little volume, entitled 
 " Goethe Reviewed after Sixty Years." As in his essays on 
 Milton, so with Goethe, his attention is rather fixed on the 
 content than the form of the poet's works. It is Goethe 
 the philosopher and teacher, the practical exponent of a 
 noble theory of life, rather than Goethe the poet, who is 
 under consideration. The author maps out his life, traces 
 the broad outlines of his development and analyses the 
 influences brought to bear upon his genius, but with 
 Goethe the supreme artist he has little to do. It is thus, 
 as it was with Napoleon, a somewhat one-sided view that 
 is presented, but so far as it goes it is eminently keen- 
 sighted, luminous and suggestive. 
 
 In the early part of 1894 Seeley had the satisfaction of 
 receiving public acknowledgement of the services which by 
 his writings and addresses he had rendered to the empire. 
 When Lord Rosebery came into office as Premier on Mr 
 Gladstone's resignation, one of his first acts was to suggest 
 to Her Majesty that she should confer some honour on the 
 Cambridge Professor. He was accordingly made Knight 
 Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George. 
 This recognition gave Seeley no little pleasure, not on 
 his own account, but because he regarded it as a sign 
 that the principles which he so warmly advocated were 
 at length making way in influential quarters. 
 
 His last publication was an article in the Contemporary 
 Review for July 1894, designed to prepare the way for his 
 forthcoming work on British Policy. His health during 
 the year 1894 was not sensibly worse than it had been for 
 some time, but it was known that the end could not be 
 very long delayed. It came at last, somewhat suddenly, 
 and almost painlessly, on January 13, 1895. 
 
MEMOIR. XIX 
 
 This is not the place for an estimate of Professor 
 Seeley's position as an historian, or a detailed criticism 
 of his views on politics, education and other subjects. 
 But a few general remarks may be added. What was 
 most remarkable in his teaching of history was its sug- 
 gestive and stimulative character, and the constancy of 
 its scientific aim. The facts which Seeley mentioned in 
 his lectures were, as a rule, well known; it was the use 
 he made of them that was new. Historical details were '' 
 worth nothing to him but as a basis for generalisation ; 
 the idea to which they pointed was everything. In deal- 
 ing with history he always kept a definite end in view — 
 the solution of some problem, the establishment of some 
 principle, which would arrest the attention of the student, 
 and might be of use to the statesman. History pure and 
 simple, that is narrative without generalisation, had no 
 interest for him : it appeared trivial, unworthy of serious 
 attention. With this habit of mind, it was inevitable that 
 his conclusions should sometimes appear disputable, but in 
 any case they were thoughtful, bold and original. Except 
 perhaps in his Life of Stein, he added little to the sum 
 of historical knowledge, if by that is meant the knowledge 
 of historical events. But he pointed out a further aim, 
 to which the mere acquisition of knowledge is subsidiary. 
 Taking facts as established, he insisted on thinking about 
 them, and on deducing from them the main lines of his- ; 
 torical and political evolution. Such a method of study is ' 
 not without its risks, but it is fertile and attractive ; it 
 has a vitalising tendency. 
 
 The same positive, creative impulse is visible in his 
 treatment of Political Science, which he regarded as the 
 outcome of historical generalisation. In his " Conversation 
 Classes" — informal meetings of advanced students, held 
 
XX MEMOIR. 
 
 at his own house — he discussed the origin and nature of 
 the State, analysed its composition, and deduced its neces- 
 sary functions and its behaviour under various circum- 
 stances. For him the State was an ever-present reality, 
 an object of study and devotion, as for an ancient Greek. 
 He was a good citizen, with a high sense of political 
 responsibility. A Liberal so far as domestic progress was 
 concerned, anxious for the wider spread of education, for 
 the open career, he was ardently conservative of what he 
 conceived to be the foundations of the state. 
 
 A little England, an England shorn of Empire, was to 
 him s3Tionymous not only with national degradation but 
 national ruin. Thus he became a warm supporter of 
 Federation- — not of any specific form of federal union, 
 but of the federal idea. To foster an enthusiasm for the 
 British State, to convince the people that it is worth pre- 
 serving, to eradicate the Turgot view of colonies, and to 
 set men thinking how the existing union may be pre- 
 served — such were the aims of many lectures and addresses 
 delivered during his later years. Out of a similar convic- 
 tion he became a vigorous opponent of Irish Home Rule, 
 regarding it as a first step towards a dissolution of the 
 Empire. 
 
 On the subject of education he held strong views. 
 He disliked the great public schools, and while regarding 
 them as "wonderful institutions," maintained that they 
 failed in the weightier portion of their task. He would 
 have substituted for them day-schools, abundantly supple- 
 mented by home-education. He conceived that too much 
 attention was still paid to the classics, and far too little 
 to modem languages and to the master-pieces of English 
 literature. It was a maxim of his that one subject, or 
 two at most, should be studied at one time. The great 
 
MEMOIR. XXI 
 
 variety of subjects simultaneously taught at ordinary 
 schools seemed to him one of the chief reasons why four 
 out of five pupils leave without mastering a,ny. 
 
 He did not avoid society, but he was no great lover of 
 it. Not a voluble talker, he yet conversed readily with 
 intimate friends or on topics in which he took interest. 
 On such occasions his conversation was infallibly brilliant 
 and epigrammatic, and abounding in apt and humorous 
 illustration. When deeply interested, whether in con- 
 versation or on the platform, there shone forth a fixe of 
 enthusiasm, generally kept under close restraint or con- 
 cealed in later years by a somewhat lethargic exterior. 
 In University affairs of the ordinary kind he took little 
 part ; the routine of academic business, of syndicates, ex- 
 aminations and college meetings, was distasteful to him. 
 As a young man he used to play racquets and cricket, and 
 in his vacations he sometimes went on walking tours, in 
 the Welsh mountains and Switzerland. But he had no 
 natural fondness for athletic exercises : in later life his 
 only form of physical recreation was a walk, and a solitary 
 walk, he complained, afforded but little rest, for his mind 
 was working all the time. It was his misfortune that he 
 never acquired the art of lying fallow. 
 
 It remains only to state the share that I have taken 
 in bringing out this book. At the request of Lady Seeley 
 I undertook to see it through the press. All that is here 
 printed was already in type ; most of it had been more or 
 less carefully revised. Professor Seeley had submitted 
 the first volume, or portions of it, to Mr S. R. Gardiner, 
 Dr Henry Sidgwick, and Mr J. Bass Mullinger, and had 
 had the benefit of their advice. I had also read through 
 the whole during the autumn before his death, and we 
 
XXU MEMOIR. 
 
 had talked over a good many doubtful points. He would 
 undoubtedly have made several minor alterations had his 
 life and health been spared, and would probably have 
 rewritten certain portions altogether. 
 
 I did not, however, conceive myself justified in making 
 any changes beyond such as appeared absolutely necessary. 
 I have excised some repetitions which appeared superfluous 
 or unintentional, and which, when pointed out, the author 
 expressed his intention to excise. Others I have left, for 
 emphatic repetition is by no means alien from Professor 
 Seeley's style. Such few errors of date or mis-statements 
 of fact as attracted my notice, I have corrected ; here and 
 there I have amended a word or transposed a sentence ; 
 I have added nothing. The author had written a portion, 
 some three pages, of a concluding chapter, apparently 
 intended to sum up the whole work. The printed portion 
 broke off in the middle of a sentence, and there was no 
 manuscript beyond. This fragment added nothing new, 
 and an attempt to complete it could hardly have been 
 successful. I have therefore decided to suppress it. With 
 these exceptions the book is exactly as it was left by 
 Professor Seeley. 
 
 I have to thank Lady Seeley and her daughter for 
 prompt and active assistance in verifying references and 
 in other ways. The index is the work of Miss Mary 
 Bateson and Miss Seeley. 
 
 G. W. PROTHERO. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 PART I. 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. The growth of the House of Habsburg ... 9 
 
 II. The first phase of pohcy ..... 31 
 
 III. The Counter-Reformation 63 
 
 IV. The British question 92 
 
 V. The middle period of Elizabeth . . . .112 
 
 VI. The Spanish Monarchy 139 
 
 VII. From peace to war 172 
 
 VIII. The war of Elizabeth 212 
 
 IX. Close of the Elizabethan age 237 
 
 PART II. 
 
 REACTION. 
 
 I. Outlines 251 
 
 II. Epochs in the reign of James I . . . . 263 
 
 III. James I and the Thirty Years' War . . . 298 
 
 IV. The policy of Charles I 330 
 
 V. The transformation of France .... 357 
 VI. The transformation of England .... 389 
 
XXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 VOLUME 11. 
 
 PART III. 
 CROMWELL AND THE MILITARY STATE. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The first Dutch war 1 
 
 II. The peace of Cromwell 43 
 
 III. The war of Cromwell 59 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 THE SECOND REACTION. 
 
 I. The Eestoratioii and Charles II ... . 101 
 
 II. The French ascendency 135 
 
 III. Revival of the dynastic system .... 171 
 
 IV. The rise of a new opposition .... 199 
 
 V. The last phase of the Counter-Reformation . . 221 
 VI. The Stuart dynasty and the nation . . . 250 
 
 PART V. 
 WILLIAM III AND THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 
 
 I. The Revolution 274 
 
 II. The work of William III 309 
 
 III. The commercial state 349 
 
 Index 385 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 rpHE subject of this book is a particular aspect of our 
 -*- state, namely, that which it wears towards foreign 
 states, during a certain period. 
 
 We have already ecclesiastical histories, parliamentary 
 histories, economic histories. More especially we have 
 constitutional histories. Correlative to the Constitutional 
 History is the International History or History of Policy. 
 Among the many aspects in which a state may be regarded 
 these two are the most obviously distinguishable. A state 
 maybe contemplated in itself; its structure and develope- 
 ment may be studied. This is Constitutional History. 
 On the other hand a state may be considered in its rela- 
 tion to foreign states. This is International History or 
 the History of Policy. 
 
 In general histories we may observe that one of these 
 aspects is commonly sacrificed to the other. In other 
 countries the temptation has been to sacrifice the internal 
 aspect. In France, where for a long time constitutional 
 developement, if it existed, escaped notice, still more in 
 Germany, where it was petty and uninteresting, history 
 leaned towards foreign affairs. But in England, the home 
 of constitutionalism, history leaned just as decidedly in 
 the opposite direction. English eyes are always bent upon 
 Parliament, English history always tends to shrink into 
 
 1-, s- 1 
 
Z GROWTH OF BEITISH POLICY. 
 
 mere parliamentary history, and, as Parliament itself never 
 shines less than in the discussion of foreign affairs, so 
 there is scarcely a great English historian who does not 
 sink somewhat below himself in the treatment of English 
 foreign relations. 
 
 It was only natural therefore that, while we have 
 entered early into the conception of constitutional history, 
 and have seen in this department first a Hallam and 
 then a Stubbs, we have scarcely yet perceived that Con- 
 stitutional History requires the History of Policy as its 
 correlative. Some writers indeed we have had whose 
 natural tendencies have been in this direction, notably 
 William Coxe. But I know no English history of Diplo- 
 macy such as that of Flassan, no book on English policy 
 such as that of Droysen on Prussian policy. At the best 
 we have lives of Marlborough or Wellington, Chatham, 
 Canning or Palmerston, in which foreign affairs have a 
 certain necessary prominence, though even here they are 
 usually subordinated either to military or else to parlia- 
 mentary affairs. 
 
 Nevertheless there has been of late years improvement 
 in this respect. Since Ranke tried in his English History 
 to supply those links between English and continental 
 affau's which English historians had not troubled them- 
 selves to give, we have seen Mr S. R. Gardiner treating 
 foreign relations with no less conscientious thoroughness 
 than home affairs even in that seventeenth century in 
 which Parliament has an exceptional right to be promi- 
 nent. And Mr Kinglake has assuredly no trace of the 
 national weakness of insularity. In his book England 
 appears always as a Power. He sees her always in the 
 company of other great states, walking by the side of 
 France or Austria, supporting Turkey, withstanding 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 Russia. Her Parliament is in the background ; in the 
 front of the stage he puts the Ministers who act in the 
 name, or the generals who wield the force, of England, the 
 Great Power. 
 
 So much of the History of Policy in general. But 
 this book deals with a special period, roughly the period 
 between the accession of Elizabeth and the reign of 
 William III. It will be asked why, since my object is to 
 consider English history from a special point of view, I 
 select this particular period. For it is somewhat distant 
 if I wish to treat British Policy practically, and not distant 
 enough if I wish to treat it completely. ^ My answer is ' 
 thatT regard British Policy, that is, the policy of the ' 
 modern Great Power, as beginning about the close of the 
 seventeenth century, but that I see beyond that com- 
 mencement a period of growth, during which British 
 Policy may be said to have been in the making. This is 
 a period during which the Three Kingdoms were drawing 
 together and acquiring stable mutual relations, while the 
 complex whole was taking up a secure position with 
 respect to the Continental Powers. The history of the 
 Great Power cannot be understood until the process of its 
 growth has been studied. ' 
 
 This book then offers, in the form of an historical 
 essay, such an outline or general view as may be a 
 necessary introduction to the history of British Policy in 
 the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its subject is 
 the growth of British Policy. By calling it not a history 
 but an essay, I mean first that it deals not in narrative 
 but in discussion, secondly that it does not aim at com- 
 pleteness. It is of the nature of an outline, undertaking 
 to show the position our state occupied among other 
 states, the changes which this position underwent, and 
 
 1—2 
 
4 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the causes both within our own state and in the relations 
 of the Continental Great Powers by which these changes 
 were produced. 
 
 We have immediately behind us three-quarters of a 
 century more peaceful on the whole than any period of 
 equal length in the history of England, a period in which 
 England has had but one short war with a Great Power. 
 Beyond this we see a long period which is not less strikingly 
 warlike. It is marked by the perpetual recurrence of 
 ' wars with France. The dividing line is at 1815. Beyond 
 that year the National Debt is seen continually growing; 
 on this side of it the Debt either stands still or diminishes. 
 
 But when did the period of war, the period which 
 ended in 1815, begin ? 
 
 The first great war of England and France, that can 
 be held to belong to this series, is that which followed the 
 Revolution of 1688. It was followed at the opening of 
 the eighteenth century by a second and still greater war. 
 There was then a pause of about thirty years ; but from 
 1744 to 1815 war between England and France is almost 
 chronic. It is natural then on the whole to consider the 
 period of war as beginning, along with our army and our 
 debt, at the Revolution. 
 
 Thus the long period of peace and the still longer period 
 of war cover together the nineteenth and eighteenth 
 ■centuries. If now we look over these into the seventeenth, 
 we see quite a different spectacle. There is as yet no 
 chronic rivalry with France, Charles II and Cromwell are 
 generally in alliance with France ; Charles I marries a 
 French princess. But also we see everything as yet im- 
 mature and unshaped; England and Scotland are but 
 loosely united. The King at times has an understanding 
 with France against his own Parliament. Revolution 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 takes place more than once. Out of this confusion there 
 emerges soon after 1688 the solid and stable Great 
 Britain. But in what way, by what process of growth ? 
 
 In the comparative confusion of the seventeenth 
 century lies evidently the genesis of the Britannic Great - 
 Power. I attempt here to describe this genesis or 
 growth. 
 
 Three great persons raised England to the great 
 position she held among the nations when the eighteenth 
 century opened. William III finished this work, and 
 indeed established not only the greatness of England but 
 also the international system of Europe for the greater 
 part of the eighteenth century. Oliver Cromwell first 
 indicated, by prematurely and temporarily realising, the 
 great position which was definitely achieved for England 
 by William. Elizabeth broke up the older medieval 
 system, paved the way for the union with Scotland, and 
 launched us on the career of colonisation and oceanic trade. 
 My essay will examine the work of Elizabeth with the 
 reaction that followed, then that of Oliver, finally that of 
 William. 
 
 For if we see at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century a great epoch dividing two ages, still more clearly 
 marked is the great epoch of the sixteenth century, which 
 may be said to divide in international policy modern 
 from medieval England. I have found the accession of 
 Queen Elizabeth to be the most convenient starting-point. 
 So far the periods I have distinguished have been 
 purely English. But international history demands that 
 attention be given not to one state only, but to all the 
 states whose mutual relations are in question. Along 
 with the Policy of England this book will exhibit that of 
 France, the Spanish Monarchy, Austria and the United 
 
6 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Provinces. By the side of Elizabeth, Oliver and William 
 it -will delineate Philip II, Henry IV, Richelieu, Mazarin 
 and Louis XIV. Now the period between the accession 
 of Elizabeth and the reign of William III, which we find 
 so sharply characterised in English history, stands out 
 with equal distinctness in Continental history. It is the 
 period in which the Spanish Monarchy under the House 
 of Habsburg took distinct shape, flourished and fell. It 
 is also the period of the Counter-reformation, which begins 
 with the Council of Trent and may be said to reach its 
 limit with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It also 
 includes the complete developement of Bourbon France 
 from its rise in the Religious Wars to its European 
 ascendency. 
 
 This period, while it transformed England in her 
 foreign relations, also gave a new form to most of the 
 Continental states. The student of the eighteenth 
 century requires an explanation of these states. ' What 
 is the House of Habsburg ? How comes it to be divided 
 into two branches, one of which governs a strange congeries 
 of Slavonic and Teutonic territories which we call roughly 
 Austria, the other a still stranger congeries of Spaniards, 
 Flemings, Italians, and Americans ? How comes the 
 House of Bourbon, though Catholic, to be commonly in 
 alliance with Protestant states?' These questions, and 
 a hundred others, need to be answered, and for the 
 answer a student must turn to the records of the sixteenth 
 century. But he will seldom need to look further back 
 than the reign of Elizabeth. Near the end of that reign 
 the House of Bourbon was established, and just before the 
 beginning of it the double House of Habsburg. At the 
 beginning of that reign the disturbance in Germany 
 produced by the Reformation subsided for a time, while 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 the Counter-reformation acquii-ed a commanding power 
 through the termination of the Council of Trent. The ec- 
 clesiastical settlement of Europe, which was to last in the 
 main till the French Revolution, was arrived at in this 
 period. 
 
 In short, we take our departure from a cluster of deci- 
 sive events, which gave to international history the direc- 
 tion it has since taken. These events are partly British, 
 partly continental. They are as follows : 
 
 Between 1558 and 1561 : 
 
 Death of Queen Mary without children. 
 
 Accession of Queen Elizabeth, in which is involved the 
 victory of the Reformation in England. 
 
 Death of King Francis II of France without children by 
 Mary Stuart. 
 
 Commencement of the Scottish Reformation, and inter- 
 vention of England in Scottish affairs against France. 
 
 Abroad, between 1555 and 1567 : 
 Religious peace of Augsburg, or settlement of the religious 
 
 question for Germany. 
 Abdication of Charles V and establishment of the double 
 
 House of Habsburg. 
 Commencement of the Religious Wars of France and of 
 
 the last generation of the Line of Valois. 
 Treaty of Cateau Cambresis, involving the establishment 
 
 of Spain as the paramount Power in Italy. 
 Termination of the Council of Trent, or Regeneration of 
 
 Catholicism. 
 Commencement of the Rebellion in the Low Countries. 
 
 Much will be said in the sequel about the significance 
 of these events. But, considered most superficially, they 
 will appear, when taken together, to have made Europe ' 
 
8 GROWTH OF BEITISH POLICY. 
 
 what it has been since. Here is the commencement of 
 modern England, isolated with respect to the Continent but 
 tending to union with Scotland, and, along with Scotland, 
 devoted to the cause of the Reformation. Here begins 
 modern Germany, the country of Parity, where the two 
 confessions are inextricably mixed together. Here begins 
 that double House of Habsburg, against which the 
 Coalitions of Europe were to be directed in the seven- 
 teenth century and the disappearance of which was to 
 convulse Europe in the eighteenth. Here is the germ 
 of Bourbon France. Here begins the servitude of Italy. 
 Here begins that modem, or Jesuitic Catholicism, against 
 which in the eighteenth century Europe under the leader- 
 ship of France was to rebel. Here is the germ of the 
 Dutch Republic. 
 
 Our plan requires us to treat England as one state 
 among many, and to give it only a certain precedence. 
 It will therefore require us occasionally to turn our 
 attention altogether away from England, while we follow 
 some important Continental developement, destined after 
 a time to react upon England. One of these occasions 
 occurs at the opening of our narrative. We find it 
 impossible to form a conception of the international 
 position of England at the accession of Elizabeth, until 
 we have noted the condition of Europe at the time when 
 the aggregate of principalities which had been brought 
 together under Charles V had lately given place to two 
 Monarchies under his son and his brother. 
 
PAKT I. 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 
 
 Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on the morrow of 
 the abdication of Charles V. She found a world in which 
 a new arrangement of power had been recently established. 
 The Habsburg Ascendency had just entered on its second 
 period. The ascendency of one man was at an end, but 
 his power had not been dissolved, only divided between 
 two of his relatives. The larger half of it had passed to 
 his son Philip, the smaller to his brother Ferdinand, who 
 however added to this moiety two kingdoms of his own, 
 those of Hungary and Bohemia. 
 
 Such great aggregations of power were in the main a 
 new feature in Europe, though something similar had been 
 witnessed in the great times of the medieval empire, 
 especially when Frederick II was at the same time 
 emperor and king of Naples and Sicily. In the middle of 
 
10 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the fifteenth century such aggregations were scarcely to 
 be seen. At that time the Emperor was a needy and 
 powerless prince, almost a stranger to Germany, and the 
 Iberian peninsula was divided among several independent 
 sovereignties. Nor was Italy at that time subject either 
 to a Spanish King or, more than nominally, to an Emperor. 
 Burgundy had but recently been united to the Low 
 Countries, and it had as yet no sort of connexion vnth 
 Spain or with Austria. But now with great rapidity a 
 vast aggregation sprang into existence, similar to the great 
 empires which have so often been founded by conquest. 
 Yet no conquest took place, nor was the aggregation 
 devised by any statesman. It was the result of natural 
 circumstances which, at the outset at least, were certainly 
 accidental. It was the result of a series of marriages. 
 
 Henceforward this aggregation is the principal feature 
 of the European system. First a single aggregate, the 
 dominion of Charles V, then two aggregates, one bearing 
 the name of Spain, the other that of Austria. Of these 
 the former, the complex Spanish Monarchy, is in the 
 times of Elizabeth and James I the gi-eatest Power in the 
 world. This Habsburg Power therefore will accompany 
 us to the end of our review, and we cannot too soon form 
 a clear conception of it. 
 
 Bella gerant alii, tu,felix Austria, nuhe ! This verse, 
 so invariably quoted when the Habsburg Ascendency is in 
 question, may deceive us if we gather from it either that 
 the method of aggrandisement was peculiar to the House 
 of Austria or that it was employed by this House rather 
 through luck and occasionally than systematically and for 
 a long time. Accident did indeed reveal, in the case of 
 Charles V, what immeasurable results might proceed from 
 a method so simple, but when the discovery had been 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 11 
 
 made a system was speedily founded upon it, which was 
 adopted by other royal Houses, and in some cases with 
 scarcely less success. Since the system culminated early 
 in Charles V, we may be led to fancy that it fell into 
 disuse soon after. Now we cannot too early recognise that 
 during the whole period we are to review this system of 
 royal marriage reigns in international politics, that it con- 
 tinued to be employed by the House of Habsburg, so that 
 a new Charles V might at any time have appeared in 
 Europe, and we cannot too early remark that, as we begin 
 with it, we shall have to end with it. The aggregate 
 which had been brought together by Habsburg marriages 
 in the sixteenth century was dissolved at the end of the 
 seventeenth by the effect of a Bourbon marriage. 
 
 We shall have occasion over and over again to mark 
 the vast consequences which flowed in many states, and 
 often were intended to flow, from royal marriages, so that 
 we shall cease to think of the system as Austrian, and 
 shall regard it as almost the established system of foreign 
 politics in the greater part of Europe. We shall accord- 
 ingly recognise that England before and through Elizabeth's 
 reign had to guard not merely against the armies and navies 
 of foreign Powers, but against new marriages, by which 
 either the Habsburg might be still further aggrandised or 
 the Valois might emulate the Habsburg. Such marriages 
 might swallow up England or Scotland or both, as the 
 Low Countries had already been swallowed up, and as 
 Portugal was absorbed a little later, in the Habsburg 
 Empire or in a Valois Empire. Hence we shall see it as 
 a natural consequence of the success of the Habsburg 
 system that in England too in that age the great ques- 
 tions of foreign politics are marriage questions, the 
 marriage of Mary Tudor, of Mary Stuart, the proposals 
 
12 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 of marriage for Elizabeth and of remarriage for Mary 
 Stuart. 
 
 So much of the Habsburg system in general. But 
 the Habsburg Power itself must now be considered, and 
 particularly in its bearing upon the interests of England. 
 In 1688, we know, the Spanish Habsburg undertook an 
 invasion of England, and Philip II at that time was an 
 enemy to us more formidable than Louis XIV afterwards 
 and not less formidable than Napoleon. This crisis how- 
 ever came on rather slowly, if we consider that the Habs- 
 burg Power was by that time some seventy years old; 
 the later ascendencies have certainly been much more 
 intense and also more short-lived. Charles V. himself 
 played his part of universal monarch to the end without 
 once coming into hostile collision with England, and even 
 Philip had reigned more than thirty years before he 
 equipped the Armada against us. 
 
 Let us recall very summarily the principal epochs of 
 Habsburg history before 1558. It need not detain us for 
 a moment to relate how in the thirteenth century Count 
 Rudolph, possessor of the castle Habsburg, the ruins of 
 which stand in the Swiss Canton of Aargau, became 
 Roman Emperor, and as Emperor endowed his family with 
 the Duchy of Austria, which had been held before by the 
 house of Bamberg, a line much celebrated by the Minne- 
 sanger, and mentioned in English history for the detention 
 of Richard Coeur de Lion. Since 1282 the two names 
 Habsburg and Austria have been inseparably associated. 
 But their first connexion with the Empire was short. Two 
 Habsburg Emperors Rudolph and Albert (the iiom senza 
 fede of Dante) reigned in succession, and then the Luxem- 
 burg dynasty supplanted that of Habsburg. For more 
 than a century there was no third Habsburg Emperor, but 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 13 
 
 in 1438 a Duke of Austria was once more chosen by the 
 Electors, and from that date till 1740, when male heirs 
 failed in the family, through all revolutions and transfor- 
 mations of Germany and Europe it remained a fixed rule 
 that the German King and Roman Emperor should be a 
 Habsburg or Austrian prince. From 1438 to 1740 the 
 three names Habsburg, Austria, and Roman Emperor, were 
 inseparably associated. From 1740 till the Empire was 
 wound up in 1806 the House of Lorraine takes the place 
 of the House of Habsburg. 
 
 But the Habsburg line of Emperors had for a long 
 time little distinction. It did not outshine the House of 
 Luxemburg, much less emulate the Hohenstauffen. It 
 marks in fact in the fifteenth century the lowest decline 
 of the Holy Roman Empire. In more modern times, for 
 instance in the eighteenth century, it was usual to speak 
 of the Empire as a nullity, but the Emperors of the 
 eighteenth century were in their own way, though not as 
 Emperors, sovereigns of great power. Charles VI, Joseph 
 II, Leopold II, were incomparably more important person- 
 ages than the Habsburg of the fifteenth century, for 
 example Frederick III. Even in the time of the last 
 Luxemburg it had become usual to speak of Germany as 
 actually governed by the Electors, and a historian writes, 
 'In the same year the Prince Electors with a great army 
 made war upon the Bohemians". Nor was the weakness 
 of the Emperor in the fifteenth century compensated, as 
 it was in the eighteenth, by a great hereditary Power 
 (Hausmacht) possessed by him in other capacities. Frede- 
 rick III and Maximilian I were not kings of Hungary and 
 Bohemia as the later Habsburgs were. Their Hausmacht 
 
 ^ Matthias Doring ap. Mencken (Eanke, Deutsche Geschichte, Vol. i, 
 p. 34). 
 
14 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 was more purely German, but much less imposing : it was 
 confined to the duchy of Austria and a few lordships in 
 Switzerland and in Alsace. 
 
 This is the first phase we need recall of the Habsburg- 
 Power. Many small states have swelled into mighty 
 dominions by some warlike energy in the people, or some 
 genius in a ruler. The Habsburg Power also was to grow 
 till it overshadowed Europe, but not through any similar 
 cause. 
 
 The first Habsburg prince who foresaw and desired 
 this result was assuredly not one of the commanding 
 figures of history ; Maximilian I was no Philip of Macedon, 
 no Pepin, no Sultan Othman or Orchan. But he married 
 Mary of Burgundy, heiress of Charles the Bold, and had 
 by her a son, Philip the Handsome. By this marriage 
 the hereditary dominion of the Habsburg was vastly 
 increased and in such a way as to illustrate in a startling 
 manner the potency of that simple political engine, royal 
 marriage. 
 
 Charles the Bold himself had been a great European 
 prince, and how? Because by an earlier marriage his 
 Duchy and County of Burgundy had been united with the 
 Netherlands. Maximilian then could not but perceive the 
 law of aggregation that was at work. Burgundy had been 
 added to the Netherlands on the one side ; on the other 
 Austria had already been added in a similar manner to 
 Tirol. And now these two considerable aggregates were 
 by the same simple process blended into one. If Philip 
 himself should make no similar marriage he could not 
 fail by mere inheritance to be the greatest potentate in 
 Europe, and as he would probably acquire the impei'ial 
 Crown, it was already evident that a vast change impended 
 over Europe. The nullity of the Empire, already of long 
 
THE GEOWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 15 
 
 standing, would now, it was likely, disappear ^ Maximilian 
 himself from his helpless impecuniosity was an object 
 of contempt among crowned heads ; as a sovereign out 
 at elbows he is a character for a farce. But he could 
 already see himself as an ancestor of mighty kings, for 
 his son Philip, even before his marriage, was evidently 
 destined to regenerate the Empire and to be such a 
 Caesar as had scarcely been seen since the fall of the 
 Hohenstauffen. 
 
 So far however what might be foreseen was much less 
 great, and also much less strange and questionable, than 
 what in the end took place. For the territory which 
 Philip would inherit, Austria, Burgundy, the Netherlands, 
 was in the main Germanic or at least continuous with 
 Germany, territory in the main which had once formed 
 part of the Holy Roman Empire. 
 
 But now Philip himself married. It is to be remarked 
 that this marriage, the greatest of the whole long series, 
 was not contracted with any view to the prodigious effects 
 which flowed from it. It cannot be said that the heir of 
 Austria and Burgundy married the heiress of Castille and 
 Aragon, for Juana, when she married Philip, was not yet, 
 and had little prospect of becoming, heiress of the crowns 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella. They had a son and they had 
 also a daughter older than Juana. But these disappeared, 
 and a boundless prospect now opened. Aggi-egation was 
 already far advanced in Southern Europe. The united 
 
 1 As early as 1473 it was predicted by Charles the Bold in negociating 
 ■with Frederick III the marriage of Maximilian and Mary that through 
 this alliance the Emperor would come to be more feared than any 
 Emperor for three hundred years. It was also the best way to help 
 Christianity and drive out the Turk. See M. I. Schmidt, Geschichte der 
 Deutschen vi. 319. 
 
16 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Crowns of Castille and Aragon had not merely, as it were, 
 created Spain by the conquest of the Moors, they had also 
 obtained possession of Naples and Sicily. But in the 
 persons of Philip and Juana Central and Southern Europe 
 would now be aggregated together with Spain and Italy. 
 Austria, Burgundy, and the Low Countries would be 
 united. The same Power to which Columbus had so 
 lately given a world beyond the Ocean would now rule 
 the Mediterranean on the one side and the North Sea on 
 the other. Barcelona and Antwerp would own the same 
 allegiance. 
 
 It is strange indeed, it must be mortifying to those 
 who would think nobly of human history, to see an almost 
 universal dominion created neither by a reasonable view of 
 the public good, nor even by an exertion of force which if 
 irrational might be grand, and might involve displays of 
 heroic valour, but by the mere operation of a legal usage 
 originally intended to produce no such effect. Because a 
 young man marries a young woman, and custom chooses 
 to regard their regal office as heritable property, therefore 
 Spain and Germany are to be united for all time ! We 
 shall see that this particular union was found after one 
 reign too unnatural to be maintained, but the union of 
 Spain and the Low Countries, not less irrational, lasted 
 scarcely less than two centuries, and caused half the dis- 
 putes and half the wars that will be considered in this 
 book. When however politicians first perceived that such 
 a transformation of Europe was at hand, we may be sure 
 that after the alarm and anxiety which the new ascendency 
 would cause them their strongest feeling would be a desire 
 to imitate the fortunate Habsburgs and to generalise 
 what might be called the Habsburg system. Accordingly 
 throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries inter- 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBUKG. 17 
 
 national policy is found to turn in most of the great states 
 of Europe upon royal marriage. 
 
 The consequences of the marriage of Philip and Juana 
 developed themselves but slowly. About twenty years 
 passed before the union of Central and Southern Europe 
 actually took place, and even then it continued for some 
 years doubtful whether any unity, any vital force, could be 
 expected from an aggregate so artificial. At first Philip 
 appeared as a Burgundian Prince, and when in 1500 there 
 was born to him a son, 'and the government should be 
 upon his shoulder,' the child was naturally called after 
 Charles the Bold. This child, afterwards Carlos I of Spain 
 and Charles V in the series of Roman Emperors, was only 
 at home in Burgundy and Flanders. He grew up as a 
 Fleming, his first great Minister Chifevres was a Fleming. 
 In Spain, when he came to take possession, he appeared 
 as an utter stranger, almost as an enemy. In Germany, 
 when, as Roman Emperor, he came to take possession 
 there, he was somewhat more at home. In comparison at 
 least. with his rival Francis he might pass for a German; 
 and yet in the end he failed in Germany as he had failed 
 in Spain at the beginning. 
 
 From 1503, when Isabella the great Queen of Castillo 
 died, to 1519, when Charles was elected Roman Emperor, 
 is the period of the gradual formation of the Habsburg 
 power. First occurs the temporary separation of Castille 
 and Aragon and the discord between Philip and Ferdi- 
 nand, which produces the effect that so long as Ferdinand 
 lives the Habsburg cause is rather checked than advanced 
 in Spain. Philip dies in 1506, Juana soon afterwards 
 sinks into hopeless alienation of mind, and Charles grows 
 up a Burgundian, regarded with jealousy by his Spanish 
 grandfather. It was still doubtful whether an heir might 
 s. 2 
 
18 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 not be born to Ferdinand who would inherit Aragon and 
 with Aragon Naples and Sicily. But in 1516 the whole 
 of the Spanish inheritance falls in to Charles by the death 
 of Ferdinand ; then follows the Austrian inheritance. The 
 legal principle of inheritance has received its greatest 
 illustration. Election is now called in to complete the 
 work, and Charles becomes German King and in all but 
 crowning by the Pope (which took place in 1530 at 
 Bologna) Koman Emperor. 
 
 A new chapter has opened in international history. 
 The Habsburg Power has been created, which may be said 
 to have three times oppressed Europe by its ascendency, 
 once under Charles V, a second time in the later years of 
 Philip II, a third time in the earlier part of the Thirty 
 Years' War. As it fills about a century with its greatness, 
 the better part of a second century is occupied with its 
 decay. The personal reign of Charles V was continued 
 until Mary Tudor sat on the throne of England, and he 
 lived (and as long as he lived he in some sense reigned) 
 till within three months of the accession of Elizabeth. 
 
 This reign is the culmination of the dynastic principle. 
 It shows what may result from royal marriage. It is the 
 proof that the greatest aggregate of states, held together 
 only by a ruling family, may yet be made to move 
 together and show some signs of organic life. 
 
 For some time after 1519 it appeared doubtful whether 
 the huge Habsburg aggregate would exert a power in any 
 degree proportionate to its bulk. Would Charles ever be 
 able to bring to bear upon an enemy at the same time 
 the force of Spain, of the Low Countries, of Italy and of 
 Germany ? Would he even succeed in maintaining his 
 authority in all those countries ? For men saw already 
 that his foreign rule had excited a violent rebellion in 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 19 
 
 Spain, and yet in Italy and in Germany his rule was equally 
 foreign. 
 
 But these doubts were set speedily at rest by the 
 battle of Pavia and the terrible sack of Rome. It could 
 no longer after such events be questioned that not merely 
 an extensive dominion but a mighty, if not an omnipotent, 
 power had come into existence. About this time the 
 Divorce began to be agitated in England, and already 
 it could be perceived that the network of marriages had 
 begun to entangle us too. Catharine of Aragon was an 
 aunt, and the Lady Mary a cousin, of Charles V. It was 
 one of the circumstances that made the difference of 
 Henry with the Papal See so incapable of arrangement 
 that Clement VII was intimidated by Charles. Thus the 
 new Habsburg Power contributed to bring about the 
 Eeformation in England. 
 
 Charles however does not interfere in behalf of his 
 relatives in England. Catharine retires and dies un- 
 avenged, and Mary is branded with illegitimacy, as though 
 no Charles V reigned in Europe, and the Catholic Church, 
 which half a century later was to display such relentless 
 and irresistible might, sees an independent Anglicanism 
 establish itself without striking a blow. 
 
 We may partly judge from the sequel that Charles did 
 not consider the account closed. The time was to come, 
 and in his lifetime, when vengeance for Catharine was to 
 be taken at least on Cranmer and when the English 
 Reformation was to be cancelled again. His cousin the 
 half-Spanish Mary was to take the lead in this movement, 
 and at that time the Habsburg was to come back with 
 the Pope as they had been expelled together. 
 
 Meanwhile however for Charles to bring his whole 
 power to bear, though it had been proved possible, was at 
 
 2—2 
 
20 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 least a most ponderous task. And he was watched with 
 the most bitter jealousy by his old rival Francis. Accord- 
 ingly after his first triumphal moment at Bologna in 1530, 
 he remains for sixteen years unable to develope his larger 
 plans. He wages war after war with Francis, he resists 
 the Turk, he makes two expeditions to the African coast. 
 Indications may be found that during these years he had 
 not forgotten England and the English Reformation, but 
 with respect to them he does not as yet find leisure to 
 act. And in this delay almost the whole reign of Henry 
 VIII passes. Not till the Peace of Crespy does Charles 
 feel himself in a position to quit his defensive attitude. 
 In 1546 begins a new stage of his career, which introduces 
 a new stage in the development of Habsburg power. 
 
 This phase of Charles V, full of daring enterprise and 
 sudden vicissitude between success and failure, in fact the 
 catastrophe of his reign, corresponds roughly with the 
 reign of our Edward VI. In this period England still 
 escapes him, not because Charles is embarrassed by diffi- 
 culties, but because he is preoccupied with another enter- 
 prise, because he has undertaken to settle once for all the 
 religious question in Germany. Several leading actors 
 quit the scene at this point, Luther in 1546, Henry VIII 
 and Francis I in 1547. In the religious evolution also a 
 new phase begins. It may be said that the age proper of 
 the Reformation is over, and the age of the Council of 
 Trent begins. The initiative has passed over from the 
 Protestants to the Catholic party, and the Emperor him- 
 self now unfolds his religious policy. 
 
 By this time we learn to regard Charles as an eminent 
 and commanding statesman. We saw him called in early 
 youth to solve a problem which might seem simply 
 insoluble, the problem of giving some sort of vitality to a 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 21 
 
 fortuitous aggregate of inheritances. It is not surprising 
 that he seemed for a long time confounded by the task 
 which had been imposed upon him, so that observers were 
 struck with his personal insignificance, with the nullity of 
 his character, and he himself, as it were by way of apology, 
 appeared at a tournament with the word Nondum inscribed 
 upon his shield. Then came the time when it was shown 
 that the monstrous aggregate could really be made to 
 move and act. Henceforth the personality of Charles 
 begins to display itself, and in the middle period of his 
 reign, between 1530 and 1546, he gives many proofs of 
 ability both in war and statesmanship. He appears to 
 have a ruling idea, to which he gave expression at the 
 Diet of 1521, when he deplored that 'the Empire had 
 become a mere shadow, but hoped by means of the king- 
 doms, powerful territories and connexions which God had 
 given him to restore it to its ancient glory.' 
 
 Now there had never been a time when Christendom 
 was more evidently threatened with those very evils which 
 in old days it had been the Emperor's special function to 
 avert. The barbarian needed to be withstood, and a great 
 Christian Council needed to be held. Charles would 
 justify the position into which he had been brought.in so 
 accidental a manner, if he could quell the Ottoman Turks 
 — win as it were the agnomen Turcicus as his ancient 
 predecessors had borne the epithets Germanicus, Britan- 
 nicus, Dacicus, Gothicus, etc. — and if by holding some 
 august Council he could put down the heresy of Luther. 
 It was such a task as this which Charles undertook in 
 1546. He seemed for a moment to accomplish it success- 
 fully when he defeated the Schmalkaldic League at 
 Miihlberg and afterwards regulated the religious affairs 
 of Germany by the Interim. For here he appeared vie- 
 
22 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 toriously in his character of German King and Roman 
 Emperor, whereas his earlier successes had been obtained 
 in the character of King of Spain or Burgundian Prince. 
 
 From 1546 to 1552 Europe saw what she had not seen 
 since the thirteenth century, what it had long seemed 
 utterly impossible that she should ever see again, a true 
 Roman Emperor. But in 1552 the vision suddenly faded 
 away, the huge fabric which had risen like an exhalation 
 disappeared as instantaneously. The rebellion of the 
 Elector Moritz, planned in concert with France, did not 
 indeed shatter the power of Charles, which in Spain, 
 Flanders, Italy and the New World remained what it had 
 been, but it dissipated the dream of a revival of the 
 Empire. It threw Germany back into its earlier condi- 
 tion when the Empire had been almost a nullity. Not 
 long after the abdication followed, and the next Roman 
 Emperor, Ferdinand, was of the old modest type. 
 
 But between Charles' failure in 1552 and his abdication 
 in 1555 he had entered upon a new policy most important 
 to England. He continued to be favoured, as he had been 
 since and before his birth, by the peculiar Habsburg star 
 of marriage and inheritance. Just at the moment when 
 he began to wash his hands in despair of German politics, 
 a new marriage came in prospect, more important than any 
 since the marriage of which he was himself sprung. 
 
 Sixty years earlier the male line of Castillo and Aragon 
 died out, and so the Habsburg ascended the throne of 
 Spain. At this moment the male line of the House of 
 Tudor failed by the death of Edward VI. 
 
 It is only when we have in our mind the whole history 
 of the growth of Habsburg Power since the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century that we can understand the full 
 extent of the danger which threatened England by the 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 23 
 
 marriage of Mary Tudor to her cousin Philip, the heir 
 of Charles V. Unsuccessful in war, the Habsburgs here 
 fell back upon marriage. And they now struck a stroke 
 which, had not fortune proved adverse, might have been 
 the greatest among all similar strokes of policy. Through- 
 out the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the chief 
 international events either are, or flow from, marriages. 
 The marriage of Margaret Tudor to James IV laid the 
 foundation of the union of England and Scotland, as the 
 marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella created Spain. Later 
 the marriage of Louis XIV to the Infanta Maria Theresa 
 laid the foundation of the European House of Bourbon 
 and of the family alliance of France and Spain ; the mar- 
 riage of William and Mary made possible the Eevolution 
 of 1688 and the Alliance of the Sea Powers ; the marriage 
 of Elizabeth Stuart to the Elector Palatine founded the 
 dynasty and the union with Hanover which were the basis 
 of our policy in the eighteenth century. 
 
 These are royal marriages which may compare with 
 the great Habsburg marriages we have considered in this 
 chapter. And not one, either of these or those, could seem 
 pregnant with more mighty consequences than the marriage 
 which was celebrated in 1554. The marriage of Philip and 
 Mary brings to mind in the most vivid manner the mar- 
 riage of Philip and Juana. By that the Habsburg family 
 conquered Spain ; by this might it not seem that they 
 conquered England ? Nor let it be too hastily concluded 
 that the sturdy English could not be caught in so flimsy a 
 web. The Castillians too were a sturdy race, one of the 
 masculine races of the world, turbulent, with a strongly 
 marked character, not too patient of a foreign rule. They 
 had done all that masculine vigour and turbulent valour 
 could do to throw off the Habsburg yoke. They had 
 
24 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 rebelled, and for a moment the ministers of Charles had 
 been in despair. When at Tordesillas the rebels brought 
 out the afflicted queen Juana, — for they had the advantage 
 that not Charles but his mother had the rightful claim 
 on theii' loyalty — and called on her to assume the govern- 
 ment, it was said that had she been induced to sign 
 one decree, the reign of the Habsburg in Spain would 
 have come to an end. Fortunately for him she remained 
 immovably passive. And the end was that the turbulent 
 kingdoms passed under the Habsburg yoke. 
 
 If we consider the five years of Mary's reign as the 
 period of a Habsburg invasion of England, we shall have 
 to admit that the invasion was much more than half 
 successful, and that one rampart after another of national 
 defence was carried, so that in 1558 England was already 
 from almost every point of view a Habsburg kingdom, 
 standing on the same level as the Low Countries. De- 
 liverance, it is true, then came suddenly, but it came, as it 
 were, from heaven, and was due to no effort made by the 
 nation itself 
 
 Scarcely any transition in history is so abrupt as that 
 from Edward to Mary. We are aware of course that it 
 corresponded to a reaction in public feeling caused by the 
 extravagances of Edwardian Protestantism ; at the same 
 time these very extravagances were caused in great part 
 by the near prospect of so abrupt a change. At the 
 moment when England seemed about to adopt in full 
 the German Reformation, to become not merely Anglican 
 but Protestant, and the leading state of the European 
 opposition to the Habsburg, she suddenly abandoned 
 everything that she had contended for since the Divorce 
 was first agitated, and having, as it were, revived the 
 early days of Wolsey, actually went further, passed over 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 25 
 
 in European politics to the side of the Habsburg who 
 now held the title of King of England, furnished a con- 
 tingent to his armies, and suffered a miserable defeat in 
 his cause. 
 
 The progress made by the Habsburg in England in 
 these years is indeed the conquest of England, as conquest 
 was practised among Christian states at that time. It 
 was not such conquest as the Ottoman practised in the 
 East or the Conquistadores in the Far West, but it was 
 not unlike that by which the Habsburg destroyed the 
 liberties of Castillo, crushed Italy, and well-nigh crushed 
 the Low Countries and Portugal. It was a process which 
 began in royal marriage, and proceeded by religious 
 persecution, supplemented at need by arms. In England 
 the scheme was launched under the most favourable 
 circumstances. For Mary Tudor, round whom the English 
 firmly rallied, was herself half a Spaniard by blood, wholly 
 a Spaniard by feeling, and scarcely was her throne secured 
 to her than she rejected with contempt the idea of an 
 English marriage, and gave her hand to Philip himself, 
 the heir-apparent to half the world. As Castille had 
 rebelled when she felt herself passing under the Habs- 
 burg, so now did England, but Wyatt was crushed as 
 Padilla had been. Our Villalar was fought and lost. 
 We seemed to be caught in the same fatal current. In 
 the summer of 1554 the Habsburg arrived. The loyal 
 struggle in behalf of Mary's right had carried us into a 
 repeal of all that had ever been done against her, and that 
 involved a repeal of the Reformation itself. England 
 restored the authority of the Pope and revived the laws 
 against heresy. Charles was now slowly abdicating his 
 many crowns. But how little reason had he to feel 
 that his reign had been a failure or that fortune had 
 
26 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 deserted him, when he thus lived to see England which in 
 rebelling against the Pope had affronted his family, make 
 submission to the Pope and to his family together ! He 
 had had to deal with two most dangerous adversaries, the 
 Elector Moritz and Edward VI, and fortune had removed 
 them both, the one at thirty-one, the other at eighteen. 
 And now his own son bore the royal title that Edward 
 had borne, and the queen was almost as much a Spaniard, 
 in feeling almost as much a Habsburg, as Philip him- 
 self 
 
 Everjrwhere the Church was used by the Habsburgs 
 to confirm their authority. Their system took a theocratic 
 tinge, because the strongest moral force at their command 
 was the uncompromising militant orthodoxy of Spain. 
 For their views therefore it was a coincidence incredibly 
 fortunate that England at this moment was betrayed into 
 a violent religious reaction. A religious Reign of Terror 
 was about to set in for all Europe, and England entered 
 into it somewhat sooner than the Continent, by the 
 Marian persecution, which, as Ranke has said, though 
 not the most cruel of persecutions is perhaps that which 
 fell most heavily upon eminent men and leaders of thought. 
 Here was an engine by which the Habsburg might hope 
 to consolidate his conquest of England. For the Terror 
 was twofold : it was religious and political at the same 
 time. There was the scaffold for Northumberland, Wyatt, 
 and the Lady Jane ; there was the stake for Cranmer, 
 Latimer, Ridley and Hooper. And so long as the succes- 
 sion remained doubtful, this political reign of terror seemed 
 likely to continue ; now the succession had become more 
 doubtful than ever since the legitimacy of Mary had been 
 reasserted by Parliament, for the legitimacy of Mary 
 meant the illegitimacy of Elizabeth. 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBUEG. 27 
 
 The conquest of England then seemed complete, and 
 she was soon seen furnishing troops to the Habsburg 
 armies and waging war with France in the Habsburg 
 interest. It seemed likely also to be a durable conquest, 
 for at least it would last as long as Mary lived, and Mary 
 was not old. As a matter of fact the Catholic cause in 
 Europe, soon after this, revived in a manner almost mira- 
 culous. The Counter-Reformation may be said to have 
 been fairly launched in the year 1564, when the Council 
 of Trent closed its sittings. This event was in a manner 
 the settlement of the religious question of the age ; it was 
 a settlement which had the effect of giving to Catholicism 
 a superiority in Europe which it retained throughout 
 the seventeenth century. Had England been still under 
 Catholic rulers in 1564, she would perhaps have remained 
 Catholic always, and permanently subject to Habsburg 
 influence. 
 
 But of course it was calculated in the scheme of 
 Charles that fortune, which had given so much, would 
 give one thing more, that, as Philip and Juana had had a 
 son, himself, Charles V, so a son would be born to Philip 
 and Mary. When we consider how much England had 
 suffered from the want of royal heirs with an undisputed 
 right, how in the fifteenth century this evil had well-nigh 
 ruined the nation, how under Henry VIII it had broken 
 out again, how it had caused all the terrible events of his 
 reign, how it had broken out again at the death of Edward 
 and had led to new horrors, and how the deep-seated evil 
 was still there and might once more prove the bane of 
 England, — when we consider all this, we may imagine 
 what a relief the birth of a son to Philip and Mary might 
 bring to the English mind. Such an heir would be 
 infinitely preferable to Elizabeth, stained with illegitimacy. 
 
28 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 And thus the whole happiness of England would be 
 identified in the English mind with the permanence of 
 Catholicism and of the Habsburg interest. A Habsburg 
 dynasty would establish itself in England, as it had 
 already done in Spain. And later, after the catastrophe 
 of Don Carlos, the heir of England would perhaps become 
 the heir of all the Habsburg territories, a new and greater 
 Charles V. 
 
 To complete our estimate of the prostrate condition of 
 England under Mary, we must also take account of the 
 independent financial position of her Habsburg govern- 
 ment. Other tyrants of England have had to draw their 
 supplies from the country itself Philip had other re- 
 sources, he could draw on the funds of the Spanish 
 Monarchy. We read much of his lavish bribery of the 
 English nobility. 
 
 And thus the Habsburg in England had the command 
 of all engines of tyranny at once, the scaffold of Henry 
 VIII, the writ de heretico comburendo, and at the same 
 time the long purse of Walpole. 
 
 Charles now retired to his monastery. About the 
 same time he became aware that fortune would not grant 
 him the crown of all the hopes of his family, a son to 
 Philip and Mary. But even without this crowning happi- 
 ness his conquest of England might seem at least good for 
 a long time. When he closed his eyes in September, 
 1558, his son still bore the title of King of England. 
 
 That Mary should bear a son was not so absolutely 
 vital to the Habsburg scheme, but that she should live 
 long enough to see the new system take root and the 
 Counter-reformation of England blend with the Counter- 
 reformation of Europe, this was much more essential. 
 The fortune of the Habsburg House had done much, but 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 29 
 
 at this point the fortune of England intervened. A few 
 weeks after the death of Charles died Mary herself 
 
 It was in the extreme hour of England that Elizabeth 
 took her seat on the throne. Never since this country 
 began to play a great part in Europe had its humiliation 
 and its need been greater. Never has a greater interest 
 depended upon the life and character of a single person 
 than depended from the moment of her accession upon 
 the life and character of Elizabeth. The strongly marked 
 character which she displayed is rendered tenfold more 
 striking, when it is contemplated in English history, by 
 this supreme interest depending on it. 
 
 If we were about to write a biography of her, we 
 should inquire, Was she good ; if not blameless, at least 
 noble and amiable ? A daughter of Henry VIII and 
 Anne Boleyn might be expected to have hereditary faults. 
 Nor could we expect her nature to have been sweetened 
 by the hard experience which had come to her so prema- 
 turely. Her mother had died on the scaffold, her father 
 had pronounced her illegitimate, her brother had excluded 
 her from the succession, her sister had held her in 
 trembling subjection. She now assumed the government 
 in times of great difficulty, and for thirty years the times 
 grew ever wilder. She inherited a cruel and immoral 
 tradition of government, and the tyrant's plea, necessity, 
 was assuredly as valid in her day as it had been in that 
 of her father. All this ought at least to be considered 
 by those who accuse her of hardness, dishonesty, way- 
 wardness. 
 
 In this book we consider her only in relation to the 
 growth of British policy. We inquire what she accom- 
 plished for her kingdom, and especially in its relation to 
 other kingdoms. We have therefore begun by describing 
 
30 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the difficulties and dangers which surrounded the kingdom 
 at the moment when she took the helm. We shall have to 
 consider to what point she steered it, that is, to compare 
 the position which England occupied before the world 
 when she died in 1603 with the position described in this 
 chapter. But already we can see that in this respect the 
 highest hopes that could have been formed in 1558 were 
 much more than fulfilled. As.suredly the work of Eliza- 
 beth yields to that of no other ruler in respect of magni- 
 tude or of difficulty. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE FIEST PHASE OF POLICY. 
 
 At the moment of the accession of Elizabeth the 
 Habsburg Power, which had so successfully invaded Eng- 
 land, had suffered a remarkable transformation on the 
 Continent. The vast monarchy of Charles V had dis- 
 appeared, and had given place to two monarchies, each 
 directed by a Habsburg prince. During a great part of 
 his reign Charles had delegated to his brother Ferdinand 
 the German part of his inheritance, and the Electors had 
 given to Ferdinand the title of King of the Romans. Mean- 
 while the same Ferdinand had been elected to the thrones of 
 Hungary and Bohemia after the death of Louis, his brother- 
 in-law, at Mohacz. Accordingly in the midst of the great 
 aggregate, but also stretching beyond it, a minor aggregate 
 had formed itself The Habsburg Power had extended 
 beyond the dominions of Charles so as to include a great 
 Slavonic territory, and by the custom of many years this 
 Slavonic territory had been connected with the Habsburg 
 estates in South Germany and to some extent also with 
 the Imperial Dignity. This temporary arrangement was 
 now at the abdication of Charles, made permanent, and thus 
 
32 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 was formed an aggregate which under the name of Austria 
 will henceforth often engage our attention. Through all 
 storms of war and revolution the parts of it held together, 
 as they hold together still. The kingdoms of Hungary 
 and Bohemia remain still attached to Austria proper, and 
 until the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in the Napoleonic 
 age the person who inherited the sovereignty over this 
 aggregate held also the dignity of Roman Emperor, except 
 during the age of Maria Theresa, when a complication was 
 introduced by female succession. 
 
 Here then begins one of the Great Powers of modem 
 Europe. Austria is, as it were, detached again from the 
 dominion to which it had belonged since the death of 
 Maximilian I in 1519. But, we are to observe, Austria 
 since 1556 is by no means a mere revival of the Austria 
 of Maximilian I. It has acquired a new limb in the 
 Slavonic kingdoms. It also occupies a different position 
 in the European system. For on the one side the re- 
 sponsibility of guarding the Christian frontier against 
 the Ottoman now rests upon it ; on the other side it 
 is connected by a permanent family alliance with the 
 great Habsburg Power of the West. It is thus much 
 greater in many respects than the Austria of the fifteenth 
 century. And it was to stand out in later times more 
 than once with great prominence in Europe, for instance, 
 in the days of Wallenstein, in the days of Eugene, in the 
 days of Maria Theresa and Joseph. Nevertheless it com- 
 menced somewhat obscurely, and for the present we may 
 almost bid farewell to it. For during the Elizabethan age 
 it is completely overshadowed by its twin, the Spanish 
 Monarchy. Philip, not Ferdinand, is the real heir of 
 Charles ; we may almost say, Philip, not Ferdinand, plays 
 the part of Roman Emperor. 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 33 
 
 It is not so much on account of Austria as on account 
 of Spain that we must attend just at this point to the 
 division of the Habsburg Empire. Not merely a new 
 person but also a new Power, confronts Elizabeth on her 
 accession. Not only does Philip take the place of Charles, 
 but a Spanish Monarchy stands henceforth in place of a 
 Spanish-Austrian Monarchy. It is necessary therefore to 
 form some clear conception of this new Power. 
 
 It was not by a deliberate stroke of judicious states- 
 manship on the part of Charles that his dominion was 
 divided into two dominions. He had desired to make 
 Philip his universal successor. But Ferdinand succeeded 
 in establishing himself and his family in the Germanic 
 region, where already with the title of Roman King he 
 had made himself at home. He founded a separate 
 throne, as it were, upon the Religious Peace of Augsburg, 
 which was emphatically his own personal work. Such a 
 religious compromise was the greatest triumph which the 
 Reformation could boast at that time, when England had 
 returned to the allegiance of the Pope. And we are to 
 bear in mind that just at that date Southern as well as 
 Northern Germany seemed hopelessly lost to the Roman 
 Church. 
 
 Charles could not forbid the compromise, for without 
 the Religious Peace it was impossible to unite Germany in 
 resistance to the Turk. But he could wash his hands of it. 
 And this would be done most simply by leaving Ferdi- 
 nand where he was, in possession of the original Habsburg 
 inheritance, and by allowing the Electors to confer on him 
 the Imperial Dignity. It was no doubt a sort of profana- 
 tion to Charles that his brother should become Roman 
 Emperor by a religious compromise and in part by Pro- 
 testant votes, but he found consolation elsewhere. 
 
 3 
 
34 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 He gives to Philip all that he can give, the Burgundian 
 inheritance, which perhaps would more naturally have 
 been united with Austria and the Empire, and even, in 
 defiance of all legality, the Duchy of Milan. Thus was fur- 
 nished out a Power which in its greatness and its freedom 
 from the taint of heresy answered the ideal of Charles V. 
 
 The sequel may seem to have shown that this arrange- 
 ment was faulty, but before we absolutely condemn the 
 statesmanship of Charles we should take account of one fact, 
 which just at this point is all-important to us. He did not 
 give to Philip the Low Countries watched by England, 
 independent and Protestant, but the Low Countries and 
 England together, both being Catholic alike. It was only 
 because by an unexpected accident which occurred just 
 after his own death, namely, the death of Mary, the posi- 
 tion of England was entirely altered — it was only thus 
 that his scheme failed. And we may easily imagine that 
 if he could have foreseen this imminent revolution he might 
 have made a wholly different disposition, for it rather ap- 
 pears that the Catholicism of England was the corner-stone 
 of his new policy, and consoled him for the incorrigible 
 devotion of Northern Germany to the Reformation. 
 
 The Low Countries and England had long been closely 
 connected in trade. The Spanish Monarchy had already 
 by much the largest share in the commerce of the New 
 World, which had brought a great prosperity to the 
 Flemish port of Antwerp. Could but England with its 
 advantageous maritime position be added to the Low 
 Countries as a province of this dominion, its control of 
 the Ocean and the New World would be immensely 
 strengthened, and indeed it would have nothing further 
 to wish for but that crowning acquisition, which had long 
 been meditated in the Habsburg counsels, Portugal. 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 35 
 
 Charles resigned all his many crowns, but not all from 
 the same motive or with the same feelings. Germany, 
 we have seen, he surrendered in disappointment and 
 despair, but the much grander dominion which he trans- 
 ferred to his son and which was to be the monument of 
 his statesmanship for several generations, this he may 
 have resigned with proud satisfaction. If he resigned 
 this too, it was to all appearance only because his health 
 was rapidly failing. He left his son incomparably the 
 greatest of Christian sovereigns, and with a power that 
 went on increasing until after 1580 it was much greater 
 than he had ever possessed himself The Philippine 
 Monarchy stood always in a closer relation to England 
 than the Caroline had done. We have seen that Charles 
 had intended this, but he had contemplated a relation of a 
 very dififerent kind. England broke through the meshes of 
 the Habsburg net, but the dominion of which she was to 
 have formed a principal part remained maritime, remained 
 a neighbour of England, and therefore came into frequent 
 collision with her. Charles wielded a power mainly conti- 
 nental, Philip a power mainly maritime, and which grew 
 more and more maritime. 
 
 When Elizabeth entered upon her task she was con- 
 fronted with this great Sovereign of the Seas, Philip II, 
 who but yesterday had borne the title of King of England. 
 
 A great rent was made by Mary's death in the 
 Habsburg net in which England had been enmeshed. 
 Nor since that time has this particular danger from 
 intermarriage with a predominant House presented itself 
 in English history in a shape nearly so threatening, though 
 serious danger arose from the marriage of Charles I with 
 a Bourbon princess. But the danger did not disappear 
 instantaneously with the death of Mary Tudor, and 
 
 3—2 
 
36 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY, 
 
 dangers of a similar kind threatened us through a great 
 part of Elizabeth's reign. It was indeed like a fatality 
 that in an age when so many conquests were made by 
 Habsburg bridegrooms, the monarchy of England should 
 for the first time in its history fall to the distaff. 
 
 The first thought of Philip when he lost Mary was 
 that all was not lost with her, since she, the first queen 
 regnant that England had ever seen, was now to be 
 succeeded by a second queen regnant, who would be 
 equally open to the Habsburg attack. 
 
 That attack was made at once. Mary's death took 
 place on Nov. 27th, 1558, and on Jan. 10th, 1559, Philip 
 wrote from Brussels directing his ambassador to offer 
 marriage to Elizabeth. 
 
 The negociation which followed was indeed very short. 
 Parliament met on Jan. 25th, and such proposals about 
 religion were at once laid before it as made Philip resolve 
 to draw back, though his suit had been at first well re- 
 ceived and though he writes hopefully on Jan. 28th. 
 In the course of February, England breaks with Rome, 
 and the Queen declares in Parliament her resolution to 
 remain single. So rapidly did events march that when 
 the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis was concluded at the 
 beginning of April the remarriage of Philip is indeed 
 announced, but the bride is Isabel of Valois, not Isabel 
 (as the Spaniards call her) of England. 
 
 This commencement strikes the keynote, as it were, of 
 Elizabethan policy. For in this marriage negociation, we 
 are to observe, it is not the personal happiness of Philip 
 and Elizabeth, but the whole future course of England 
 and the Spanish Monarchy, that is in question. It was 
 followed by many similar negociations which had a similar 
 significance, though not one was of equal importance. 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 37 
 
 And we are thus instructed at the very commencement, 
 that international relations in that particular age appear 
 and are discussed under the symbolic form of courtship 
 and marriage. Courtship is negociation, rejection of the 
 proposal often means war, marriage means alliance, the 
 birth of a son often means federation, and his accession 
 may even mean incorporating union. In earlier times 
 and in later, no doubt, the same system may be traced, 
 but it was at its height in the sixteenth century, that is, 
 when the impression of the great world-conquering marri- 
 ages of the House of Habsburg was still fresh. 
 
 We read of those Habsburg marriages with impatience, 
 with a feeling of mortification at the pettiness of the 
 causes which have at times governed the march of history. 
 A similar mortification arises when we read Elizabethan 
 history. It is half ludicrous, half tedious, it is a kind of 
 dull comedy, the history of the courting of Elizabeth, how 
 she was courted almost from her cradle to her old age and 
 was never married after all. Let us remark that these 
 two passages of history, which excite such similar feelings, 
 are closely connected together. Elizabeth was courted 
 partly by the House of Habsburg and mainly in pursuance 
 of the Habsburg system. As those marriages involved 
 conquest, so might resistance to marriage mean resistance 
 to conquest. As the marriage of Mary Tudor humbled, 
 and might have enslaved, England, so were the freedom 
 and greatness of England founded upon Elizabeth's refusal 
 to marry; so that there was indeed a justification for 
 those Britomarts and Belphcebes of Elizabethan poetry. 
 As marriage in that age so often meant conquest, virginity 
 naturally became a symbol of national independence, and 
 a poet might feel that the virginity of Elizabeth was the 
 virginity of England. 
 
38 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Let us consider the abrupt failure of Philip's proposal 
 first from his point of view, next from that of Elizabeth. 
 It may seem strange that he should acquiesce so passively 
 in a failure so disastrous to his House, in the total loss of 
 England both to himself and to Catholicism. Let us 
 recollect that he did not probably recognise the loss as 
 total or as final, that he may have regarded the reign of 
 Anne Boleyn's daughter as merely a transient reaction to 
 be followed by a second restoration of Catholicism. But 
 we are also to bear in mind the continental crisis which 
 occupied him at the moment. He was bringing to a close 
 the greatest of all the wars which had hitherto been waged 
 between the Habsburg and the Valois. It had lasted 
 seven years, and had commenced with those great reverses 
 which had well-nigh broken the heart of Charles V, the 
 loss of the Three Bishoprics, the disaster before Metz. 
 Fortune had since changed. He had won the battles of 
 St Quentin and Gravelines, and at this very moment he 
 was negociating a great European Peace, the settlement, 
 it may be said, upon which the new Spanish Monarchy 
 would be founded. He was making the treaty of Cateau- 
 Cambresis, perhaps the greatest European settlement 
 before that of Westphalia. It was to give him a new and 
 solid position. In particular it was to settle the Italian 
 question so solidly, and so decidedly in favour of Spain, 
 that France remained from this time almost excluded from 
 Italy till the time of Richelieu. This triumph may have 
 consoled Philip for a reverse in England, which probably 
 he regarded as but temporary. The more so because the 
 peculiar Habsburg system found a new application at 
 Cateau-Cambresis. He made a marriage which might 
 satisfy him. He obtained a Valois princess, and with 
 her he acquired new claims and relations amply equiva- 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 39 
 
 lent, as he might think, for those which he lost in 
 England. It is true that four young Valois princes 
 stood between the child he might have by Elizabeth of 
 Valois and the French throne. But let us look at the 
 result ! Thirty years later those princes are dead and 
 have left no heirs. The Habsburg lays claim to the throne 
 of France, and by the help of the League he has for a time 
 every prospect of success. We have watched England in 
 the reign of Mary passing under the Habsburg yoke ; 
 thirty years later it will be the turn of France, and 
 France will be brought lower than ever was England. 
 It was at the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis that the Habs- 
 burg net first entangled her, that is at the very moment 
 when England shook herself free of it. 
 
 And now let us put ourselves at the point of view of 
 Elizabeth. She found herself in the perilous position of a 
 queen regnant of England, unprecedented but for that 
 sister who in five years had shown how near to ruin 
 England might be brought by a female reign. She had 
 a questionable title, and in the midst of a people which 
 had returned into the bosom of Catholicism she repre- 
 sented Anne Boleyn ! Her position was not much unlike 
 that of Lady Jane Grey. And yet she was still nomi- 
 nally a Catholic, and even at heart she was scarcely a 
 Protestant. At this moment she was offered the greatest 
 marriage, involving the greatest alliance, in the world. 
 Philip was now a much greater man than he had been 
 when he married her sister, for Charles was gone and had 
 left him ruler of half the world, and in this position he 
 had had military triumphs. Moreover England was at 
 war with France, and had recently lost Calais. It was 
 not difficult to see that to reject Philip at this moment 
 was to throw him into the arms of France ; the hand that 
 
40 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICV. 
 
 she might refuse would be given to a Valois princess. 
 She might find herself confronted by a gi'eat combination 
 of the Habsburg and the Valois, and with the Valois went 
 Scotland, and the claims of the House of Stuart upon 
 England. 
 
 Thus at the opening of Elizabeth's reign we see not 
 only the peculiar nature of the dangers with which she 
 had to contend but also the appalling magnitude of those 
 dangers. By acceptance of Philip's offer all such dangers 
 would pass away, dangers which in fact continued to 
 threaten her and only grew more appalling, for thirty 
 years. On the other hand the same acceptance had 
 dangers of its own, and if a refusal could not but cause 
 her an effort and a sacrifice, the same might certainly be 
 said of an acceptance. The inconveniences of the match 
 were at least equally serious, and they were fully as 
 evident as its advantages. If on the one hand it might be 
 a means of recovering Calais, if it gave her the Habsburg 
 alliance and the prospect of a son who might become 
 universal monarch, and at least would establish her 
 throne in England, on the other hand it would be a 
 cruel disappointment to her people, who saw in her the 
 angel of deliverance sent to break the Habsburg yoke 
 and extinguish the fires of Smithfield. There were other 
 considerations. That she should marrj^ her sister's widower 
 under a Papal dispensation was a proposal which reopened 
 in a most ominous manner the debate which had em- 
 bittered the life of Catharine of Aragon ; no wonder she 
 told the Ambassador that she had a serious scruple about 
 the Papal dispensation (tenia mucho escrupulo en lo de la 
 dispensa del Papa). We also hear even at this early date 
 of her determination to remain unmarried, a purpose 
 which she might indeed well have formed by reflecting 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 41 
 
 on the disastrous result of her sister's marriage, but which 
 she always describes as having arisen in her mind very 
 early, even in her childhood. On the whole, however, she 
 would feel that the question lay between a power based 
 upon the wishes of the nation and a power supported by 
 foreign help, between an independent national throne and 
 a kind of viceroyalty, such as Margaret of Parma held 
 in the Netherlands, over a province of the Habsburg 
 Realm. 
 
 Elizabeth made the great choice. We cannot at this 
 distance of time appreciate the weight which each conside- 
 ration had for her judgement. It scarcely perhaps struck 
 her that she was asked by Philip to change her religion, 
 nor perhaps did the horrors of Smithfield produce much 
 impression on her mind. Her father's mode of governing 
 (la manera de proceder del Rey su Padre) was her model ; 
 apparently she desired to restore the peculiarly English 
 system which had been on the whole successful before 
 the violent oscillation of the reigns of Edward and Mary ; 
 but the system of Henry had not been decidedly Pro- 
 testant, and still less had it been humanitarian. We 
 must beware too of crediting her with modern ideas of 
 popular government, and when she said to De Feria that 
 the people had put her where she was (el pueblo la ha 
 puesto en el estado que esta) we are not to attribute 
 to the proud Tudor any acknowledgment of the sove- 
 reignty of the people. 
 
 But she took a course visibly full of danger, a course 
 in which success was only possible by courage and heroic 
 endurance, but in which success, if it came, might be 
 splendid and might raise the nation itself to greatness. 
 The course she declined had also its dangers, though at 
 the moment it might have relieved her of much trouble ; 
 
42 GROWTH OF BBITISH POLICY. 
 
 but it was a course in which success could only be success 
 for herself alone, success gained at the expense of her 
 people. 
 
 In Mary's reign Philip's influence had been favourable 
 to Elizabeth ; he had reasons for wishing well to her. Nor 
 did these reasons cease to have weight when she declined 
 his hand, nor even when she led the nation back into the 
 path of the Reformation. We have now to consider what 
 the position of England among the European Powers 
 became when the brief Habsburg episode, as it were, 
 came to an end, and when Elizabeth tried to revive the 
 age of Henry. 
 
 Hitherto we have considered only the relation of 
 England to the Habsburg Power. It is now time to 
 turn our attention to other states, especially that state 
 which both in earlier times and in later has been the 
 most important state for England, namely, France. 
 
 The relations of England and France had lately 
 become closer and more anxious than they had been 
 in the first half of the sixteenth century. The Valois 
 had begun to enter into English politics by the same 
 approach as the Habsburg. While the latter had been 
 applying the system of royal marriage to England, the 
 former had applied it to Scotland. The Dauphin had 
 married Mary Stuart as the Prince of Spain had married 
 Mary Tudor. There was a probability therefore that 
 Scotland would in due time enter into a personal, and 
 ultimately perhaps into an incorporating, union with 
 France. And this contingency did not concern Scotland 
 alone but England, and that not merely because they 
 were contiguous countries, parts of the same island, but 
 in a far more serious way. In the miserable uncer- 
 tainty of the English succession, one claim stood out as 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 43 
 
 superior to all others, the claim of the Scots House 
 derived from the marriage of Margaret Tudor to King 
 James IV. This claim was now, as it were, acquired by 
 the House of Valois. Already the Dauphin was consort 
 to the Queen of Scotland; the time was at hand when 
 France and Scotland would be united by Francis and 
 Mary, as Castille and Aragon had been united by Ferdi- 
 nand and Isabella, and beyond this a time might be 
 foreseen when they would be united yet more closely 
 in the person of a son of Francis and Mary. This son of 
 Francis and Mary would have a claim on the English 
 throne more clear of painful objections than that of the 
 daughter of Anne Boleyn. Here was a danger to England 
 not less formidable than that from which she had newly 
 escaped by the death of Mary Tudor. England was 
 between Scylla and Charybdis, in danger of absoi'ption 
 on the one side by the Habsburg, on the other side by 
 the Valois. 
 
 Fortunately however the two dangers in some degree 
 neutralised each other. The Habsburg did not desire to 
 see England absorbed by the Valois, and accordingly the 
 Habsburg, even after he had been rebuffed by Elizabeth, 
 could not afford to become hostile to her. It was easy 
 to attack her title, and there was a Pretender at hand 
 who, so far as she was a Catholic, would suit Philip 
 perfectly, but this Pretender was Dauphiness of France, 
 the Power which all along and at that moment es- 
 pecially was the great antagonist of the House of 
 Habsburg. 
 
 But France, which we thus introduce into our narra- 
 tive, will become the most prominent figure in it, will be 
 seen eclipsing the House of Habsburg, almost absorbing 
 that Spanish Monarchy which at our actual stage is the 
 
44 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 greatest Power in the world, and becoming the most 
 formidable among the enemies of England. It is therefore 
 of great importance that we should form at the outset a 
 clear conception of this Power. 
 
 It was already a state of ancient renown, which had 
 more than once played a leading part in Europe. It took 
 the lead in the first Crusade, it was glorious under St 
 Louis, and masterful under Philippe le Bel. Its two 
 languages, the langue d'oc and the langue d'oil, had taken 
 the lead in literature up to the time of Dante. But those 
 ages of French history are divided from the age which 
 concerns us here by a great cataclysm created by the 
 Hundred Years' War with England. France in 1558 may 
 be said to be in the penultimate phase of its Valois period. 
 It had been led into the disasters of the English war by 
 the first two Valois kings, Philip and John, and it had 
 been brought lower still by Charles VI. But a much 
 brighter period was introduced by Charles VII, who in 
 many respects may be regarded as the original founder of 
 the France of Richelieu and Louis XIV. He also intro- 
 duced the happier period of his own dynasty, which from 
 this time produces capable rulers, Louis XI, Louis XII, 
 Francis I, and Henry II. In 1558 France stood at a high 
 point, though it was about to close in disappointment a 
 war which, seven years earlier, it had opened with much 
 success. But it was unconsciously approaching another 
 cataclysm, when the Valois dynasty was to perish amidst 
 the horrors of a religious war, which for a moment 
 threatened the state with absolute destruction. In this 
 extremity France was to find a deliverer in the Bourbon 
 prince, Henry of Navarre, and the Bourbon dynasty, 
 more splendid than the Valois at its best, was to begin. 
 
 In an international point of view, the most important 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 45 
 
 point about the House of Valois at this time is its relation 
 to the House of Habsburg. These great Houses do not 
 correspond to nationalities, and the House of Habsburg 
 especially belongs to all nations at once. Philip II 
 himself was in some degree a Valois, in some degree a 
 Frenchman. It is a peculiarity of the Valois dynasty 
 that it created, as it were, two Frances. King John (the 
 prisoner of Poitiers) conferred the Duchy of Burgundy 
 upon a younger son, and in the general disintegration 
 which followed the younger branch of the House became 
 an independent rival of the elder. The main cause of 
 the second downfall of France before the English arms is 
 that France at the time of the invasion of Henry V had 
 become double. England wins by the help of Burgundy, 
 and loses ground again when Burgundy changes sides. 
 But when the English are at last repelled and France 
 is reestablished on a new and secure basis, Burgundy 
 remains as great and as independent as ever. She has 
 by this time gained possession by marriage of almost all 
 the Low Countries, for not only the wealth of Ghent and 
 Bruges and the harbour of Antwerp, but also that remote 
 amphibious region protected by dykes from the sea, which 
 was to have its day in the seventeenth century, was now 
 included under the name Burgundy, so that Cordelia in 
 King Lear can speak of ' waterish Burgundy '. 
 
 The story of Charles the Bold, of his greatness and his 
 sudden fall, need not detain us here. What we have to 
 remark is that though after his fall the name Burgundy 
 drops out of historical narrative and though Louis XI 
 was able to seize and hold the duchy proper of Burgundy, 
 yet the rest of Charles' possessions, an extremely con- 
 siderable residue, passed to his heiress. Neither the House 
 of Burgundy, nor the rivalry of it with the elder branch 
 
46 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 which was called from France, came to an end with the 
 death of Charles the Bold. The successors of Charles the 
 Bold are Mary, then Philip the Handsome, then Charles 
 (Emperor and King of Spain), then Philip II (also King 
 of Spain). The very names of these princes are the 
 traditional names of the House of Valois. 
 
 Charles V himself, as we have remarked, grew up as a 
 Burgundian prince. His rivalry with Francis I is dis- 
 tinctly in its earlier phase a continuation of the old 
 rivalry of France and Burgundy. In his first war he has 
 England for an ally, as in the days of Agincourt, and his 
 object is to recover the duchy of Burgundy seized by Louis 
 XI. But the battle of Pavia, the sack of Rome, and the 
 coronation at Bologna raised Charles to a European ele- 
 vation, in which England no longer cares to be his ally. 
 The Burgundian prince is lost henceforth in the Emperor 
 and universal Monarch. But towards the close of his 
 reign, when his grand imperial scheme had failed, and 
 still more when he arranges a dominion for his son from 
 which Germany is excluded, the rivalry of France and 
 Burgundy becomes prominent again. Philip II is not 
 Emperor and not Duke of Austria; he is successor of 
 Charles the Bold and at the same time King of Spain. 
 In the former character he is especially bound to England, 
 for Burgundy had always rested on the English alliance. 
 And thus when Philip was married to Mary Tudor and 
 their combined force defeated France at St Quentin, the 
 old combination of the days of Agincourt reappeared, 
 though this time certainly not England but Burgundy 
 took the lead. 
 
 The rivalry of Habsburg and Valois has already lasted 
 a long time ; it is to be succeeded by the rivalry of 
 Habsburg and Bourbon, which after lasting more than 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 47 
 
 a century is to end by the blending through inter- 
 marriage of the Bourbon with the Spanish Habsburg. 
 We now see that it began, as it ended, in a single family, 
 for the rivalry of Valois and Habsburg is but a later form 
 of the rivalry between the elder and younger branches of 
 the House of Valois, or between the House of France and 
 the House of Burgundy. And in the main throughout 
 the whole long period before us, we shall be aware of a 
 struggle which is always proceeding between France and 
 Burgundy. From Henry IV to Louis XIV, France fights 
 for territory which was in a great degree French by 
 language and nationality, Artois, Brabant, Franche Comt^, 
 and some of which had formerly owned the suzerainty of 
 the French king. And in the earlier stage of the struggle, 
 when the House of Habsburg had the offensive, it has 
 something of the character of a civil war. In the War of 
 the League, half France looks up to Philip as its leader, 
 and Philip himself, as a member of the House of Valois, 
 lays claim to the throne of France. 
 
 But so long as Burgundy consciously existed, it would 
 instinctively seek the English alliance. Accordingly when 
 Elizabeth resolutely threw off the Habsburg yoke there 
 could not immediately follow hostility between her and 
 Philip, for there remained the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, 
 just then particularly close on account of the war which 
 was not yet ended. There were indeed signs of an inter- 
 national revolution, for at Cateau-Cambresis Philip treated 
 England with little ceremony and entered into a new 
 relation by marriage with France. Nevertheless a seri- 
 ous combination between France and Burgundy against 
 England was an international innovation not to be made 
 in a day. 
 
 The House of Valois, as we said, is in its penultimate. 
 
48 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 which is its highest phase. Very speedily it was to receive 
 a sudden and mortal blow. Henry II was to be cut off in 
 the vigour of his life, and then the House, which seemed 
 to rest securely upon four sons, of whom the eldest was 
 married to the brilliant Queen of Scotland, decayed and 
 perished. The princes died early and left no children. 
 The shadow of the coming catastrophe fell upon the whole 
 period. But so long as Henry II lived, the House stood 
 at the height to which it had been raised by Francis I. 
 For about a hundred and twenty years, since France had 
 emancipated herself from the English yoke, her royal 
 Hoiise had been great and prosperous. But Francis I 
 had given the monarchy a peculiar character, more brilliant, 
 but perhaps less solid, than it had worn under Charles 
 VII, Louis XI, Charles VIII and Louis XII, and Henry 
 II had maintained what Francis I had founded. From 
 1515 to 1559 the House of Valois enjoys what may be 
 called in some respects its age of Louis XIV. The happy 
 popular time of Louis XII, best beloved of French kings, 
 is over. It already begins to appear that France can find 
 no lasting refuge from feudal anarchy but in a brilliant 
 despotism. And the arts by which Louis XIV afterwards 
 united France so firmly were first discovered and practised 
 by Francis I. Francis is the inventor of the splendid 
 French court in which the turbulent noble is tamed into 
 the courtier ; he too founds by the Concordat of 1516 that 
 ascendency of the Monarchy over the Church which was to 
 be reasserted after the wars of religion by Henry IV, 
 Richelieu and Louis XIV. He too gives the monarchy 
 its military character, but here he has not the good 
 fortune of Louis XIV. While the latter, destitute per- 
 sonally of military talents, is able to figure as a conqueror, 
 Francis, devoted to war, is condemned throughout his life 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 49 
 
 to fight a losing battle against Charles V. One of those 
 brilliant persons who seem especially to need the sunshine 
 of good fortune, he was decidedly an unfortunate man. 
 After his splendid opening, his victory at Marignano and 
 his Concordat, when he stood forth as a new Caesar, 
 conqueror of the Helvetii and master of Gaul, when he 
 had a prospect of leading Europe against the Turk with 
 the title of Roman Emperor, he suddenly saw the huge 
 Habsburg aggregate form itself, blocking his path and 
 thwarting all his efforts. His son, Henry II, comparatively 
 an ordinary character, had some of those smiles of fortune 
 which had been denied to Francis. He had defeated 
 the grand scheme of Charles, taken the three Bishoprics 
 from Germany and Calais from England. He had married 
 the Dauphin to the queen regnant of Scotland. And 
 thus at the moment of Elizabeth's accession, the Valois, 
 though the fortune of war had latterly deserted him 
 again, was a more equal rival of the Habsburg than he 
 had ever been since the great days of the Habsburg 
 family began. 
 
 We have seen the House of Habsburg involving 
 England in its net. It was a curious fatality that the 
 House of Valois should try at the same time to do the 
 same thing by Scotland. The early career of Mary 
 Stuart runs strangely parallel to the career of Mary Tudor. 
 Thus: 
 
 Mary Tudor was a Spaniard by her mother Catharine 
 of Aragon. 
 
 Mary Stuart was a Frenchwoman by her mother Mary 
 of Guise. 
 
 Accordingly it seemed to each agreeable and natural 
 to be married to the chief prince of the maternal house. 
 
 Mary Tudor was married to the Prince of Spain, 
 s. 4 
 
50 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Mary Stuart was married to the Prince of France, the 
 Dauphin. 
 
 Mary Tudor was the first queen regnant that had ever 
 been seen in England. 
 
 Mary Stuart was the first queen regnant that had ever 
 been seen in Scotland. 
 
 Soon after the marriage of Mary Tudor to Philip, he 
 became, by the retirement of his father, King of Spain and 
 the Indies and ruler of the Low Countries. 
 
 Soon after the marriage of Mary Stuart to the Dauphin, 
 he became, by the accident which carried off his father. 
 King of France. 
 
 Thus England became united in personal union with 
 Spain and the Low Countries. 
 
 And Scotland was united in personal union with France. 
 
 A son born to Philip and Mary would have made the 
 union of England and Spain permanent by establishing a 
 Habsburg dynasty in England. 
 
 A son born to Francis and Mary would have made the 
 union of Scotland and France permanent by establishing a 
 Valois dynasty in Scotland. 
 
 To make up the parallel, fortune intervened in the 
 same manner in both countries. Mary Tudor died child- 
 less ; Francis died childless. 
 
 Thus England and Scotland were exposed to precisely 
 the same danger at almost the same time, but the danger 
 to Scotland was a danger to England too, on account of 
 the claim to the English succession possessed at this time 
 by the royal house of Scotland. 
 
 Scarcely any English sovereign has been exposed at 
 the moment of accession to such dangers as was Elizabeth, 
 and they were heightened by her weak title and by her sex. 
 
 We have as yet remarked but one countervailing 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 51 
 
 advantage, namely, the mutual rivalry of the two threat- 
 ening Powers, the Habsburg and the Valois. But Elizabeth 
 had another advantage which soon came to light. As the 
 English nation had since the first year of Mary been 
 uneasily conscious that they were passing under the 
 Habsburg yoke, so the Scots nation could not but perceive 
 that they were becoming a province of France. The 
 national feeling was in Scotland as in England closely 
 connected with the religious movement of the time. 
 What is commonly called the Reformation is in both 
 countries only half a religious movement ; the other half 
 of it is a movement of national independence. 
 
 But that a grand movement partly national, partly 
 religious, should arise in England and Scotland simul- 
 taneously, that the two countries should be animated by 
 a common impulse, and especially that they, so long rivals, 
 upon whose secular discord France had so long traded, 
 should now unite in resistance to this very France, this 
 was a most pregnant novelty. The union of England and 
 Scotland was brought about directly, as we know, by the 
 mere operation of a law of succession, but the thoroughness 
 and durableness of the union has been the effect of the 
 common devotion of both countries to the Reformation, 
 and it was in the First Phase of Elizabeth that this solid 
 ground of union was first laid. 
 
 Substantially the first achievement of Elizabethan 
 policy lay in this, that she called out a great Reformation 
 Party in England and Scotland at once and thus laid the 
 foundation, first of the union of England and Scotland, 
 secondly of the resistance which in the seventeenth century 
 was ofi'ered to the Stuarts. But we must pay some atten- 
 tion to the special circumstances under which this was 
 done, as they arose in 1559. 
 
 4—2 
 
52 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Though Spain had recently been, and was before long- 
 to become again, the most threatening enemy of England, 
 yet just at this moment she falls quite into the back- 
 ground, and France suddenly takes her place. For a 
 short time the situation is like that of the later years 
 of Louis XIV or of the Napoleonic age. England is 
 threatened by France as she has never been before, but as 
 she is to be threatened several times in the future. 
 
 And it is in this year 1559 that the name Stuart 
 begins to be prominent in English politics. 
 
 We are familiar with the fact that when the line of 
 Stuart kings had come to an end we had to deal for 
 something like half a century with Stuart Pretenders. 
 Let us now remark that a Stuart Pretender also preceded 
 the Stuart Kings. The Pretender Mary sets up her claim 
 in 1559, but a few months after the death of Mary Tudor. 
 For the best part of thirty years she maintains, though 
 intermittently, this position, and resembles those later 
 Pretenders not merely in her claim but also to a great 
 extent in the means she takes to support it. Those later 
 Pretenders, and even the later Stuart Kings, Charles II 
 and James II, were clients of France and closely con- 
 nected with the House of France. In like manner Mary 
 Stuart first assumes the character of Pretender in the 
 position of Dauphiness of France, and immediately after- 
 wards becomes Queen of France. 
 
 For now occurs the last of the many great events 
 which were crowded into those few months. Charles V 
 and Mary Tudor had quitted the stage. Elizabeth had 
 mounted the throne. The great European Peace of 
 Cateau-Cambresis had been concluded. Elizabeth Tudor 
 had repelled Philip and he had been accepted by Elizabeth 
 Valois. And now on July 26th, 1559, King Henry II died 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OP POLICY. 53 
 
 suddenly from the effect of a wound received in a tourna- 
 ment. 
 
 The result was another of those startling changes of 
 which the sixteenth century had seen so many. France 
 and Scotland were united together in personal union, as 
 Castille and Aragon had been. Mary Stuart, whose 
 pretensions to the Crown of England had already been 
 freely put forward, now stood forth before the world. 
 Queen Consort of France and Queen Regnant of Scotland. 
 Both she and her husband were young, and it might be 
 expected that they would have a long reign and many 
 children. Opposed to them was only the daughter of 
 Anne Boleyn, of doubtfiil title and legitimacy, without 
 prospect of an heir and having newly refused the hand of 
 the greatest monarch in the world. 
 
 Never has a Stuart Pretender stood in so commanding 
 a position as Mary Stuart in 1559. Other Pretenders 
 have had a strong party in Scotland to back their claim 
 on England, or even for a moment military possession of 
 Scotland. Other Pretenders have obtained aid from 
 France. But Mary was Queen of Scotland by undisputed 
 right, and also she was in a position to command the 
 whole force of France. And England was scarcely yet 
 free from a war with France, in which Scotland, governed 
 now for many years by a French Queen Eegent, had co- 
 operated with France. 
 
 If under Mary Tudor the danger of England from 
 Spain seemed extreme, and if it seemed perhaps only 
 adjourned, not really lightened, by her death, so that 
 Elizabeth's rejection of Philip might seem an audacious 
 step, the danger from France now seems equally extreme 
 and equally pressing. For to all that has just been said 
 we are to add that Elizabeth had to commence her reign 
 
54 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 by signing a humiliating peace with France. In the 
 settlement of Europe, while Philip appeared on the whole 
 victorious, England, which had submitted to be his humble 
 ally, had to acknowledge herself defeated. When Eliza- 
 beth broke with Philip she parted with a chance of re- 
 covering Calais. And so she began by descending to a 
 lower position with respect to the Continent than any of 
 her predecessors for centuries past had occupied. And 
 immediately after this confession of inferiority to France, 
 the Queen of France, also Queen of Scotland, stood forth 
 as Pretender to her throne. 
 
 But now the new forces make themselves felt, those 
 forces which have created the modern England, or rather 
 Great Britain. For even before Mary Stuart could call 
 herself Queen of France the Scottish Reformation had 
 broken forth with violence, in the form of a rebellion 
 against her mother's regency in Scotland. Between May 
 and July, 1559, there had sprung up the mighty national 
 party, which has ever since remained the national party, 
 of Scotland. Utterly unlike the Protestant party of 
 England, it began in rebellion against the Government. 
 This fact by itself created a new difficulty for Elizabeth ; 
 but the government in Scotland was a French government. 
 Elizabeth had already at home taken up the position of a 
 national sovereign. She was English on both sides, 
 whereas Mary was French on one side. She had refused 
 a foreign husband, whereas Mary had a French husband. 
 And thus the new national party in Scotland, however 
 she might feel bound to hold it at some distance, could not 
 but look up to her as its head, both as the champion of 
 Reformation and the champion of national independence. 
 
 We cannot but see how instantaneously in this year 
 1559 the outline of modern Great Britain springs to 
 
THE FIEST PHASE OF POLICY. 55 
 
 light. Hitherto England and Scotland had confronted 
 each other like two barbaric tribes at eternal blood-feud, 
 and the inclinations of Scotland had been towards France. 
 But from this time forward they stand together on the 
 basis, which in political union is almost alone solid, of 
 religion, and they are both alike opposed to France. But 
 though the ground of union is solid, there are marked 
 differences between them even in religion. The Scottish 
 Reformation is not quite similar to the English ; in parti- 
 cular it regards the government differently. And through- 
 out the period which lies before us, alike when we study 
 Oliver or William as while we study Elizabeth, we shall 
 find that the firm indestructible basis of British policy is 
 this alliance, founded on likeness in difference, of the 
 English and the Scottish Reformation. 
 
 In the autumn of 1559 there was actually war in 
 Scotland between the Regent and the rebels, but it was 
 scarcely civil war, so French was the government and the 
 military force on which it depended. What is called the 
 Reformation of Scotland is almost in an equal degree a 
 national movement. It is an expulsion of the French, 
 who fortify Leith and expect reinforcements and ships 
 from France. But the rebels find themselves unable to 
 effect this expulsion unaided. They are even in danger 
 of being worsted in the war. 
 
 At this point is taken the first active step of Eliza- 
 bethan policy. Her fleet appears off the shore of Fife. 
 She enters at Berwick into an engagement with the 
 rebels. The siege of Leith is resumed and carried on by 
 land and sea. Commissioners from France arrive, by 
 whom is signed the Treaty of Edinburgh, a settlement 
 which brings to an end the government of Scotland by 
 the French. 
 
56 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 The step was one which could not but change for all 
 time the position of England with respect to Scotland, 
 and could not but immeasurably strengthen England. 
 But it might seem to be attended with great risk, and to 
 involve a new war with France. This was the moment 
 of the first ascendency of the Guise Family. The Queen 
 Regent of Scotland herself (who died in the course of 
 these troubles) had been a Guise, and thus Mary Stuart 
 was a Guise by the mother's side. Her husband Francis 
 (not technically a minor, but only sixteen years old) had 
 put the government of France in the hands of his wife's 
 uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and at the same time 
 Francis, Duke of Guise, the conqueror of Calais, was the 
 most famous commander of whom France at that time 
 could boast. This family then, which peculiarly repre- 
 sented the union of France and Scotland, wielded the 
 whole power of France, and was not likely to submit to the 
 defeat that had been suffered in Scotland. Francis refused 
 to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh, and a great war of 
 England and France seemed necessarily to be at hand. 
 
 But France herself was in a critical state. All over 
 Europe there were now signs, which proved delusive, 
 that the Reformation was on the eve of a final triumph. 
 Shortly before it had appeared to be almost confined to 
 Germany, and the Religious Peace of Augsburg had been 
 its only trophy, which had been almost counterbalanced by 
 the recantation of England. But England had now turned 
 round again, and the outbreak of Reformation in Scotland 
 had been more sudden and overpowering than in almost 
 any country. The time was come at last when France too 
 must speak her mind, must take a side, in the great 
 religious question. And thus the Guise government 
 found its hands full at home. The age of the Religious 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 57 
 
 Wars of France opened in March, 1560, with the Con- 
 spiracy of Amboise. 
 
 La Renaudie and his accomplices were overpowered, 
 and his head was exposed with seventeen other heads 
 outside the castle of Amboise. The Guises were re- 
 solved to make no concessions in religion; nevertheless 
 foreign policy had to wait for a season. The States- 
 General were to meet, nay, it was even proposed to 
 summon a national Church Council. In such delibera- 
 tions passed the year 1560, and at the end of it came 
 another overwhelming intervention of fortune. 
 
 Almost everything indeed depended on fortune in that 
 strange international system which the Habsburgs had 
 brought into vogue. For it turned on births, deaths, and 
 marriages, of which three classes of events only one 
 depends much on human will. We have considered the 
 revolutions that were caused by the deaths of the Tudors, 
 Edward and Mary, the immense consequences that fol- 
 lowed from the fact that no child was born to Mary 
 Tudor. And now the whole splendid bubble of a union 
 of France and Scotland, leading to a conquest of England, 
 burst in a moment, when the young Francis II died 
 suddenly on Dec. 5th, 1560, leaving no child and no 
 prospect of a child. 
 
 The French Government might indeed have resolved, 
 even after this event, to maintain its hold on Scotland. 
 But with Francis fell the influence of the Guise family, 
 since a strict technical minority began with the accession 
 of Charles IX in his eleventh year, and in a minority the 
 government fell into the hands of the Queen-Mother and 
 the princes of the blood royal. A shock was given to 
 France by this casualty, which drove her speedily into a 
 terrible series of civil wars. And thtjs it was that the 
 
58 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 danger to Elizabeth from the combination of France and 
 Scotland, so threatening in the summer of 1559, vanished 
 at the close of 1560. 
 
 This event closed a chapter of English history, which 
 though not long, is unique. Between the accession of 
 Mary Tudor and the death of Francis II of France 
 England was exposed to the greatest danger from the 
 Habsburg system, owing to the fact that what Knox 
 called ' the regiment of women ' began both in England 
 and Scotland just at the time when the system of con- 
 quest by marriage, as practised by the Habsburg family, 
 prevailed in international affairs. During this short period 
 the danger, as we have seen, was extreme, but only during 
 this short period. That it had passed away for ever with 
 Francis II was perhaps not immediately apparent, for Eng- 
 land and Scotland alike remained after 1560 under the rule 
 of women. It might seem certain that both Elizabeth and 
 the widowed Mary Stuart would at some time marry, and 
 likely that they would marry into the Habsburg or the 
 Valois family ; in which case England would be exposed 
 again to the old dangers. Apprehensions of this kind 
 tortured Englishmen through a great part of the Eliza- 
 bethan age. In fact however the danger did not revive. 
 Not that the Habsburg system was about to become 
 obsolete. On the contrary it prevailed throughout the 
 seventeenth century. Nor did it cease to affect England 
 with some of the minor evils it was calculated to produce. 
 The Spanish match which was planned for Charles I 
 excited just alarms and threatened great calamities. The 
 French marriage of Charles I had the effect of making 
 the House of Stuart in the next generation a sort of 
 branch of the House of Bourbon, and contributed in a 
 great degree to the fall of the Stuart dynasty. Such evils 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 59 
 
 however fell far short of those which threatened us under 
 Mary Tudor and in the first days of Elizabeth, absorption 
 into the Habsburg Aggregate or into a similar Aggregate 
 to be founded by the Valois. And there was another side 
 to this Habsburg system, which in certain cases worked 
 beneficially ; we had the benefit of this better side. The 
 union of kingdoms through royal marriage, fantastic as it 
 is theoretically and disastrous as it may be in practice, is 
 sometimes beneficial, because it may accidentally unite 
 two kingdoms naturally seeking union. Thus the union 
 of Castille and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella was 
 as happy as the union of Spain and Burgundy under 
 Charles V was unfortunate. Two great marriages deter- 
 mined the course of England in the seventeenth century, 
 and they were of this better kind. The first united in 
 1603 England and Scotland ; this was the marriage, then 
 already ancient, of Margaret Tudor and James IV. The 
 second was the marriage of William and Mary. By the 
 former one of the fotmdation-stones of British greatness 
 was laid. The latter did not indeed found a dynasty, but 
 its indirect effects were immeasurable ; we owe to it 
 almost everything. 
 
 Though at the end of 1560 it was not yet apparent that 
 the ship had weathered the storm, yet it was soon visible 
 that at least for the present we were out of danger. The 
 daughter of Anne Boleyn had made her position sure, 
 though she had offended Philip and had suffered a direct 
 attack fi-om France, and that though at the moment of 
 her accession her position and circumstances had seemed 
 in every respect disadvantageous. It had indeed come to 
 light in the moment of trial that her position itself offered 
 one advantage. When she made her intervention in 
 Scotland she had had the eager encouragement of Spain ; 
 
60 GBOWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 she, the heretic, had been exhorted by Philip to support 
 the cause of heresy against a Catholic government ! Thus 
 it was plain that the Habsburg could not bear to see her 
 overpowered by the Valois ; and there was equal reason 
 to conclude that the Valois would wish her well in her 
 resistance to the Habsburg. But at the moment the 
 Valois was the more dangerous enemy. And now Francis 
 was gone, and Elizabeth might feel daily more hopeful. 
 She had found an unexpected and most redoubtable ally 
 in the party of Reformation in Scotland. Now she might 
 already perceive that the internal condition of France 
 closely resembled that of Scotland. In France too Refor- 
 mation was on the point of bursting forth. Let but a year 
 or two pass, and France would find that Elizabeth's ships 
 might appear in the Seine to aid a Huguenot party (the 
 name was just coming into vogue) and to exact another 
 Treaty of Edinburgh from Charles IX's own government. 
 In short for the present Elizabeth might feel secure. We 
 are at the end of her first phase. 
 
 Hitherto it has been possible to consider her simply as 
 struggling against the Habsburg system then prevalent in 
 Europe, which was the same system in the hands either of 
 the House of Habsburg or the House of Valois. Into the 
 complicated politics of Europe it has not been necessary 
 for us to enter further than simply to take note of the 
 workings of this system. This system begins now to be 
 with respect to England less aggressive. But another 
 enemy appears. No long time of security was to be 
 allowed to Elizabeth. New clouds were gathering in the 
 sky. A time was coming upon Europe darker and more 
 intense than that which had come to an end, and which 
 for England at least had been dark enough. England was 
 yet to undergo greater trials, greater anxieties than ever, 
 
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY. 61 
 
 though — for her happy period is after all beginning — not 
 greater evils, and though her trials are to be compensated 
 by greater triumphs. 
 
 Hitherto we have had little occasion to speak of the 
 religious question. The Reformation was indeed almost a 
 twin of the Habsburg system, as Luther appeared in 1517 
 and Charles was elected Emperor in 1.519. For forty 
 years already the religious question has been an important 
 factor in international affairs, yet in fact always subordin- 
 ate to that system of marriage and succession which we 
 name from the House of Habsburg. But a change occurs 
 at this point. The Counter-Reformation is about to take 
 place, and the period on which we now enter receives its 
 character from this event. It is an event which deserves 
 to be precisely conceived, an event far more positive and 
 sudden than is understood by those who imagine it as a 
 mere gradual necessary reaction from the Reformation. 
 Up to this point we have remarked nothing in our casual 
 glances at the affairs of religion which could prepare us to 
 expect even such a reaction. Perhaps Catholicism has 
 never experienced a more disastrous period than the four 
 years which followed the death of Mary Tudor. England 
 and Scotland were lost for ever in those years, and in 
 France there sprang up a Protestant Party which in 1562 
 extorted a most comprehensive Edict of Toleration, similar 
 to that Religious Peace which had been concluded seven 
 years earlier for Germany. Such a crowd of occurrences 
 might lead the observer who believes in drifts or irre- 
 sistible currents of thought to suppose that the universal 
 triumph of the Reformation was already certain and on 
 the point of being accomplished. 
 
 And yet as we advance into and through the seven- 
 teenth century no reflexion will oftener occur to us than 
 
62 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 this : How powerful and victorious is Catholicism ! How 
 feeble for the most part is Protestantism and how pre- 
 carious its existence! 
 
 We must pause a moment to inquu'e what is the 
 Counter- Reformation ? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE COUNTEK-REFORMATION. 
 
 For some years after 1560 Elizabeth apprehends no 
 immediate or definite danger from abroad, though the 
 prospect is full of dangers that are approaching or possible. 
 She is no longer directly assailed either by the Valois or 
 the Habsburg. Rather she looks on while attacks are 
 made upon them, while the Valois struggles with a rising 
 Huguenot party and the Habsburg with a disaffected 
 party in the Low Countries. It was open to her at this 
 time, if she had been so inclined, to pass in her foreign 
 policy from the defensive to the offensive. And indeed 
 we see her, when the first civil war of France breaks out 
 in 1562, meditating the recovery of Calais by help of the 
 Huguenots. To recover what she had so recently lost, and 
 from a Power which had scarcely ever since ceased to be 
 at war with her, could hardly strike her as an aggressive 
 policy, and beyond this we remark that she has no 
 ambition to acquire anything. 
 
 It might easily have been otherwise at a time when 
 the Habsburg system was in its heyday. A most effective 
 method of conquering foreign countries had been invented ; 
 it was a method of which the Habsburgs could claim no 
 monopoly ; and it was now considered the sum of kingcraft 
 to apply or to resist it. The House of Valois had but 
 
64 GEOWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 recently followed with great skill the example set by the 
 House of Habsburg. England hitherto had suffered, not 
 profited, by such experiments, but England was now at 
 leisure. Could not the House of Tudor in its turn now 
 play the part of a House of Habsburg ? The question, as 
 soon as it is asked, brings to light a peculiarity of this 
 House which proved highly important to England. 
 
 The Tudor Monarchy had been passive hitherto because 
 it had fallen to the distaff Elizabeth was unmarried, and 
 any marriage she might make would create claims only 
 against, not for, England. But it is to be observed that 
 the House furnished also no princes of secondary rank who 
 might play the part of Habsburg bridegrooms. This was 
 an effect of the scarcity and frailty of children in the 
 Tudor dynasty. Their children for the most part died in 
 infancy or too early to be married. Old age in a Tudor 
 was scarcely seen but in Elizabeth herself We are also to 
 remember that the marriages of this House seldom had an 
 international character. Henry VII's queen and four 
 out of six of Henry VIII's queens were English. Accord- 
 ingly Elizabeth stood in a singular degree disconnected 
 from the royal caste. Never have we seen a sovereign 
 so completely English. Not only was she English by 
 birth on both sides, but her relatives were all English, 
 and no foreign prince or princess anywhere existed who 
 could count kinship with her. That a sovereign so isolated 
 should reign over England for forty-five years was a fact of 
 great importance in English history. It concurred with 
 that other fact, the new solidarity of the English and 
 Scotch created by the Reformation, to heighten our 
 insularity. The English state in former times had not 
 been properly insular, since on the one hand the royal 
 House was French and had possessions in France and 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 65 
 
 foreign affinities, and on the other hand Scotland was 
 foreign and had foreign alliances. It was not insular, 
 since its frontier was not maritime but continental. 
 But now the Continent had moved away from us and 
 Scotland had drawn nearer. Elizabeth already rested on 
 a party which was partly Scotch, partly English. An 
 insular Power began henceforth to grow up, and nothing 
 could be more favourable to the growth of it than that it 
 should be ruled for well-nigh half a century by a sovereign 
 so absolutely free from foreign entanglements. 
 
 We are now to watch the gradual growth of a new 
 danger, which in thirty years grew to such a point that we 
 were exposed to a great invasion on a scale hitherto un- 
 paralleled, and found our policy di-awn permanently into a 
 different course. 
 
 A new age is introduced by two new movements, by 
 the Huguenot movement in France, and by the disaffec- 
 tion in the Low Countries against the government of 
 Philip. Both these movements are religious, and in both 
 of them the Reformation appears in resolute oppositiou 
 not only to the Church but also to the established Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 This was the most striking novel feature of the new 
 religious movement now beginning, which may be called 
 the Second or Calvinistic Reformation. Hitherto the 
 Reformation had been opposed indeed to the hierarchy, 
 but had been loyal to Government, as on the other hand 
 Government had been the agent of the Reformation. 
 Luther's inclination to the side of the State had been 
 from the outset very decided, and had been avowed by 
 him with characteristic energy at the time of the Peasant 
 Revolt. And almost universally, down to the time now 
 before us, the new religious system had been introduced 
 s. 5 
 
66 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 under the authority of the State. In England this was 
 perhaps most manifestly the case, where the author of the 
 Reformation was the King himself, and where the accession 
 of a new sovereign changed the aspect of the national 
 religion three times successively. But it was also the case 
 substantially abroad throughout the Germanic and Scandi- 
 navian world. In the North the leader of reform was 
 Gustav Wasa, the first King of Sweden, so that the 
 Reformation was a principal factor in the original 
 composition of the Swedish Monarchy. In the German 
 Empire and the Swiss Confederation local government 
 was strongly developed and central government was weak. 
 In Switzerland the Reformation was adopted, where it 
 was adopted, by the councils of the great towns. In the 
 Empire it was adopted under the authority of Princes, 
 such as the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg and the 
 Landgrave of Hesse, within their own territories ; and at 
 first actually with the permission of the Diet, though this 
 permission was afterwards withdrawn. Scarcely anywhere 
 in the Lutheran Reformation had religion been made a 
 ground or justification of rebellion. 
 
 But now in Scotland a different precedent was set, 
 where Reformation and Rebellion went hand in hand, 
 where a disaffected party openly attacked the mass as 
 idolatrous and established a new religious system by open 
 resistance to authority. And only in this way would it be 
 possible for the Reformation to find an entrance either 
 into France or into any part of the dominion of Philip. 
 For in both those regions the central government was 
 strong and Catholic. There were here no principalities, 
 bishoprics or municipalities so independent as to be prac- 
 tically sovereign, and linked together only by a federal 
 diet, whose decrees could easily be resisted. And yet at 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 67 
 
 this time the Reformation as an influence was in some 
 respects more irresistible than ever. Calvin, who from 
 Geneva still directed the whirlwind, had given it a sys- 
 tematised doctrine, and it had by this time the prestige 
 of many triumphs. Accordingly the Reformation begins 
 once more to be powerfully aggressive, and its aggressions 
 now necessarily take the character of rebellions against the 
 State. 
 
 This is the innovation which gives its character to the 
 new age. It transferred controversy into another region. 
 The last generation had arraigned the Church, accusing it 
 of a departure firom primitive Christianity ; this generation 
 called in question the authority of the State, inquiring 
 whether rebellion might not in certain circumstances be 
 lawful. The question was first raised in behalf of the 
 Reformation, but it may be doubted whether the Reforma- 
 tion profiited by it and whether it ought not to be reckoned 
 among the principal causes of the Counter-reformation. 
 For it was a weapon which could easily be turned against 
 the Reformation. If Calvin's followers might claim, in 
 certain circumstances, the right to rebel against a Catholic 
 sovereign, might not a fortiori a Catholic people rebel 
 against a Protestant, a heretical sovereign? It was an 
 ancient pretension of the Papacy, a pretension which had 
 often been allowed, to dictate to kings and in case of con- 
 tumacy to punish or depose them ; and such a claim was 
 not only less novel, but might seem less presumptuous, 
 when urged in the name of the Catholic Church than 
 when advanced by a modern sect. Now in the Lutheran 
 period, when the Reformation and Government went 
 together, several monarchies had attached themselves to 
 the Reformation. Such monarchies then were henceforth 
 exposed to the rebellion of their Catholic subjects. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 The two chief occurrences of the age we are now to 
 deal with illustrate this. 
 
 They are : (1) the Pope's excommunication of Elizabeth 
 and appeal to her Catholic subjects against her authority; 
 (2) the denial of the right of Henry of Navarre, as being a 
 heretic, to succeed to the throne of France. This latter 
 occurrence is especially memorable, because it led to the 
 first profound political speculations of modern Europe. 
 Those questions about the origin of civil government and 
 the ground of its claim to obedience which agitated the 
 English mind so much in the days of Filmer, Hobbes and 
 Locke, had been raised earlier in France in the times of 
 the League. Henry IV had given a grand illustration of 
 divine right when, resting simply on his legitimacy, he. 
 won his way to the throne of France in spite of the Church 
 and the League and Paris and Philip of Spain united 
 against him. 
 
 The age upon which we now enter is one of the most 
 intense and terrible that Europe has ever experienced. It 
 may be said to be the last of the theocratic ages, for it is 
 an age in which ecclesiastical influences take the lead' as 
 they had done in the days of Innocent or Hildebrand and 
 as they have never done since the close of the sixteenth 
 century, not even, as we shall find, in the Thirty Years' 
 War. But the superiority is most signally on the Catholic 
 side. The tendency, the irresistible drift, of the time is 
 towards the Counter-reformation, not towards the Reform- 
 ation. It is the more necessary for us to recognise this 
 
 1 As Mr Armstrong remarks {French Wars of Religion, \>. 85) : The 
 Chancellor L'Hopital opened his speech to the Estates-General of 
 Orleans by saying that there was now more love between an Englishman 
 and Frenchman of the same religion than between two Frenchmen of 
 different forms of faith. 
 
THE COUNTER- REFORMATION. 69 
 
 because at this very time England asserted her insular 
 character in the most emphatic manner by deciding 
 irrevocably in favour of the Eeformafcion. Let us. look 
 then at the broad result of the struggle. 
 
 At the very beginning of the period all germs favour- 
 able to the Reformation were utterly extinguished in 
 Spain and Italy. 
 
 In France, the principal arena of the contest and 
 where at the outset the Huguenot party showed all the 
 eager zeal which we are apt to consider a sure sign of 
 victory, the Catholic cause nevertheless came out signally 
 and decisively victorious. All that zeal could not save 
 the Huguenots from being deserted by their heroic leader, 
 a,nd the toleration they ultimately secured was but the 
 commencement of a long decline, but a half-way house 
 between the St Bartholomew and the Dragonnades. 
 
 In the Low Countries ten out of seventeen provinces 
 were won back to Catholicism, and have remained faithful 
 to it ever since. 
 
 Poland and, somewhat later, Bohemia were won back 
 to Catholicism. 
 
 In Germany, the home of the Reformation, which 
 Charles V had probably regarded as irretrievably given 
 over to the Reformation, an immense reaction took place, 
 so that the whole southern part of the country was 
 recovered to Catholicism. 
 
 For all these losses the Reformation had on the Con- 
 tinent only one compensation, the Seven Provinces of the 
 United Netherlands. These were successfully torn from 
 the very hands of Philip. No very considerable acquisition 
 territorially ! But in the seventeenth century this reformed 
 community showed an astonishing vigour and attained a 
 prodigious prosperity. 
 
70 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 This on the Continent was the only new acquisition. 
 But the Reformation retained what it had acquired in the 
 days of Luther, the Scandinavian kingdoms, three great 
 Electorates, and the richest of the Swiss Cantons. 
 
 It is a surprising proof of the insularity which was 
 beginning to characterise us that we remained undisturbed 
 by this irresistible drift, and settled down, both England 
 and Scotland, to the Reformation in this very period. 
 Probably nothing short of this could have saved the cause 
 of the Reformation in the world. 
 
 As we were so little influenced by the movement of 
 the Counter-reformation the question arises how we became 
 involved in the wars that accompanied it. We enjoyed for 
 a time the security that resulted from the fact that Philip 
 had his hands full in the Low Countries and that the 
 French Government was occupied with the Huguenots, 
 while neither of those Powers wished the other to acquire 
 influence over England. How happened it that after a 
 time this security was lost, and that in the end we drifted 
 into a great war with Spain ? 
 
 That First Phase of Elizabethan Policy which we have 
 sketched is merely the necessary effort by which at the 
 outset she secured her throne. Her reign itself now 
 begins, and we may already make a general reflexion on 
 the character which English Policy must necessarily have 
 had in the Elizabethan age. The position of our state 
 among states and the dangers to which it was exposed 
 were wholly unlike those to which we have since been 
 accustomed. Policy could not then be determined by 
 considerations of trade or colonial empire, as in the 
 eighteenth century ; nor had we yet begun to look 
 wistfully towards the Low Countries or to apprehend 
 the encroachments of France. We had indeed our keen 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 71 
 
 anxieties, but they were of another kind, of a kind which 
 passed away with the Elizabethan age. In foreign as in 
 domestic policy, everything turned on the questions of 
 succession and of religion and these two questions were 
 intimately connected together. 
 
 Would it be possible for Elizabeth, a heretic and the 
 daughter of Anne Boleyn, to support herself long upon 
 the throne ? Was she not likely, like her brother and 
 sister, to die early, and if so, who would succeed her ? 
 Could a heretic be permitted a second time to mount 
 a throne ? Reformation was giving place to Counter- 
 reformation, and this was about to strike a great blow 
 for universal dominion. The visible claimant to the 
 succession, Mary of Scotland, adhered to it. It appeared 
 therefore as if the country were approaching a new 
 revolution, which would arrive either with the death of 
 Elizabeth or with her fall through some attack made iipon 
 her by the Powers of the Counter-reformation. 
 
 The great problem of Policy then was how to avert 
 such a catastrophe. In general there seemed but one way 
 of doing this, a way characteristic of the Habsburg age. 
 New heirs must be provided, that is, marriages must be 
 made. Elizabeth must take a husband ; Mary Stuart must 
 take a husband. In this way events might be brought 
 about within Britain similar to those which had already 
 transformed the Continent. England and Scotland might 
 be united as Castillo and Aragon had been ; at the same 
 time it would be decided whether this insular state should 
 belong to the Reformation or to the Counter-reformation. 
 Such is the problem of the Elizabethan age stated in its 
 most general form. When now we survey the age itself 
 as a whole, it is seen to consist, first, of a long period of 
 drifting into war with Spain, secondly, of the war itself, 
 
72 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 which did not actually come to an end, though it was 
 practically decided, before Elizabeth's death. On the 
 threshold then we meet the question, what caused the 
 drift towards war, since Elizabeth could in no case desire 
 war with the greatest Power in the world, nor could 
 Philip desire war with England for its own sake, being 
 already overburdened ? And the answer which presents 
 itself is this, that the religious crisis was just then so 
 intense as to take the initiative out of the hands of 
 Governments and to hurry them against their will into 
 war. In short, the solution lies in the word Counter- 
 reformation. But what precisely does this word convey ? 
 That it does not mean merely that inevitable reaction which 
 follows a great movement of opinion, not merely a certain 
 disappointment in the result of the great undertaking of 
 Luther, or a certain fatigue and sense of failure, follows 
 from what has just been said. As we have seen, the 
 religious parties, Catholic and Protestant alike, had begun 
 to defy the civil government. This innovation could not 
 but give an immense advantage to Catholicism, not only 
 because it exposed the Reformation Governments, which 
 were mostly somewhat imperfectly established, to the 
 rebellion of their Catholic subjects, but also because it 
 provoked to deadly hostility against the Reformation the 
 Catholic Governments, among which were the greatest in 
 the world. And thus we see that Philip never for a 
 moment negociates or offers to bargain with heresy, as 
 Charles V had repeatedly done. 
 
 But we also perceive that the Catholic party must 
 have acquired in the sixties of the century some new 
 resource of immense importance, so suddenly and over- 
 whelmingly does the tide turn in their favour. About 
 1560 Catholicism seems to be falling into its final dissolu- 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 73 
 
 tion, England and Scotland having been lost, and France 
 seeming likely to follow them, while Philip has but 
 recently waged open war with the Papacy. Twenty years 
 later all is changed, and throughout the Continent the 
 impression prevails that the struggle is well-nigh over and 
 that the Reformation is defeated. And the change was 
 lasting. Never since has the Reformation recovered the 
 gi-ound it lost so unexpectedly in those years. Such is the 
 Counter-reformation, one of the greatest events in the 
 history of Europe, and as a matter of historical curiosity 
 more interesting, because more difficult to understand, 
 than the Reformation itself 
 
 For this very reason however we must resist the 
 temptation of discussing it further than as it concerns 
 English policy. We have to inquire not into its remote 
 causes or successive phases, but merely into the cause 
 which at this particular moment imparted to it such an 
 overwhelming practical force. The Counter-reformation 
 first enters into history properly so called with the election 
 of Caraffa to the Papal chair in 1555. This was indeed a 
 startling event. It removed that grievance which for 
 something like two centuries had driven pious minds 
 almost to madness, the grievance that the Vicar of Christ 
 was not Christian at all but either heathen or something 
 worse. At the beginning of the fifteenth century the 
 Vicar of Christ had been convicted of piracy and sodomy, 
 and at the end of it he had been a notorious poisoner and 
 murderer. Except one or two urbane humanists such as 
 Nicholas V or Pius II scarcely any Pope since the four- 
 teenth century could seriously pretend to the Christian 
 character, though several had shown remarkable heathen 
 qualities. With Paul IV the Papacy became religious 
 again, and on the whole it has retained that character 
 ever since. 
 
74 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 But it seemed for a while that this purgation of the 
 Papacy was likely rather to destroy it at once than to 
 rejuvenate it. Paul IV stands with Clement VII as the 
 most unfortunate of Popes. The devout fanatic inflicted 
 on Catholicism a wound almost more serious than that 
 which was inflicted by the hardened worldling. His head- 
 strong zeal threw away England and Scotland, alienated 
 France and broke with Philip. Under his successor Pius 
 IV new measures were adopted expressly on account of 
 the desperate extremity to which the Church was reduced. 
 
 It was soon however shown that the ill fortune of Paul 
 IV had not been caused by the daring courage with which 
 he had asserted the religious character of the Papacy and 
 its independence of secular interests, but by an eccentricity 
 quite peculiar to himself Caraffa was not simply a 
 devoted Catholic, but also an enraged Neapolitan politician, 
 a leader of opposition to the Habsburg interest. His 
 mortal enemy along with the Reformation was Philip of 
 Spain, and he had two ends in view at the same time, the 
 one to crush heresy, the other to drive the Spaniards out 
 of Italy. Now if anything was certain it was this, that in 
 that age Spain and Catholicism must advance or retreat 
 together, that the Spanish Power was the only weapon 
 with which the Church could fight the Reformation, and 
 that Philip was the true nursing-father to whom the 
 Church must look, and truly though not nominally the 
 Christian Emperor of the time. To measure forces was 
 not the talent of the fanatical Neapolitan, and he had no 
 conception that his hatred for Philip undid whatever his 
 devotion to Catholicism was able to achieve. He stands 
 out in history as the man who severed for ever the tie 
 between Britain and the Roman Church, and he did this, 
 it would appear, not simply by want of tact or patience in 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 75 
 
 dealing with Elizabeth, but from his animosity against 
 Philip, which led him to regard the whole Marian move- 
 ment with disfavour because the Habsburg interest was 
 promoted by it. 
 
 The reconversion to Christianity of the Papal See, 
 though it was effected rapidly, yet went through certain 
 gradations. The Caraffa himself was religious to the 
 heart's core (though his type of religion may not suit our 
 taste), but his Minister or Nepote was a ruffian worthy of 
 the Famese or almost of the Borgia. When Paul died in 
 15.59 a Pope succeeded him who personally perhaps was a 
 worldling of the old school, Pius IV, but then he had for 
 Nepote not only a religious man but an actual saint. Carlo 
 Borromeo. The conditions were reversed, but the result 
 was that the Papacy remained religious. The eccentricity 
 of Caraffa however died with him, and the Papacy recol- 
 lected something of its political finesse. Pius IV openly 
 avowed that the Church was no longer powerful enough 
 to dispense with the aid of great monarchs, but this 
 maxim, if it has by itself a Medicean or Macchiavellian 
 ring, is not to be understood in a purely irreligious sense. 
 Nevertheless it allowed the Counter-reformation to make 
 a second effort with a better prospect of success. 
 
 Accordingly it was Pius IV who reassembled the 
 Council of Trent, and now at last brought its sittings to a 
 satisfactory conclusion. In the year 1564 this was accom- 
 plished. And this is the great occurrence which launched 
 the Counter-reformation upon its triumphant career. 
 
 That the Council, which had failed under Paul III and 
 again under Julius III, did not fail a third time, was due 
 in the first place to the fact that Charles V was gone. So 
 long as there was an omnipotent Emperor the discord of 
 Pope and Emperor was as incurable as in the days of the 
 
76 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Hohenstauffen. But Ferdinand with his modest preten- 
 sions and character excited no similar jealousy. Moreover 
 the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis had not only terminated 
 the wars which had disturbed the Council in its earlier 
 period, but had actually united the Habsburg and the 
 Valois by a marriage tie. Further the Papacy saw no 
 hope but in a successful termination of the Council, and 
 was content with such a termination as would give unity 
 and a fixed programme to the Catholic Church as it stood, 
 renouncing the hope of suppressing heresy in those 
 countries where it was established. That the Papacy now 
 at last wished the Council to succeed was the greatest 
 cause of its success. Still the obstacles for a time seemed 
 insurmountable. For the Papal See had all along held 
 and continued to hold the Council firmly in its grasp 
 through its Legates, who retained the right of initiative, 
 and through the superior number of Italian bishops. But 
 how could the Papacy in its weakened state succeed in 
 overcoming the opposition of the bishops who claimed an 
 independent authority, especially as a third failure seemed 
 likely to have fatal consequences ? 
 
 It appealed from the bishops to the Sovereigns. 
 Neither the Habsburgs nor the Valois, any more than the 
 Pope, desired to see their own bishops invested with an 
 independent spiritual power. Philip in particular was well 
 aware that his internal authority depended mainly upon 
 the control he exercised upon the Church by patronage 
 and through the Inquisition. Accordingly by informal 
 Concordats, as it were, negociated by Cardinal Morone 
 with Ferdinand, Philip, and the Cardinal of Lorraine 
 (Guise) for Charles IX, a settlement was reached, and 
 what we may call modern Catholicism was called into 
 existence. 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 7T 
 
 Up to this time the Counter-reformation had consisted 
 of the following elements: (1) The new form of religion 
 represented by CarafFa. This was a spirit of relentless 
 orthodoxy, which was indigenous in Spain but through 
 Caraffa and Michel Ghislieri had spread to Italy, and had 
 now taken possession of the Papal See itself. Its main 
 instrument was the Inquisition, and it had created a 
 religious Reign of Terror in Spain and Italy such as Mary 
 Tudor had introduced in England. (2) The influence of 
 the Order of Jesuits, which just at this time began to be 
 widely diffused — Loyola died in 1558 — and which, we are 
 to observe, had also its origin in Spain. (3) Local move- 
 ments in favour of Catholicism, especially in Spain and 
 France. The unquestioning crusading orthodoxy of Spain 
 was the greatest of all the forces which made up the 
 Counter-reformation, but it was beginning to appear that 
 the French mind also was radically adverse to the Re- 
 formation. The principal cause of this seems to lie in the 
 influence of the University of Paris, the original home of 
 the scholastic theology. (4) As a consequence of this, 
 the authority of the two greatest Governments in the 
 world, that of Philip and that of the French King, the 
 latter being seconded by the influence of the Guise family, 
 to which Mary Stuart belonged. 
 
 These influences made up a formidable aggregate, 
 when once the disturbance created by the eccentricity of 
 Caraffa was removed. But they became formidable indeed, 
 nay, almost overwhelming, when they were all, as it were, 
 bound together, and when the principles involved in them 
 were codified by the Council of Trent in 1564. 
 
 It was easy for the Reformers to make out a case 
 against the Council, and to urge that when the Papal 
 authority itself was the question to be tried by the 
 
78 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Council it was an absurdity that the conduct of the 
 Council should be put in the hands of the Pope. But 
 such reasonings could not prevent the decisions of the 
 Council, when they had once been arrived at, when they 
 had become a matter of history, from exercising a pro- 
 digious and durable influence. All the world remembered 
 that twelve hundred years before, when the Arian heresy 
 had threatened the Church, a Council had been held, and 
 that its decisions, though long contested, had prevailed at 
 last and still formed the foundation of Christian orthodoxy. 
 It was natural to think that Luther would share the fate 
 of Arius, and that the Spaniard Philip would now establish 
 orthodoxy as the Spaniard Theodosius had done then. 
 And together with the memory of the Council of Nicaea 
 the memory of the great Councils of the fifteenth century 
 could not but exert its influence. The word Reformation 
 was not invented in Luther's time ; a century before 
 ' Reformation in head and members ' had been the watch- 
 word of a great ecclesiastical party. And at that time the 
 principle had been laid down that the final appeal lay to 
 a General Council. A General Council, it was said, was 
 superior to the Pope. And this principle had so far pre- 
 vailed that Pope John XXIII had actually been deposed 
 by the Council of Constance. The movement had indeed 
 proved in the end abortive, but it had left behind it a 
 fixed opinion that the legal method of Reformation in the 
 Church was by a General Council. It might indeed be 
 questioned whether infallibility resided in the Pope, but, 
 if even a General Council could err, what prospect re- 
 mained for the unity of the Church ? And so there were 
 many to whom Luther first appeared a revolutionary when 
 he was heard to say at Leipzig that General Councils 
 have erred. 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 79 
 
 Might it not then reasonably be held, when in 1564 
 the Council of Trent separated, its work being done, that 
 the religious question was now at last settled, that the 
 Reformation in head and members, for which two centuries 
 had prayed, was now at last complete ? The Papacy was 
 once more religious, the taint of heathenism and secu- 
 larity was really in a great degree purged away, and 
 the Council had really decreed some useful reforms. 
 What more could be desired ? What excuse for heresy 
 still remained ? Might it not be fairly conjectured that 
 Luther himself, who had been driven into a revolutionary 
 course by the monstrous wickedness of Medicean Rome 
 and the impudence of Tetzel, would never have raised a 
 protest if he had seen Rome under the pious influence of 
 Carlo Borromeo ? 
 
 In short, the Counter-reformation was itself undeniably 
 a great and real reformation, and this fact materially 
 altered the position of those states which had followed 
 Luther or Calvin. The Medicean or Farnesian Papacy 
 was so notoriously heathenised that the cry. Come out of 
 her ! might fairly be raised by earnest Christian teachers, 
 as indeed the appalling sack of Rome under Clement VII 
 had been felt throughout Italy as a just judgment of the 
 Most High. But that judgment had done its work. 
 Gradually but completely the Papacy had become once 
 more a religious institution. And under its control a 
 General Council had decreed a reform of the whole 
 ecclesiastical system which was undeniably serious and 
 considerable. On what ground then could Lutherans and 
 Calvinists still justify their secession? On the ground 
 that they disapproved the decisions, dogmatic or other, 
 arrived at by the Council ? This was at least a new 
 ground, different from that which Luther had taken at 
 
80 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the outset. Was it not a ground which might have been 
 taken by any of the heretical sects of the times between 
 Constantine and Heraclius ? 
 
 What they might and did answer to arguments like 
 these, of course we know. But we may admit that 
 Catholicism had now assumed a position in which if it 
 chose to call itself exclusively the Christian Church it 
 would have all tradition on its side. The malecontents 
 had appealed to a General Council ; a General Council 
 had now spoken. Reformation had been clamorously 
 demanded ; Reformation had been granted. Objections 
 might perhaps be urged to the procedure of the Council ; 
 but on the whole which party had followed precedent 
 more faithfully, that which reformed the Church all 
 together by means of a Council, or that which reformed it 
 piece by piece through the agency of a Town Council 
 excited by the eloquence of a preacher ? 
 
 Catholicism then became after 1564 the Conservatism 
 of Christendom, and we use Conservatism here in its 
 better sense. It was neither the Conservatism of indif- 
 ference nor that of dulness and sloth, but a Conservatism 
 such as pious and modest minds might embrace and a 
 Conservatism favourable to practical reform. Such it was 
 on the Continent ; but we in Britain, as I have said, were 
 unaffected by the movement which called it into ex- 
 istence. 
 
 It rested in the first place upon this broad basis of 
 Conservative feeling. In the second place it rested upon 
 a most powerful coalition between the great sovereigns 
 and the Papacy. That Guelf-Ghibelline discord which 
 had paralysed the Church in the time of Charles V had 
 disappeared. Philip, Ferdinand and Charles IX were 
 now substantially at one, and united with the Pope in 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 81 
 
 favour of the dogmatic part of the work of the Council. 
 Pius IV had deliberately invoked and purchased the aid 
 of these secular princes. 
 
 But we are now further to note that the spiritual 
 power had by no means made itself purely subservient to 
 the temporal. It is the peculiar feature of this age that 
 within the Catholic party the religious influence is once 
 more supreme. The new-born religious zeal of the Papacy 
 did not soon pass away. Caraffa was the first of a long 
 line of Popes who all alike were either themselves inspired 
 by it or found themselves hurried along by the current. 
 The model Pope of this school is the Ghislieri, Pius V, 
 who died in 1572. His zeal was purely religious, nor 
 could any man hold himself more superior to those worldly 
 considerations or those intrigues which had made the 
 whole policy of the Medicean Papacy. 
 
 The result is that after 1564 international politics 
 begin to be controlled by a new influence. Hitherto we 
 have seen them determined by the family interests of the 
 great European Houses, the Habsburg and the Valois. 
 But now for a time the religious influence is supreme. 
 The regenerated Catholic Church is for a while the 
 mistress of the world, as in the time of the Crusades. It 
 is felt that the Council of Trent ought to be followed by 
 the suppression of heresy everywhere, as of a thing no 
 longer excusable. 
 
 What has been called here the reconversion to Chris- 
 tianity of the Papal See is one of the most remarkable 
 passages in the whole history of the Church. It has been 
 however obscured from the view of Protestants by the fact 
 that the Christianity of a Caraffa or a Ghislieri seems to 
 them no Christianity. Assuredly it was not the Evan- 
 gelical religion that we find in the New Testament. It 
 s. 6 
 
82 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 had little of 'sweet reasonableness' or of 'sweetness and 
 light.' It was in one word not the Christianity of Jesus 
 but the Christianity of Hildebrand and Innocent. It was 
 a religion of Crusades and of the Inquisition. Its principal 
 achievements were the St Bartholomew and the autos da 
 fe of Philip II, and it may no doubt be argued with much 
 plausibility that a Medici surrounded by artists and 
 humanists did more real good at the Vatican than a 
 Ghislieri among his inquisitors. Indeed the decline of 
 Italian genius both in art and literature went hand in 
 hand with this revival of religion. But though it may 
 have been a dark type of religion, yet the new spirit 
 which began at this time to animate the Papacy has all 
 the characteristics of religion, as the old spirit with all its 
 amiability and urbanity was consciously and frankly irre- 
 ligious. A Luther would not have regarded Pius V with 
 the feeling of horror with which Leo X affected him. 
 Luther, full of religious feeling, seemed to see in Leo 
 Antichrist in person, and none the less because of the 
 pictures and the poems. But perhaps there never lived a 
 man who conveyed a more pure impression of religiousness 
 than Pius V. He, who brought Carnesecchi to the stake, 
 who charged his soldiers, when they parted for France, to 
 give no quarter to Huguenots, he of whom no one doubted 
 that had he lived four months longer so as to see the 
 Saint Bartholomew, he would have yielded up his breath 
 with a most exultant Nunc dimittis, was nevertheless a 
 saint, if devotion, singlemindedness, unworldly sincerity, 
 can make a saint. 
 
 It has often been remarked that Christianity has taken 
 several great typical forms. We see in Cyprian and 
 Augustine the gradual growth of a Latin Christianity, the 
 characteristics of which Milman has so luminously dis- 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 83 
 
 criminated. Luther may be said to have created Teutonic 
 Christianity. The new developement we have now before 
 us resembles these in being the result of a blending of 
 Christianity with the spirit of a particular nation. It is 
 Spanish Christianity. Its precursors in past time had 
 been Dominic in the distant thirteenth century, and more 
 recently Queen Isabella, whose image may be traced 
 among ourselves in her grand-daughter, Mary Tudor. 
 Caraffa himself had passed many years in Spain. Philip 
 and Alva, both Spaniards, were the statesmen of the move- 
 ment. The Spaniard Ignatius Loyola was its apostle. 
 In Spain alone it seems a natural growth, and thus, while 
 in Italy we find it fatal to genius, it exerts a less wither- 
 ing influence there, and in its great literary representa- 
 tive, Calderon, can boast of one of the great poets of the 
 world. The circumstances of Spanish history explain the 
 peculiarity of it. Its merciless rigour towards heterodoxy 
 is not only in accordance with the Spanish character, but 
 it was the natural result of a historic developement which 
 had been wholly determined by wars of religion. 
 
 These general remarks prepare us to regard the year 
 1564 as introducing a new age. A final attempt was now 
 to be made to restore the unity of Christendom in accord- 
 ance with the decrees of the Council of Trent, by putting 
 down the heretical sects which in nearly half a century 
 since the first appearance of Luther had been allowed to 
 acquire such influence. Thus a great trial is preparing 
 for England. Nevertheless we may calculate that a 
 certain respite will be allowed to her. For before the 
 English question can be taken in hand it is urgent to deal 
 with two other questions, that of France and that of the 
 Low Countries. 
 
 The period of French history which we commonly 
 
 6—2 
 
84 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 describe as that of the Religious Wars, had already com- 
 menced. In 1562 the Huguenot party for the first time 
 stood out organised, and made the pretension which was 
 to convulse the state for nearly forty years. It did not 
 demand that the religion of France should be altered, but 
 that two religions should be authorised to subsist side by 
 side, as in Germany, owing to the laxity of central and the 
 solidity of local government in that country, two religions 
 already did. The proposal gave a profound shock to the 
 French mind, and no sooner had it been allowed in 1.562 
 by an Edict than civil war broke forth uncontrollably. 
 This first civil war, which carried off Fran9ois de Guise 
 and Antoine, king of Navarre, was brought to an end in 
 1563. A modified toleration was again allowed to the 
 new religion; it is observable that this was no longer 
 extended to Paris, so early and so decidedly did Paris 
 dissociate herself from the Reformation. But it was 
 evident that this settlement too would before long be dis- 
 turbed by such a reanimation as Catholicism now gained 
 from the Counter-reformation. 
 
 Meanwhile the evil of the age was spreading into the 
 Burgundian part of Philip's empire. In tracing the 
 growth of the Habsburg aggregate we remarked the 
 difficulty that was felt of infusing into it the slightest 
 degree of moral unity. In particular we noticed the 
 difficulty of uniting Burgundy and Spain. It was over- 
 come under Charles V, but under Philip it breaks out 
 again in a reversed form. Charles had been himself a 
 Burgundian prince, and had introduced a foreign rule 
 into Spain. Hence the violent disturbances which fol- 
 lowed his arrival in the Peninsula. This particular diffi- 
 culty, however, had been gradually overcome. The 
 Habsburgs had made themselves at home in Spain, 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 85 
 
 though Charles himself remained always a Burgundian. 
 But his son Philip destroyed the balance again by leaning 
 too much to the other side. His mother was Portuguese, 
 that is, at least Iberian, and he had the character and the 
 manners of a Spaniard. More and more the Habsburg 
 monarchy had taken a Castillian tinge, and if the Counter- 
 reformation is rightly described as the triumph of Spanish 
 Christianity, we may expect to find that in the sixties 
 Burgundy suffered from the oppression of a Spanish 
 government as much as in the tens Spain had suffered 
 from the oppression of Burgundy. In England, religious 
 persecution had raged while Philip was king, and every- 
 where the main instrument of the Counter-reformation 
 was the Inquisition. Up to the commencement of the 
 year 1559 Philip had carried on war with France from 
 the Belgian frontier. Accordingly the Low Countries 
 were full of Spanish troops, and now Philip resolved to 
 introduce into the Low Countries the Spanish Inqui- 
 sition. 
 
 Thus over the whole French-speaking world, in France 
 and Burgundy alike, and also in Flanders and the Dutch 
 provinces, the religious struggle had arrived at a critical 
 stage, and everywhere assumed the same form. The 
 government was everjrwhere Catholic, and the Reformation 
 everywhere took the character of rebellion against the 
 government, in France because it was ardent and san- 
 guine, in the Low Countries because it suffered novel and 
 intolerable oppression. As the Reformation party in the 
 two countries was closely united, so at this time were the 
 two Catholic governments, for it was the period when 
 Philip's queen was Elizabeth of Valois. 
 
 And thus in 1664 the great European question was 
 the suppression of Protestantism in France and the Low 
 
86 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Countries by the Tridentine Coalition. This question 
 came first in order, even if it should be admitted that the 
 suppression of heresy in England and Scotland was first 
 in importance. And so for Elizabeth two things were 
 clear : first, that she might expect a certain respite before 
 the extreme peril should come upon her ; secondly, that 
 this respite would be long in proportion to the success 
 which the French Huguenots and the Flemish Gueux 
 might have in resistance to the Catholic Governments. 
 From these two principles she could deduce a policy. It 
 would consist in lending help to the two rebellions, but in 
 a manner as cautious and secret as possible. 
 
 We arrive then at the final struggle between Catholi- 
 cism and the Reformation, the struggle in which Catholi- 
 cism, itself reformed, is the assailant. Upon the attitude 
 assumed by the Powers in this struggle has depended the 
 subsequent history of several of them, and certainly that 
 of England. 
 
 Up to this time, and again since this time, the rival, 
 and, as we used to express it, the natural enemy, of 
 England has been France. And since in the age of the 
 Reformation England leaned decidedly towards, and France 
 decidedly against the new opinions, the ancient rivalry 
 might naturally have been revived by the religious struggle. 
 It might have fallen to France to wield the sword of the 
 Council of Trent against England. 
 
 Again in earlier times England had had occasional 
 dealings with Burgundy or with the Empire, but very 
 rarely with Spain. Still less had she been in the habit of 
 regarding Spain with fear or standing on the defensive 
 against her. In later times too, when she has dealt with 
 Spain, it has been for the most part as a superior, some- 
 times even as a protector. Only in the period of the 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 87 
 
 Counter-reformation was all this different, England fear- 
 ing Spain and eventually driven to ally herself with 
 France against her. But this international phase lasted 
 so long as to produce a tradition of amity between 
 England and France and of hostility between England 
 and Spain, which continued through the larger part of 
 the seventeenth century and long after Spain had ceased 
 to be formidable. 
 
 The effects of this in English history have been incal- 
 culable, but one effect in particular cannot be recognised 
 too early. Had England had to fight for her faith against 
 France, her wars might have been of the old kind, and her 
 battles fought either on the soil of England or France, or 
 on the narrow seas between them. It was because she 
 had to defend herself against Spain, the monopolist of the 
 New World, that she was tempted out into the Atlantic, 
 and from that to the Pacific. Thus she took the maritime 
 bias, which has held her ever since. 
 
 And thus we must look once more upon the House of 
 Habsburg as it enters upon another phase. All along we 
 find this ruling House, while it rests mainly upon its policy 
 of marriage, striving, as if conscious of the meanness of 
 that system, to supplement it with something more ideal. 
 Thus we saw Charles V trying to animate the brute mass 
 of his inheritance with the traditional idea of the Christian 
 Empire. That plan has met with failure. His successor 
 in the Empire, Ferdinand, is not powerful ; his successor 
 in Spain, Philip, is not emperor. And so for a time the 
 House has fallen back upon its trade of marriage, in which 
 it continues to be as successful as ever. But now that the 
 Council of Trent has run its course and achieved its work, 
 now that a new age of united Christianity has opened, 
 Philip again perceives a chance of raising the Habsburg 
 
88 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 policy into a higher sphere. Heresy is now to be trampled 
 under foot. In this work no doubt the emperor his uncle, 
 and the king of France, his brother-in-law, are bound to 
 take their part, but the principal share is likely to fall to 
 himself It is open to him to render the greatest con- 
 ceivable service to the Church, and by doing so perhaps 
 to find the way back, either for himself or for his heir, to 
 the imperial dignity. 
 
 Nor will this dignity be, as in the fifteenth century, a 
 mere title, but the outward symbol of a really universal 
 power, such as ancient Roman emperors had wielded, such 
 as his father had revived. For if heresy is to be sup- 
 pressed, England and Scotland must be conquered, and 
 the Huguenot party must be put down in France. Eliza- 
 beth must be deposed, Henry of Bourbon must not be 
 allowed to reign in France and must be deposed in Navarre 
 and B^arn. By armies and by bridegrooms it is likely 
 that most of this territory will come under Habsburg rule, 
 and analogous measures may be taken in Poland and 
 Scandinavia. The rest of Europe belongs already to the 
 House. Of the New World too, more than half belongs 
 already to Philip ; and to whom does the rest belong ? To 
 the king of Portugal. But Philip claimed already the 
 succession in Portugal, and he was actually able in no long 
 time to annex it and with it the boundless colonies it had 
 founded. A Christendom thus reunited, regenerated and 
 augmented might be expected to be more than a match 
 for Turk, Tartar, Sophy and Czar. 
 
 For Philip was not an ordinary conqueror, who, because 
 he loves war and possesses a good army, overruns as much 
 territory as he can. Philip has in his mind a mystic dream 
 of the universal authority of the Church, and tradition 
 has taught him that the Church ought to be directed by a 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 89 
 
 great sovereign, an Otto, or Charles, or Constantine, whose 
 empire therefore ought to be literally boundless and to 
 comprehend literally the whole human race. 
 
 Over his brother sovereigns Ferdinand and Charles IX 
 he has this grand advantage, that the Reformation has 
 little, or, as he himself thinks, absolutely no hold within 
 his dominions. Although not emperor, he is truly Catho- 
 lic king. Ferdinand can achieve little against heresy, for 
 his own dominions are inundated with it. The king of 
 France too will not be available outside his own dominions 
 until he has put down his Huguenots at home. But 
 Philip enjoys a perfect Catholic peace, at least in Spain 
 and Italy, nor even in the Low Countries does he begin 
 till about 1572, that is, till eight years after the Counter- 
 reformation, to consider the rebellion serious. It is he 
 therefore whom Providence has manifestly elected to be 
 the champion of the Church. 
 
 And thus it happened that, in consequence of the 
 Counter-reformation, within about twenty years the world 
 was threatened with a Universal Empire. About 1590 
 the ascendency of Philip was more alarming than that of 
 his father had ever been, in some respects more alarming 
 than any ascendency, even that of Napoleon, has been 
 since. It was gradual in its growth, and somewhat gradual 
 also in its decline. It won few great victories, and suffered 
 no great disaster, except the loss of the Armada. 
 
 When Philip died in 1598 it was indeed evident that 
 he had not founded his universal empire, but he remained 
 the greatest sovereign in the world. And twenty years 
 later the same Habsburg ascendency in a somewhat 
 modified form threatened the world again. No special 
 epoch can be distinguished at which the danger to Europe 
 passed away, but about the middle of the seventeenth 
 
90 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 century it was perceived that the huge fabric which had 
 been designed by Charles and built by Philip had become 
 a ruin. 
 
 Meanwhile the European system had been transformed 
 by the pressure of it, and had taken a shape which lasted 
 long after the pressure had been removed. Thus it is that 
 the reign of Elizabeth is transitional in English history, 
 as the same period is transitional in France and in the 
 Low Countries. 
 
 Meanwhile the Counter-reformation, as it introduced 
 a period of religious war for the Continent, complicated 
 the problem for Elizabeth in England. The succession- 
 question was itself sufficiently thorny. To establish the 
 daughter of Anne Boleyn on the throne and to find a 
 successor for her, was a problem which seemed almost 
 insoluble. But it was closely involved with the question 
 of religion and that question was made more difficult than 
 at any other time by the Counter-reformation. The 
 transition from Philip and Mary to Elizabeth was in itself 
 abrupt enough, but to secure the English nation and the 
 English throne for the Reformation precisely at that crisis 
 might seem impossible. The Counter-reformation had 
 been achieved expressly to prevent kingdoms and govern- 
 ments from departing from the unity of the Church. An 
 age had opened in which it seemed likely that Spain and 
 France would combine to forbid the establishment of a 
 heretical kingdom in England. A diplomatist writes in 
 April, 1565' : 'The Catholic princes must not in this age 
 proceed as formerly. At other times friends and enemies 
 followed the distinction of frontiers and countries, and 
 were called Italians, Germans, French, Spaniards, English, 
 
 ' See Erich Marcks, 'Die Zusammenkunft von Bayonne', p. 13. 
 
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 91 
 
 and the like ; now we are called Catholics and heretics, 
 and the Catholic prince must have all Catholics of all 
 countries for his friends, as the heretics have all heretics, 
 whether their own subjects or not, for friends and 
 subjects.' 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BRITISH QUESTION. 
 
 When Elizabeth's reign is surveyed as a whole from 
 the international point of view its first phase is easily 
 comprehended, and so is that later phase which consists 
 in a duel between England and the Spanish Monarchy. 
 
 In the first phase a basis is laid for union between 
 England and Scotland, and then the religious struggle of 
 the age is brought to an end in 1564 by the conclusion 
 of the Council of Trent. The duel with Spain can scarcely 
 be said to begin before 1585. The interval between these 
 two years 1564 and 1585 is in many respects not less 
 interesting and important, but it is by no means so easy 
 to comprehend and to describe. 
 
 We must bear steadfastly in mind the great conditions 
 of the Elizabethan problem, conditions which had been 
 made clear in the first phase of the reign. The question 
 was, first, who should reign after Elizabeth if she should 
 reign long or instead of Elizabeth if she should die or be 
 dethroned, and secondly, whether this successor should be 
 Catholic or Protestant ? In this was involved everything 
 and principally the relations to be established between 
 England and Scotland. Or again, if the problem were to 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. 93 
 
 be stated in a practical form, the question in this age, as 
 in the age before, was of a royal marriage. In the former 
 reign the whole fortune of the country had seemed to 
 depend on the marriage of Mary Tudor with the head of 
 the Spanish Monarchy. Now everything seemed to 
 depend on the marriage which Elizabeth and, after the 
 death of Francis II of France, which Mary Stuart might 
 make. By royal marriages, especially the marriages of 
 the House of Habsburg, since the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century, the condition of Europe had been 
 mainly determined. Was the history of Britain to be 
 shaped in the same way ? It was difficult at the time 
 to imagine that Elizabeth, after declining the hand of 
 Philip, would adopt and abide by a new system quite 
 opposite to that of the Habsburgs, and would not marry 
 at all. But we shall see as we advance that it was not in 
 the matter of marriage only but universally that Elizabeth 
 favoured inaction, and that almost all that she achieved 
 in her long reign was achieved by the same kind of 
 negative statesmanship. But all did not depend upon 
 Elizabeth. Almost as much might chance to depend 
 upon Mary Stuart, and she, whatever we may think of 
 her, did not share her cousin's repugnance to action. 
 Mary made three marriages. In the year which followed 
 what we have called the Counter-reformation, in 1565, 
 she married Henry Darnley, and thus entered upon a 
 course which might well have frustrated all that Britain 
 has actually gained from the virginity of Elizabeth. 
 
 With the beginning of Mary Stuart's public career, at 
 least with her arrival in Scotland, it may be said that 
 British policy becomes double-headed. Henceforth it de- 
 pends as much on Mary as on Elizabeth. A drama begins 
 which lasted a long time and became gradually very 
 
94 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 intricate. Mary Stuart had so many and so various 
 relations that from the outset she threatened to eclipse 
 Elizabeth. In Scotland she was queen; in England she 
 had claims on the succession ; in France she was for a 
 time queen and belonged always through her connexion 
 with the Guise family to the most influential circle. 
 Further as a Catholic she necessarily held a leading 
 position in the Counter-reformation, and this at a 
 moment when the Counter-reformation began to domi- 
 nate the age. And lastly after the death of Francis II 
 her hand was free. In an age of Habsburg marriages she 
 was able to confer on the husband she might choose her 
 own unique influence both in Britain and on the Continent. 
 The drama which thus began lasted through the whole 
 middle period of Elizabeth's reign. It is much too large 
 and complex to be fully treated in an essay like this, 
 which will take note only of some of its more salient 
 passages. We may remark however that the plot of this 
 drama was not at all times equally intricate ; it acquired 
 intricacy when Mary began to form a party in England 
 and to enter into relations with the Catholic Powers of 
 the Continent. Mary's career falls into very distinct 
 periods. After her arrival in Britain there is first the 
 time when she lived in Scotland, that is from 1561 to 
 1568, and then the long period when she lived in England. 
 Again if we fix our attention upon the first of these 
 periods we may distinguish an element which is bio- 
 graphical from the element which concerns policy. In 
 Mary Stuart more than in any other historical character 
 biography has overwhelmed history. Her name brings to 
 mind Riccio, Darnley, Bothwell, that is, a series of 
 tragedies and romances ; meanwhile the historical signi- 
 ficance of her reign is little regarded. Yet Martin 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. 95 
 
 Philippson writes', 'Never would the Anglo-Saxon race 
 have spread itself over the whole surface of the globe, or 
 covered the seas with its ships and the lands with its 
 colonies, if the Cecils and Lethingtons had not, in the 
 middle of the sixteenth century, defeated the designs of 
 Mary of Lorraine and her daughter Mary Stuart. Tom and 
 enfeebled by civil war, France allowed Scotland, her ancient 
 ally, to be torn from her, and permitted England by joining 
 Scotland to her to become a Power of the first order and 
 a dangerous rival to the most Christian kingdom.' 
 
 Mary's principal resources were first her party in 
 England and the preference for Catholicism that might be 
 latent in England, secondly the favour of the Counter- 
 reformation and of the Spanish and French Monarchies. 
 But without drawing on these resources she might do 
 something. For the question, let us always remember, 
 was one of succession. And unsuccessful as Mary was on 
 the whole, she did considerably modify the aspect of this 
 question. In her Scotch period between 1561 and 1568 
 she did this, so that we may recognise here a second phase 
 of Elizabeth. The first phase had consisted in drawing 
 Scotland towards England and dividing her from France ; 
 the second phase equally concerns the relations of England 
 and Scotland. It is very ominous. In 1568 as in 1558 
 Elizabeth is still unmarried. But Mar}^ Stuart, the 
 descendant of Margaret Tudor, has been married ; she 
 has been married to another descendant of Margaret 
 Tudor; and, what is more, they have a son. Thus the 
 problem which both to England and Scotland is funda- 
 mental has advanced into a new stage. And this may be 
 called the second phase of Elizabeth. 
 
 Mary Stuart lands in Scotland in August 1561. Already 
 1 Histoire du regne de Marie Stuart, i. viu. 
 
96 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 for two years there had been a Stuart Pretender ; hence- 
 forth this Pretender inhabits the same island as Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 Again Elizabeth's position becomes extremely difficult. 
 A struggle begins which, as we know, lasted a quarter of 
 a century and caused endless embarrassment to her govern- 
 ment. But perhaps at the outset it may have seemed 
 much more dangerous even than it proved. 
 
 We have seen Elizabeth forming a great Anglo-Scotch 
 party which was to be the basis of the United Kingdom. 
 She was able to do this because in 1 5.59 Scotland was in 
 danger of subjugation by France. Scotland however had 
 now escaped this danger, and had a queen who lived at 
 Holyrood and was no longer connected with France by the 
 ties of marriage. But by her very arrival in Scotland 
 this queen retaliated upon Elizabeth, for there came at 
 once into existence another Anglo-Scotch party of which 
 Mary Stuart became the leader, and which also promised 
 a union of the kingdoms, but at the expense of Elizabeth. 
 That Catholic party, which had been at the head of affairs 
 in England but three years before and in Scotland even 
 later, had now a leader who was undisputed queen of one 
 kingdom and had a fair claim at least to the succession 
 of the other. She had indeed lost the active support of 
 France, but the death of her husband, if it averted from 
 us one danger, exposed us to another. Her hand was now 
 free for a Habsburg bridegroom, and Philip, who so long as 
 Francis II lived, had been perforce a supporter of Eliza- 
 beth, could now frankly side with Mary against Elizabeth. 
 The whole of Catholic Europe wished well to Mary's claims, 
 and, as we have seen, the Counter-reformation was at hand. 
 What chance would remain for Elizabeth when the re- 
 ligious question should be settled and it should become. 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. 97 
 
 as it were, a fundamental law of Christendom that no 
 heretic could wear a crown ? 
 
 How much the advent of Mary alarmed Elizabeth 
 may be seen by her refusal to permit Mary to travel 
 through England into her own kingdom. Mary Stuart, 
 the Catholic, the Tudor by descent from Henry VII, but 
 yesterday Queen of France and not unlikely soon to be 
 married to a Habsburg, must have seemed to the daughter 
 of Anne Boleyn like Mary Tudor risen from the dead. 
 Nor could Elizabeth at this time help regarding Mary 
 as equally adverse to her in intention and in position. 
 Francis and Mary had assumed the title of king and 
 queen of England, and on her marriage to Francis, 
 Mary had made a solemn donation to Hemy II of 
 France or his successors not only of her own kingdom 
 of Scotland, but also of her claims to the throne of 
 England in the case that she should die without 
 children. The stipulation afterwards made in the Treaty 
 of Edinburgh that Francis and Mary should abandon 
 the title of king and queen of England, Francis had 
 refused to ratify, and Mary still, after Francis' death, 
 refused to ratify it. 
 
 All this was most alarming, and became more so when 
 the Counter-reformation turned the balance of the con- 
 fessions suddenly in favour of Catholicism. Of the two 
 great rivals in Britain, one of whom aspired to rule 
 Scotland from England and the other to rule England 
 from Scotland, Mary might seem at first to hold by far 
 the better hand. 
 
 At the same time she was a stranger in Scotland, 
 
 which she had quitted when she was but six years old. 
 
 She had lived at the French Court through almost the 
 
 whole reign of Henry II. She had imbibed there the most 
 
 s. 7 
 
98 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 unbending Catholicism from her uncle the Cardinal Guise, 
 and when she left France the Huguenot party had barely 
 made its appearance on the public stage. She returned 
 to a country where the fiercest zeal of Protestantism 
 reigned, and was strangely blended with barbaric manners 
 in the aristocracy. She found the Mass forbidden, and it 
 was allowed to herself only by exceptional indulgence. In 
 this religious alienation of her people lay a disadvantage 
 which might counterbalance all her advantages. 
 
 But in this respect, as in many others, she only 
 resembled Mary Tudor at her accession. Yet Mary Tudor 
 had attained her objects. There was room perhaps for a 
 reaction against Knox in Scotland as there had been 
 against Edward's system in England. And when once 
 she had established herself upon the throne she might 
 give her hand, as Mary Tudor had done, to some powerful 
 Habsburg prince. If Elizabeth's ships should then appear 
 again, at least they would be supported by no such 
 national movement against the French garrison as they 
 had found in 1559, and moreover Mary might retaliate 
 by rousing a Catholic rebellion against Elizabeth in 
 England. 
 
 It was a question, however, whether Mary Stuart had 
 either inherited or acquired the relentless firmness, the 
 knowledge of public opinion, or the familiarity with 
 dangerous crises and revolutions which had prepared the 
 daughters of Henry VIII to overcome difficulties. Nor 
 had she as yet any fixed policjr. For the attitude of 
 hostile rivalry towards Elizabeth which she had main- 
 tained hitherto had been merely imposed upon her by 
 her French connexions. It was the policy not of Mary 
 herself but of Henry II and Francis II. If she did not at 
 once abandon it when her connexion with France was 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. 99 
 
 severed, yet she began gradually to feel the necessity of 
 forming a policy of her own. She might reconcile herself 
 with Elizabeth. Almost all her life she had been familiar 
 with the idea that through her the union of England and 
 Scotland might be established amicably, and not, as had 
 recently been intended, by war and French invasion. The 
 first scheme had been that she should be married to 
 Edward VI, and it still kindles the imagination to dream 
 out the course of English history, on the assumption that 
 this scheme had taken effect and that Edward had not 
 died prematurely. For then there might have been an 
 absolute union of the Churches, and Tudor statesmanship 
 instead of Stuart perversity would have presided over the 
 consolidation of Great Britain ! That prospect was closed 
 now, and the problem had become much more difficult. 
 Elizabeth was on the throne, and how was it possible for 
 Mary to adjust her own claims to those of Elizabeth ? 
 Evidently only one amicable arrangement could be made, 
 namely, that Mary should be recognised as heiress after 
 Elizabeth. She could not of course expect to succeed 
 before the children of Elizabeth, but Elizabeth at this 
 time uniformly professed her intention to remain un- 
 married. 
 
 We find Mary as early as 1561 meditating a new 
 policy of close concert with Elizabeth, and even pleas- 
 ing her mind with the dream of a romantic friend- 
 ship with that other queen, somewhat older and some- 
 what greater than herself, with whom she divided the 
 admiration of the world. It is worth while to decipher 
 the quaint Scotch which shows how she imagined as a 
 noble idyll that relation which was to prove a terrible 
 tragedy — 'quhilk mater being anys (once) in this sort 
 knyt up betwix us, and be (by) the meanes thairof the 
 
 7—2 
 
100 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 haill sede of dissentioun taken up by the rute, we doubt 
 nocht but herefter oure behavour togidder in all respectis 
 sail represent to the warld als grite and firm amytie, as be 
 (by) storyis is expressit to have beene at any tyme, betwix 
 quhatsamever cupple of dearest frendis mentionat in 
 thame (them), — lat be to surpasse the present examplis 
 of oure awin age — to the greit confort of oure subjects, 
 and perpetual quietness of baith the realmes, quhilkis we 
 ar bund in the sicht of God be al gude meanys to procure.' 
 (Jan. .5, 1561-2.) Labanoff, I. 126. 
 
 The first period of the relations of Elizabeth and Mary 
 extends to Mary's marriage with Darnley, which was 
 celebrated on July 29th, 1565. As usual in that age the 
 foreign policy of Mary was summed up in a marriage. 
 The question she had to decide was whether she should 
 assert her right to the English succession in the hostile 
 or the amicable manner. If she decided for the former, 
 she must marry into the Habsburg or the Valois family ; 
 if for the latter, she must choose a husband in England. 
 We have remarked how ill-provided the House of Tudor 
 always was with the instruments of a marriage policy. 
 Elizabeth could offer no bridegroom of royal blood, who 
 might compete with Don Carlos or the Archduke Charles 
 or the Prince of Cond^. She could but offer Lord Robert 
 Dudley. 
 
 It happened however that the candidates put forward 
 by the Continental Powers, though of much greater rank, 
 were not satisfactory. Don Carlos already displayed that 
 perverseness which was to bring him to a tragic end ; it 
 was not thought safe, though it might have been appro- 
 priate, that he should be united to Mary Stuart, one great 
 tragic character to another. As to the archduke, he 
 belonged to the wrong branch of the House of Habsburg, 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. 101 
 
 and Mary holds that a marriage with him would afford her 
 little protection, as he was ' a foreigner, poor and very 
 distant, the youngest of the brothers, disagreeable to her 
 subjects and without any apparent means or power to help 
 her to the right which she asserts to the succession of 
 this island.' It is useless, she concludes, to accept a 
 foreigner unless he should be powerful enough to protect 
 her against her subjects, amongst whom she pathetically 
 describes how helpless she feels herself And so she 
 resolves to take a husband 'from this island.' 
 
 Shall she then take Leicester? Yes, perhaps, if by 
 complying with Elizabeth's wish she could obtain a recog- 
 nition as presumptive heiress. But just this recognition 
 Elizabeth, reluctant herself to marry, conscious of her own 
 doubtful title, and alarmed at the prospect of seeing a 
 brilliant rival court set up, which should draw away all 
 popularity from herself, could never be induced to give. 
 In these circumstances we cannot wonder that Mary 
 shrank instinctively, as from a trap, from this marriage, 
 which, even if she could consent to abandon her religion, 
 offered her no definite worldly compensation. 
 
 Out of all these embarrassments the marriage with 
 Darnley seemed to offer an escape. It was not a mere 
 marriage of preference, though preference may have ex- 
 isted. Mary defends it on political grounds. Darnley was 
 ' of the blood of England and Scotland, next to myself in 
 the succession, a Stewart by name, so as to keep still the 
 sirname so pleasing to the Scotch, of the same religion 
 as myself, and who would respect me as he would be 
 obliged by the honour I did him.' She resolves to marry 
 him and so to gratify, ' if not all, at least the respectable 
 party, the Catholics and those of my own sirname.' 
 
 And thus Mary Stuart acquired a policy of her own. 
 
102 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 She neither submits to Elizabeth, nor allies herself with 
 the Catholic Powers, but strives to consolidate the Stuart 
 and Catholic interest in Scotland. 
 
 And now follows the second period of Mary's personal 
 reign in Scotland. Beginning in July 1565 with her 
 marriage to Damley, it extends to her flight into England 
 in May 1568. Into a period of somewhat less than three 
 years is crowded that drama which later generations are 
 never tired of contemplating. Never has history furnished 
 better materials to poetry. Nor can we find any more 
 fascinating chapter of biography. 
 
 In this place we regard neither Elizabeth nor Mary 
 biographically, still less poetically. What we have in 
 view is solely to trace the development of English and 
 Scotch policy until they are merged in a British policy. 
 
 Mary's one stroke of deliberate policy as Queen of 
 Scotland is her marriage with Damley. Up to this point 
 she had been in leading-strings, first to the French court, 
 afterwards to her natural brother, Lord James Stuart, 
 later the regent Murray ; and soon afterwards she was 
 whirled away in the eddy of barbarism. But her marriage 
 was a resolute and startling act. The first judgment of it 
 formed by Elizabeth's advisers apparently was that it was 
 a most skilful and effective move, which must be parried 
 by some move equally well considered. Scotland, like 
 England, was for the first time in its history ruled by 
 a woman. In both countries therefore all policy was 
 summed up in marriage ; both north and south of the 
 Tweed the one question was, When will the Queen marry 
 and whom ? The English were impatient that after seven 
 years Elizabeth had taken no step, and now her rival 
 in the North, as it were, outstripped her in the race. 
 While the English and in fact the whole Reformation 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. 103 
 
 party both in England and Scotland asked themselves 
 'What would become of us if Elizabeth should die as 
 her brother Edward died?' the Catholic party in both 
 countries were now sanguine that their royal house, 
 already so strong in title, would soon have heirs. For 
 it was as a Catholic that Mary chose Darnley, and he 
 soon declared himself such. She assumed therefore a 
 position wholly independent of Elizabeth, and excluded 
 for ever the possibility to which the English government 
 had clung, that she might marry Leicester and allow 
 the religious difference to drop. As by the treaty of 
 Berwick Elizabeth had put herself at the head of the 
 national religious movement in Scotland, so Mary by her 
 marriage put herself definitively at the head of the Catholic 
 party in England. Nevertheless she refrains from assum- 
 ing any attitude of hostility towards Elizabeth, claiming 
 credit for having forborne, in compliance with her wish, to 
 ' deal with the houses of France, Hispanzie and Austriche 
 in marriage ' and for having matched with ' one of this 
 isle, her own subject and near cousin.' And indeed we 
 see Mary after her tragic fall throwing herself for pro- 
 tection upon Elizabeth, as though she had no reason to 
 regard her but as a friend. 
 
 Here then was a new crisis in Elizabeth's reign, and 
 the only advice that could be given her was that which 
 she so much disliked, yet which her subjects could scarcely 
 believe that she really never meant to take, namely, that 
 she should marry. 
 
 Had Darnley proved to Mary either an able adviser or, 
 like so many royal consorts, a mere ' Est-il-possible,' we 
 can imagine that from this time she would have risen 
 to a proud position of superiority to Elizabeth, supposing 
 Elizabeth to remain obstinate in the matter of marriage. 
 
104 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 On the other side should both the queens many and both 
 have children, what would become of that grand ideal, 
 which all parties alike had in view, the vmion of the 
 kingdoms ? 
 
 But Mary, if she knew anything of the history of her 
 predecessors or even of her own minority, might have 
 known how much she risked in raising one of the wild 
 Scottish aristocracy to her throne, and at a moment when 
 the chronic civil war of the country was yet further em- 
 bittered by a religious war. 
 
 Meanwhile we are to remark that this marriage falls in 
 1565, that is, in the year after the Counter-reformation. 
 Mary raises boldly the banner of Catholicism in Britain at 
 the moment when the great continental kings in concert 
 with the Pope were preparing to put down heresy all over 
 the world. As Mary Tudor had taken the lead at the 
 beginning of the Counter-Reformation, so in this its deci- 
 sive stage Mary Stuart is somewhat in advance of Philip 
 or Charles IX. This was not surprising, for it was in 
 Mary's kingdom that the Reformation was most frankly 
 rebellious and intolerable to a sovereign. Everywhere in 
 this age, we have seen, the Calvinistic Reformation defied 
 the civil government, but nowhere was its defiance so 
 insolent or so triumphant as in Scotland. If in France 
 the Huguenot aristocracy took the field they had no great 
 success, but the Scotch nobles in 1559 had carried with 
 Elizabeth's help everything before them. They had done 
 everything short of deposing Mary. In open Parliament 
 they had changed the religion of the nation, and made the 
 celebration of the Mass penal. Thus for four years after 
 her return Mary had felt herself like a sovereign fettered 
 and imprisoned. And meanwhile in the world at large 
 the tide was turning. The Reformation, as it now began 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. 105 
 
 to appear, had had its day ; and the new age was to be 
 ruled by the Counter-Reformation. Already there were 
 considerable signs of reaction even in Scotland, and in 
 England, over which Mary never forgot her claims, the 
 people were disappointed and anxious because Elizabeth 
 did not marry. 
 
 In these circumstances Mary's marriage and her open 
 declaration against the Protestant lords, her bold assertion 
 of her sovereign rights, followed by a great military 
 success, may be regarded as the outbreak of the Counter- 
 Reformation in Britain. It raised Mary Stuart to the 
 height of power, from which for a moment she could look 
 down on the humbled and embarrassed government of 
 Elizabeth. The connexion of Mary's new policy with the 
 Counter-Reformation of the Continent was visibly marked 
 by the presence and influence at her court of the Italian 
 Riccio, who from the position of a valet rose to be a kind 
 of Secretary for Foreign Affairs. But this prosperous period 
 lasted only from July 25th, 1565, to March 9th, 1566, 
 from the day of the Queen's marriage to that of the 
 murder of Riccio. 
 
 Mary proved as little able as most of her predecessors, 
 as James I or James III, to withstand the fierceness of 
 the Scottish nobles, which at this time was reinforced by 
 the Judaic fanaticism of Knox and by the hostility, 
 inspired by fear, of Elizabeth. I need not tell again the 
 tale of the murder of Riccio. But to show that the con- 
 spirators knew that they were struggling with the Counter- 
 Reformation let us remark that when the provost of 
 Edinburgh and his burgesses, aroused by the disturbance, 
 appeared at the door of Holyrood, they were informed that 
 ' it was only the killing of the Italian secretary, who had 
 conspired with the Pope and the King of Spain to bring 
 
106 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 in foreign troops for the purpose of subjugating the 
 nation and restoring the ancient religion.' (Labanoff, 
 VII. 94.) 
 
 This catastrophe arrested the triumphant course of 
 Mary's policy, even before it was crowned by the birth 
 of an heii', who was to be, and who actually became, King 
 of England as well as of Scotland. The Catholic cause 
 ceases to make progress, and we enter upon a cycle of 
 tragedies in which the historical interest is utterly lost 
 in the personal. First there is the tragedy of February 
 1567, which may be called from Darnley, then that which 
 may be named from Bothwell and which ended in June of 
 the same year. The Queen runs through all high tragedy 
 parts in succession, before she arrives many years later at 
 the tragedy, of which her own death is the catastrophe. 
 Shakspeare's great Scotch play might have been suggested 
 by these events of 1567, when a king is nmrdered by 
 treachery and then the murderer and the instigatress rule 
 Scotland together, no man's life being safe, and the nobles 
 taking flight to England. Then follows the tragedy of Loch- 
 leven and Langside, closing with the flight to England. 
 
 Through its whole subsequent course the Stuart 
 dynasty was to furnish materials for high tragedy, many 
 of its kings and pretenders displaying that mental bewil- 
 derment which leads to misfortune with qualities and a 
 pose that makes misfortune interesting. But Mary Stuart 
 in an age of wilder characters and intenser crises far 
 surpasses in this respect all her descendants. 
 
 But what was the total effect upon international rela- 
 tions of all this tragedy ? We are to fix our attention on 
 the abdication of Mary, July 25th, 1567, and the coronation 
 of James at Stirling which immediately followed. At this 
 date ends the Counter-Reformation within Great Britain, 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. 107 
 
 for as the infant king was put in Protestant hands, and 
 Knox himself preached at his coronation, the change 
 corresponds in Scotland to that -which took place in 
 England at the death of Mary Tudor. From this moment, 
 the very moment when the Counter-Reformation was 
 proclaiming all over Europe that no heretic could wear a 
 crown, both the crowns of Britain were taken away defini- 
 tively from the Catholic Church. 
 
 Secondly, at this date the way was cleared for the union 
 of the kingdoms. We have remarked how it had hitherto 
 been closed by one obstacle after another. The marriage 
 of Edward VI and Mary had been hindered. Then a new 
 prospect had opened when the French garrison was expelled 
 from Scotland and at the same time the Reformation es- 
 tablished there under the shield of Elizabeth's power. In 
 1560 for a time modern Britain seemed to appear and 
 Elizabeth seemed to rule England and Scotland together 
 as Queen Victoria does now. Even Mary on her return 
 had been tempted for a time to accommodate herself to 
 this new condition. But a new estrangement of the king- 
 doms had begun with her marriage and her decided choice 
 of Catholicism. Henceforth there seemed but two alterna- 
 tives, either the union of the kingdoms on a Catholic basis, 
 or else a marriage of Elizabeth and no union at all. 
 
 By the accession of James in Scotland it is true that 
 many new difficulties were introduced, it is true that 
 Elizabeth heard with indignation of a sovereign forced to 
 abdication by her own subjects. Nevertheless if this new 
 settlement could be maintained it would lead naturally to 
 the union of the kingdoms. In those days, as we have 
 remarked, the established mode of uniting kingdoms was 
 by royal marriage, but this was a miserable method indeed 
 unless some natural sympathy between the nations con- 
 
108 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 curred with it. And what are the natural influences by 
 which nations, as distingnished from governments, may be 
 united ? The greatest of these is religion. Between Eng- 
 land and Scotland the royal marriage was not wanting, 
 though it would have been better if more than one such 
 marriage could have been arranged ; it was the old marriage 
 of Margaret Tudor with James IV. But so long as Mary 
 reigned and held aloft the flag of Catholicism, how was it 
 possible that this royal union could be supplemented by a 
 truly national union founded on religion? This grave 
 difficulty was removed at once by the fact that the new 
 king was an infant, whose religion would depend upon his 
 teachers, and that he was in the hands of those who would 
 rear him as a Protestant. 
 
 Those obvious occurrences of the first ten years of 
 Elizabeth to which we have called attention, namely her 
 intervention in Scotland and the Treaty of Edinburgh, 
 with the second marriage of Mary and the birth of her 
 son — those occurrences considered by themselves and with- 
 out regard to the other occurrences so tragic and so 
 obscure with which they are connected, represent one of 
 the greatest and most memorable transitions in English 
 policy. The confusion that had prevailed at the moment 
 of Elizabeth's accession began to diminish ; a possible 
 solution of the fatal double problem of succession and 
 religion came in sight. A new day began to dawn from 
 Scotland 
 
 Before Elizabeth's age indeed England had struggled 
 not merely with that problem but at the same time with 
 another difficulty, the standing hostile alliance of France 
 and Scotland. During a certain time, says Philippson, 
 Scotland and France formed, so to speak, one and the 
 same nation. Of the reign of Henry II of France, Teulet 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. 109 
 
 in his great collection of the documents which concern 
 this subject (Relations Politiques de la France et de 
 I'Espagne avec I'Ecosse au seizieme siecle) says, " All the 
 efforts of Henry II aimed at a sort of incorporation of 
 Scotland with France ^' The Treaty between France and 
 Scotland concluded at Rouen in 1517 is entitled 'A 
 Treaty of alliance offensive and defensive against Eng- 
 land ' and contemplates war with England in every clause. 
 By this permanent hostile league England was, as it were, 
 held in check ; she remained incapable, while it lasted, of 
 rising into the position of a Great Power. But, great as 
 the question was, it was still secondary at the accession of 
 Elizabeth to the question of succession and religion. 
 
 But this latter question and the question of royal 
 marriage which was involved with it concerned Scotland 
 as well as England. For Scotland had been united by 
 marriage with England as well as with France. If James 
 V had made two French marriages, James IV had 
 married Margaret Tudor. Accordingly Mary Stuart could 
 lay claim to succeed or to supplant Elizabeth, and a 
 different combination might take the place of the stand- 
 ing alHance of France and Scotland against England. It 
 was possible to imagine a union of the whole island of 
 Britain under one king, a union which would be an event 
 no less great than the union of Castille and Aragon. In 
 the first ten years of Elizabeth the course of events, as it 
 slowly developed the question of succession, developed at 
 the same time the Scotch question. The queen of Eng- 
 land did not marry, but the queen of Scotland did, and 
 then the queen of Scotland had a son. Difficulties indeed 
 accumulated, but the Britannic idea certainly made pro- 
 gress. There was now another, a sixth, James Stuart. 
 ' Teulet, Vol. i., p. viii. ed. 1862. 
 
110 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 He began his life indeed in the same atmosphere of 
 tragedy which had been the element of his predecessors. 
 James I and James III had been murdered. James II 
 was killed by an accident in the prime of life. James IV 
 perished in a disastrous battle. James V died in despair. 
 And now James VI saw his father murdered, and, long 
 after, his mother die by the executioner. Nor had he 
 admirable personal qualities. But he had a great destiny 
 of the Habsburg type. He was an lulus. In him, as it 
 were, Britain was embodied. In his person lay the 
 solution of all those thorny questions, the question of 
 succession, which was involved with the question of 
 religion, and at the same time the Britannic question. 
 But before he should become Protestant King of the 
 whole island of Britain he was to wait thirty-six years. 
 He had the advantage that he was not only a Stuart 
 but also a Tudor, being connected with the Tudors both 
 by the mother and the father. If he should abide by the 
 Reformation, and if at the same time the party of the 
 Reformation should continue to gain ground both in Eng- 
 land and Scotland, the time might come when he would 
 be welcomed as king both in England and Scotland. 
 In that case he might fulfil the dream which in that age 
 haunted our race ; he might unite England and Scotland, 
 and make the whole island of Britain the basis of a great 
 Insular State. Such were the possibilities which came to 
 light as soon as James was bom. But they were only 
 possibilities. Things might too easily take another 
 course. In particular the Reformation might lose instead 
 of gaining ground. For the Counter-Reformation was in 
 full career ; even in England and Scotland it was a power 
 of unknown magnitude, and on the Continent Philip could 
 devote to it the whole resources of the Spanish Monarchy, 
 
THE BRITISH QUESTION. Ill 
 
 while France too was declaring in its favour. These 
 Great Powers were in a manner pledged to prevent the 
 establishment of the Insular State. And before the 
 problem of the Elizabethan age could receive the happy 
 solution which now came in sight there must be a settle- 
 ment of accounts with the Great Continental Powers. 
 
 It thus became apparent that the great law of aggre- 
 gation by means of royal marriage and birth might 
 possibly be applied in these islands. As Castillo and 
 Aragon had been made the basis of Spain, as Spain and 
 Portugal were soon to be made the basis of a great Iberian 
 union, so with the appearance of a sixth James Stuart the 
 possibdity of a British Union began to appear. It was 
 conceivable that in such a Union the standing difficulties 
 of the English state would vanish — that stubborn succes- 
 sion problem which from the Wars of the Roses to the 
 accession of Elizabeth had so frequently broken out afresh, 
 the religious question which had been opened by Henry 
 VIII and was not yet closed, the border question which 
 had led to so many barbarous internal wars and the 
 standing league of France and Scotland which lay like an 
 incubus upon our foreign policy. Such a union seemed 
 natural, and yet in the Scandinavian countries a similar 
 union failed, and the union of Spain and Portugal was 
 dissolved again after sixty years. In any case it could be 
 accomplished but slowly and in many stages, but it was 
 the great event of the early years of Elizabeth to have 
 raised for the first time in a promising form the Britannic 
 Question. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF ELIZABETH. 
 
 The first years of Elizabeth witnessed the beginning 
 of many new things in our history. Under the head of 
 policy they are chiefly memorable for having brought into 
 prominence the Britannic idea. It was at this time that 
 the hostile union of France and Scotland against England 
 was broken. But to this negative there was soon added 
 a still greater positive developement. In place of the 
 union of Scotland and France the foundation was speedily 
 laid for a union of Scotland and England, for a Britain, 
 which might ultimately stand out as a political aggregate 
 in rivalry with the Spanish Monarchy. With the birth 
 of James there appeared a British dynasty similar to that 
 Habsburg dynasty which at the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century had sprung from the marriage of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella. 
 
 Thus the first period of Elizabeth, which at the time 
 was often called her ' halcyon days,' has a Scottish tinge. 
 When we survey her whole reign we see another period 
 which is just as decidedly Spanish, when she makes war 
 with the Spanish Monarchy, has to withstand a great 
 Spanish invasion, and having done this successfully re- 
 taliates by assailing Spain. But the Spanish period 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 113 
 
 cannot be said to begin before 1585. And thus between 
 this and the Scottish period there is a long interval, an 
 interval of not less than eighteen years. It is an interval 
 on the whole of remarkable prosperity for England, as we 
 shall recognise when we consider how intense and terrible 
 those years were in other countries. In France that was 
 the time of the St Bartholomew and of a long series of 
 atrocious religious wars ; it was a period of horror in the 
 Low Countries ; in Scotland it saw three Regents in suc- 
 cession, Murray, Lennox and Morton, die violent deaths. 
 And the causes which wrapped the age in a mantle of 
 such appalling darkness were just as much at work, let us 
 reflect, in England. It would have been by no means 
 surprising if England too had spent those years in religious 
 war and had closed them, as France did, by attaching 
 herself to the Counter-Reformation. Nay, England too 
 might have seen a St Bartholomew, for it has been 
 remarked that Catharine de Medici ' challenged Elizabeth 
 to do to the Catholics of England what she herself had 
 done to the Protestants of France, promising that if they 
 were destroyed there would be no loss of her good-will '.' 
 Yet this middle period of Elizabeth is on the whole a tran- 
 quil time. The tremendous influences that were working 
 in secret do indeed once or twice come to light ; about the 
 year 1570 there was serious cause for alarm. The class of 
 occurrences of which this essay takes note is represented in 
 this middle period by the Rising of the North, the Pope's 
 Bull of Excommunication and the treason and execution of 
 the Duke of Norfolk. In this crisis the influence of foreign 
 Powers is particularly visible. It is first by the Pope, 
 
 1 Catharine to La Mothe, September 13th, 1572, cited in the article 
 on the Massacre of St Bartholomew, North British Review, New Series, 
 Vol. XII., p. 47. 
 
 s. 8 
 
114 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 but also by the concert of the great Continental Powers 
 with Mary Stuart, that Elizabeth is threatened. We may 
 say indeed that these disturbances constitute the decisive 
 attack of the Counter-Reformation upon England, and 
 that the repulse of it settled finally for us the religious 
 question. In order to understand the middle period it is 
 most necessary to consider what might have happened 
 and to what precise danger the country was just then 
 exposed. A little later we had to resist the Spanish 
 Monarchy, the greatest Power in the world, but a greater 
 danger still threatened Elizabeth about 1570. 
 
 The great rally of Catholicism marked by the con- 
 clusion of the Council of Trent might be expected to be 
 followed by a grand concert of the European Powers for 
 putting down heresy all over the world. Not Spain 
 alone, therefore, but at least Spain and France together 
 might be expected to strike at England. This would be 
 the Counter-Reformation realised in action. It would be 
 not merely a Spanish Armada but this supported by the 
 force of France, which by attacking England might regain 
 that control over Scotland which she had so recently lost. 
 And the Insular State had at that time not only no army, 
 but scarcely even that rudiment of naval power which, when 
 the hour of trial actually came twenty years later, had had 
 time to grow up. Had it even a goverimaent which could 
 resist hostile pressure ? had it even a religion ? The 
 Continental assailants would be supported in England by 
 all the party which secretly favoured the old religion and 
 by all those who wished to see religion settled somehow 
 as it might now be settled through the Counter-Reforma- 
 tion. They would be supported by all who favoured 
 Mary Stuart and who saw a prospect through Mary 
 Stuart of settling the succession question. For what 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 115 
 
 alternative prospect could Elizabeth offer? The Refor- 
 mation seemed about to disappear, and Elizabeth had no 
 heir. Was it reasonable any longer to think that the 
 Reformation could form the basis of a national settlement ? 
 At this very time the Emperor Maximilian II, who had 
 long been regarded as almost a heretic, seemed returning 
 to the Catholic fold, influenced partly by the growing 
 bitterness that reigned between Lutherans and Calvinists. 
 And in England too it began to be seen that Reformation 
 would end in irreconcileable religious division, for a 
 Puritan party began to disengage itself in the bosom of 
 Anglicanism. 
 
 All these difiSculties taken together constituted a 
 national danger such as has rarely threatened us. In the 
 disturbances which actually arose they are distinctly 
 visible. In the Pope's Bull of Excommunication we may 
 hear the authorised voice of the Counter-Reformation. 
 The Rising of the North shows us the old Catholicism of 
 the country in motion. In the proceedings of the Duke 
 of Norfolk we see plainly the hand of Mary Stuart. And 
 we may be surprised that the crisis after all proved so 
 slight and that the disturbances of this middle period left 
 so faint a mark on our history. 
 
 How did it happen that the great Continental 
 Powers, at the very moment when they were united in the 
 Counter-Reformation, could suffer the Counter-Reforma- 
 tion to fail so disastrously in Scotland ? Why did not her 
 French connexions, or why did not Philip, interfere to 
 save Mary from deposition, and to prevent Scotland from 
 passing for ever under the control of the Reformation? 
 The principal cause was that great fact which contributed 
 as much to save the Reformation in England as in Scotland, 
 namely that in 1567 the Huguenots in France and the 
 
 8—2 
 
116 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Gueux in the Low Countries screened Britain in the most 
 effectual way. In that year the religious war of France 
 broke out again with startling suddenness; in that year 
 too Philip found it necessary to take the rebellion of the 
 Low Countries seriously in hand. The Counter-Reforma- 
 tion was indeed overwhelmingly powerful, but at the 
 critical moment it was not in a condition to interfere 
 in Britain. 
 
 The Counter-Reformation from within the country, 
 initiated by Mary Stuart in 1565, comes to an end with 
 her flight to England. Nevertheless her influence remains 
 formidable, and about the same time the Counter-Refor- 
 mation on the Continent acquires a decided superiority. 
 Now therefore a period begins in which Elizabeth appre- 
 hends invasion from abroad and expects to see it strongly 
 supported by disaffection at home. 
 
 Mary Stuart had for the moment ruined her own 
 cause. Nevertheless Elizabeth did not altogether recover 
 from the blows which Mary had struck in 1565. The 
 Catholic party had been considerably roused by her suc- 
 cesses of that year, and meanwhile Elizabeth had done 
 nothing to settle the question of the succession. Hitherto 
 the Catholics had been reconciled to Elizabeth's govern- 
 ment partly by the moderation of her Anglicanism, partly 
 by the prospect of a Catholic succession. But the new 
 prospect which now opened of a Protestant successor 
 naturally disturbed their minds, which the rising tide of 
 the Counter-Reformation disturbed still more. In 1567 
 the Huguenot party appeared strong in France and the 
 Protestants were strong in the Low Countries. But the 
 fortune of war went decidedly against them. In France 
 they suffered the great defeats of Jamac and Moncontour, 
 and they were deprived of their leader Cond^. Alva 
 
THK MIDDLE PERIOD. 117 
 
 took in hand the Low Countries, where also the leaders 
 Egmont and Hoorn fell, and in about two years this region 
 too appeared to be almost pacified and purged of the 
 Reformation. 
 
 It was still but ten years since Philip had been king of 
 England, and Francis II had borne the title even later and 
 had been pretty effectively king at least of Scotland. Was 
 it not likely, now that both Philip and the French govern- 
 ment were on the point of putting down internal rebellion, 
 and were imited in the Counter-Reformation, that they 
 would cross the Channel once more and reestablish theii- 
 influence in the island of Britain ? If so, their intervention 
 woiild be welcomed by the whole Catholic party both in 
 England and Scotland, which had but lately been supreme, 
 and by all those who, whatever they might think of Mary, 
 disliked rebellion, the deposition of kings by their subjects, 
 and Calvinism. 
 
 At the outset Mary had had to choose between urging 
 her rights on England in a hostile manner, which meant 
 marrying a Continental Prince, and in an amicable manner, 
 which meant marrying within the island. She had chosen 
 a middle course in marrying the Scotsman Darnley, when 
 the husband Elizabeth offered her was Leicester. But 
 Mary's policy had now exhausted itself. Darnley was dead, 
 and Bothwell, the rufiian, was buried in a Danish prison. 
 Accordingly the discussion among those who still preferred 
 Mary to James began again where it had been dropped in 
 1565. It was thought possible for Mary to be divorced 
 from Bothwell, and then to adopt a new policy, that is, 
 enter upon a new marriage negociation. And thus natur- 
 ally grew up the scheme of a marriage between Mary and 
 the first of English nobles, Thomas Howard, Duke of 
 Norfolk. 
 
118 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Such a scheme could not but suggest itself, while the 
 succession remained utterly uncertain, while Elizabeth did 
 not marry, and at the same time the marriage of Elizabeth 
 would probably make impossible the union of the kingdoms, 
 and while the succession of a purely Scottish dynasty in 
 England could not be quite agreeable to the English 
 nobility. 
 
 And yet such a scheme involved the total downfall 
 of Elizabeth, and retrogression to the disturbed times 
 which she had brought to an end. A Catholic heiress, 
 married to a great English noble and leaning on the 
 powerful Counter-Reformation of Europe, on the Guise 
 family and on Philip II, would have pushed Elizabeth 
 on one side and revived the times of Mary Tudor. The 
 Counter-Reformation however could not but pass through 
 this second phase in England when the fall of Mary Stuart 
 from her throne in 1567 had brought the first phase to an 
 end. The plot which cost Norfolk his life was that final 
 rally of the Catholic party in England which was inevit- 
 able considering how large the party was and how over- 
 whelmingly powerful Catholicism became just at this 
 moment on the Continent. 
 
 Ten years of Elizabeth had by no means placed England 
 out of danger. Had the two great Catholic Powers, the 
 Habsburg and the Valois, acted with energy and full 
 mutual understanding about 1570, they might probably, 
 by the help of the Catholic party in England and the 
 party of Mary, have overthrown the Elizabethan settlement. 
 If we ask what saved this country from the Counter- 
 Reformation the answer which we obtain is in one word this, 
 that the rally of English Catholicism in Norfolk's rebellion 
 was but feebly supported from the Continent, and that 
 after this time the forces of the Counter-Reformation were 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 119 
 
 ever more and more divided by a new outbreak of the old 
 rivalry between France and the House of Habsburg. 
 
 The failure of Norfolk's rebellion thus marks the 
 decisive transition in England and the close of the move- 
 ment begun by Henry VIII forty years before. After 
 the oscillations of Edward and Mary, Elizabeth had re- 
 turned to the policy of her father, and now this policy 
 prevailed, even though the whole aspect of Catholicism 
 had been altered by the Counter-Reformation. The Rising 
 of the North is the last of those reactionary movements 
 which began with the Pilgrimage of Grace. Here for 
 the last time Catholic England appears in the field, 
 able still fairly to claim that the future as well as the 
 past belongs to her cause. Hers is the successor, while 
 the other side can name no siiccessor, and hers too is the 
 great overwhelming movement of the age, which is the 
 Counter-Reformation. And yet her failure is complete. 
 The Catholic party in England makes its venture and 
 fails, and then the Continental party, of whom Ridolfi 
 is the agent, makes an equally unsuccessful attempt, of 
 which Norfolk pays the penalty. For want of corre- 
 spondence and unity of plan the resources of the Counter- 
 Reformation were dissipated at the decisive moment. 
 
 In all this evolution, which is the starting point of 
 all subsequent history both for England and the Conti- 
 nent, by far the most important feature is to be found 
 in the inability of France and Philip to act resolutely 
 together. It was the theory of the Counter-Reformation 
 that the great Powers should act together to put down 
 heresy, and had this been resolutely done about 1570, the 
 two kingdoms of Britain might have been united under 
 Mary Stuart by the intervention of France and Spain, and 
 the great Insular State might have come into existence as 
 
120 GROWTH OF BEITISH POLICY. 
 
 a Catholic state. This result would have had a decisive 
 reaction upon the struggle in the Low Countries, which 
 hitherto had been fomented by Protestant England, and 
 perhaps also upon the struggle in France. Thus heresy 
 would perhaps have been put down all over the world. 
 
 Let us then examine the fatal flaw in the system of 
 the Counter- Reformation, which, not only at this critical 
 moment but much more clearly in the next age and 
 throughout the seventeenth century, caused the final 
 failure of Catholicism. It lies in the fact that the grand 
 religious division now so sharply defined by the Council of 
 Trent was crossed by the division between France and the 
 House of Habsburg. 
 
 We are to remember that a whole long age had passed 
 during which this latter division had ruled the politics of 
 Europe, while the religious division had either not com- 
 menced or remained secondary. There had been an old 
 discord between France and Burgundy since Charles the 
 Bold ; there had also been a discord between France and 
 Spain since the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. Charles V 
 therefore had inherited, as it were, two distinct wars with 
 France, the one from Charles the Bold, the other from 
 Ferdinand of Aragon. These wars he had prosecuted 
 throughout his reign against Francis I and Henry II, 
 with success in the main but with one disastrous failure. 
 But this whole cycle of European wars seemed to have 
 been closed in 1559 by the Treaty of Cateau Cambresis, 
 just at the time when the Catholic kingdom of Philip, 
 substituted for the universal dominion of Charles V, was 
 consolidating itself That treaty had been cemented by 
 the last grand Habsburg marriage, that of Philip II with 
 Elizabeth of Valois. Since that the Counter-Reformation 
 had been consummated at Trent in 1564, and it had 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 121 
 
 begun to be evident in the course of the religious dispute 
 in France that that country intended to side with Philip 
 in religion. 
 
 It seemed therefore by no means unlikely that a firm 
 alliance of Spain and France on the basis of the Counter- 
 Reformation might now successfully undertake the restora- 
 tion of Catholicism all over the world. On this possibility 
 hung the destinies of mankind. The meeting of Catharine 
 de Medici and Charles IX with the Spanish Queen, who 
 was accompanied by the Duke of Alva, at Bayonne in June 
 1565, gave the world notice of such a policy, and in the 
 years next following, when the Huguenots suffered terrible 
 defeats and the rebellion of the Low Countries seemed for 
 a moment to be suppressed by Alva, the policy seemed to 
 be triumphantly realised. It only remained to take in 
 hand the two island kingdoms. And here too, considering 
 the state of the succession and the use that might be 
 made of Mary Stuart, the prospect seemed good, the task 
 easy. 
 
 The momentous alliance however that had been 
 represented by Philip and Elizabeth of Valois proved little 
 more solid than that which it replaced, the alliance of 
 Philip and Mary, as indeed Elizabeth of Valois herself died 
 in 1568. The union of the Habsburg and the Valois in 
 the Counter-Reformation was a dream which held Europe 
 for about ten years. At the end of that time the spell 
 was snapped, the rivalry of Habsburg and Valois took its 
 place again, and was soon succeeded by a rivalry still 
 more memorable, that of Habsburg and Bourbon. And 
 thus the Reformation was saved. Thus also Ehzabeth 
 found herself in the latter half of her reign engaged 
 indeed in a dangerous conflict, but a conflict with Philip 
 only, France being either passive or a useful ally. 
 
122 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 From about 1565 to 1569 the alliance was at its 
 height. After the Conference at Bayonne, where, if not 
 much was settled, much was discussed between Alva and 
 Catharine de Medici, we see in 1567 the alarming entrance 
 of Alva upon his government of the Low Countries, This 
 is the first decisive act of the Counter- Reformation. It is 
 felt throughout the Protestant world as the Pope's Day of 
 Judgment. The Huguenots in France feel their fate 
 involved with that of the rebels of the Low Countries. 
 They rise on Sept. 27th in all parts of France with a 
 skilful suddenness which was the astonishment of the next 
 generation, and endeavour to seize the person of the King 
 near Meaux. 
 
 There had been already more than one short religious 
 war in France. But perhaps this occurrence of 1567 may 
 be regarded as the commencement of the serious struggle 
 by which the religious position of France was to be decided 
 for future ages. And it corresponds with the commence- 
 ment of the struggle which established the Republic of 
 the Netherlands. 
 
 But in both countries Catholicism has the upper hand. 
 The Belgian rebels lose their leaders, and seem deprived 
 of the means of resistance. The Huguenots have indeed a 
 momentary success, for they extort a peace and a toleration 
 (March 28th, 1568). But it appears that their conduct 
 has left a deep resentment in the mind of the Catholic 
 population of France. And the Counter- Reformation pro- 
 claims with a hundred voices that the treaty is null. So 
 speaks the Pope, the saintly inquisitor, Ghislieri. Alva too 
 would rather see a kingdom ruined but preserved for God 
 and the king, than unimpaired but devoted to the demon 
 ' and his sect, the heretics.' French public opinion displays 
 strange features. It appears to be much more wedded 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 123 
 
 to its orthodoxy than to its nationality. It does not 
 engage to stand by the House of Valois if the king 
 should make concessions to the Huguenots. There are 
 also symptoms, which afterwards became more clearly 
 visible, of a decided preference for Philip, the truly 
 Catholic, though foreign, prince over the native House 
 of Valois. 
 
 Such is the age of the Counter-Keformation ! National 
 feeling, which for centuries past had been gaining ground 
 at the expense of the Papal Church, seems now again to 
 fall into abeyance. The Pope is once more supreme, and 
 wide populations are prepared to put their orthodoxy above 
 their patriotism. 
 
 Thus after a few months civil war broke out again in 
 France, war more than civil, fratricidal, leading straight to 
 the St Bartholomew. At the same time the Low Coun- 
 tries continued to be trampled down by the Spanish and 
 Italian troops of Alva. The years 1668, 1569 saw at last 
 the combined effort of the Counter-Reformation to put 
 down heresy. In 1568 the scene of war was chiefly the 
 Low Countries, in 1569 it was chiefly France. And great 
 success attended the arms of the Counter- Reformation. 
 
 Meanwhile 1567 had witnessed the downfall of Mary 
 Stuart and the beginning of her captivity. Had a Catho- 
 lic government, firm and efficient, been ready in Scotland 
 to act in concert with Alva in his hour of success and with 
 the French government after Jarnac and Moncontour, the 
 Counter-Reformation might have been as victorious in 
 Britain as on the Continent, and its whole plan might 
 have been carried into effect. But in 1569 Mary was in 
 prison, and the Rising of the North was not a sufficient 
 basis for Alva to build upon. Accordingly the opportunity 
 was lost of crowning the edifice of the Counter-Reformation. 
 
124 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 And it did not return. In 1.570 division began to 
 appear in the commanding Catholic Alliance, and hence- 
 forward France drifts into that middle position, Catholic 
 in religion, yet allied with Protestant states, upon which 
 all subsequent history has depended. 
 
 The French government began to be aware that the 
 plan of the Counter-Reformation, successfully carried into 
 effect, would make Philip universal monarch and would 
 depress, if not dissolve, France. For the religious war 
 occupied France entirely, while it raged only in one corner 
 of Philip's dominion. It seemed likely at this moment 
 permanently to divide France, as it afterwards did the 
 Low Countries, into a Catholic half, Continental and 
 leaning on the Habsburg, and a Protestant half, maritime 
 and leaning on England. For as a year or two later 
 Protestantism, beaten in Flanders and Brabant, gained a 
 firm footing in Holland and Zealand, so did the Huguenots 
 now, retreating from the interior, establish themselves in 
 Eochelle and along the western coast, where they might 
 be in close connexion with Navarre and might also look 
 for aid to England. Such a rudiment of maritime power 
 might perhaps be crushed by the French government, but 
 only after an exhausting struggle and by the help of 
 Philip, who with his claims on Navarre and his naval 
 superiority would perhaps acquire a principal share in 
 the spoils. Meanwhile he would prosecute other schemes, 
 with which France would not have leisure to interfere. For 
 instance Mary Stuart had originally belonged to France, 
 but she became useless as an instrument of French policy 
 while France was absorbed in civil war. Philip however was 
 in a condition to help her, and at the same time to appro- 
 priate her. The new scheme was that she should marry 
 Don John of Austria, who in 1571 defeated the Turks at 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 125 
 
 Lepanto, winning the greatest naval battle of the age. 
 Then by the help of Spain she was to mount the thrones 
 of Scotland and England, making Britain a province of 
 Spain, as she had before endeavoured to make it a pro- 
 vince of France! But the Counter-Reformation, which 
 would lead to such results, could be no system for France. 
 
 That intense national consciousness of France which 
 showed itself in later times and since the Revolution, was 
 strangely wanting in the sixteenth century. As a few 
 years later than this a great party with its head-quarters 
 in Paris proposed to hand over the country to Philip, so 
 now in 1570 the prospect of a dissolution of France was 
 not viewed with the patriotic horror we might expect. 
 Nevertheless it created misgivings, out of which sprang a 
 desire for some arrangement with the Huguenots and 
 some new experiment in policy. 
 
 A new policy at that period was almost always a new 
 proposal of marriage. This great European transition was 
 indicated to the world by two great marriage negociations, 
 that of the Duke of Anjou for Elizabeth, and that of 
 Henry of Navarre for Margaret of Valois. 
 
 Such proposals involve an almost complete secession of 
 France from the Counter-Reformation. Elizabeth was 
 under the excommunication of Pope Pius V, Henry of 
 Navarre was the leader of the Huguenot party. And the 
 grand principle of the Counter-Reformation was precisely 
 this, that heretic princes, and chiefly these two, lost by 
 their heresy the right of reigning or the right of succession. 
 
 In the view here taken of the Elizabethan age the 
 greatest occurrence in it is that struggle with the Spanish 
 Monarchy which reached its height in 1588, and therefore 
 the greatest transition in it is the growth of the hostile 
 feeling which led to that struggle. We are now con- 
 
126 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 cerned with a middle period when this struggle has not 
 yet been reached. Politicians did not yet prophesy that 
 Elizabeth would wage a great war with Philip, still less 
 that an Armada would sail against England. It appeared 
 indeed always a possibility. Angry negociations with 
 Spain went on with little intermission, and on one occasion 
 Elizabeth expelled the Spanish Ambassador, Gueran de 
 Espes. But in the middle period with which we deal, not 
 a war of England and Spain but a war of the Catholic 
 Powers in concert with Mary Stuart against heretic 
 England seemed for a good while to be the catastrophe 
 which was approaching. And as during this period, that 
 is, throughout the sixties and a great part of the seventies, 
 the religious wars of France principally occupied the 
 attention of the world, and the final victory of Catholicism 
 seemed to depend on its success in France, the middle 
 period of Elizabeth has mainly a French tinge as the 
 period before it had a Scottish and that which succeeded 
 it a Spanish tinge. We have to consider mainly the 
 bearing of Elizabeth towards the religious wars of France 
 and towards the massacre of St Bartholomew. Then we 
 have to consider how, while in France Catholicism actually 
 prevailed, the grand scheme of the universal victory of 
 Catholicism contemplated by the Counter-Reformation 
 nevertheless did not take place, and Elizabeth had in the 
 end to struggle not with united Catholicism but with the 
 Spanish Monarchy alone. 
 
 But we are reminded once more in this period that 
 the problem for England Was by no means purely political 
 but also personal. The struggle was not simply of religions 
 or of great principles, but also of succession and therefore 
 of royal marriage. This is true of other countries as well 
 as of England. The measures of the Counter-Reformation 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 127 
 
 were considerably affected by Philip's fourth marriage to 
 one of the daughters of the Emperor Maximilian II and 
 Charles IX's marriage to another, and the St Bartholomew 
 itself is inseparably connected with the marriage of Henry 
 of Navarre to Charles IX's sister, Margaret of Valois. 
 But it is in the case of Elizabeth herself that foreign 
 policy is always merged in marriage negociations, and in 
 this period, as France comes into the foreground of policy, 
 so we find that French princes are candidates for her hand. 
 First it is Charles IX himself that would marry her, then 
 his brother Anjou, afterwards King Henry III, and then 
 again Alen9on. 
 
 We find then a period predominantly French followed 
 in Elizabeth's reign by a period predominantly Spanish. 
 The two periods cannot indeed be held altogether distinct ; 
 nevertheless it will suit our plan to put on one side for 
 the present Elizabeth's relations with Philip and to con- 
 sider first her relations with France, while France under 
 the three brothers of Valois went through her terrible 
 ordeal of religious war. In more recent times we have 
 been accustomed to see on the Continent almost exclu- 
 sively France, but in the period before us France is wholly 
 unlike the France with which we are familiar. It is 
 France not yet transformed by Richelieu, not yet ruled by 
 the House of Bourbon, not yet secularised by philosophy 
 or free-thought, France possessed by religious ideas and 
 adhering fanatically to Catholicism. Towards England 
 she is not in this age a rival, as she had been in the 
 fourteenth century and was to be again in the eighteenth; 
 so that Elizabeth is able to steer us through this her 
 middle period without a war with France. And yet it is 
 a critical period in the relations between the two countries. 
 There was great danger of a hostile coalition between 
 
128 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 France and Mary Stuart ; great danger also of a universal 
 Catholic Coalition in which Philip of Spain and the Pope 
 should be joined with the Valois in crushing the heretic 
 state. But this middle period, which opens with the 
 Counter-Reformation, ends in a revival of the old secular 
 system of politics. Instead of a union of the Catholic 
 Powers there is seen a revival of the old hostility between 
 the Habsburg and the Valois. By the troubles in the 
 Low Countries a new chapter of international history is 
 opened; France begins to take up a position hostile to 
 Spain, Elizabeth is able to hold her own against the 
 Pope's Bull, and before long a constellation is seen which 
 had not been anticipated by the Counter-Reformation. 
 England finds herself opposed by Philip alone, and has 
 France on her side. A Balance of Power shapes itself, in 
 which England and France assisting the insurgent Low 
 Countries hold in check the ascendant power of the 
 Catholic Ring. And for some time there is a prospect of 
 a closer union between France and England : Elizabeth 
 may marry a Valois prince, and from the marriage there 
 may spring one who shall inherit the thrones of France 
 and England. 
 
 French history reckons seven civil wars of religion 
 between 1562 and 1580, and civil war did not cease in 
 France till almost the close of the sixteenth century. 
 These convulsions remind us in many details of the great 
 French Revolution, and there is also a broad resemblance 
 between the failure of the French to reform religion or to 
 introduce religious toleration in the sixteenth century and 
 their failure at the end of the eighteenth to sweep away 
 a whole world of abuses and raise human nature at once 
 to a higher level by a simple appeal to reason. In both 
 cases the darker side of human nature revealed itself in 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 129 
 
 the same unexpected manner. As the Reign of Terror 
 took by surprise people who were expecting a final re- 
 generation of humanity, so when Chancellor L'Hdpital 
 dreamed of religious toleration there arrived seven wars 
 of religion and in the course of them the St Bartholomew. 
 But when we consider the attitude which England main- 
 tained towards the religious wars of France we must 
 particularly take note of the prevalence of the Counter- 
 Reformation near the commencement of those rehgious 
 wars, and then of its decline and of the revival of national 
 policy which took place just before the St Bartholomew. 
 For England the all-important question was whether she 
 would have to fight all the Catholic powers at once or 
 the Spanish Monarchy alone. 
 
 The principal occurrences which mark the advance of 
 the Counter-Reformation in the time of Elizabeth were the 
 accession of Pius IV to the Papal Chair, the reassembling 
 and successful termination of the Council of Trent, then the 
 meeting at Bayonne, then the commencement of the 
 troubles in the Low Countries, and finally the promulga- 
 tion of the Bull of Pope Pius against Elizabeth. These 
 occurrences embrace the sixties of the century, since the 
 Bull is dated February 25th, 1570; and the same period 
 embraces the first three of the seven religious wars of 
 France. The first of these wars, for we may overlook here 
 the disturbance called the Tumult of Amboise, which falls 
 in the reign of Francis II, began in April 1562 and was 
 ended in March 1563 by the Peace of Amboise. The 
 second war began in September 1567 and was ended by 
 the Peace of Longjumeau in March 1568. The third war 
 began in the same year 1568 and was brought to an end 
 in August 1570 by the Peace of St Germain. 
 
 So far it may be said that Catholicism or the Counter- 
 
 s. 9 
 
130 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Reformation made steady progress. ' The first war,' it has 
 been said (Armstrong, p. 27), ' decided, once and for all, 
 that France should not be a Protestant nation.' If there 
 was some reaction in the second, in the third Catholicism 
 won the battles of Jarnac and Moncontour. It was in the 
 year after these Catholic victories that Pius V issued his 
 Bull against Elizabeth. But now sets in that new develope- 
 ment which by reviving secular policy definitely checked 
 the Counter-Reformation. Charles IX of France begins 
 to threaten the king of Spain with war; he begins to 
 hold out a hand to the rebels in the Low Countries ; he 
 begins to listen to the counsels of Coligny. A turning- 
 point in French policy is reached which led immediately 
 to the St Bartholomew, but which in the end gave France 
 that position between the two confessions which, when it 
 had been consolidated by Henry IV, was to raise her to a 
 European ascendency in the seventeenth century. 
 
 The correspondence in time between the Bull of Pius V 
 against Elizabeth and the victories of Catholicism at Jarnac 
 and Moncontour may be held to mark the year 1569-'70 
 as the culminating point of the Counter-Reformation. 
 The reaction in favour of a more secular policy sets in 
 speedily. The occasion for it was supplied by the com- 
 mencement of the troubles in the Low Countries. Charles 
 IX could not but consider how closely France was in- 
 terested in the fortunes of Flanders, which we already 
 find spoken of as naturally a part of France, ' partie 
 naturelle de la France.' He could not but be jealous of 
 the glory his brother Anjou had won at Jarnac. He fell 
 back into the train of thought natural to a French king, 
 and began to dream of campaigns and victories, which 
 would most naturally be found by aiding Philip's rebels, 
 that is, by war with Spain ; in other words, by retiring 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 131 
 
 from the purely religious system of the Counter-Reforma- 
 tion. The prospect began to open of a war between 
 Spain and France, and in such a war on behalf of the 
 Flemish insurgents England would be inclined by her 
 interests to go with France. On July llth, 1571, Louis 
 of Nassau said to Charles IX, ' My brother the prince of 
 Orange has been raised up by God to deliver us from this 
 yoke. It only remains for us to lay ourselves at your 
 Majesty's feet and to beg you to take us under your 
 protection. All the cities will open their gates to us ; the 
 king of Spain has but 4000 men to oppose to us. We are 
 masters of the sea and the princes of Germany are ready 
 to assist us ; to you. Sire, will fall Flanders and Artois, 
 possessions of France in former times ; to the Empire 
 Brabant, Guelders and Luxemburg, to the queen of England 
 Zealand and the rest of the States, that is, if she gives us 
 her aid.' Here is the first glimpse into a future which 
 would not be the Counter-Reformation. The partition of 
 the Low Countries anticipated by Louis of Nassau did not 
 indeed take place, and yet he here roughly sketches what 
 was really to be the course of international policy for 
 nearly a century after this time. Not a general union of 
 the Catholic Powers against heresy; he sees something 
 different and more secular, a resistance offered by Catholic 
 and Protestant Powers in concert to the burdensome 
 ascendency of Philip II as displayed in the Low Countries. 
 This is the great transition of the middle period of 
 Elizabeth. Those insular occurrences which mark that 
 period, the flight of Mary Stuart to England, the Rising 
 of the North, the Bull of Pius V, the trial and execution 
 of Norfolk, and Ridolfi's plot, are to be considered in close 
 connexion with other continental occurrences, the first 
 three religious wars of France, the commencement of the 
 
 9—2 
 
132 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 troubles in the Low Couctries, and the change of Charles 
 IX's policy, when he began to prepare for war with Spain 
 and came under the influence of Coligny. Along with 
 these occurrences insular and continental we are to consider 
 the marriage negotiations between Elizabeth and three 
 princes of the House of Valois in succession, which belong 
 to the same period. 
 
 All these things taken together form a sort of prelude 
 to the later or Spanish period of Elizabethan policy. The 
 troubles of the Low Countries and Charles IX's change of 
 policy have the effect of making the Spanish Monarchy 
 stand out isolated. Hitherto Spain has been a member 
 along with France of a great Catholic Coalition. Elizabeth, 
 who in her Scottish period has feared France almost more 
 than Spain on account partly of the connexion of France 
 with Mary Stuart, partly of the ancient alliance of France 
 and Scotland, and who might expect France to unite with 
 Spain in enforcing against her the Pope's Bull, now sees 
 France separate herself from Spain. Philip begins to 
 assume a new position. The Low Countries question 
 exhibits him as dangerous to all states alike, and especially 
 as dangerous to France and England, who are neighbours 
 to the Low Countries, at the same time. We see here 
 the beginning of one of the greatest of all international 
 controversies, the commencement of Spanish Ascendency. 
 There is a record of a conversation between Coligny and a 
 certain agent of Elizabeth, Middlemore. It took place on 
 June 10th, 1572. Coligny enlarged on the danger both to 
 France and England which would arise from the success 
 of Philip's policy in Flanders, his design being nothing less 
 than to make himself supreme monarch of Christendom. 
 His ambition must absolutely be checked, occasion must 
 be taken from the troubles in Flanders. Middlemore 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 133 
 
 answered that he was by no means qualified to discuss 
 such matters, and that he did not know the intentions of 
 the queen his mistress. The Admiral pressed at least for 
 a confidential expression of opinion ; whereupon Middle- 
 more remarked that in England the ruling opinion was a 
 desire that France and Spain should keep what they 
 possessed, that the aggrandisement of either might be a 
 real danger for England, and that what was principally 
 feared was that France should get possession of Flanders ; 
 this could not on any terms be endured by England ^ 
 
 Our middle period, if it be taken to extend as far as 
 the commencement of the proper Spanish period, will 
 reach far into the eighties. But it falls naturally into 
 two halves. The St Bartholomew (August 24th, 1572) 
 falls between the third and fourth of the seven religious 
 wars of France. It was closely connected with Charles IX's 
 change of policy, which brought Coligny, the great 
 victim of the St Bartholomew, into the foreground. It 
 nearly corresponds in time with those occurrences at 
 Brille and Flushing, which for the first time gave 
 European importance to the movement in the Low 
 Countries. It was in other respects so unprecedented 
 and so pregnant with consequences that we may fairly 
 regard it as a turning-point. 
 
 Elizabeth has now reached the fourteenth year of her 
 reign and has begun to take up a definite position among 
 the great European sovereigns. We have seen with what 
 immeasurable difficulties she had had from the outset to 
 contend, wanting a clear title, wanting a recognised 
 successor, ruling a country which had not made up its 
 mind about religion, yet on the whole adhering to the 
 
 ^ La Ferrifire, Le xvi« Silcle et Us Valois, p. 315. 
 
134 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Reformation in an age which seemed to belong to the 
 Counter- Reformation, in the age of Pope Pius V and 
 King Philip II, and when France too rejected the Refor- 
 mation with a strange decisiveness. 
 
 In these circumstances Elizabeth had seemed at first 
 to have a position almost as precarious as Lady Jane 
 Grey, and it would seem that her safety required her first 
 as soon as possible to marry and have heirs, secondly, as 
 soon as the Counter-Reformation would allow her, to put 
 her throne under the protection of some great alliance. 
 And now that fourteen years have passed what progress 
 has she made ? 
 
 She is not married, and as she is thirty-nine years old 
 marriage has become difficult to her. The world has 
 grown far more hostile to her in the course of these years 
 since the Counter-Reformation has prevailed beyond all 
 anticipation. The Reformation has failed in France, and 
 reviving Catholicism has had rare good luck in finding 
 such a Pope as the Ghislieri. Jamac, Moncontour and the 
 Pope's Bull have fallen like successive blows upon Eliza- 
 beth. 
 
 As against the European Counter- Reformation she has 
 accomplished nothing. But within the island she has 
 presided over a memorable developement. The British 
 Question has ripened more than in many ages before. 
 Scotland has followed England in adhering to the Refor- 
 mation ; the control of France over Scotland has ceased ; 
 in Scotland a child is growing up who may one day claim 
 to rule over the whole of Britain. Elizabeth's rival is now 
 acknowledged only by a party in Scotland and she is a 
 prisoner in the hands of Elizabeth. The Catholic Reaction 
 too has struck its blow and failed. The Rising of the 
 North has been suppressed. 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 135 
 
 And now at last a rift becomes visible in the storm- 
 cloud. The Counter-Reformation begins to break up. 
 It appears that Europe will not after all adopt the fixed 
 idea of Pius V. Secular politics revive. The question of 
 the Low Countries breaks out. France at the moment 
 when she declares herself Catholic declares also that she 
 cannot see Spanish ambition swallow up Flanders. She 
 appeals to England, and Elizabeth too begins in a secular 
 spirit to re-enter Continental politics. 
 
 Now that it is once more possible to think of resisting 
 Catholicism the question arises in what way shall resistance 
 be offered. What shall be Elizabeth's attitude towards 
 the rebellion in the Low Countries and towards the wars 
 of religion in France ? Shall she stand forward as the 
 patroness of the Reformation and throw down the gauntlet 
 at once to Philip and to Catharine de Medici ; shall she 
 send aid to the Prince of Orange and to Coligny ? This 
 would be a violent change when we consider that she had 
 lately been dreading an irresistible attack, and that she 
 had but just suppressed a Catholic Reaction in England. 
 The Counter-Reformation was not dead, though it had 
 received a check ; Catholicism was not weak, though it 
 had ceased to be all-powerful. The new fact was simply 
 this, that France and Spain were no longer united. 
 Accordingly the natural course for Elizabeth was not to 
 defy them both at once, but simply to take advantage of 
 their division by making advances to one or the other- 
 Accordingly a principal feature of this middle period 
 is that friendly relations arise between England and 
 France. ^ 
 
 Spain, as representing the ancient Burgundy, had 
 hitherto been England's ally, and in the last great Euro- 
 pean war Spain and England had stood together against 
 
136 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 France. Elizabeth's reign had opened with the cession of 
 Calais, and in her Scottish period France had been her 
 most dangerous enemy. The question of Calais had 
 perplexed her first years until it was settled in 1.564 by 
 the treaty of Troyes. Mary Stiiart had been connected 
 with France by her mother and by her first husband and 
 by the ancient French alliance with Scotland. But when 
 the middle period begins and the incubus of the Counter- 
 Reformation is lightened it becomes possible for Elizabeth 
 to form an alliance with France. On April 29th of the 
 memorable year 1572, the year of the St Bartholomew, 
 there was concluded at Blois a treaty of confederation and 
 alliance between Charles IX, King of France, and Elizabeth, 
 Queen of England, in which the parties promised aid to 
 each other against any attack made on any pretext or 
 colour or for any cause without exception. The Queen 
 shall be bound to furnish six thousand infantry; the most 
 Christian king shall be bound to furnish eight ships of 
 reasonable size. A considerable security for Elizabeth in 
 her tedious struggle with Mary Stuart ! 
 
 It is also a feature of this period that French princes 
 are now the most prominent candidates for Elizabeth's 
 hand. In 1563 Conde proposed that she should marry 
 Charles IX himself, and this negotiation dragged on till 
 the year 1565. In 1570, after the Peace of St Germain 
 had brought to an end the third war of religion, Anjou, 
 afterwards king Henry III, was put forward as a candidate, 
 and this negotiation brings us to 1572, when the third 
 Valois prince, Alen5on, takes Anjou's place. 
 
 All these facts taken together point to the year 1572 
 as a memorable turning-point. England is not indeed 
 yet placed in direct mortal opposition to the Spanish 
 Monarchy. The Spanish period of Elizabethan policy does 
 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 137 
 
 not yet begin, but the great international question in 
 which the struggle with Spain is but an incident is already 
 open. In 1572 the full seriousness of it was first under- 
 stood; in 1572 both England and France began to take 
 up a decided attitude towards it. It was the beginning 
 of a new international period, when both these Powers 
 began to speak of holding the ambition of Spain in check. 
 But in the same year occurred the death of Pius V and 
 an event so unprecedented as the St Bartholomew. France 
 plunged again into religious war. 
 
 Elizabeth having for the time surmounted her insular 
 difficulties begins to enter into the politics of Europe. 
 She forms relations with France which extend beyond 
 the Low Countries Question. Altogether her position, 
 though still difficult, is considerably improved. When 
 compared with other countries, it begins to appear that 
 England is passing prosperously through one of the 
 darkest periods of European history. It has been a time 
 of horror in France, convulsed with atrocious wars, in 
 Scotland which has seen the tragedies of Riccio and 
 Darnley, and in the Low Countries. Meanwhile in 
 England, where the political difficulties had been as great 
 as elsewhere, there had been little disturbance and little 
 bloodshed. 
 
 The great European event of these years has been the 
 decisive declaration of France in favour of Catholicism. 
 But France is not yet the first of European Powers. 
 The first Power is the Spanish Monarchy, which in this 
 year 1572 begins to feel the difficulty of the great problem 
 of the day, the suppression of rebellion in the Low 
 Countries. But fourteen years earlier Philip had borne 
 the title of king in England, and it was still apparent 
 that the question of the Low Countries could scarcely be 
 
i-iS GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 separated from the question of England. Philip's mind 
 was still possessed with the ideas of the Counter-Refor- 
 mation : to him Elizabeth was as the Prince of Orange, 
 a heretic who could have no right to sit on a throne. A 
 duel therefore between England and the Spanish Monarchy 
 began now to be foreseen. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 
 
 The Spanish Monarchy, which begins by degrees to 
 confront Elizabethan England as a rival and then as an 
 enemy, was the greatest of Christian Powers. In certain 
 respects it differed widely from the other great Continental 
 Power, France. It was not an ancient Power, but in its 
 actual form was of yesterday. It had been formed out of 
 the dominion of Charles V ; his son and successor, Philip II, 
 was the first sovereign who had ruled precisely the 
 complex of territories which we call the Spanish Monarchy. 
 He too, unlike his father, was a genuine Spaniard by 
 temperament and habits, and in his administration he 
 leaned much more than his father had done upon the 
 Castillian element, so that a dominion which extended 
 over so many different populations might henceforth 
 justly be called from its ruliag population, the Spanish 
 Monarchy. 
 
 The first characteristic which this new Power displayed 
 had been its absolute devotion to the Counter-Reformation. 
 Neither in Spain nor Italy nor in the New World was 
 there any such rebellion as was seen in Scotland and 
 
140 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 France, and as might be feared in England. And through- 
 out the whole period, nay, throughout the whole seven- 
 teenth century, this Catholic Monarchy, founded by Charles 
 V, remained in all these regions exempt from the dis- 
 turbance of the Reformation. 
 
 But one region of Philip's empire formed, as we know, 
 an exception. The rebellion of the Low Countries became 
 after a time highly important. We shall soon observe it 
 gathering to itself all the international politics of the 
 west of Europe, and we shall see that in the last quarter 
 of the sixteenth, and in the first quarter of the seventeenth 
 century it determines the foreign policy of all the western 
 Powers. Nevertheless in the period now before us this is 
 not yet the case. The disturbances began indeed about 
 1567, but the government interfered with ruthless decision, 
 and as at that moment the Counter-Reformation was at its 
 height, there was every reason to suppose that heresy 
 would be stamped out in the Low Countries, as it had 
 already been in Spain and in Italy. Not till about 1572, 
 that is, almost at the end of the period before us, did this 
 prospect begin to fade away ; not till then did observers 
 begin to surmise that the rebellion might succeed. 
 
 And just at the same time the Counter-Reformation in 
 its first form began to disappear. It began to be perceived 
 that France and Spaia could not act together for the 
 suppression of heresy all over the world. From this 
 time forwai'd then the cause of Catholicism falls more 
 exclusively upon Philip. Henceforth he is more than 
 Catholic King; he is Christian Emperor almost as his 
 father had been before him. He is a kind of second 
 Spanish Theodosius, whose sword is at the service of 
 orthodoxy. 
 
 In its foreign relations this Spanish Power had another 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 141 
 
 very marked characteristic. As it possessed Sicily, Sardinia, 
 Naples and the Duchy of Milan and had some hold on 
 northern Africa, it might be called the mistress of the 
 western or Christian Mediterranean. In this maritime 
 region it was neighbour to the Porte, and we are to bear 
 in mind that in the period now before us the House of 
 Othman had not yet even decidedly entered upon its 
 decline. Soliman, the victor of Mohacz, lived till 1566 ; 
 that is, the series of invincible sultans, who had overthrown 
 the Greek Empire, had not yet ceased to reign, Islam had 
 not yet ceased to conquer, and it was reasonable to 
 expect that Christendom would suffer new blows and 
 perhaps have to surrender yet new kingdoms to the enemy 
 of the Cross. 
 
 If the Turk was to make new conquests must they 
 not be made at the expense of the Spanish Monarchy ? 
 In the sixteenth century his advance had been chiefly in 
 the Mediterranean; he had become more and more a 
 naval Power. In the Mediterranean he would now speedily 
 meet the Spaniard. It would fall to the successors of 
 Soliman, if they would follow the tradition of the House 
 of Othman, to make their way into the western basin of 
 the Mediterranean; they had already been withstood by 
 Charles V on the African coast; it was to be expected 
 that the new Spanish Monarchy would have to withstand 
 them in Sicily. 
 
 Fortunately at this conjuncture decline began for the 
 first time to show itself in the Ottoman State. Had 
 this not happened, had the irresistible march of the 
 Turkish conquests continued through another generation, 
 the Spanish Monarchy would perhaps have suffered even 
 more than this. A sultan of the great race succeeding 
 Soliman would not have rested content with the con- 
 
142 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 quest of Sicily; he would have remembered the kingdom 
 of Granada, which had been torn from Islam in the days 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella; it would have been his am- 
 bition to send his fleets to the Spanish coast and to revive 
 any embers of Islam that might still be discoverable in 
 the neighbourhood of the Alhambra or of the Mosque of 
 Cordova. 
 
 We shall have in this view of Elizabeth's reign to 
 think principally of the Spanish Monarchy in its relations 
 to the Low Countries, until we corae to speak of its direct 
 attack upon England. But it had a foreign danger in the 
 South more pressing than any which threatened it in the 
 North. It had to look to its own southern coasts and to 
 its Mediterranean relations as well as to its relations in 
 the North Sea. This reflexion prepares us for the phase 
 through which Philip's affairs are passing in our middle 
 period. About 1570 the discord with England is not 
 yet ripe ; what we see is first a rebellion of the old 
 Moriscoes, who set up a prince of the old Ommyad line and 
 look to the sea, where they hope to see Turkish fleets 
 arriving to their aid; and next we see the campaign of 
 Lepanto, naval strategy on an unheard-of scale, Philip's 
 rehearsal of his invincible armada. 
 
 The secession of France from the Counter-Reformation, 
 and her secret adhesion along with England to the rebel- 
 lion of the Low Countries, seem to have been immediately 
 caused by the campaign of Lepanto. That campaign was 
 in fact the crown of the Counter- Reformation ; the reunion 
 of Christendom could not be accounted complete without 
 a great triumph over the Infidels. But Lepanto was 
 almost as much a victory of the House of Austria over 
 France as it was a victory of the Cross over the Crescent. 
 All through Charles V's time France had sought the aid 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 143 
 
 of the Infidel against the Emperor. For against the Turk 
 the Habsburg was so placed that he could not but take 
 the lead of Christendom, and reap the chief glory of any 
 Christian victories. It seemed indeed to be the principal 
 providential calling of the House of Habsburg ia the grand 
 form which it assumed under Charles V to resist the 
 House of Othman on something like equal terms. And 
 now that the Reformation seemed to recede into the past 
 and Christendom seemed to be reunited, only one wish 
 remained, namely, that the progress of the Turk, so long 
 favoured by Christian divisions, should now be arrested by 
 the common action of Christendom. The Pope was no 
 longer, after the abdication of Charles, afraid of the Emperor; 
 he could call in the aid of a Christian sovereign who was 
 sufficiently strong and yet would not urge those imperial 
 claims of which the Holy See had been so jealous in the 
 reign of Charles V. Philip was to be the champion of 
 Christendom in this age, as a hundred years later another 
 Habsburg, the Emperor Leopold. 
 
 The progress of the Turk had been uninterrupted 
 since the fourteenth century, nor was there yet any 
 clear reason to suppose that it had arrived at its limit. 
 The centenary of the conquest of Constantinople was past, 
 and the Turk had developed a great naval power, besides 
 annexing Egypt and Syria. The Sultan and the Catholic 
 King now confronted each other in the Mediterranean, the 
 former being lord of the eastern, and the latter of the 
 western, basin. Philip ruled Naples and Sicily and was a 
 kind of paramount Power in the rest of Italy. A Christian 
 Power, the Knights of St John, had been put by Charles 
 V in possession of the great strategical position of Malta, 
 and when Selim II succeeded Soliman in 1566, Cyprus 
 was still a province of the Venetian Republic. There was 
 
144 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 thus a great Christian confederacy in the Mediterranean, 
 consisting of Philip, the Venetians and the Knights, which 
 by a little diplomacy could be set in motion, whether for 
 offence or for defence, against the Turk. There were the 
 materials of a great crusade, which it was open to the Pope 
 to call into existence and to nourish with the funds of the 
 Ecclesiastical State and of the Catholic Church. 
 
 And thus while the great religious war of Charles IX 
 was ripening in France, and the insurrection in the 
 Netherlands, while Mary Stuart's short reign in Scotland 
 was hurrying to its tragic end, and the last Catholic 
 rebellion was approaching in England, a grander European 
 crisis arrived in the Mediterranean. The Power of the 
 western basin was to grapple with the Power of the 
 eastern, as Octavius and Antony at Actium. In this 
 case all probabilities seemed in favour of the eastern 
 Power. For the Turk was as yet almost inviacible by 
 Christian forces. He had been steadily victorious for two 
 centuries, and was still to all appearance at the height of 
 his energy and valour. Moreover the Christian Power 
 presented one most vulnerable point. Spain itself, in 
 which Moslem Powers had reigned for centuries, had 
 still a Moslem population, which at this very moment 
 was provoked to violent rebellion by the bigotry of Philip's 
 government. As then forty years earlier Soliman had 
 struck down the King of Hungary at Mohacz, the time 
 seemed now to have arrived when the Turkish fleet would 
 break into the western basin of the Mediterranean, and 
 perhaps by aiding the rebellion of the Moriscoes revive the 
 reign of Islam within Spain itself. 
 
 France could hardly be expected to wish any other 
 consummation. The Turk had been her ally in her last 
 war with Spain, and after her disaster at St Quentin. a 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 145 
 
 diversion of Soliman's fleet, which swept the coasts of 
 Italy and the Balearic Isles, had been of the greatest 
 service to her. The war which still raged between Philip 
 and the Porte was but a continuation of that from which 
 France had retired at Cateau-Cambresis. It had been for 
 a long time disastrous to Philip. In 1559 he had lost an 
 armament which he had sent from Oran and Merz-el-Kebir 
 against Algiers, the most western province in possession of 
 Islam ; he lost another still more disastrously near Tripoli 
 in 1560. In 1563 a Spanish fleet was destroyed near 
 Malaga by a storm in which 3000 men perished. The 
 Turks now began to take a decided offensive, and threat- 
 ened to tear from Philip the few African ports that still 
 remained to Spain from the conquests of Cardinal Ximenes. 
 But Oran and Merz-el-Kebir were successfully defended in 
 1563, and in 1564 Penon de Velez was actually taken 
 from the Moslem corsairs by the Spanish Admiral, Garcia 
 de Toledo. The decisive struggle now approached. Soli- 
 man, still on the throne, began to fix his thoughts on the 
 conquest of Sicily. In 1565 he formed the siege of Malta. 
 But Lavalette and his knights successfully defended it 
 until 6000 Spaniards arrived from Sicily to its relief 
 A heroic deed of this simple kind, ending in a victory 
 of the Cross over the Crescent, shone with a peculiar 
 splendour in the dark age of religious war, religious 
 murder, religious massacre, which was then commencing 
 in France, the Low Countries and Scotland. 
 
 In 1566 a new Sultan came to the throne, Selim II. 
 In the great days of the House of Othman he would have 
 held himself bound to undertake some mighty conquest, 
 and there could be no question what task lay ready to his 
 hand. He had to plant Islam firmly in the western basin 
 by the conquest of Sicily, and then by holding out his 
 s. 10 
 
146 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 hand to the Moriscoes now rising in rebellion to restore 
 Islam in Spain itself. He might depend for success upon 
 his own mighty military power, but he had another 
 resource in the divisions of Christendom. France was 
 an old ally of the Porte, and though just at this moment 
 she was disposed to join with Philip and with Austria 
 in a crusade against the Infidel, yet in a short time she 
 recollected her old national quarrel. The diplomacy of 
 one of the great sultans, a Soliman or a Mohammed II, 
 might have played successfully upon the jealousy of Philip 
 that was felt by the French government and the jealousy 
 of the Counter-Reformation that was felt by the Protestants. 
 
 But the decline of Turkey began visibly at this point. 
 It began not in her army or her navy, but in her Padishah. 
 Selim II was not a sultan of the great race. He must 
 however undertake something, and something, it must 
 be allowed, he accomplished. He attacked the Venetians 
 in Cyprus. He took Nicosia and Famagusta, and in 
 1570 a Turkish Admiral, setting sail from Cyprus, 
 took possession of the greatest position that still remained 
 to Philip in Africa, Tunis. 
 
 Here was enough to alarm and rouse Christendom, but 
 by no means enough to disable it. It gave an opportunity 
 to the great Pope of the Counter-Reformation, Pius V, to 
 appear in that character which the Papacy always affected. 
 In May 1.571 there was established a Holy League of which 
 Philip was the chief member and undertook three-sixths 
 of the expenses, while Venice undertook two-sixths, and 
 the Pope himself the rest. The fleet assembled at Messina, 
 Don John aixiving on August 23rd, and the battle of 
 Lepanto was fought on October 7th. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the Turkish Power, then 
 the greatest in the world, could be seriously shaken by a 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 147 
 
 single defeat even on a large scale. The victory of Lepanto 
 was by no means an equivalent to Christendom for the loss 
 of Cj^rus, nor did it lead to further successes, for Don 
 John could not succeed in permanently recovering Tunis. 
 It is chiefly important in European history as having given 
 a position of preeminence to the Spanish Monarchy. It 
 was achieved not only by a Catholic League of which Philip 
 was the leading member, but by a fleet commanded by a 
 prince of the House of Habsburg, a son of the great 
 Emperor, a half-brother of the Catholic King, if not the 
 Augustus, yet as it were the Caesar of the day. It was a 
 great triumph of reunited Christendom; for when had 
 Christendom before won a great victory over the Ottoman 
 Turk ? But it was most of all a triumph for Philip, and 
 a triumph almost as much over France as over the Porte, 
 her old ally. And to what an eminence did it raise him, 
 when we consider that this was the second resounding 
 victory that had been won by his arms ! The last great 
 European battle of that age had been the battle of St 
 Quentin, won by Philip over the French, and now the 
 greatest naval battle of many ages had been won by the 
 same Philip against the ally of France. 
 
 Thus then does Philip rise, early in the seventies, into 
 a preeminence similar to that of his father. England and 
 France, enemies and rivals only ten years before, begin to 
 make common cause against an ascendency so insupport- 
 able. The vulnerable heel of the giant lies very near to 
 them; almost without being perceived, almost without 
 being conscious, they are able to wound it. How did it 
 happen that in the year after the battle of Lepanto, when 
 Alva seemed to have made himself completely master of 
 the Low Countries, when Egmont and Hoorn were dead, 
 and Orange had gone into exile, there suddenly occurred 
 
 10—2 
 
148 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 a decisive turn of fortune, so that the great state of 
 Protestantism, the Dutch Republic, appeared in germ in 
 this very year ? At the height of his triumph we are told 
 how startled was Alva by the message which told him that 
 Brill in the island of Woorn had been occupied by the 
 followers of Orange, and we may see that this occurrence 
 proved the beginning of the Dutch Revolution. We are to 
 remember that in these regions the Powers of England and 
 France are very close at hand. Ranke writes: 'The jealousy 
 of the two Powers against Spain was sharpened by the 
 league which Philip II concluded with the Venetians 
 and the Pope against the Ottoman and the great victory of 
 Lepanto, won by the confederates. European history will 
 always dwell on the situation and feeling of those years, 
 since they produced an event of the greatest importance. 
 There was need of such men and such circumstances that 
 the Republic of the United Netherlands might come into 
 existence. For undoubtedly but for the united opposition 
 of the English and French to Spain the ships of the 
 Prince of Orange would have been destroyed ; and when 
 the Gueux had succeeded in occupying Brill and Flushing 
 they were only able to maintain themselves there because 
 the taking of Mons, which was achieved chiefly by a force 
 of French Huguenots under Count Louis of Nassau, forced 
 the Spaniards to divide their forces.' 
 
 And thus we pass out of the age of the Counter- 
 Reformation proper, when all Catholic Powers are united 
 under the guidance of the Pope to put down heresy, into 
 an age of the ascendency of Philip, when heretical England 
 and Catholic France begin to act in concert for the 
 purpose of fomenting and maintaining the insurrection of 
 the Low Countries. 
 
 One of the periods of European resistance to ascend- 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 149 
 
 ency begins. Philip II is henceforth to Europe what 
 Louis XIV was a hundred years later and revolutionary 
 and Napoleonic France at the end of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 But for a long time the resistance of England and 
 France is more or less underhand. It was an age of great 
 disorder in international affairs. As France at home 
 was divided into hostile camps, so on her Belgian frontier 
 she could act at pleasure, either against Philip through 
 the Huguenots or officially on his side. England in like 
 manner by keeping intentionally a lax police on her seas 
 was able without avowed war to prey upon Spanish trade 
 year after year, and year after year to lend help to the 
 Flemish and Dutch insurgents. This disguised condition 
 of things lasted till about 1584, when it suddenly passed 
 away both for England and France. Then began the 
 intense crisis of the long struggle, under the shocks of 
 which both English and French policy assumed their 
 permanent shape. 
 
 The kind of provisional period that preceded this, the 
 period in which we see some anticipation of the seven- 
 teenth century, might be labelled with the name Alengon. 
 France, England and Holland are already in the general 
 relation they are to maintain later, but the relation is as 
 yet indistinct and insecure. It does not yet appear that the 
 Dutch are to form an independent state, and that neither 
 France nor England is to acquire what Spain is to lose. 
 France too is in a half-liquid condition. The Valois dynasty 
 is sinking, and with it apparently the unity of the state. 
 There is as yet no victorious and august House of Bourbon. 
 In England the succession remains as unsettled as ever. 
 The Duke of Alen9on represents this unsatisfactory inter- 
 val. For he represents on one side the feebleness into 
 
150 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 which the Valois Monarchy had fallen, being a kind of 
 rival or anti-king to his brother Henri III ; on another 
 side he aspires to rule the Netherlands as Duke of 
 Brabant and Count of Flanders, and also to marry Queen 
 Elizabeth. His sudden death without an heir in 1.584 
 introduces in a moment the House of Bourbon to Europe. 
 Immediately afterwards begins the intense crisis. 
 
 In this stormy period famous men have a brief and 
 meteoric career. Only Philip and Elizabeth hold a steadfast 
 course, presiding over the vast developement and accom- 
 panying the sixteenth century to its close. But for the 
 most part the great personages of the sixties disajjpear 
 early in the seventies, and a new group takes their place, 
 which in like manner disappears before the crisis of the 
 eighties arrives. To the sixties belong those heroes of 
 tragedy, Egmont, Don Carlos, Mary of Scotland, and others 
 whose fate was not less tragic, Coligny, Murray. But all 
 these with John Knox are passed away when the transition 
 we now take note of occurs. They are succeeded by 
 another group not less short-lived. The great men of the 
 seventies are Don John of Austria, William of Orange, and 
 that French Duke who may be taken to represent the 
 period, Alen9on. 
 
 Of the Spanish Monarchy the representative man is 
 for a certain time Don John. He stands by the side of 
 Philip like the true successor of Charles V. The legitimate 
 son may resemble his father in painstaking diligence, as in 
 rigid orthodoxy. And he has had, and is still to have, 
 not less good fortune. But the illegitimate son alone has 
 inherited the comjDrehensive views and the military talent 
 of Charles V, so that we may surmise that in the seventies 
 the unwieldy dominion might, under his sole direction, 
 have been raised to a prosperity of which the battle of 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 151 
 
 Lepanto only furnished a delusive prospect. That victory 
 had however but little fruit. About the year 1575 
 Spain appeared to be on the whole worsted in the 
 grand maritime struggle with the Porte, and the Holy 
 League had been long since dissolved. For Philip had no 
 large views corresponding to the greatness of his position. 
 But such large views, at least where the subject was mili- 
 tary, Don John appears to have had. In his short life he 
 dealt in turn with all the great military questions of the 
 Spanish Monarchy, first with the threatening rebellion of 
 the Moriscoes. From this he passed to the grand Turkish 
 or Mediterranean question. This he had handled not only 
 brilliantly but comprehensively, so that we can imagine 
 him, had he enjoyed fuller freedom of action, commencing 
 a work, which actually was deferred almost to the advent 
 of Eugene, and reducing the Porte to the defensive. 
 
 But thirdly he dealt also with the great question of 
 the Low Countries. Four years after those first successes 
 of the Prince of Orange at Brill and Flushing, on March 
 5th, 1576, Requesens, Governor of the Netherlands, died 
 suddenly, leaving the country in the utmost confusion 
 from the advance of the insurrection. In the autumn of 
 1576 Don John set out from Spain to take his place. At 
 every stage of Don John's career we may observe that he 
 regards himself by no means as a mere officer in the 
 service of Philip II, but as a born prince, who aspires 
 to an independent crown. At one time he had begged his 
 brother to make him king of Tunis. After the death of 
 Don Carlos we find Don John spoken of as the natural 
 successor of Philip; at other times he is suspected of 
 planning a violent usurpation of his brother's place. And 
 so when he comes to the Low Countries he brings the 
 ideas not of a provincial governor but of a king and 
 
152 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 conqueror. He grasps at once the connexion, so funda- 
 mental in Spanish policy, between the question of the 
 Low Countries and the questions of England and Scotland. 
 He writes to Philip on May 27th, 1576 : 
 
 ' The true remedy for the evil condition of the Nether- 
 lands in the judgment of all men is that England should 
 be in the power of a person devoted and well-affectioned 
 to your Majesty's service; and it is the general opinion 
 that the ruin of these countries and the impossibility of 
 preserving them to your Majesty's crown, will result from 
 the contrary position of English affairs. At Rome and 
 elsewhere the rumour prevails that in this belief your 
 Majesty and His Holiness have thought of me as the best 
 instrument you could choose for the execution of your 
 designs, offended as you both are by the evil proceedings 
 of the Queen of England, and by the wrongs which she 
 has done to the Queen of Scotland, especially in sustaining 
 against her will heresy in that kingdom.' 
 
 This passage will help us to pass from those more 
 general relations of the Spanish Monarchy which have 
 been considered in this chapter to its particular relations 
 to England and Elizabeth. We have to consider out of 
 what root the great mortal struggle of the two nations 
 sprang. In the first and middle period of Elizabeth there 
 were two principal points of contact between England and 
 Spain. In the first place England had passed over to 
 heresy, and this necessarily seemed intolerable to a Philip 
 II at the crisis of the Counter-Reformation and in the 
 Papacy of Pius V. The question at that moment was of 
 restoring absolutely the unity of religion. France already 
 was visibly lost to heresy; the infidel received a serious 
 blow at Lepanto ; for a year or two the prospect of sup- 
 pressing the rebellion of the Low Countries was good ; in 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 153 
 
 these circumstances what remained but to strike a decisive 
 blow in England where Philip himself had recently been 
 king? 
 
 Then set in the transition by which the Counter- 
 Reformation was paralysed. France and England alike 
 began to grow jealous of the ascendency of Philip; division 
 appeared in the Catholic camp; the rebels of the Low 
 Countries began to receive help underhand from France 
 and England alike. If the Muse is asked to say what first 
 caused the discord which brought the Spanish Armada 
 to our shores, she must answer that it was the conviction 
 which the Spaniards formed that they could not deal with 
 the rebellion in the Low Countries without dealing at the 
 same time with the English question. 
 
 Nor had Spain yet learned to think of Elizabeth's 
 government as strong, nor of the Elizabethan settlement 
 in England as stable. The rights of Mary of Scotland, 
 the total uncertainty of the succession and the unsettled 
 condition of the religious question in England made it 
 seem for the time as easy as it seemed desirable for the 
 Spanish Monarchy to bring about a new revolution and to 
 overthrow the government of Elizabeth. And so she 
 passed through the crisis of her middle period, the Rising 
 of the North, the Pope's Bull, the Ridolfi plot and the 
 rebellion of Norfolk. During this crisis there was a sort 
 of anticipation of the Armada, for the question of an 
 invasion was much considered in the Spanish Councils. 
 In 1571 Alva had formed a very decided opinion, which 
 we find expressed in his letter from Brussels, May 7th \ It 
 is that the English enterprise would be very hazardous 
 except in one of three contingencies. These are that the 
 
 1 Given in Mignet, Histoire de Marie Stuart, App. K. 
 
154 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 queen should die either by a natural death or in some 
 other manner, or that she should fall into the hands of the 
 rebels. In any one of these cases he insists that the enter- 
 prise presents no difficulty, so that if any of them should 
 be realised, he holds that he ought to attempt it at once 
 without waiting for any further instructions from His 
 Majesty. 
 
 So critical were the relations of Elizabeth with Spain 
 seventeen years before the Armada and while Pius V was 
 still in the Papal chair. Philip II was not disposed by 
 character to strong and decisive measures, though he showed 
 himself capable of them in one part of his reign by the 
 Armada and in another by the mission of Alva to the Low 
 Countries. But when he gave Elizabeth a respite of 
 seventeen years, which she knew how to employ in con- 
 solidating her government, he seems indeed to have 
 neglected an opportunity which never returned. 
 
 Imperceptibly a great international change has been 
 advancing between the accession of Elizabeth and that 
 transitional year of her middle period, 1572. The ancient 
 alliance of England and Burgundy has been breaking up 
 and signs are already observable that it may soon be 
 replaced by a mortal enmity. Philip had been King of 
 England ; Philip and Mary had not only shared the 
 English throne, they had also fought in alliance against 
 France. To Elizabeth when she came to the throne the 
 fi'iendship of Philip had seemed the most indispensable 
 support. As late as April 1566 Cecil writes in a paper 
 entitled ' Reasons to move the Queen to accept the Arch- 
 duke Charles': 'By marriage with him the Queen shall 
 have the friendship of King Philip, which is necessary 
 considering the likelihood of falling out with France.' He 
 adds : ' No Prince of England ever remained without good 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 155 
 
 amity with the House of Burgundy, and no Prince had 
 ever less alliance than the Queen of England hath, nor 
 anj^ Prince ever had more cause to have friendship and 
 power to assist her estate.' 
 
 It is one of the greatest international events that, so 
 soon after these words were wiitten, the Spanish Monarchy 
 and England began to be regarded as belonging to opposite 
 systems in Europe. First there grew up a general opposi- 
 tion from the fact that England attached herself decidedly 
 to the Reformation at the very moment when the Counter- 
 Eeformation reached its height in Europe and Philip 
 assumed the lead of it. Then the rebellion of the Low 
 Countries furnished a more particular cause of quarrel, 
 giving Elizabeth a strong motive for aiding Philip's rebels, 
 and at the same time almost forcing Philip to interfere in 
 those controversies about Elizabeth's title and her succes- 
 sion, which led to the Rising of the North and the treason 
 of Norfolk. 
 
 Now began the concert of English and French policy 
 with respect to the Low Countries, the treaty between 
 England and France and that recommencement of the 
 rebellion of the Low Countries in the year 1572 which 
 may be considered to mark the first step towards the 
 foundation of the Dutch republic. These occurrences 
 made the growing hostility of England and the Spanish 
 Monarchy considerably more marked. Hitherto France 
 had continued to be, as in old times, England's rival, and 
 England's next war seemed more likely to be waged with 
 France, or with France and Spain together, than with the 
 Spanish Monarchy alone. France too through her con- 
 nexion with Scotland and with Mary Stuart could always 
 find a ground of war against Elizabeth. It was not yet 
 therefore clearly discernible that an age was opening in 
 
156 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 which the old rivalry of England and France should be 
 suspended, and should make way for a rivalry destined to 
 have the most far-reaching consequences between England 
 and the Spanish Monarchy. And yet it was early per- 
 ceived by some persons. In 1.570 there was published by a 
 certain Dr Wylson a translation of some of the orations of 
 Demosthenes, the moral of which is that the English of 
 Elizabeth's time resemble the Athenians whom Demo- 
 sthenes addressed in this that they have to maintain an 
 arduous conflict against a certain King Philip. 'Therefore/ 
 says Wylson, ' he that desireth to serve his country abroad 
 let him read Demosthenes day and night, for never did 
 glass so clearly represent a man's face as Demosthenes 
 doth show the world to us.' 
 
 When we have noted how and when a national rivalry 
 sprang up between England and the Spanish Monarchy 
 we may return to Don John, who in the last phase of his 
 career, between 157(j and 1578, is the statesman who 
 represents this rivalry. France has ceased to be subser- 
 vient to Spain and has made a treaty with England, yet if 
 a Spanish attack upon England should be contrived from 
 the Low Countries, Don John may hope for much assistance 
 even from France. His chief ally is to be Mary Stuart, 
 who will bring with her not only her party in Scotland 
 and England, but also a great and rising party from 
 France. New developements are already appearing there, 
 and the germ of the League is already visible. The 
 Guise family leads this party, and to the Guise family 
 Mary of Scotland belongs. 
 
 We may see then what the attack on England was 
 which Don John meditated. The party, composed of 
 Philip, Mary and Guise with their respective adherents, 
 has now a leader, the hero of Christendom, the victor of 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 157 
 
 Lepanto, the great Bastard of Austria, Don John. Such 
 royal Bastards in those ages seemed the natural leaders of 
 every bold adventure in which a kingdom changed hands ; 
 but they expected a great reward. Don John set out for 
 the Low Countries resolved to strike for Mary of Scotland 
 herself if not also for the throne of Britain and the Low 
 Countries. 
 
 Little indeed came of this enterprise, nor need we 
 linger on it long. Don John found in the Low Countries 
 mainly disappointment, which wore him out in two years, 
 so that he died on October 1st, 1578. But in the cor- 
 respondence of Mary Stuart herself we find a curious 
 passage in which she seems to refer to Don John. It 
 occurs in a form of testament which she drew up in 
 February 1577 and runs thus : ' That I may not contravene 
 the glory, honour, and safety of the Catholic, Apostolic, 
 and Eoman Church in which I would live and die — if the 
 prince of Scotland, my son, can be brought back in spite 
 of the evil training in the heresy of Calvin which he has 
 received to my great regret among my rebels, I leave him 
 sole and only heir of my kingdom of Scotland and of the 
 just right which I assert to the crown of England and 
 the countries depending on it ; but if not, and my said son 
 continues to live in the said heresy, I cede and transfer 
 and make donation of all my rights in England and else- 
 where... to the Catholic King, or others of his family at 
 his pleasure, with the advice and consent of his Holiness, 
 both because I see him at the present day the only sure 
 support of the Catholic religion, and from gratitude for 
 the undeserved favours which I and mine, at my recom- 
 mendation, have received from him in my greatest neces- 
 sity, and also in consideration of the right which he may 
 himself assert to the said kingdoms and countries. I 
 
158 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 entreat that in return he will form alliance with the House 
 of Lorraine and, if he can, with that of Guise, in memory 
 of the race of which I descend on the mother's side.' 
 
 Here is expressed the principle of the Counter-Reform- 
 ation, that heresy disqualifies for succession to a throne. 
 Here at the same time is sketched the combination which 
 was to dominate western Europe in the period of the 
 League. But at the same time the two British kingdoms 
 are handed over, with the consent of Philip, apparently to 
 Don John. 
 
 Had Don John arrived in the Low Countries about 
 seven years earlier, at that crisis when the Counter- 
 Reformation seemed to want nothing but a prompt and 
 daring leader, such a plan might have succeeded. But the 
 face of affairs had since been entirely transformed by Alva. 
 New events were deciding the course of the rebellion 
 when Don John arrived at Luxemburg near the close of 
 1576, for he arrived on the day before the Fury of Antwerp 
 and four days before the promulgation of the Pacification 
 of Ghent. A crisis had been produced not altogether 
 favourable to a romantic crusade against England, yet 
 naturally suggesting enterprises of the kind. The Fury 
 of Antwerp, following other violences scarcely less enor- 
 mous, possessed all minds in the Low Countries with the 
 single thought of expelling from the territory the foreign 
 army. In the Union of Brussels signed early in January 
 1577 this point was gained. The foreign army under Don 
 John was to leave the Low Countries. But this measure 
 had two faces. For whither was the army to go ? What 
 was possible and what was in the mind of Don John 
 appeared from his proposal to withdraw the army not by 
 land but by sea. It might cross the Northern Sea to the 
 land where a heretic queen reigned, and held imprisoned a 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 159 
 
 Catholic princess who would give to any husband she 
 might choose, rights over both insular kingdoms. So near 
 to the domain of practical politics did the romantic scheme 
 arrive ; so near but no nearer. It was debated for a while 
 whether the Spanish army should retire by sea or by land, 
 but the debate was over by the end of February, and by 
 the end of April 1577 the troops had actually withdrawn 
 by land, and for the time at least the danger of Don John 
 appearing in England at the head of a Spanish army and 
 claiming the throne of Elizabeth had vanished. It did 
 not reappear. Don John's scheme seems to have received 
 some support at Rome in the shape of promises, perhaps 
 even payments, of money. It bore indeed the stamp of 
 the Counter-Reformation, which had its centre at Rome, 
 and which had entered upon a somewhat new phase when 
 Pius V was succeeded by Gregory XIII. Gregory XIII 
 fixes his mind particularly upon the reconquest of England. 
 But how would Philip himself regard Don John's enter- 
 prise ? Philip understood clearly the nature of Don 
 John's ideas, and could discern in him not a loyal subject 
 but an adventurer of vast and dangerous ambition, who 
 was running a course not unlike that of Don Carlos. 
 Accordingly he does not support the English scheme of 
 Don John unless, it may be, by one or two vague and 
 casual expressions. It becomes identified in Philip's mind 
 with high treason and passes out of the domain of politics 
 into that of court-mystery and tragedy, where we cannot 
 follow it. We cannot tell here the story of the death of 
 Escovedo. 
 
 We are concerned simply with the Spanish Monarchy 
 and its attitude towards Elizabeth in the earlier part of 
 her reign. Don John represents one phase which might 
 have proved memorable. But it was very transient. Don 
 
160 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 John did not strike in the Northern Seas any such blow as 
 he had struck in the Mediterranean. He won indeed in 
 Brabant the battle of Gemblours, in which the superiority 
 of the Spanish soldiery was wonderfully displayed. Then 
 he fell ill and died, distrusted by his brother and leaving 
 his vast designs unaccomplished. 
 
 When Don John died in 1578, the last Valois, Henry 
 III, was reigning in France. Since the St Bartholomew 
 religious war had begun again in that country, but a 
 considerable intermission set in with the Treaty of Bergerac 
 in 1.577. The Scottish question had also developed con- 
 siderably. Europe was approaching a period when it would 
 unite against Philip, as later against Louis XIV or 
 Revolutionary France. But this simpler international 
 arrangement was not arrived at immediately, not before 
 1585. In the meanwhile a great event took place in 
 Spain, an event so great as to alter materially the character 
 of that Spanish Monarchy which was so rapidly assuming 
 the character of an ascendant Power. Spain had in those 
 years enough to do in the Low Countries, where Alexander 
 of Parma began his great career almost before Don John 
 so prematurely ended his. She was spared however those 
 terrible and intricate religious conflicts which tormented 
 France. Nevertheless at this time she added to her Low 
 Countries Question a Portuguese Question, which was not 
 less momentous though it occupied her a shorter time. 
 
 In order to arrive at the crisis of 1585 it will be 
 necessary to glance at intricate changes in several coun- 
 tries. It may however be most conducive to clearness to 
 begin by carrying the view that has been attempted in 
 this chapter of the Spanish Monarchy past the great event, 
 which may be called transformation, that befel it in 1580. 
 That event, the annexation of Portugal, the substitution 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHy. 161 
 
 for Spain of a great united Iberia, though one of the 
 greatest events in Spanish history, was at the same time 
 an event of simple nature, and may be described, so far as 
 it affected England, briefly, for which reason we may give 
 it precedence over some other events which we must also 
 consider and which precede it chronologically. 
 
 The dream of a contest on equal terms between France 
 and Spain for the Low Countries was soon to pass away. 
 Already the renown of Spain stood far higher than that 
 of France or any other Power. To the historical student 
 now Philip II is an embodiment of ignorant statesmanship, 
 narrowness and dulness of mind, perverted morality, every 
 quality which brings a state to ruin, and we trace to him 
 the ruin of Spain. But we are wise after the event. In 
 the period before us Philip's realm was the only state in 
 the world which could be called glorious. Germany was 
 passing through a period of strange obscurity ; Elizabeth 
 had won no battles, the French king only the dismal 
 victories of Jamac and Moncontour. Only Spain had 
 earned such laurels as those of St Quentin and Lepanto, 
 and she had now in her service the great military genius 
 of the sixteenth century, Alexander of Parma. 
 
 And now Spain was suddenly to rise higher than ever, 
 and at the same time France was to sink as suddenly 
 lower. 
 
 These changes took place between 1580 and 1584, so 
 that in 1585 Europe assumed a wholly new aspect. No 
 transition so abrupt occurs at any other point in the second 
 half of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The occurrences which produced this great alteration 
 in the relative position of France and Spain are 
 
 (1) the annexation of Portugal by Philip II. 
 
 (2) the recommencement of religious war in France, 
 S. 11 
 
162 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 when by the death of Alenyon the Huguenot Henri of 
 Navarre became presumptive heir to the throne of France. 
 
 Hitherto we have seen Philip availing himself prin- 
 cipally of his character as the champion of Catholicism 
 and of the Counter-reformation. But we are to remember 
 also that he is the head of the House of Habsburg, the 
 heir of that Charles V, who had founded an unlimited 
 dominion upon the basis of royal marriage. His house has 
 never abandoned this method, and now in 1580 a demise 
 occurs which is to Philip II something like what the death 
 of Ferdinand of Aragon had been to Charles V. Don 
 Sebastian of Portugal falls ' with all his peerage ' in battle 
 against the Moors at Alcazarkebir. He leaves no heir, 
 and the Cardinal Henry, his successor at sixty-seven years 
 of age, dies in 1.580. A very brief war of succession was 
 decided in favour of Philip II by a land-battle won by 
 Alva and a naval battle won by Santa Cruz. In 1581 
 Philip II was solemnly proclaimed king of Portugal at 
 Lisbon, while his rival, the national representative, Don 
 Antonio, Prior of Crato, was driven into exile and a price 
 set upon his head. 
 
 It is hardly usual to think of the annexation of the 
 Portuguese Monarchy by Philip II of Spain which took 
 place in 1580 as an event in English history. Nevertheless 
 if we would trace the rise of the Britannic Great Power 
 among the Great Powers of Modern Europe we shall find 
 that among the greatest steps in that developement, 
 in which the Spanish Monarchy was throughout the 
 antagonist, were two Portuguese events counterbalancing 
 each other, that of 1580, by which Portugal was merged 
 in Spain, and that which began in 1640, the War of 
 Acclamation, by which Portugal recovered her inde- 
 pendence under the House of Bragan5a. In 1580 when 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 163 
 
 the rivalry of England and the Spanish Monarchy was 
 so rapidly growing up, a new complexion, highly important 
 for our history, was suddenly given to it by the Portuguese 
 occurrence. Hitherto it has come under the general 
 category of the Counter-Reformation. Elizabeth has 
 been the heretic queen, Philip the champion of reviving 
 Catholicism. But a new aspect of the Spanish Monarchy 
 is brought into prominence when the Portuguese is 
 merged in it. Those Monarchies were twin not merely in 
 geographical position but more strikingly still in their 
 foreign and international relations. They had precisely 
 the same relation to the maritime and extra- European 
 world. The two peninsular states had hitherto divided 
 between them the dominion of the sea as they had 
 divided the discovery of the New World. The fusion 
 of them therefore produced a single state of unlimited 
 maritime dominion. This at the moment when its 
 rivalry with England was springing up. The rivalry then 
 was henceforth between the two united peninsular states 
 and the great insular state of Europe. It became therefore 
 no mere rivalry of religions, but a rivalry of maritime 
 dominion. The maritime and oceanic aspect of the 
 English state is pushed more into the foreground. 
 
 The greatness of the catastrophe by which Portugal 
 was annexed to Spain seems at first difficult to reconcile 
 with the facility and rapidity with which it was ac- 
 complished. The Portuguese Monarchy was not much less 
 than five centuries old. For so long a time Portuguese 
 monarchs distinct and independent had reigned. The 
 sixteenth century had seen the brilliant reign of Manoel 
 the Fortunate, then that of John III, then that of 
 Sebastian. Now suddenly there begins in Portuguese 
 history the age of the Philips, in which for sucty years the 
 
 11—2 
 
164 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 King of Portugal is also King of Spain, Philip II, 
 Philip III and Philip IV in succession. The Portuguese 
 territory in Europe had not indeed been large, but the 
 distinction of the Monarchy had been altogether out of 
 proportion to it and indeed quite unique. In the great 
 achievement of laying open the extra-European world no 
 state had done nearly so much, first in circumnavigating 
 Africa, then in laying open the Indian Ocean and India 
 itself and the Spice Islands. It is to be added that the 
 very greatest of all the achievements of that age of 
 exploration, not excluding that of Columbus, had been 
 achieved not indeed in the service of Portugal but by a 
 man known now as Ferdinand Magellan, and known at the 
 time when he achieved it as Fernando Magelhaens, but 
 a Portuguese by birth and education, and named originally 
 Femao Magalhaes. It may seem strange that a monarchy 
 so ancient and so illustrious should be so easily subverted 
 and should disappear after so little resistance in the state 
 of Philip II, at a time too when Philip was so hard 
 pressed in the Low Countries and was making enemies 
 of France and England. 
 
 This great European change was effected at very 
 little expense of war. If it was a conquest, we are to 
 remember that it was a conquest of the Habsburg type. 
 It turned upon a marriage. The Portuguese Monarchy 
 was merged in the Spanish because Philip II's mother 
 had been Isabella, daughter of Manoel the Fortunate, that 
 king of Portugal who represents the highest greatness of 
 the old house of Avis, and because in 1578 king Sebastian 
 died childless. Thus there befel Portugal what might at 
 any time have befallen England had Elizabeth died leaving 
 the succession unregulated. The Portuguese succession 
 became in a moment what the Spanish succession became 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 165 
 
 at the end of the seventeenth century, and might have 
 shaken a whole generation with war had France and 
 England been prepared to check Philip by a warlike 
 Coalition. But the Habsburg marriage was there, and it 
 was supported, if not by any overwhelming military or 
 naval power, yet by a greater power in the hand of Philip 
 than any which could be brought against him. 
 
 Thus the cause of the calamity of Portugal was twofold. 
 There was first the fall of king Sebastian with all his 
 peerage at Alcazar in 1578, by which Portugal was left 
 without army, without nobility, and without king, or child of 
 the king. This Flodden Field of Portugal might by itself 
 have thrown the country open to Philip's occupation. 
 But for the moment Portugal found a king in the 
 Cardinal Infant Henrique, the uncle of Sebastian, who 
 averted the full calamity of an open succession till he 
 died in 1580. This second event, as I have said, is 
 to Portugal what the death of queen Elizabeth about 
 the same time might have been to England. The 
 circumstances indeed were in some respects strikingly 
 parallel. Elizabeth was a virgin queen, who however was 
 courted up to the threshold of old age. Henrique had 
 cherished through life a clerical aversion to marriage, but 
 in his old age after the death of Sebastian, when his 
 people began to see that their very independence required 
 that he should leave heirs, we find the authorities of 
 Lisbon requiring that he, 67 years old, should marry. 
 His Alen9on is at one time the widow of Charles IX, but 
 he himself inclines rather to Maria, eldest daughter of the 
 Duke of Bragan9a, a girl of 14 years. Negociations with 
 the Papal Court for a dispensation were actually opened. 
 And as in England, so in Portugal it was held, and truly 
 held, that the whole interest of the nation depended 
 
166 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 absolutely upon this personal question, and because two 
 years later no heir to the Portuguese House was forth- 
 coming Portugal fell at once from her place among 
 European states. 
 
 On the death of Henrique in January 1580 there 
 appeared two Portuguese pretenders to the crown, de- 
 scended, like Philip II himself, from Manoel the Fortunate. 
 One was the Duchess of Braganga, of a family whose day 
 was to come when the Spanish tyranny was overpast. 
 The other was Antonio, Prior of Crato, who however was 
 stained by illegitimate birth. There were also foreign 
 pretenders, among whom Catherine de Medici put herself 
 forward. Her claims were so slight that her object in 
 urging them appeared plainly to be to put a hindrance 
 in the way of those of Philip. A rivalry had for some 
 time been growing up between France and Spain. It is 
 one of the most important incidents of the great event 
 which now occurred to ripen this rivalry into actual war. 
 Philip had no great difficulty in annexing Portugal, but 
 when the war reached the Azores the Prior of Crato was 
 aided by 7000 French troops and a French fleet of 70 sail, 
 and open war began between the Spanish Habsburg and 
 the Valois. 
 
 The annexation of Portugal is not only important in 
 English history, it is also one of the gi-eatest European 
 events of that age, and the greatness of it is seldom suffi- 
 ciently perceived. If the union of England and Scotland 
 to form Great Britain is one of the leading events of our 
 own history, is it not evident that Philip must have risen 
 at once to a higher level of power when from being king of 
 Spain he became king of a united Iberia ? For Portugal 
 was not a mere isolated acquisition, as Sicily or the duchy 
 of Milan might have been ; it was continuous with Spain, 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 167 
 
 and by being united with Spain created a kingdom with a 
 peninsular frontier. There could be no greater strategical 
 and commercial acquisition than Lisbon with the mouth 
 of the Tagus and a long Atlantic sea-board ; and the 
 acquisition must be reckoned twice over, since it was not 
 only acquired by Philip but taken away from a possible 
 enemy of Philip, The entrance by which in the War of 
 the Spanish Succession and again in the Peninsular War 
 the English made their way to Madrid was closed to 
 England or any other naval Power so long as Portugal and 
 Spain were under the same Government. So long Spain 
 was secure against invasion except through the Pyrenees. 
 
 And yet this is but the smaller half of the event. 
 What was conquered was not merely a small European 
 kingdom, however favourably situated. What was con- 
 quered was the greatest maritime and colonising Power in 
 the world except Spain, the only great maritime and 
 colonising Power beside Spain. In 1580 no European 
 Powers except Spain and Portugal had colonies of the 
 slightest importance. What was conquered was not only 
 Portugal but Brazil, the Azores, Guinea, Angola and 
 Benguela, the Cape, Zanzibar, Quiloa, Mozambique, Soco- 
 tora, Ormuz, Cambai, Ceylon, Malacca, Macao. And this 
 again was doubly conquered. From the whole Oceanic 
 world every second Power was henceforth excluded, and 
 henceforth the whole New World belonged exclusively to 
 Spain. So mighty a revolution has never since taken 
 place in a moment in the extra-European region with 
 which Europeans are concerned. 
 
 If Spain had been by much the gi-eatest European 
 Power before 1580, how far must it have surpassed all 
 others after that year ! And shortly afterwards France, 
 the only possible rival of Spain, saw its old wound reopen, 
 
168 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 as grisly, as incurable, as ever. The religious wars of 
 France began again. The circumstances of this event 
 will engage our attention later. It was caused imme- 
 diately by the death of Alen^on-Anjou in 1584. 
 
 And to Elizabeth, brooding on all these things, there 
 came a month later the tidings that William of Orange, 
 who divided with herself the active leadership of the 
 Reformation in the world, upon whose Atlantean shoulders 
 the whole insurrection of the Low Countries rested, had 
 been murdered by one of those fanatics, who as she well 
 knew had been in pursuit of her own life for a dozen years 
 past. 
 
 It was evident that events were hurrying to a crisis, 
 that the respite which had been first granted to her and to 
 her England about 1562, and had been prolonged again 
 about 1570, was now running out. The daughter of Anne 
 Boleyn, who had been called in early womanhood to the 
 most dangerous position in the world, and had maintained 
 herself there in a kind of miraculous security for more 
 than twenty years, would soon find the danger more 
 pressing than ever and refusing to be held aloof by delays 
 and temporising measures. But it was a remarkable 
 feature of the great crisis which was brought on by the 
 two deaths just mentioned that it affected France as 
 much as England, and in a similar way. The Spanish 
 Monarchy now raised by the annexation of Portugal to 
 the pinnacle of power placed itself in opposition to France 
 as well as to England. We have seen two phases of the 
 international relations of Spain, the Counter-Reformation 
 phase, when she threatened in union with France to put 
 down heresy all over the world, and the phase when 
 France threatened war against Spain in the cause of the 
 Low Countries. A third phase is now commencing, when 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 169 
 
 Spain, more powerful now than ever, began to stand out 
 as an ascendant Power. A great war of England and the 
 Spanish Monarchy is at hand, but at the same time 
 France and the Spanish Monarchy are entangled in war. 
 Already in 1581 we see a naval battle between France 
 and Spain off the Azores. And the death of Anjou in 
 1584 opens at once a new age for France, an age not less 
 troubled than that age of religious wars from which she 
 had just emerged. 
 
 Both in England and France it was the age of the 
 religious question, yet great as that question was it was in 
 neither country the greatest. In England, as we have 
 seen, the really formidable problem was the succession, 
 the danger of the failure of the House of Tudor, and the 
 uncertainty what House would take its place. So long as 
 Mary Stuart lived and Elizabeth remained unmarried 
 the country could have no assured prospect. And now in 
 France, where all struggles were more intense, the re- 
 ligious question in like manner gave place to the question 
 of succession. The death of Anjou warned the country 
 that the House of Valois was about to be extinguished. 
 It was an event similar to that which had happened in 
 Portugal in 1578 and had led to a national catastrophe. 
 Spain had reaped the benefit of that ; Spain seemed also 
 about to interfere in England, and Spain too might be 
 expected to undertake the solution of the French suc- 
 cession problem. From the beginning of the century the 
 Habsburgs had been on the watch for such crises ; they 
 had provided claimants for thrones left without heirs and 
 bridegrooms for virgin queens. And now the Counter- 
 Reformation had complicated the succession-problem by 
 lajong it down that no heretic could sit on a throne. And 
 the legitimate heir to the House of Valois now failing was 
 
170 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 a heretic, as the Queen of England was a heretic. Thus 
 the events of 1584 seemed to bring to a final crisis the 
 whole struggle of the age, and threatened to consummate 
 the whole century of the Reformation by handing over 
 France and England to the great representative of the 
 Counter-Reformation, who would exclude Henry of Navarre 
 in France and settle the succession of Elizabeth in a 
 manner agreeable to the Papacy. 
 
 If we look at the period of war now opening from the 
 English or insular point of view, we see the expedition of 
 the Armada and a succession of naval operations filling all 
 that remains of the reign of Elizabeth. But if we take 
 the international point of view we see the same Spanish 
 Monarchy, now near the height of its power, intervening 
 with equal energy in French as in English affairs. If the 
 Spanish war with England lasts till 1604 the Spanish war 
 with France lasts till the Treaty of Vervins concluded iiL 
 1598. It was in this double struggle that the Spanish 
 Monarchy and at the same time the Counter-Reformation 
 came nearest to complete success. The war in France is 
 not strictly one of the religious wars, but more properly 
 the war of the establishment of the House of Bourbon, 
 and by it was asserted for France at least the principle 
 that a heretic cannot reign. The religious wars had 
 already given France definitively to Catholicism ; this war 
 gave to it the rising House of Bourbon, which was to fill 
 two centuries with its glory. 
 
 The French war was in itself as intense and as 
 striking as the English. It included a startling rehearsal 
 of the great French Revolution. The House of Valois 
 disappeared amid scenes of terror and in an upheaval of 
 subversive theories just such as attended the downfall of 
 its successor the House of Bourbon. All this corresponded 
 
THE SPANISH MONARCHY. 171 
 
 closely in time to the great events of the English war. 
 The day of Barricades immediately preceded the sailing of 
 the Armada, and the murder of the Guises followed hard 
 upon its failure. The murder of the last Valois king took 
 place in the following year. Meanwhile in the Low 
 Countries the rebellion has lost Orange, and Spain has 
 gained Alexander of Parma. Thus over the whole of 
 western Europe at once Spain appears on the eve of 
 acquiring a universal dominion. She possesses Portugal, 
 she is recovering the Low Countries; in France the 
 House of Valois is disappearing and a revolutionary 
 fanaticism has sprung up which may well throw the 
 country into the hands of Philip. In England the tem- 
 porising policy of Elizabeth, which has hitherto supported 
 her throne in defiance of the Counter-Reformation, seems 
 exhausted. The Spanish history of the Invincible Armada 
 takes as its starting-point a letter' written to Philip II 
 on August 9th, 1583, from the island Terceira in the 
 Azores, the scene of the great Spanish victory in the war 
 of Portugal. It was ^vritten by the victor himself, Santa 
 Cruz, and it solemnly exhorted Philip to follow up his 
 victory over Portugal by a direct attack upon England 
 and assumption of the Monarchy of England. It was 
 written before the two great deaths occurred, and plainly 
 announced the approach of the great crisis of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 ^ Duro, La Armada Invincible, i. p. 241. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FROM PEACE TO WAR. 
 
 The transition of 1585 brings the Counter- Reformation 
 once more into the foreground, but in a limited form. 
 Under the leadership of Spain the question is now to be 
 tried, for England and France at once, whether a heretic 
 may wear a crown. The period between 1572 and 1584 
 was embraced by the Papacy of Gregory XIII, who falls 
 between the great Popes Pius V and Sixtus V. Gregory 
 devoted himself especially to the English Question, which 
 his predecessor's Bull had thrown open, but he laboured 
 under the disadvantage that in his time the great Powers, 
 as we have seen, were not prepared for war against Eliza- 
 beth. Accordingly he is driven back upon his own re- 
 sources, and scarcely any Pope has assumed more purely the 
 attitude of a belligerent against England than Pope Gregory 
 XIII. He does not confine himself to spiritual weapons, 
 nor does he content himself with invoking the aid of 
 temporal sovereigns, but actually levies war with his own 
 resources and in his own name against the heretic queen. 
 The spiritual weapons are not indeed neglected. A semi- 
 nary is established at Rome, from which the thirteenth 
 Gregory hopes to send out missionaries who may restore the 
 ruined work of the first Gregory. Parsons and Campion 
 arrive in 1580 ; the Counter- Reformation begins to blow up 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 173 
 
 a rebellion in England, as it is doing at the same time in 
 France, against the monarchy of a heretic. At the very 
 same time we hear of a league between Philip, the Pope, 
 and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, being concluded at 
 Rome against the Queen of England. It is believed 
 that the Grand-Duke hopes to further designs upon Ur- 
 bino by thus ingratiating himself with Philip and the 
 Pope, and here are some of the articles of the League 
 from a copy which the English Ambassador gave to the 
 Venetian Ambassador in December 1580: (1) that his 
 Holiness will furnish ten thousand infantry and one 
 thousand cavalry, the Catholic King fifteen thousand 
 infantry and fifteen hundred cavalry, and the Grand-duke 
 eight thousand infantry and one hundred cavalry ; and to 
 these forces are to be added the Germans who have gone 
 to Spain and who are to be paid pro rata by the above- 
 named princes. (2) Should it please our Lord God to 
 give good speed and success to the expedition, the popu- 
 lations are in the first place and above all things to be 
 admonished, on the part of his Holiness, to return to their 
 obedience and devotion to the Roman Catholic Church in 
 the same manner as their predecessors have done. (3) 
 That his Holiness, as sovereign lord of the Island, will 
 grant power to the Catholic nobles of the kingdom 
 to elect a Catholic Lord of the Island, who under the 
 authority of the Apostolic See will be declared King, and 
 who will render obedience and fealty to the Apostolic See 
 as the other Catholic Kings have done before the time of 
 the last Heru-y. (4) That Queen Elizabeth be declared a 
 usurper, and incapable to reign, because she was born of 
 an illegitimate marriage, and because she is a heretic... 
 (7) That the Queen of Scotland is to be set at liberty and 
 to be aided to return to her kingdom should she desire to 
 
174 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 do SO. (8) That his Holiness will use his best influence 
 with the King of France, in order that neither his Majesty 
 nor Monsieur his brother shall give assistance either to the 
 Queen or to the Flemings against Spain*. 
 
 We may see from this last article with what main 
 difficulty the Pope and the Counter-reformation had now 
 to contend. France in its double aspect, the France of 
 Henry III and at the same time the France of Alenfon, 
 stood in the path of the Counter-reformation. 
 
 Throughout this period, as almost from the beginning 
 of her reign, Elizabeth has owed her security to the fact 
 that her turn to be swallowed up cannot come till the 
 rebels of the Low Countries and the French Huguenots 
 have been devoured and digested by the Cyclops, Counter- 
 reformation. She does not depend much upon her own 
 efforts, but upon the efforts of others. She does not come 
 forward herself to help Orange with the whole force of her 
 kingdom, but she is content to see this done by Anjou 
 with the countenance of the King of France. 
 
 We picture Elizabeth as a Britomart or Amazon Queen 
 surrounded by heroes and men of war, and then we wonder 
 at the selfishness with which she watched the sufferings 
 and the well-nigh desperate struggles of those Nether- 
 landers whose cause was after all her own. It is true that 
 from the outset they had received much English help. 
 In their sieges and battles Englishmen had taken part 
 sometimes by the hundred. English sea-rovers had plun- 
 dered the Spanish marine. Elizabeth herself had seized 
 Spanish ships in the Channel and had at times even 
 rendered open help to the insurgents. Such in that age 
 was the confusion of international relations, that not only 
 France and England but even the Austrian House of 
 ' Calendar of State-Papers (Venetian), ed. Cavendish-Bentiuok, No. 826. 
 
PROM PEACE TO WAR. 175 
 
 Habsburg interferes between Philip and his rebels in a 
 manner most damaging and practically hostile to Philip. 
 But Ave expect to find Elizabeth assuming a much franker 
 and more generous tone and openly telling Philip that 
 if he would maintain his oppressive rule in the Low 
 Countries he would have to reckon with the strongest 
 fleets and armies that England could bring against him. 
 
 Here then is the place to remark — for we are ap- 
 proaching the grand turning-point of Elizabeth's reign — 
 that it is only in her later years and under the pressure of 
 necessity that she appears in any degree as an Amazon or 
 thunderbolt of war. She had indeed always shown a high 
 courage. That fear of assassination which, as Macaulay 
 says, ' shook the iron nerves of Cromwell ' did not shake 
 her nerves, though in her time assassination seemed the 
 inevitable end of all leaders, though Guise and Murray 
 and Coligny and Orange had already fallen, though other 
 Guises and Henry III and Henry IV were still to fall by 
 this doom. But she had never shown the slightest incli- 
 nation for war. Nay it may be said that never sovereign 
 was more recklessly devoted to peace than Elizabeth. If 
 not ' peace at any price ' yet, ' peace at any price short of 
 throne and life ' was her maxim. She had indeed sent 
 war-ships to the Forth in 1561, but that was a case where 
 intervention might be called absolutely necessary. And 
 since 1561 she remained at peace till 1585, though war 
 raged in France, in the Netherlands, and in the Mediter- 
 ranean. Nor did she even seem to look forward to war. 
 She made no preparations on a great scale, she allowed 
 the country to remain almost unarmed, although nothing 
 might seem more certain than that the exemption of 
 England from the terrible struggle of the age was only 
 temporary, and that the final and most cherished object of 
 
176 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the Counter-reformation was the destruction of Elizabeth 
 of England. 
 
 When we have remarked this, her behaviour towards 
 the Netherlanders assumes a different appearance. Any 
 other monarch in her position would have intervened 
 eagerly, under pretence perhaps of humanity, but really in 
 order to make a conquest. Here was an opportunity for 
 Elizabeth to wipe out the cession of Calais, with which 
 she had had to commence her reign. As we shall soon 
 see, the Netherlanders would have gladly made Elizabeth 
 their sovereign in return for substantial aid. She would 
 have stood out in English history as the conqueror of the 
 Low Countries. Such a prospect would have tempted 
 almost any other sovereign; it did not tempt Elizabeth. 
 She preferred to see France play this part. 
 
 But though France and England had lately been 
 drawn into the same system, the two nations continued 
 to regard each other as in old time with animosity and 
 jealousy. Elizabeth could scarcely be prepared to leave 
 the defence and the sovereignty of the Low Countries 
 entirely to the French prince ; public opinion would not 
 allow her to do so. It is on account of this competition 
 between the two countries for precedence in the patronage 
 of the Low Countries that the Alen9on marriage negocia- 
 tion is taken up so seriously at this late stage in the life 
 of the Virgin Queen and when the transition was at hand 
 which brought on the duel between England and Spain. 
 She was approaching her fiftieth year ; her marriage had 
 been a matter of discussion at almost any time since the 
 days of Henry VIII, and now when her youth was utterly 
 gone she seemed really to lose her heart to a prince who 
 had the appearance of a frog and who was the worthy son 
 of her whom Sir Philip Sidney called the Jezebel of the 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 177 
 
 age. Elizabeth did not use marriage, after the fashion of 
 the House of Austria, as an instrument of empire, and in 
 the end she founded the gi-eatness of England upon her 
 persistent abstinence from marriage. And yet this ques- 
 tion of the queen's marriage is thrown like a mantle over 
 the whole diplomacy of her reign. Especially now when 
 the struggle ia the Netherlands seemed daily approaching 
 a crisis, when decency required that she should intervene 
 in an energetic manner, while she clung to the hope of 
 avoiding war with Spain as she had succeeded in doing 
 for more than twenty years, this idyll of Elizabeth and 
 Alen5on serves a definite political purpose. It enables her 
 to play at once a passive and a very prominent and im- 
 pressive part in the affairs of the Netherlands. While 
 Alen9on stood forward, supported by the whole influence of 
 Orange, and assumed the sovereignty, with all its attend- 
 ant risk of war with Philip, Elizabeth, doing nothing and 
 runniag no risk, presented herself as taking an equal 
 part and advancing an equal claim to their loyalty in the 
 character of his affianced bride. 
 
 And so the lings were exchanged, and when Alen9on, on 
 his way to assume the sovereignty, left England, Eliza- 
 beth accompanied him as far as Canterbury, March 1st, 
 1582. So much was forced from her by the French 
 Government, which would not undertake the war against 
 Philip without a security for English aid. 
 
 But if the match might seem necessary, or in some 
 aspects politically judicious, it had been manifest two 
 years earlier that it did not please the English public. 
 Sidney's invective against the brood of the Medici and 
 Stubbs' pamphlet on the ruin of England by a French 
 marriage had appeared in 1579. And indeed, whatever 
 political purpose the marriage-negociation might serve, 
 s. 12 
 
178 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the marriage itself would have formed indeed a strange 
 climax in Elizabeth's life. When we think of the mon- 
 strous behaviour of this very frog-prince at Antwerp in 
 1584, when we think of the deeds of his brother and of 
 his mother in 1572, and then when we consider that there 
 was a Guise in England too, viz., Mary of Scotland, that 
 in England too there was a vast Catholic party ready to 
 respond to an appeal from the leaders of the Counter- 
 Reformation, a vision shapes itself of what might have 
 followed ! Elizabeth herself taken off in some violent way, 
 Mary liberated and then married to Alen^on, a rising of the 
 Catholic party in concert with an invasion from France, — 
 part of this had been already foreseen by Sir Nicolas Bacon, 
 and it is impossible not to assume that Elizabeth, to whose 
 thoughts assassination must have been only too familiar, 
 foresaw it too. 
 
 When in the twenty-sixth year of her reign a new 
 chapter opened by the deaths of Alen5on and Orange, how 
 did the reign of Elizabeth, then more than half expired, 
 look in English history ? 
 
 She could boast that for twenty-six years she had so 
 picked her way that in the very age of the Counter- 
 Reformation England itself, that is, the state which, more 
 than any other, kept the Reformation alive, not only held 
 her own, but had enjoyed a halcyon calm, such as no other 
 country knew, such as England herself had never known 
 before. The result was almost miraculous, but it is as- 
 suredly not the result which has given Elizabeth her fame 
 in history. Elizabeth had saved herself, but she had done 
 little for the cause she represented, and meanwhile it 
 might be feared that Englishmen had forgotten how to 
 fight. Such sluggish periods are often followed by a great 
 catastrophe. Elizabeth however was not to give her name 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. l79 
 
 to any such catastrophe. We think of heroism, adventure, 
 victory and glory when we name the Elizabethan age. But 
 in that sense the Elizabethan age begins in 1585. 
 
 Transition is observable throughout the reign of 
 Elizabeth, but the moment of transition, abrupt, decisive, 
 is in the year 1585, when open war began between 
 England and Spain. 
 
 This is visible on the very surface of the history. 
 From 1585 to the death of Elizabeth we were at war 
 uninterruptedly ; before 1585, excepting one or two slight 
 military operations in Scotland and in the Northern 
 Rebellion, there had been since her accession uninter- 
 iTipted peace. 
 
 The peace of Elizabeth is not less remarkable than the 
 war of Elizabeth, and it lasted somewhat longer. It is 
 most important to note the sharp contrast between them. 
 The war, in which England for the first time displayed 
 her greatness, does not stand out as more unique in our 
 history than the peace, which we enjoyed for a quarter of 
 a century amid the wildest religious discord that Europe 
 has ever known. 
 
 But the transition is the more notable because the 
 war of Elizabeth is strikingly unlike our earlier wars and 
 strikingly similar to the great wars which we have waged 
 since. We see a great naval war, waged on the open 
 ocean; to this is attached a land- war in the Low Coun- 
 tries. Such has been the general form of most of our 
 later wars. The long wars of William and Anne, the 
 war of 1744, the war of the French Revolution, are com- 
 posed in like manner of a widely-scattered naval war and 
 a war in the Low Countries. Our medieval wars are 
 of quite another type ; the oceanic side is wantin'g, and on 
 land the commonest feature is an invasion of France. 
 
 12—2 
 
180 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Thus it appears that during the long peace the position 
 of England in the world has altered. After that quiet 
 incubation the modern great Power comes to light. 
 
 But this will explain itself as we advance. Standing 
 at the point of transition, we find the question forced 
 upon us, What is to be thought of the two contrasted 
 policies of Elizabeth, and why was one so suddenly 
 exchanged, just at this moment, for the other ? 
 
 Mr Froude has written the history of the Peace of 
 Elizabeth and of the first years of her War. He has 
 given a minute and damaging description of Elizabeth's 
 vacillations, frauds, and frivolities, and seems to draw the 
 conclusion that she had really no policy at all. He 
 despairs however of convincing people of this, because of 
 the undeniable success which she met with, although he 
 himself attributes this success only to her ' singular 
 fortune.' However unsatisfactory this conclusion may 
 appear, it is certainly difficult to understand how mere 
 irresolution, mere abstinence from decided action, can be 
 called a policy. And yet Mr Froude seems always to 
 hesitate when he tries to state what decided action 
 Elizabeth should have taken during this period. 
 
 There are emergencies, in which a persistent abstin- 
 ence from action, a kind of resolute irresolution, is the 
 only sound policy. When a man finds himself on a narrow 
 ledge of rock with a precipice above and below, and 
 sees the ledge narrowing till it almost disappears, he 
 may think that though action might conceivably save 
 him, absolute inaction is the only policy which can be 
 called safe. And in the case of Elizabeth safety for herself 
 meant also safety for her subjects. 
 
 Elizabeth had clearly an energetic nature ; she was 
 positively ambitious to show that a woman could wield 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 181 
 
 authority as effectively as a man. Quite early in her 
 reign the Spanish Ambassador writes that she was ' more 
 feared without any comparison than her sister/ more 
 feared than Bloody Mary! It is therefore extremely 
 remarkable that this ambition did not for a moment 
 mislead her into the error which nine out of ten ambitious 
 rulers commit, the error of doiug too much. The talent 
 of letting things alone, so rarely combined with energy, 
 is perhaps the most indispensable talent of a statesman. 
 It was displayed with a singular perseverance for twenty- 
 six years together by Elizabeth. 
 
 Everything at her accession was in a sort of suspense. 
 Whether the nation was Catholic or Protestant, by what 
 title she herself reigned, who would be her own successor, 
 and whom she should marry, — all was undecided. Twenty- 
 six years later these questions remained undecided still. 
 As every decision was dangerous, she took no decision at 
 all. And yet her inactivity struck the world as masterly ; 
 she looked majestic in her repose. 
 
 Shall we say that this inaction was cowardly, or, with 
 Mr Froude, that it was only because she was wholly 
 indifferent in religion that she abstained from taking her 
 proper position as the head of the Reformation in Europe ? 
 English history would certainly have run a different, can 
 we think a better ? course, if Elizabeth had imitated 
 her brother instead of her father. The question was not 
 what Elizabeth herself believed, but what her people 
 believed. To our surprise we find that this haughty 
 Tudor has grasped the principles of popular government 
 which have prevailed in England in later times. She 
 throws the reins on the neck of the horse. She will not 
 act herself, but she lets the people act. Her people was 
 perhaps at her accession mainly Catholic ; twenty years 
 
182 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 later it was not prepared to call itself Protestant. What 
 right had Elizabeth on the gi-ound of any private opinions 
 to give England a position in the religious struggle of the 
 age, which England did not like ? But it was possible in 
 the international confusion of that age for the people to 
 outstrip the Government in international action. Had 
 the Government declared itself Protestant, established a 
 Protestant succession and openly defied the Powers of the 
 Counter-Reformation there would probably have been a 
 violent rebellion, but meanwhile Englishmen were able in 
 large numbers to aid the rebels at Brill and Flushing in 
 1572 and again in 1578. 
 
 It is a familiar maxim of statesmanship that difficulties 
 insoluble bj^ action are often soluble by lapse of time. In 
 such cases the hand-to-mouth policy is the wisest, because 
 it is directed to gaining time. The disease of England in 
 1558 might well have seemed incurable. That it was 
 actually cured is matter of astonishment. The medicine 
 used was time, but an enormous dose of it was adminis- 
 tered, and in circumstances where the application might 
 have seemed impossible. Twenty-six years of peace were 
 administered, and England lay quietly under the influence 
 of this anaesthetic, while the Fury of religious war was let 
 loose, as never before, on the Continent, in the age of 
 Jarnac and Moncontour, and the St Bartholomew and the 
 Fury of Antwerp. It is not disputed that Elizabeth meant 
 this, and laboured for this, resisting opposition on the part 
 of her council. It is not disputed that the plan was 
 successful. When the crisis came, when the head of the 
 Catholic party in Britain laid her head upon the block 
 and when the Armada appeared, England stood firm. 
 Such was the result of twenty-six years of peace, obtained 
 for us by Elizabeth at the cost of many acts of meanness 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 183 
 
 and petty falsehood, but it is doubtful whether the result 
 could have been obtained by six years or by sixteen years 
 of peace. 
 
 This policy, like every other that could be suggested, 
 was no doubt extremely hazardous. The risk lay in this, 
 that Elizabeth not only did not make war, but did not 
 even prepare for it. She did not suffer even the shadow 
 of approaching war to dim the sunshine of her Peace. 
 Why not ? Along with what is called her parsimony it 
 was part of a system of bribing her people with prosperity. 
 She would not burden them with an army. She reduced 
 the burden of government to a minimum. By the most 
 extreme economy she avoided all those disputes about 
 taxation which proved so disastrous to the Stuarts, and 
 which her government, weak in title and hanging by a 
 hair in religion, could not, at least in her earlier time, 
 have sustained. Thus she gradually inspired a deep 
 feeling of satisfaction, which lay deeper down than all 
 discontents, and bore up her government. 
 
 But as she early acquired the conviction that her 
 position just as it was might be maintained, but that 
 every alteration of it, even the slightest, was fraught 
 with danger, it is not wonderful that irresolution grew 
 in her to be a mania. So did the other habit, which 
 seemed always safe and right, that of saving money. 
 
 The result was that a person of proud and powerful 
 nature and of indomitable courage, one too whose coun- 
 sellors urged her to vigorous measures, adopted in spite of 
 them a peddling cheeseparing policy which often degene- 
 rated into shameful and cruel dishonesty. But necessity, 
 the urgent necessity of a whole nation, must be allowed 
 to excuse much. 
 
 No doubt if, as Mr Froude thinks, a Protestant League 
 
184 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 might have been formed in Europe which could have 
 driven Catholicism across the Alps and Pyrenees, and it 
 was open to Elizabeth to put herself at the head of such 
 a league, then her actual policy was feeble and contempt- 
 ible. The view presented here is that this was wholly 
 impossible, that the Counter-Reformation was the over- 
 whelming spiritual force of the time, that France was 
 intensely Catholic and even England not Protestant, 
 accordingly that such a rally of the forces of the Reforma- 
 tion would probably have ended within twenty years in 
 the complete and final triumph of the Roman Church. 
 Elizabeth herself could probably have given no distinct 
 explanation of the manner in which with her plan she 
 meant to win. But she did win. She maintained the 
 forces of England fresh and vigorous till a time when 
 Spain began to be exhausted and utterly bankrupt, and 
 at the same time she maintained her authority in England 
 in spite of the Counter-Reformation. When the tempest 
 of war broke upon her she was indeed terribly unprepared. 
 But though she had no good army, she had a good navy 
 which had grown up almost unperceived through the 
 lawless privateering which had long been connived at. 
 England, Scotland and Seven Provinces in the Low 
 Countries were saved to the Reformation, and France 
 joined the Protestant Powers as an ally. 
 
 Such then was the Peace of Elizabeth. Through what 
 causes after enduring so long did it come to an end in 1585 ? 
 In one word, through the deaths of Alen9on and Orange 
 and the victorious advance of Parma towards Antwerp. 
 
 The Peace of Elizabeth could be maintained so long as 
 the Rebellion of the Low Countries held out, and this could 
 be ensured so long as the help of France was available. 
 While the insurgents were moderately successful, a little 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 185 
 
 assistance rendered under hand from England and France 
 was sufficient, and when they were unsuccessful, England 
 might still remain at peace if only France was ready to 
 take action instead. Since the Pacification of Ghent 
 (1576) when the Rebellion attained its high-water mark, 
 the insurgents had been generally unfortunate, and France, 
 represented by Alen^on, had been pushed into the fore- 
 ground. Don John had defeated the rebels at Gemblours, 
 and since his death a greater than he, like him descended 
 from Charles V, Alexander of Parma, had taken the 
 rebellion in hand. He had actually recovered to Spaia 
 the Walloon provinces. He had created a general impres- 
 sion that the designs of Orange were doomed to failure. 
 He seemed a match for Orange in statesmanship, and in 
 war the first man of the age. He was engaged in con- 
 quering Brabant and Flanders, he had formed the siege of 
 Antwerp. If Antwerp should fall, the rebellion would be 
 shut up in Holland and Zealand. Thus the crisis ap- 
 proached threateningly, and everything now depended on 
 the action of France. No languid good will or assistance 
 rendered under hand would any longer suffice. France 
 must take the field openly against Spain, and must 
 conquer the Low Countries for herself or for Alen9on. 
 Only in this way could the Low Countries be saved and 
 also the Peace of Elizabeth be preserved. And of course 
 the idea of a conquest of the Low Countries, including the 
 maritime provinces, by France, of ports like Antwerp and 
 Amsterdam passing for ever into the hands of 'our natural 
 enemy,' the idea in short of France taking the lead of 
 England for all time as a maritime Power, was most un- 
 welcome to Elizabeth. But the only alternative was that 
 England should take the field herself And still more, if 
 France should be unwilling or unable to act, if France 
 
186 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 should suddenly be paralysed, so that the Rebellion in its 
 last extremity should find no other friend left in the wide 
 world but England, then would not England be absolutely 
 forced to take the field ? 
 
 In other woi^ds, the Peace of Elizabeth must at last 
 come to an end. And indeed in the last scenes between 
 Elizabeth and Alen^on the system showed itself scarcely 
 tenable any longer. And then fortune dealt the decisive 
 strokes. Alen9on died, whose peculiar middle position had 
 enabled France to act with vigour and yet to avoid 
 responsibility. Orange died, who had been the soul of 
 the insurrection, and upon whom seemed especially to 
 hang the resistance of the maritime provinces. Thus at 
 the same time the Rebellion seemed at extremity and the 
 chance of rescue appearing from France seemed very much 
 reduced. Such were the determining circumstances which 
 brought the Peace of Elizabeth to an end and led to the 
 War of Elizabeth which was to consume the rest of her 
 reign. 
 
 The reign of Elizabeth is one of the longest in our his- 
 tory : it is as long as the reigns of James I and Charles I 
 put together, longer than the reigns of Charles II, James II 
 and William III put together. Accordingly it does not 
 form a single age, but two ages, if not more ; just as the 
 reign of Louis XIV, when examined, falls into not less 
 than three ages. The year 1585 is therefore particularly 
 useful as an epoch. When we speak of the reign of Eliza- 
 beth as a glorious period, which called out as no other 
 period before or since, the genius of the English nation, 
 we have in mind chiefly the period which began in 1585. 
 To this belong almost all the great names, though Philip 
 Sidney, a precursor, only just saw the commencement of 
 it. To this belongs the great national awakening, the new 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 187 
 
 sense of power and self-confidence, the oceanic swell and 
 thunder. The earlier age, which we have called the Peace 
 of Elizabeth, is wholly different, and cannot be called 
 glorious, but it is equally remarkable and interesting, and, 
 if our view be correct, was a necessary introduction to the 
 glorious Elizabethan age. 
 
 The death of Alen9on was an event of much greater 
 importance than we have indicated. With him disappeared 
 not merely the most convenient instrument through which 
 France could act on the Low Countries ; no, with him 
 disappeared also all the prospects of the House of Valois. 
 Henry of Navarre now steps to the front of the stage. He 
 is first of the new group of men who in the critical year 
 1585 take the place of Orange, Don John, Alen9on, 
 Gregory XIII. While Philip and Elizabeth still hold 
 their supreme position, we now follow the movements of 
 Parma, Henri de Guise, Francis Drake, Sixtus V, but 
 principally of Henry of Navarre. He is the Bourbon and 
 the ancestor of all the Bourbons ; he introduces a grand 
 chapter of French history. But even contemporaries, who 
 did not see the unrolling of that grand chapter, could 
 recognise how much henceforth he would stand out above 
 all secondary personages of the drama. For he, the heretic, 
 was now by the death of Alen9on, next in succession to the 
 French crown. Accordingly just at the moment when the 
 Counter-Keformation seemed on the point of prevailing in 
 the Low Countries, its grand opportunity arrived in France. 
 ' That no heretic should be allowed to reign' was its watch- 
 word. And we have seen how favourable a field France, 
 with its intense Catholic feeling, offered to the Counter- 
 Keformation. Now then at last the great day of decision 
 would dawn. France instead of thwarting Philip in the 
 Low Countries would turn inward upon herself and purge 
 
188 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 her own bosom of heresy. Guise would overwhelm Navarre 
 in France, while Parma, soon to be master of Antwerp, 
 would pass triumphantly on into Holland and Zealand. 
 And when so much was achieved and the Counter-Reforma- 
 tion was supreme on the Continent, there would remain 
 to be conquered only the Island ! And was it likely that 
 a heretic would still keep her seat on the throne there, 
 when it should have been demonstrated so signally that 
 thrones were not for heretics ? The daughter of Anne 
 Boleyn would fall as her mother had fallen. 
 
 These were the extreme circumstances which forced 
 Elizabeth at last to declare herself in favour of the Low 
 Countries and openly to deiy Spain. And so the inevitable 
 transition was made from peace to war. But we must not 
 for a moment suppose that Elizabeth felt what she was 
 doing, or that she deliberately at this moment doffed her 
 robe of peace and appeared as a Pallas armed with spear 
 and shield. The habits she had formed in twenty-six 
 years of such intense pressure as scarcely any human being 
 ever underwent could not be put off, nor did she consciously 
 wish to put them off. Her object was still as ever to 
 abstain from action, to contrive delays, to mark time. 
 But we have seen her all along outstripped, and not un- 
 willing to be outstripped, by her people. From this time 
 she had less control of them than ever. The mastiff 
 escaped from her leash, and there began, especially on 
 the sea, a duel between the English and Spanish nations. 
 
 There is no greater epoch than 1585 in the history 
 either of England or of France, or consequently of the 
 modern world. It marks the first appearance of England 
 as an Oceanic Power, and also the first appearance of the 
 House of Bourbon as claiming to be the royal House of 
 France. Before the century was out these two events had 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAH. 189 
 
 already visibly led to a complete revolution of all interna- 
 tional relations. Hitherto Spain and Portugal had had 
 exclusive dominion of the oceanic world, until in 1580 they 
 had been merged in one. But in 1600 the sceptre of the sea 
 was passing to England and Holland, which states in the 
 seventeenth century come to be spoken of as the Sea 
 Powers. Moreover at the same date France under the 
 reign of the first Bourbon has recovered from Philip at 
 Vervins much of what she lost at Cateau-Cambresis. But 
 France has now settled her religious question, and is a 
 decidedly Catholic Power. Consequently, when the seven- 
 teenth century began, the events of 1585 had produced 
 this result, that two Protestant Powers had begun to con- 
 trol the sea, and that the two great Catholic Powers, stood, 
 the religious question being settled, in fixed rivalry among 
 themselves, contending for ascendency on the Continent. 
 
 The crowded period before us lends itself very ill to 
 the method of rapid delineation here adopted. Let us 
 remark first that the policy of England in 1585 is most 
 characteristically Elizabethan, that is, that in actual war 
 not less than in peace it aims at accomplishing as little, 
 and altering as little, as possible. This, once for all, is 
 the statesmanship of Elizabeth, not probably from natural 
 disposition, but from a habit formed in twenty-six years, 
 during which she had maintained a position in which no 
 action of any kind was safe. A very striking example 
 of this appears on the threshold. When in 1585 the 
 Netherlanders finally despaired of French aid, and when 
 it appeared that Elizabeth was prepared to come to 
 their help, the petition of the States-General to her 
 took this form: 'Kecognising that there is no prince 
 or potentate to whom they are more obliged than they 
 are to Your Majesty, we are about to request you very 
 
190 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 humbly to accept the sovereignty of these Provinces and 
 the people of the same for your very humble vassals 
 and subjects.' There is much evidence to show that 
 at this time and long after, the most earnest wish of 
 the party which had till lately been led by the Prince 
 of Orange was to become subjects of Queen Elizabeth. 
 Yet Elizabeth steadfastly rejected their proposal. 
 
 There are positive events and there are negative 
 events, and in the whole of English history there is 
 no greater negative event than this. Acquisition of 
 territory has been the business of most sovereigns, and 
 their established road to glory. To Elizabeth especially 
 it might have seemed necessary, for she had been forced 
 to begin her reign with the humiliating cession of Calais. 
 No compensation for this had been acquired since ; 
 nothing had been acquired, unless we reckon the rudi- 
 ment of a colony which had been formed in Newfound- 
 land. And now there was laid at her feet a new kingdom 
 which desired nothing better than to be added to her 
 dominion. It was in every respect such as statesmanship 
 would pronounce a convenient and natural acquisition. 
 In language, disposition, turn of mind, religion, the 
 Dutch closely resembled the English. Elizabeth herself 
 said that the English and Netherlanders had been in 
 the olden time ' as close as man and wife.' They were 
 rich and had the conditions of maritime power, so that 
 at the time it was remarked that a union of England 
 and the Low Countries would carry with it the empire 
 of the sea. So strong was their sense of affinity that 
 throughout the seventeenth century we may perceive 
 that the relations of England and the Netherlands do 
 not resemble those of distinct nations. Their intercourse, 
 even their quarrels, have a family character. The House 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 191 
 
 of Orange allies itself twice with the House of Stuart, 
 and interferes with strong party feeling in our civil war. 
 The English Commonwealth actually proposes union to 
 the Dutch Commonwealth. Finally the Dutch Stadtholder 
 becomes King of England, and perhaps had William and 
 Mary had a son, that union which Elizabeth disallowed 
 would at last actually have taken place. 
 
 Let us imagine Elizabeth accepting the throne of 
 the Low Countries; she would no doubt have found 
 herself involved in war with Spain. But she did not 
 escape this by declining it ; three years after came the 
 Armada. Meanwhile the two fleets of England and 
 Holland would have been united, and the great colonial 
 expansion which each state made separately in the 
 seventeenth century, and which led to collisions and wars 
 between them, would have been one expansion. The 
 two polities would, to all appearance, have blended very 
 easily, for both states had arrived at the same system, 
 England having converted her feudal into a rational or 
 political monarchy, and the Netherlands having created 
 a similar political monarchy out of a republic. 
 
 We cannot therefore see how Elizabeth's refusal can 
 be justified on the grounds of statesmanship. It is none 
 the less characteristic on that account. Great and daring 
 actions were done in abundance by Englishmen in this 
 latter part of Elizabeth's reign, but they were not done 
 by Elizabeth. It is difficult to grasp the fact that a , 
 ruler of so high spirit, of so much energy and courage, 
 did not possess the talent of action but did possess in ' 
 a unique degree the talent, in certain circumstances ; 
 equally valuable, of refraining from action. Perhaps most 
 great statesmen are somewhat sparing of adventurous 
 action; nevertheless the great masterpieces of states- 
 
192 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 manship ai'e commonly sudden and rapid strokes of well- 
 timed audacity. But though we trace almost all that 
 makes modern England to Elizabeth, no such strokes 
 were struck by her. Her statesmanship is almost purely 
 negative; it consists solely in providing time and room 
 and liberty for the energy of the nation to display itself. 
 She does not lead her people, but in rare emergencies 
 she — lets them go. We have as yet seen her taking 
 action only once, when she came to the help of the 
 Scotch against Mary of Guise, and then she acted in 
 necessary self-defence. Now in 1585 comes a change of 
 policy indeed of the utmost importance, but it scarcely 
 appears that Elizabeth intended it seriously as a change 
 of policy. She did indeed use brave words in her Decla- 
 ration of 1585. But as she said in that document that 
 her main object was peace, so it would appear from her 
 subsequent conduct of the war that she rather intended 
 to deter Philip from action than to take action herself. 
 Peace and war were not in those days international 
 conditions so sharply distinct as they are now. In 1585 
 there had been already many a sea-fight, and many a 
 battle in the Netherlands, between Englishmen and 
 Spaniards, and twice a Spanish Ambassador had been 
 expelled from England by Elizabeth. Philip indeed had 
 shown a long-suffering spirit, and it was therefore not 
 unreasonable for Elizabeth to calculate that her threats 
 and declaration of war might determine him to make 
 peace. 
 
 And now when we look at the operations of war 
 which followed we perceive that the naval and the 
 military operations must be considered separately. The 
 former are of immense historical importance, as showing 
 that the English nation had found a new path to great- 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 193 
 
 ness. The latter are in themselves somewhat insigni- 
 ficant, but they throw light on the Queen's policy. She 
 sends Leicester to the Low Countries with 6000 men 
 to assist the insurgents, just as in 1559 she had sent 
 her fleet to the Forth to aid the Scotch rebels. But 
 we are led to think that she may have counted on a like 
 result, on an easy success that would save her further 
 trouble. 
 
 Had she consciously adopted at this moment a war- 
 policy, we should have seen her devoting herself to 
 military preparations, and she was assuredly not so blind 
 as to imagine that war could be carried on with the 
 greatest Power in the world without a large expenditure 
 of money. The mania of parsimony which possessed her 
 may be understood, so long as she remained at peace, as the 
 instinct of sound finance in an uneducated form. During 
 the long peace of EHzabeth her cheese-paring economy 
 may well be supposed to have done much more good 
 than harm. But what are we to think of the same 
 propensity in time of war ? We see that the campaign 
 of 1586 in the Netherlands was ruined by the frenzied 
 struggle of Elizabeth to carry on war without spending 
 money. We see her starving her soldiers, reducing her 
 servants to despair, and forfeiting her reputation among 
 her allies by tricks of miserly economy unworthy of a 
 great prince. Certainly if we should judge her by this 
 campaign we should pronounce her one of the most 
 incapable of War Ministers, or at least we should be 
 driven to suppose that she had not mental elasticity 
 enough to comprehend what is involved in a great change 
 of policy. It rather appears that she intended no change 
 of policy, and that she did not understand or admit that 
 her period of peace was over and that her period of war 
 s. 13 
 
194 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 had begun. She intended in short to avert war by- 
 threatening war. As soon as she found that her measures 
 had not produced this effect she conceived a disgust of 
 the war in the Netherlands. Leicester returns in 1586, 
 and this phase of the war comes to an end. Something 
 of the old English valour has been displayed at Zutphen 
 and Philip Sidney has died the death of a hero. But 
 otherwise neither the reputation of England nor of Eliza- 
 beth has been greatly raised. 
 
 We understand both her prompt and firm refusal to 
 accept the sovereignty of the Netherlands, and her feeble 
 conduct of the war, if we assume simply that a serious 
 war with Philip had never entered into her calculations. 
 She could not accept the sovereignty for herself, simply 
 because she meant the sovereignty to remain with Philip. 
 Artois and Hainault had already submitted to him, Bra- 
 bant and Flanders were already half conquered ; these 
 successes had been due partly to concessions made by 
 Parma in the name of Philip. It was still therefore 
 natural for Elizabeth to expect that Holland and Zealand 
 would in the end submit too, but on terms. The result 
 which actually arrived was too unprecedented, the con- 
 fused Dutch republic of the seventeenth century was a 
 thing too shapeless, to be foreseen in 1585. No ; Philip 
 would win, but he might be forced to make considerable 
 concessions to Holland and Zealand as he had done 
 already to Artois and Hainault. Philip had all along 
 recognised the extreme difficulty of suppressing the re- 
 bellion of the Low Countries so long as it received the 
 support of England. Now therefore that new prospects, 
 involving new efforts and expenses, opened before him in 
 France, so that some settlement of the Dutch difficulty 
 seemed doubly imperative, Philip might certainly be 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 195 
 
 brought to terms — so Elizabeth might calculate — if Eng- 
 land should once more step decidedly forward and show 
 that the decision of the question lay in her hands. In 
 one word, what Elizabeth had in view was simply medi- 
 ation. She proposed simply to draught a treaty which 
 Philip on the one hand and the states of Holland and 
 Zealand on the other should sign. 
 
 It was observable throughout that she contemplated 
 applying force to the rebels as well as to Philip. As 
 against Philip she almost seems to have no military 
 plan, her calculation being that he will be brought to 
 terms by the mere appearance of her troops; but she 
 has a plan for reducing the States under her control. 
 She is eager to get possession of Brill and Flushing, 
 those positions in which the rebellion had first with 
 the help of England maintained its ground in 1572. 
 
 She seems indeed to have regarded the Low Countries 
 much as the English Government seventy years ago re- 
 garded Greece. Philip then, as the Sultan the other 
 day, seemed to have legitimacy on his side ; on the 
 other hand the rebels had most real and substantial 
 grounds of complaint. Meanwhile neighbouring Powers 
 were inconvenienced and endangered by the interminable 
 conflict. Accordingly England would interfere, as in the 
 case of Greece the great Powers, and dictate a treaty by 
 which justice should be done to the claims of either 
 belligerent. 
 
 But her plan failed. The interminable war went on 
 as before, and the only result of her interference was 
 found to be that at last she was at open war with 
 Philip. From this war she could not now withdraw, for 
 while her delays and her economies had prevented her 
 from inflicting much damage on Philip by land, it was 
 
 13—2 
 
196 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 quite otherwise on sea. Sir Francis Drake was sweeping 
 the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and Santa Cruz 
 was urging Philip that the safety of his empire required 
 the suppression of the piratical and heretical Power. 
 
 And while Elizabeth at war was blundering so 
 strangely by land and running so victorious a course 
 by sea, there occurred another great event. This event 
 brought to a decision some of the main questions which 
 it had hitherto been her policy to keep undecided; it 
 convulsed all the European Courts, and it provoked 
 Philip, whose natural indecision had hitherto played into 
 the hands of Elizabeth's system of delay, to take for 
 once a decided step. This event is the catastrophe of 
 the Queen of Scots. 
 
 The trial and execution of a queen regnant naturally 
 startled the world. For the first time Scotland had 
 fallen to a queen, and for the first time England had 
 been for a long time under the government of a queen. 
 Mary in one of her earlier letters, written when she 
 pleased herself with the thought of a romantic friendship 
 to Elizabeth, alludes to this when she says, ' for we are 
 both queens,' i.e. queens regnant. What could strike 
 the imagination more painfully than to see one of these 
 august sovereigns put the other to an ignominious death ! 
 Even to the present day our conception of Elizabeth's 
 character is perverted by the impression which this event 
 produces on the imagination. We remember that she was 
 the daughter of Henry VIII, and instinctively conclude 
 that she gave way to an inherited impulse of his tyrannic 
 cruelty and also of his imperious contempt for public 
 opinion. There can be no greater mistake, for, as we 
 have just remarked, it was not in Elizabeth's character 
 to act with decision at all, nor, we may add, in any 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 197 
 
 case to despise public opinion. But besides this we do 
 great injustice to Elizabeth if we fail to recognise that 
 precisely she had brought to an end the cruel system of 
 the earlier Tudors. Her accession had closed the long 
 Reign of Terror that had overshadowed England for 
 nearly thirty years, between the scaffolds of More and 
 Fisher and the stake of Cranmer. It was the special 
 pride of Elizabeth to have given England not only peace 
 and prosperity but also on the whole mild government. 
 In her whole reign of forty-five years there occur only 
 four of those gloomy executions which had been of so 
 frequent occurrence under her sister, brother and father. 
 Norfolk and Northumberland had fallen in 1571, Mary 
 was now to fall, and long after, Essex. And in all these 
 cases Elizabeth made it plain, as her predecessors had 
 never dreamed of doing, that she acted with reluctance, 
 that she broke a rule which she had laid down for herself 
 Pitiless severity towards the great nobles had been the 
 arcanum of the Tudor House, and this arcanum Elizabeth 
 most consciously and deliberately renounces. 
 
 The truth is that in no act of her reign did Elizabeth 
 display the irresolution which had become a habit with 
 her and which concealed much statesmanlike wisdom so 
 signally as in her conduct towards Mary in 1587. That 
 she professed irresolution is of course not to be denied, but 
 that she felt it as much as she professed to feel it is evident 
 if we consider her whole reign together. The maxim of 
 her reign was to settle nothing, but to gain time. She 
 had applied this maxim to Mary Stuart for not less than 
 nineteen years together, and doubtless desired nothing 
 better than to abide by it always. Was Mary Queen of 
 Scotland, or was her abdication valid? Was Mary to 
 succeed in England or was she not ? These questions 
 
198 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 were studiously left unsettled, and so long as they re- 
 mained open, neither the Catholic party in Britain were 
 driven to despair, nor did the Great Powers feel themselves 
 obliged to take decisive action against Elizabeth. This 
 policy had sufficed for a quarter of a century. Mary Stuart 
 had become almost necessary to Elizabeth. Should Mary 
 disappear, the ship of English policy would be driven from 
 its moorings. 
 
 In 1585 we have seen that she took an apparently 
 decided course when she published her declaration against 
 Philip. But we have also seen that her secret object in 
 this was not really to undertake war but to guard peace. 
 In like manner it appears that in the case of Mary Stuart 
 she was as unwilling as possible to act, and that not merely 
 on grounds of humanity and pity, but on grounds of policy. 
 By acting she could not but convulse Europe, and her sys- 
 tem throughout had been to soothe and reassure Europe. 
 
 Such an act may be considered and may be endlessly 
 debated from several points of view. Was it morally 
 justifiable, at least on the principle Salus popnli suprema 
 lecc? Was it consistent with the principles of monarchy, 
 which at that very moment were assuming a form more 
 mystical and transcendental than ever before ? Is it to be 
 attributed mainly to Elizabeth herself, or ought the chief 
 responsibility to be thrown on Parliament and the public 
 opinion which clamoured for the death of Mary as neces- 
 sary for the safety of the country and of Elizabeth ? And 
 when we consider the singular behaviour of Elizabeth 
 herself in the whole affair, what light does it throw upon 
 her character ? But all these aspects of the tragic deed 
 are wholly distinct from that which it presents to those 
 who study the history of English policy. For it was the 
 decisive act by which the Gordian knot of English history 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 199 
 
 in those times was cut. The problem was not simple, 
 how to secure England for the Eeformation, but threefold, 
 namely, how to do this in such a manner as to establish 
 a clear succession to the House of Tudor, now evidently 
 about to be extinguished soon after the House of Valois 
 and at the same time to lay a foundation for the union of 
 England and Scotland. Hitherto but one step had been 
 taken towards the solution of this threefold problem. A 
 child had been bom, who on the hereditary principle had 
 a strong claim to the throne both of England and of 
 Scotland ; this child belonged to the Reformation and not 
 to the Roman Church. In him, in James Stuart, seemed 
 to be embodied the happier future of the island of Britain, 
 the union of its two parts in one Monarchy, in the strict 
 hereditary principle and in the Reformation. Here was 
 a clear prospect. On the other hand what a chaotic gloom 
 gathered round his mother's head ? She represented the 
 Counter-Reformation, foreign invasion and the party of 
 Guise. Should her designs prove successful, nothing but 
 confusion was reserved for England. 
 
 It is only as it affected international relations that we are 
 concerned with the execution of Mary Stuart. It affected 
 these in two principal ways. First it entirely altered the 
 attitude of the Counter-Reformation towards England. So 
 long as Mary lived the Counter-Reformation might indulge 
 a tranquil hope, and had no need to make haste, for the 
 recovery of England. Only the death of Elizabeth, now 
 fifty years of age and believed by the Catholics to be of 
 shattered constitution, at any rate almost certain speedily 
 to go the way of Orange and Coligny,— only her death was 
 needed for the triumph of the Counter-Reformation. On 
 the morrow of Elizabeth's death Mary would stand before 
 the English nation representing legitimacy, promising at 
 
200 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the same time to avert one of those terrible wars of title 
 of which England had had so many, and bringing in her 
 hand the union of the kingdoms. All the Catholic party 
 in England and Scotland would rally round her, her son 
 possibly would pass over to her religion, and the whole 
 victorious Counter-Reformation of Europe would favour and 
 bless the happy consummation. One stroke of an axe had 
 shattered all this. It now appeared that the death of 
 Elizabeth would have no such consequences. James was 
 not a Catholic, and henceforth his way to the throne of 
 England might seem to lie through the favour of Elizabeth. 
 The union of the kingdoms seemed henceforth more 
 likely to come about under Protestantism than under 
 Romanism. 
 
 Accordingly to the Counter-Reformation the death of 
 Mary Stuart was an occurrence similar to the death of 
 Alen9on three years before. As that made Henry of 
 Navarre, the Huguenot, heir to the French throne, so this 
 made James of Scotland, the Protestant, heir to the throne 
 of England. 
 
 Now it was the grand principle of the Counter-Reforma- 
 tion that no heretic can succeed to a throne; hence the 
 death of Alen§on had been immediately followed by the 
 formation in France of a League to exclude Henry. Some- 
 thing similar might be expected to follow the death of 
 Mary Stuart. It would rouse Sixtus V. He would pro- 
 claim a crusade against England, since henceforth the 
 Counter- Reformation could only hope to procure by vigor- 
 ous action what hitherto it had expected to obtain by 
 waiting. 
 
 But a similar effect would be produced on the mind of 
 Philip not only through the same considerations, but also 
 through other considerations peculiarly affecting himself 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 201 
 
 So long as Mary lived, he had desired the fall of Elizabeth 
 with but half a heart. That event would give England 
 and Scotland not to him, but only to Mary, and she, as 
 Queen of Britain, would be drawn, though Catholic, into a 
 policy, more or less, of resistance to the Catholic king. 
 For her affinities were not with Spain but with France, so 
 that at an earlier period Philip had strongly favoured 
 Elizabeth's resistance to her claims. Mary had tried to 
 disarm this hostility, at one time by giving Don John a 
 hope of her hand, at another time by disinheriting her son 
 in favour of the king of Spain. Now that she was gone it 
 was open to Philip to draw out of the Habsburg quiver 
 one of those innumerable succession-claims. He had 
 already laid claim to the French succession. He could 
 now lay claim to the succession in England, for was he not 
 descended from John of Gaunt ? But this claim would 
 need to be enforced by action. The title of James was like 
 that of Elizabeth herself or Henry of Navarre ; it was in- 
 validated by heresy. It must be put aside, and Philip's 
 own title must be supported by a Spanish fleet and army, 
 the Counter-Reformation (represented mainly by the Pope) 
 supplying funds. 
 
 It appears therefore that the execution of Mary Stuart 
 in 1587 contributed in the greatest degree, along with the 
 campaign of Leicester and the far more effective maritime 
 operations of Drake since 1585, to bring on open and 
 decisive war between Elizabeth and Philip. In 1585 
 probably Elizabeth had defied Philip in the hope of in- 
 timidating him, for at that time Philip, it may be, did not 
 desire war with England. But Philip now desired war 
 with England, partly because his maritime empire was 
 seriously threatened, partly because it was now open to 
 him, with the enthusiastic approval of the whole Catholic 
 
202 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 world, to strike for the crown of England. And so Eliza- 
 beth, who as late as 1587 desired nothing so much as 
 peace with Spain, found herself in 1588 collecting all the 
 forces of her kingdom to withstand the Armada. 
 
 Thus the great period of Elizabeth's reign is introduced 
 against her will and by the downfall of her system. Her 
 own achievement is the long peace ; the war is forced upon 
 her partly by circumstances, partly by her people. In 1588 
 arrived that crisis which she had devoted her whole in- 
 genuity to averting. At last Philip and other Powers of 
 the Counter- Reformation gathered their whole strength to 
 strike a direct blow at England. They were immensely 
 powerful, but in losing Mary Stuart they had lost their 
 most effective instrument. Philip had been king of Eng- 
 land thirty years before ; he intended now to become king 
 of England again. At the same time he put forward 
 similar claims in France. Could he only meet with as 
 much success in France and England as he had lately had 
 in Portugal, all the aspirations of the Counter-Reformation 
 and all the plans of Philip would be realised together, and 
 the collapse of the Dutch rebellion would be a mere in- 
 cident in the establishment of a universal Catholic Mon- 
 archy. 
 
 But England is an island, and more than once in recent 
 ages the whole destiny of Europe has been decided by the 
 fact that one of its great Powers has an insular position. 
 In repelling the advance of Spain, France no doubt 
 achieved as much as England, and she was far harder 
 pressed. Henry of Navarre is the most strenuous wrestler 
 of this time, but he had to abandon the cause of the 
 Reformation ; he had to barter this against national in- 
 dependence. It may be said that the Reformation was 
 saved in that extremity by England alone. 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAK. 203 
 
 A long peace, such as Elizabeth had procured -for 
 England, furnishes to a nation which has energy the 
 opportunity of incalculable new developments. Perhaps if 
 the Armada had come thirty or twenty years earlier it 
 might have effected a landing, and had Alexander of 
 Parma or Don John once landed and issued his appeal to 
 the old Catholic party in England and in Scotland, es- 
 pecially in the lifetime of Mary Stuart, I suppose there 
 would have been but a poor chance for Elizabeth. Even 
 without the help of Mary Stuart, even in 1588, Parma 
 would have had a great military superiority in our unpre- 
 pared, unfortified island. But during that long peace, 
 under a government which had held such a loose rein 
 over private enterprise, an unexpected development had 
 taken place. We were already busy traders, and we saw 
 the Flemish trade ruined by the war, — Antwerp, the great 
 port for New World commerce, now sacked by brutal 
 mutineers, now besieged and taken by Parma ; Flemish 
 refugees flocked into our own country, and brought with 
 them commercial ideas and habits. We meanwhile had 
 peace, we could take up the trade which was passing from 
 Flanders. Beyond the Ocean lay a vast world of wealth, 
 from which every year silver-fleets arrived in Spain. The 
 vast extent of this New World had been known since the 
 memorable voyage of Magellan, but when Elizabeth came 
 to the throne no Englishman had seen the Pacific Ocean, 
 and no one could yet form an estimate of the amount of 
 wealth that New World contained. When however Eng- 
 lish adventurers explored these regions in their trading 
 vessels, they found themselves treated as interlopers, for 
 Spain, now united with Portugal, claimed everything as its 
 own. 
 
 A monopoly of this kind, had it been reasonably limited 
 
204 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 and protected by treaties, would assuredly have provoked 
 smuggling on a great scale. But it was practically un- 
 limited, it secluded from English commerce the larger half 
 of the planet, and it was claimed by Spain not on the 
 ground of any treaty concluded with England or any other 
 country, but on the ground of a Papal Bull issued at the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century. By heretical England 
 such a title was not likely to be admitted. Accordingly 
 our traders had to choose between tamely submitting to 
 an enormous injury, if they renounced the New World 
 trade, or carrying it on in spite of Spain, that is, by sys- 
 tematic violence, by merging trade in war. Government 
 connived at this during the peace, as it connived at 
 breaches of neutrality committed in the Low Countries by 
 hundreds and thousands of English volunteers. But at 
 the covert maritime war Elizabeth connived far more 
 heartily and gladly than at the war on land. For she 
 got nothing by the latter, but by the former enormous 
 gains might be made, silver-ships might be brought in, 
 and some considerable share of the plunder might be 
 appropriated by Elizabeth herself 
 
 We thus see that the war with Spain which was first 
 openly declared in 1585 had a double character. The 
 maritime part of it had an origin distinct from that of the 
 land-war. In addition to a rebellion in the Low Coun- 
 tries, which England could not afford to see suppressed, a 
 quarrel was springing up on the ocean between English 
 traders and the Spanish monopolists which had already 
 led to covert, and must in the end have led to open, war. 
 It was the same difference which later under Oliver and 
 again in the reign of George II led to war between 
 England and Spain. The conduct of England in this 
 matter may easily be misrepresented either by way of 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 205 
 
 blame or of praise. It may be represented as sordid and 
 brutal piracy, and examples of cruelty may be produced. 
 It may be represented again as a heroic policy of rescuing 
 the New World from the Inquisition and giving it back to 
 the free use of the sons of men of whatever race ; and in 
 favour of this view elevated sentiments may be quoted 
 from Essex and Ralegh. But regarded as a whole it was 
 neither above nor below the average of trade-wars. There 
 was lawlessness, but all the customs of war were in that 
 age ill-regulated, and this was especially the case upon the 
 sea. On the other hand a few ardent imaginations saw 
 beyond the immediate struggle the grand issue of the 
 future of the Ocean. But the plain grievance itself of 
 England against Spain was perfectly real and of enormous 
 magnitude. It would in the most civilised age have led 
 to war, that a single state should advance a general claim 
 to the whole New World and all the riches of it. If the 
 claim had been for a long time allowed, this was only 
 because the spirit of commercial adventure was not fully 
 aroused in England before the Peace of Elizabeth. 
 
 Hitherto we have had before our eyes mainly one 
 person, Elizabeth herself She had indeed able Ministers 
 ia Cecil and Walsiagham, but it may be made a question 
 whether these deserve to be called great men as well as 
 able Ministers. It is quite otherwise with Francis Drake, 
 who received knighthood from Elizabeth in 1580. He is 
 one of the great men of his age ; his name was bruited 
 about Europe and pronounced with admiration by the 
 Spaniards themselves. In our own history few men have 
 originated so much. The British trade, the British Em- 
 pire, the British navy — of all these colossal growths the 
 root is in him. It was he who carried the English name 
 over all those seas which hitherto had known only the 
 
206 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Spaniard and the Portuguese. He had accompanied John 
 Hawkins in his expedition of 1567. In 1572 he had seized 
 Nombre de Dios ; soon after he gained his first glimpse of 
 the South Sea. On December 3rd, 1577, he set sail again 
 from Pljrmouth, passed the straits of Magellan, sailed 
 northward in the Pacific as far perhaps as the Golden Gate, 
 then struck across the Ocean, reaching Ternate in Novem- 
 ber 1579, Java in March 1580, the Cape of Good Hope on 
 June 15th, Sierra Leone in July, finally Plymouth on Sep- 
 tember 26th. It is said that only the great Magellan 
 himself before Drake had thus 'put a girdle round the 
 earth' and Magellan died on his voyage. Such was Drake 
 the explorer. But the earlier explorers had met with no 
 enemies but the feeble aborigines of the New World ; 
 Drake fought the Spaniards wherever he met them, or 
 wherever he could attack them with advantage. As yet 
 they regarded him only as a daring pirate, but they were 
 soon to give him an opportunity of enrolling his name at 
 the head of the list in which stand the names of Blake, 
 Hawke, Rodney and Nelson. 
 
 When Elizabeth in 1585 began to defy Spain, while 
 she sent Leicester with an army to the Low Countries, she 
 let loose also her knight of the Ocean, Sir Francis Drake. 
 He seized St Domingo and Carthagena, in 1586 he forced 
 his way into the harbour of Cadiz and burnt there a great 
 number of ships. 
 
 If, as we suppose, Elizabeth intended not to provoke a 
 war with Spain but to force Spain to make peace, this was 
 one of those mistakes which brought about the great Eliza- 
 bethan age. Drake struck far too hard. He created an 
 alarm which convinced Spain not that she must make 
 peace, but that in self-defence she must crush England. 
 Hitherto England had been regarded by Philip merely as 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 207 
 
 the main support of the rebellion in the Low Countries. 
 Drake displayed a new aspect of her. Henceforth the 
 Spanish politicians could perceive that their vast New 
 World dominion was, owing to its very vastness, utterly 
 indefensible against any sudden attack, and that England 
 was a nest of daring assailants. 
 
 And now by the death of Mary Stuart it was left open 
 to Philip to lay claim to the throne of England. Every- 
 thing therefore concurred in 1587 to induce him to put 
 aside his long procrastination and to make a grand attack 
 upon England. He had won the battle of Lepanto, and 
 therefore even his inert imagination could rise, though 
 rarely, to the conception of a grand naval enterprise. He 
 had won still later in 1583 the battle of Terceira over a 
 fleet, mainly French, commanded by Filippo Strozzi. It 
 was asserted by the Spaniards that certain English ships, 
 which formed part of Strozzi's fleet, had been the first to 
 take flight, from which they drew the conclusion that 
 EngKsh sailors were only brave against unarmed popula- 
 tions taken by surprise. Meanwhile these English sailors 
 themselves had formed a contrary opinion, and while the 
 rest of the world watched with awe the movements of the 
 Armada, confidently asserted that ' twelve of her Majesty's 
 ships were a match for all the galleys in the King of 
 Spain's dominions.' 
 
 There was another consideration which impelled Philip 
 just at this time to vigorous action. The maritime 
 Balance of Power in that age lay between Spain on the 
 one side and Turkey favoured by France on the other. 
 Now Turkey was at this moment preoccupied with an 
 ambitious war against Persia, and France was paralysed 
 by the revival of her terrible civil dissensions. 
 
 We must consider England and France together if we 
 
208 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 would understand the European crisis which is marked in 
 English history by the Ai-mada. That reign of Philip II, 
 which from our modern point of view looks so deplorable, 
 appeared to the contemporary world to grow more glorious 
 year after year, and was now reaching its zenith. Begin- 
 ning with St Quentin and the Treaty of Gateau Cambresis 
 it had advanced in the seventies to Lepanto and in the 
 eighties to the conquest of Portugal. 
 
 It had met indeed with some reverses in the Low 
 Countries, but even that knotty problem seemed now on 
 the point of solution. The rebellion had been sustained 
 mainly through the firmness of the maritime provinces led 
 by Orange, and through the assistance, most effective 
 though concealed, of England and France. But how com- 
 manding was now the attitude which Philip was able to 
 assume both against his rebels and against the Powers 
 that favoured them ! Orange was dead, and Parma after 
 actually pacifying several of the provinces had taken 
 Antwerp to the admiration of the world. And Philip had 
 been able to take the offensive in the most overwhelming 
 manner against France and England themselves. He 
 laid claim to both thrones, he denied the right to reign 
 both of Elizabeth and of Henry of Navarre. In France 
 at least he was supported in this position by a most 
 formidlable Catholic League and even, so long as Henry 
 remained a Huguenot, by the public opinion of the 
 country. In England too he might count on a certain 
 support, but besides this he had now an opportunity of 
 bringing the whole force of his Monarchy, supported by 
 the Counter-Reformation and the Pope, against the 
 heretic queen. He enjoyed for a time at least this in- 
 calculable advantage that, though he waged a war of 
 conquest against England and France at once, England 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 209 
 
 and France were nevertheless scarcely in a condition to 
 help each other. 
 
 Let us note the principal occurrences which brought 
 France to such an extremity. 
 
 The death of Alen9on-Anjou in 1584 raised for France 
 the great question of the age, whether a heretic could 
 reign, by placing Henry of Navarre in the position of im- 
 mediate heir to the reigning king. France entered upon 
 the two last of its long series of religious convulsions. By 
 the iirst of these the House of Valois was extinguished by 
 assassination in the year after the Armada ; by the second 
 the House of Bourbon made its way through civil war to 
 the crown. It is interesting to note the correspondence in 
 time between one of the great crises in English and in 
 French history. 1588 is for us the year of the Armada. 
 For France it is the year of the Barricades and of the 
 murder of Guise ; the next year is the year of the fall of 
 the House of Valois. If this phase of French history 
 begins in 1584, we see in 1585 the organisation of the 
 League and the establishment of its relations with Philip. 
 
 In 1586 falls the campaign so-called of the three 
 Henries. France was so miserably divided that it saw a 
 kind of triangular civil war. The Henry on the throne 
 was at war with the Huguenot Henry, who now won the 
 first Huguenot victory at Coutras; but the third Henry, 
 Henry of Guise, headed a party not less independent of 
 the Government and secretly paid by the king of Spain. 
 This third party represented in fact the Counter- Reforma- 
 tion, whereas the Government inclined more to the 
 Politicians. 
 
 In 1587 Paris enters the contest, declaring for the 
 Counter-Reformation with all the fanaticism which two 
 hundred years later it was to display in quite another 
 S. 14 
 
210 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 cause. It organises a sort of Committee of Public Safety, 
 falls under the influence of fanatical preachers, and attaches 
 itself to the Guise against the king. As in the last year 
 the war had been mainly between the king and the 
 Huguenots, it begins now to be mainly a war between 
 the king and the League. On May 9th, 1588, Guise 
 ventures with a slight following to enter Paris in defiance 
 of the prohibition of the king. A crisis seems approach- 
 ing which might resemble the St Bartholomew ; but 
 affairs take another turn, and the day of the Barricades 
 resembles rather one of the brighter scenes of the French 
 Revolution. Guise appears as a sort of Lafayette ; the 
 king's Swiss troops are disarmed ; the king however him- 
 self is no Louis XVI, and instead of submitting makes 
 his escape to Chartres. He summons a meeting of the 
 States General to meet at Blois. In July he issues an 
 edict, in which he promises to suppress heresy and accepts 
 the principle that no heretic or favourer of heresy must 
 reign. 
 
 Such was the condition of France at the very moment 
 when the Armada sailed out of Corunna (July 28th). We 
 know what bloody scenes occurred at Blois, and how the 
 murder done there was avenged on Henry III soon after 
 before Paris, and through what desperate campaigns the 
 Bourbon made his way to the throne of France. The 
 author of all the mischief, and the person who hoped to 
 profit by it, was the same Philip II who at the same time 
 sent the Armada against England. 
 
 No potentate has held a more formidable position than 
 Philip II at this moment. He had approached much 
 nearer to universal empire than his father had done before 
 him, or than Louis XIV after him. 
 
 But his zenith was soon passed. He had indeed no 
 
FROM PEACE TO WAR. 211 
 
 sudden complete catastrophe, but in ten years after the 
 Armada he ceased to inspire alarm. When he died in 
 1598 he was still unquestionably ruler of the greatest 
 Power in the world. But that Power was then effectually 
 held in check, and from the moment that men ceased to 
 fear it they began to take note that it was far advanced in 
 internal decay. 
 
 14—2 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 
 
 Now then that the crisis arrives at last, we are pre- 
 pared to understand in what way it will be handled by 
 Elizabeth. She will be slow to believe that Philip means 
 really to send a great Armada against her, and afterwards 
 in resisting it she will cling convulsively to that parsimony, 
 which indeed in a time of peace had been one of the best 
 qualities of her government. 
 
 The victory itself then was won not by Elizabeth, but 
 almost in spite of Elizabeth by her people. The maritime 
 development of England had long been observable ; naval 
 power had grown with commerce, and had been favoured 
 by Government because it brought in money. And now 
 on the grandest scale the naval power of England was 
 displayed before the eyes of Europe, saving England with- 
 out aid from any army. 
 
 Much legend has perhaps gathered round the current 
 tradition of the naval struggle in the Channel and the 
 North Sea^ Professor Laughton holds that there was no 
 
 ' On this subject see especially the volume on the Defeat of the 
 Spanish Armada recently published by the Navy Becords Society. It is 
 edited and furnished with an elaborate introduction by Professor Laugh- 
 ton, who claims that it ought to be considered as complementary to the 
 Spanish work of Duro. 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 213 
 
 great difference between the two fleets either in number 
 of men or size of ships. He holds that not more than 
 24,000 men actually entered the Channel and that they 
 were met by probably from 17,000 to 18,000 Englishmen ; 
 also that in point of tonnage Spanish and English ships 
 were much the same, though the Spanish were higher- 
 built and looked larger. He holds also that in guns the 
 Spanish ships were very ill supplied. But there is no 
 doubt that the English ships were better worked and that 
 the English sailors proved themselves more skilful. 
 
 The current tradition, if in some respects exaggerated, 
 is also somewhat less distinct than it might be. It re- 
 members the slow advance of the Armada from the Lizard 
 to Calais roads, with several exploits performed by English 
 sailors during this time. It remembers the fire-ships sent 
 among the Spanish ships on Sunday night as they lay at 
 anchor, and how they cut their cables and drifted eastward. 
 It remembers also their flight northward and the tempest 
 which scattered them in the North Sea. But it seems to 
 have forgotten the great sea-fight fought on Monday, July 
 29th, off Gravelines, the Battle of Gravelines, which as 
 Professor Laughton says, shattered the Spanish prestige 
 and established the basis of England's empire. 
 
 The Armada was not defeated by a storm, any more 
 than Napoleon's Russian expedition by a frost. The 
 Armada was defeated at Gravelines, and the enterprise 
 was defeated when Parma failed to bring up his flotilla. 
 Only the pursuit of the flying host was undertaken, and 
 ruthlessly performed, by a tempest. This began on August 
 14th and raged with little intermission through the rest 
 of the month, making it impossible for the Armada either 
 to land at some northern point of Britain or to return and 
 try once more to put itself into connexion with Parma. 
 
214 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 The Armada failed so completely that it did not in any 
 degree avenge the damage done in former years and 
 especially since 1585 upon Spain by English sailors, nor 
 did it for more than a moment put the English upon the 
 defensive. It did not anywhere effect even a momentary 
 landing nor obtain any partial success however petty, 
 whereas the Spanish Monarchy and Spain itself had for 
 years past suffered grievously from English attacks and 
 plundering expeditions. The island that was to be subju- 
 gated was not even touched. It is less accurate to say that 
 the attack of the Spaniards failed than to say that the 
 Spaniards could not succeed in making an attack. And 
 yet it is to be observed that the expedition actually en- 
 joyed the advantages which had been calculated upon. 
 France did not interfere, though the Armada cast anchor 
 near Calais, and though the ambition of Philip threatened 
 France not less than England. The government of 
 Henry III was paralysed by the success of Guise at 
 Paris, which was the fruit of Philip's subsidies. 
 
 It would be absurd to imagine that the catastrophe of 
 the Armada was fatal to Spain. Spain continued yet for 
 many years to be the greatest Power in the world. But 
 her navy had received the same kind of blow that her 
 army suffered half a century later at Rocroi. The age of 
 Lepanto and Terceira came to an end. The battle of 
 Gravelines deprived Spain of her maritime preeminence. 
 And the English sailors were shown to be not mere pirates, 
 but promising candidates for the empire of the sea. 
 
 After September a third phase of the war necessarily 
 began. It could not but modify all views of the relation 
 between England and Spain, to have ascertained that 
 Spain had no real naval superiority over England, and 
 that England was not, like France, internally divided to 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 215 
 
 such an extent that a large part of the population would 
 prefer Philip to Elizabeth. Almost from this moment the 
 moral weakness, the consciousness of being liable to con- 
 quest in some high tide of the Counter-Reformation, 
 ceased to depress the English mind. The country acquired 
 a self-confidence which it has never lost since. 
 
 But what course should now be pvirsued ? On the one 
 hand Spain might acknowledge herself beaten, or she 
 might, as Philip at first hinted, fit out a new Armada at 
 Emden and entrust the direction of it to Parma alone. 
 For whatever unexpected superiority the English naval 
 captains might have shown, nothing was clearer than that 
 they had not beaten Parma, and that an expedition con- 
 ducted by him might have had a very different fortune. 
 England too, if Spain left the initiative to her, might adopt 
 either of two wholly different courses. Her naval adven- 
 turers had had their way for once, and they had made the 
 nation proud of them. England might now plunge into a 
 course of naval adventure which need have no end. She 
 might, on the ground of the war, plunder the Spanish 
 Empire on all continents and oceans. It lay before her 
 almost as unwieldy and undefended as it had lain, when yet 
 unsettled, before the Conquistadores, so that it was open 
 to some English Cortez now to avenge Montezuma or to 
 some English Pizarro to punish the crimes of the Spanish 
 Pizarro. Who could say that it was impossible, or even 
 perhaps very difficult, to carve a new dominion for England 
 out of the Spanish Monarchy, or at least to derive from it 
 inestimable wealth ? 
 
 On the other hand England might take a very different 
 course. Those who, like Elizabeth herself, desired only 
 peace, might regard the disaster of the Armada as leading 
 directly to that result. The Spaniards had always held 
 
216 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 that they could not put down the rebellion of the Low 
 Countries so long as England supported it. Now that 
 they had ascertained that England could not be coerced, 
 they must needs draw the conclusion that they must make 
 terms with the Low Countries. On this ground a settle- 
 ment of the great dispute of the age might be anticipated. 
 
 But war and peace being so ill-regulated as in those 
 days they were, it was more likely that no such definite 
 decisions would be arrived at on either side — that on the 
 one side Spain would be too proud to make peace, while 
 on the other side England would not rouse herself to 
 a continuous effort or form a strategical plan, but would 
 carry on her old plundering system with more daring and 
 on a larger scale. In general it may be said that after 
 1588 the war began again to be as before 1585, that is 
 desultory. It could not indeed become again covert, a war 
 under the mask of peace, but it was scarcely avowed war. 
 It was unlike later wars that have been waged by England, 
 in having no definite object, unless Philip's claim to the 
 EngKsh throne were still the object. It could therefore 
 hardly end while Philip lived, nor, unless Spain could 
 learn to tolerate heresy on a throne, while Elizabeth 
 lived. 
 
 But between 1588 and the death of Elizabeth there 
 intervened fifteen years. So long the war lasted, which 
 on the side of England was chiefly a series of plundering 
 expeditions, in which the Government scarcely aimed at a 
 single national object, but rather allowed naval adventurers 
 to make reprisals for their exclusion from the New World. 
 It is a peculiar and unique period of English history, in 
 which war is waged, but freely, with a triumphant sense 
 of power, with scarcely any sense of danger, with some 
 lawlessness, yet on the whole with a good conscience, and 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 217 
 
 with a national pride which no earlier generation had 
 kno^vn. The glory of 1588 tinged every succeeding year 
 of the war; the sense of danger and the tension that 
 had held the national mind for a whole generation was 
 gone and a new generation grew up to revel in victory and 
 discovery. The inextricable problem was solved, the 
 gloomy dilemma which had made Elizabeth herself in- 
 curably irresolute presented itself no longer. It is now 
 that we feel ourselves in the Elizabethan age proper. 
 
 Elizabeth's personal position is henceforth perhaps 
 the strangest in history. That a queen regnant should 
 rule England was almost unprecedented, so that language 
 did not readily conform to it, and we often find Elizabeth 
 called ' the king.' That she should remain unmarried was 
 still stranger. A Virgin Queen was a personage who 
 seemed to require a special etiquette to herself. When to 
 this was at last added in 1588 a splendour of glory, a 
 visible preeminence that made her stand out among an 
 armed nation like Britannia herself, then indeed men's 
 imaginations were almost disturbed. She had a plenty of 
 faults and weaknesses, nay of basenesses, but yet a strong 
 outline of greatness, many commanding features. And now 
 in the victor of the Armada all human infirmities, visible 
 enough before in the mere daughter of Anne Boleyn, 
 who ruled, as many thought, by usurpation and was 
 destined, as many thought, to a miserable ruin, passed 
 for ever out of sight, and there remained only the em- 
 bodied Britannia. 
 
 But meanwhile she was growing old and the form of 
 worship that had been gradually devised for the Virgin 
 Queen was fast becoming inappropriate, just when her 
 claim to receive worship and the general inclination to 
 render it became greater than ever. In monarchy, where 
 
218 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the monarchical power is effective, the want is often felt 
 of a royal counsellor who shall be more intimate with the 
 sovereign than any mere official can be. Both Elizabeth 
 and James I had favourites, dependent upon themselves, 
 whom they took a pleasure in preferring to men of greater 
 merit. The Virgin Queen, who might not have a husband, 
 had yet from the beginning of her reign one whom she 
 regarded in a similar way, whom she prefeiTed to others, 
 by whom she chose to be represented, whom she took 
 pleasure now in indulging, now in henpecking. Leicester 
 died at the very moment of her grand apotheosis in 
 September 1588. He had been her commander-in-chief, 
 as in the Low Countries in 1.586, so against the Armada, 
 and the appointment has justly been compared to the 
 appointment of the Duke of York to the army of Flanders 
 in 1793. She appointed him that the military force might 
 not pass out of her own control. 
 
 After his death we see that she abides by a similar 
 system. She cannot govern by a purely rational method, 
 listening simply to the wisest counsellors and appointing 
 simply the fittest men. But new men are rising, who 
 might have been her children, men who can remember no 
 other sovereign but the Virgin Queen. Out of these she 
 has to select her new favourite ; out of these she must fill 
 up Leicester's place. And here begins the fantastic ab- 
 surdity that disfigTires so much that is glorious in Eliza- 
 beth's later years. No one was better fitted than Elizabeth 
 to play the part of Spartan mother or 'severe Sabellian 
 mother ' to a nation in training for greatness, but her part 
 had been aiTanged, and she had grown accustomed to her 
 pose, in an earlier time. The Virgin Queen could not be 
 conceived as a mother, but as an object either of devoted 
 human courtship or mystic transcendental courtship. In 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 219 
 
 the Alen9on period this view already began to pall upon 
 the taste of her subjects, and by the time of the Ai-mada 
 it would have been well that she should have ceased to be 
 thought of as marriageable. 
 
 After 1588 Elizabeth is really another person. Her 
 own proper work is done, and she has achieved a victory 
 which raises her to a station above 'the warrior-kings of 
 old.' Her old counsellors are dropping off. Leicester 
 went in 1588, Walsingham in 1590, Nicolas Bacon also 
 was no more. Burleigh indeed remains, and Buckhurst, 
 but they almost alone survive to tell of the old gloomy 
 times when the stake stood so often in Smithfield and 
 the scaffold on Tower Hill. The Virgin Queen herself 
 remembered, no one better, those horrors, but she is now 
 surrounded by gladsome young heroes, the Argonauts of 
 English history, to whose imaginations, thanks to her, 
 all such things are strange. 
 
 Why, we ask, must she continue to be an object of 
 courtship and to be praised for her beauty ? Essex, we 
 see, speedily succeeds to the position of Leicester, and 
 since a favourite must be taken as indispensable, we can 
 only say, Pity that, as the old favourite had been regarded 
 as a husband, the new one, of a younger generation, and 
 Leicester's stepson, could not be regarded as a son ! Ralegh 
 too might very becomingly have regarded Elizabeth as a 
 mother, he might have dreamed of her as a Virgin mother ! 
 But such was not the etiquette, and a reform was not 
 made. Hence those incredible love-letters of Essex and 
 Ralegh, which make us wonder at the taste of a time 
 otherwise so glorious. There was a real difficulty. Court- 
 life has always something fantastic about it ; and here it 
 was especially difficult to restrain the fantastic element. 
 
 In order to deal properly with a thing we must be able 
 
220 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 to classify it, and the same rule applies to persons. Now 
 the Virgin Queen as she had grown to be since the Armada, 
 as she had been made by a career so unprecedented, by 
 her unhappy birth and childhood, by the trials of her 
 early youth, by her unparalleled reign of thirty years 
 in the midst of every kind of peril, finally by her grand 
 victory and apotheosis, was a person who utterly defied 
 classification. 
 
 This period of fifteen years has scarcely yet received 
 the special treatment it deserves. Mr Froude leaves Eliza- 
 beth at the opening of it. Mr S. R. Gardiner begins 
 his tale at the close. It is indeed a kind of summit, one 
 of those short periods of fruition, which seem to pass like 
 a dream because a great struggle is over and no other 
 struggle has yet begun. Happiness and glory however, 
 where they occur in history, ought to receive due attention. 
 This is the period when the English genius unfolded itself 
 with the greatest vigour, as though braced by the sea- 
 breezes. It had conceived a great self-confidence, it gazed 
 upon a boundless prospect. It was full of audacity and 
 originality, and showed as yet none of the defects, of which 
 at later periods it has been accused, no narrowness or 
 frenzied party spirit, no conventionalism or pharisaism. 
 
 We confine ourselves always to foreign affairs, and we 
 have now to remark that a new Policy, which henceforth 
 is the national policy, begins to be consciously enter- 
 tained. Sir Francis Drake passed lately over our stage, 
 and led us to reflect how many of the characteristics of 
 modern England seem to begin with him. Now comes 
 another person, representing a phase slightly later, and we 
 may observe that he is more conscious, that he expresses 
 the new ideas by speech and writing. This is Sir Walter 
 Ralegh. As Sir Francis reaches his zenith with the 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 221 
 
 Armada, Sir Walter culminates a little later, and in him 
 everything is more developed. The plundering raid with 
 him is the colony ; while Sir Francis explores the Ocean, 
 Sir Walter penetrates the newly discovered Continent ; 
 while Sir Francis ' singes the King of Spain's beard,' 
 Sir Walter lays down a strategical plan for overthrowing 
 his empire ; finally, while Sir Francis is dumb, Sir Walter 
 gives utterance to the new ideas in Discourses, Maxims, 
 Speeches, even in Histories. On this side indeed, if he is 
 unlike Sir Francis Drake, he resembles Sir Francis Bacon, 
 and if Bacon expresses the thought of that genera- 
 tion turned inward upon itself, Ralegh utters its view of 
 the world around it, especially the new maritime and 
 oceanic world into which it was breaking way for the first 
 time. 
 
 The following passage written by him long after, when 
 James I was reigning and perhaps when Henry IV of 
 France was dead, deserves to stand here as the best ex- 
 pression of the new policy : — 
 
 ' For Spain, it is a proverb of their own that the lion is 
 not so fierce as he is painted. His forces in all parts of 
 the world (but the Low Countries) are far under the fame ; 
 and if the late queen would have believed her men of war, 
 as she did her scribes, we had in her time beaten that 
 great empire in pieces and made their kings kings of figs 
 and oranges, as in old times. But her majesty did all by 
 halves, and by petty invasions taught the Spaniard how to 
 defend himself and to see his own weakness; which, till 
 our attempts taught him, was hardly known to himself 
 Four thousand men would have taken from him all the 
 ports of his Indies; I mean all his ports, by which his 
 treasure doth or can pass. He is more hated in that part 
 of the world by the sons of the conquered than the English 
 
222 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 are by the Irish. We were too strong foi- him by sea, and 
 had the Hollanders to help us, who ai-e now strongest 
 of all. Yea in eighty-eight, when he made his great and 
 fearful fleet, if the queen would have hearkened to reason, 
 we had burnt all his ships and preparations in his own 
 ports, as we did afterwards upon the same intelligence 
 and doubt in Cadiz. 
 
 'He that knows him not, fears him, but, excepting 
 his Low Country army, which hath been continued 
 and disciplined since Chai'les V's time, he is nowhere 
 strong^' 
 
 Here indeed is a large and simple view, and a view 
 founded upon intimate knowledge. Ralegh might faii-ly 
 have drawn from it a prophecy, but he attempts to deduce 
 from it a policy. He sees, it is evident, the future British 
 Empire as clearly as if it already existed ; it is clear to him 
 that the Spanish Power will disappear from the Oceanic 
 world and that the British Power will take its place. But 
 he also assumes, as if it required no proof, that Queen 
 Elizabeth ought to have destroyed the Spanish Empire 
 and to have set up an English Empire in its room, and 
 that she would have done so but for her unhappy disposi- 
 tion to half measures. 
 
 It was perhaps almost inevitable that Ralegh's genera- 
 tion should regard Elizabeth in this way. They saw her 
 after the Armada stand before the world as a Semiramis, 
 and they wondered that since she waged war with Spain 
 and at so manifest an advantage she achieved so little. 
 Certainly if her object was war, she is convicted of half- 
 measures. But her object throughout was peace. That 
 
 ' See Ralegh's Works collected by Oldys and Birch ; vol. viii. p. 246. 
 The passage occurs in 'A Discourse touching a Marriage between Prince 
 Henry of England and a daughter of Savoy.' 
 
THE WAB OF ELIZABETH. 223 
 
 object she had held before her for thirty years, and if she 
 had sometimes used threats or connived at violent measures 
 this was because at particular moments peace seemed more 
 attainable by a warlike than by a peaceful attitude. But 
 probably after the grand success of the Armada she was 
 for a time half reconciled to war by the superiority of her 
 sailors and by the plunder they brought in. If however 
 her policy became in consequence unsteady it was scarcely, 
 as Ralegh supposed, because she waged war with half a 
 heart, but rather because she ceased for a time to labour 
 for peace. 
 
 The policy which Ralegh would have substituted is 
 avowedly one of boundless conquest. Elizabeth should 
 have listened, he says, to her men of war, not to her scribes. 
 She should have beaten the Spanish Empire in pieces. In 
 other words, England should have transformed herself into a 
 military state, and have burdened herself, as Holland could 
 not avoid doing, with an interminable war. We should 
 thus no doubt have acquired a great empire and a great 
 trade more speedily than we did, but it is also evident that 
 we should have incurred infinite risks and have embarked 
 on a policy of unprincipled adventure such as we have 
 always avoided. 
 
 Before the Armada the gi'eat question in Elizabeth's 
 Council had been. Should England stand forth at great 
 risk to herself against the Counter- Reformation in defence 
 of the insurgents in the Low Countries and of the Hugue- 
 nots, or should she remain officially neutral, and confine 
 herself to rendering secret help ? But after the Armada 
 the party-division is altered. The question is now between 
 the old school of politicians and those who have deduced 
 from the event of 1588 a new system of policy. It is the 
 question whether England ought to desire peace with 
 
224 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Spain, peace of course on good terms, or should endeavour 
 by means of the naval superiority of which she is now 
 conscious to destroy and tear to pieces the Spanish 
 Empire. And the result of the new balance of parties was 
 such as Ralegh so impatiently describes. England did 
 indeed strike several heavy blows at the maritime power 
 of Spain, by which the lesson first taught in 1588 was 
 effectively inculcated and driven home, so that all the 
 world might know that the events of 1588 had been by no 
 means merely accidental. But England did not shake 
 the colonial empire of Spain, nor make any conquest from 
 her. 
 
 It is time however to recollect that the war of England 
 and Spain is but a part of the general war. Even while 
 the Armada was on its way Europe did not quite stand 
 at gaze, and afterwards while the naval power of Spain 
 went down before Drake, Howard and Ralegh, Spain was 
 winning victories on land, which perhaps attracted greater 
 attention, just as two hundred years later Trafalgar itself 
 was almost hidden from the observation of Europe by 
 Ulm. Along with her war with England, Spain continued 
 to wage war in the Low Countries and, what was more 
 important, she carried on a covert though most deadly 
 war with France, and such was her success here that for 
 several years longer the fortune of Philip seemed on the 
 whole in spite of his naval disasters as bright as ever. 
 
 In 1588 Philip had been able for a moment to separate 
 France from England. In that year the struggle had been 
 between Spain on the one hand and England and the Dutch 
 insurgents on the other. But soon afterwards this isola- 
 tion of France ceased. The latent discord which in 1588 
 paralysed her broke out after a short delay into an open 
 civil war. Henry III murdered Guise at Blois and threw 
 
THE WAR OF KLIZABETH. 225 
 
 himself into the arms of Hemy of Navarre. The League, 
 having its head-quarters at Paris, broke into open rebellion. 
 France, as it were, lynched the royal assassin. Catharine 
 de Medici had died shortly before, and thus the Valois 
 line disappeared in an abyss of infamy. The Bourbon 
 stood forth as King of France, but his kingdom was 
 still to conquer. Here then Elizabeth saw again a 
 condition of France with which she was familiar. Since 
 almost the beginning of her reign she had been in the 
 habit of leaning on the French Huguenots on one side as 
 much as on the Dutch insurgents on the other. Instead 
 of waging war herself she had been in the habit of aiding 
 the belligerents in France and the Low Countries who had 
 the same enemy, namely, the Counter-Reformation. After 
 1589 she was able to resume this policy. She could 
 employ Henry IV to fight in her cause as earlier she 
 had employed Conde and Coligny. 
 
 And thus in outline the war of Elizabeth after the 
 Armada appears very similar to the pi'incipal wars of 
 England since. In the naval part England takes the 
 lead and strikes with her whole force. On land she 
 assists her continental allies with subsidies. These allies 
 are, as they continued till past the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century except in 1627-9 to be, France and the 
 United Netherlands. 
 
 The stroke for universal empire which Philip struck in 
 1588 is the last of the memorable acts of that strange 
 politician, perhaps the least able man who ever went near 
 to conquer the world. He himself lived to acknowledge 
 that he had failed. Before his death in 1598 he deliberately 
 sought and obtained peace with one of his three adver- 
 saries, with France (Treaty of Vervins, 1598). Under his 
 successor Philip III the war with England still dragged 
 s. 15 
 
226 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 on until the death of Elizabeth, which occurred five years 
 later than that of Philip, and finally in 1609 the war with 
 the Low Countries was suspended by a truce, which might 
 at the time have seemed likely to ripen into a definitive 
 peace. Thus a complete pacification took place, which 
 indeed did not last long, but marks nevertheless the final 
 close of the straggle of which Elizabeth for forty-four years 
 had borne the brunt. When a new European war broke 
 out near the end of the reign of James I, the whole aspect 
 of Europe, and in particular the position of England, had 
 become entirely different. 
 
 We have noted the great advantages which Philip 
 enjoyed in 1588. What then were the causes of his 
 failure ? 
 
 In 1588 Parma was at the height of his success in 
 the Low Countries, and at the same time the League, 
 Philip's instrument, seemed almost all-powerful in France. 
 The Armada failed indeed, but there remained a reason- 
 able prospect for Philip that by becoming supreme 
 through the League in France he would speedily settle 
 with the Dutch and then send a new Armada, not this 
 time from Lisbon but from Antwerp, which would easily 
 effect a landing in England. The events of 1588 had 
 indeed shown that it might be difficult to land here, but 
 they pointed also to the conclusion that, once on English 
 ground, an army commanded by Parma would meet with 
 little organised resistance. 
 
 But now the new disturbances in France, the deaths 
 of Guise and Henry III and the outbreak of civil war, 
 defeated this calculation. The party of Philip was not 
 only no longer supreme in France, but it had not even 
 the Government on its side. Henry of Navarre was now 
 legitimate king. He was indeed confronted by a rebellion 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 227 
 
 of the most formidable kind, of which rebellion Philip was 
 secretly the leader. Nevertheless Philip was not ruler in 
 France but onl}' leader of the opposition. Henry was 
 indeed reduced to gi-eat straits, but the conservative 
 feeling of the country, the public opinion of France, 
 was on the whole on his side. The League by itself 
 could not overpower him, if even it could withstand him. 
 Consequently it was necessary for Parma with his army 
 to leave the Low Countries and to take the field in 
 France itself against Henry. Thus in 1590, after Ivry has 
 been won by Henry and when Paris is besieged, Parma 
 advances from the Low Countries to relieve it. Again 
 in 1592 he advances from the Low Countries to relieve 
 Rouen. 
 
 Had Parma disposed, like some Napoleon, of gi-eat 
 military means, of a large army and an ample war-fund, 
 he would have had a good opportunity at this time of 
 conquering the Low Countries and France together for 
 Philip. But Philip from the very beginning of his reign 
 had been bankrupt. His armies had been small and 
 ill-paid. They had subsisted on plunder, and only the 
 perpetual presence of a great leader, such as Parma, was 
 able to restrain them from mutiny. It had been Parma's 
 masterpiece that with such an instrument he had wellnigh 
 succeeded in reconquering the Low Countries: but with 
 such an instrument he could not conquer France at the 
 same time. The consequence was that at this juncture 
 he lost in the Low Countries as much as he gained in 
 France. It is just at this moment, in 1590 and 1591, that 
 Maurice of Nassau begins his great military career and 
 that the fortresses of North Brabant, of the Waal and of 
 the Yssel, are won to the Eepublic. Thus for the sake of 
 conquering France Philip at this critical time relaxes his 
 
 15—2 
 
228 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 hold on the Low Countries. In 1.592 Parma dies, and soon 
 afterward (1.593) Henry's acceptance of Catholicism gives a 
 mortal blow to the League and with it to Philip's interest 
 in France. By attempting too much Philip has lost his 
 advantageous position in both the two continental countries 
 at once. 
 
 Meanwhile England has been active at sea. Between 
 the two opposite doctrines, that we should live at peace 
 with Spain, and that we should undertake to destroy the 
 Spanish Empire, there was a middle opinion which it was 
 impossible not to admit, and which at this time recom- 
 mended an active course. Spain had taken the offensive 
 in 1588, and was likely from mere pride to take it again. 
 A new Armada might be expected. Was it not better to 
 meet this Armada, while it was preparing, on the coast of 
 Spain than to wait for it in the British Channel ? This 
 had been preached for a long time by Drake. Before the 
 Armada came he had written, ' Her Majesty and people 
 are not to fear any invasion in her own country, but to 
 seek God's enemies and her Majesty's where they may be 
 found,... for with fifty sail of shipping we shall do more 
 good upon their own coast, than a great many more will 
 do here at home ' (March 30, 1588) ; and again, ' These vast 
 preparations of the Spaniard may be speedily prevented, 
 as much as in your Majesty lieth, by sending your forces 
 to encounter them somewhat far off, and more near their 
 own coast, which will be the better cheap for your Majesty 
 and people and much the dearer for the enemy' (April 
 28th, 1588). This advice, by taking which, it is thought, 
 the great peril of 1588 might have been altogether avoided, 
 was equally good against any second Armada which Spain 
 might contemplate, and recommended itself to the Queen 
 as being 'better cheap.' Accordingly in 1589 England 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 229 
 
 sent, as we may say, an Armada against Spain. We 
 made the attempt in which Richelieu was afterwards 
 successful, to rouse the national feeling of Portugal, as 
 Philip had so long counted on the party of Mary Stuart 
 in England. A fleet of 150 sail, carrying not less than 
 23,000 men, first attacked Corunna and captured the lower 
 town, but was repulsed from the upper. Then a force 
 was landed at Peniche and pushed on to Lisbon, where 
 Drake was to meet it with the fleet. But the weather 
 proved unfavourable and Drake advanced no further than 
 Cascaes. Meanwhile no rising of the Portuguese took 
 place, and Philip held Lisbon securely. Tempest and 
 disease made wild work with our fleet. On the whole our 
 Armada, like that of Philip, failed, and our losses were so 
 great that pains were taken to conceal them. It inflicted, 
 however, considerable loss, brought home considerable 
 booty, and confirmed the naval superiority of England. 
 
 Thus in the four years between the Armada and the 
 death of Parma Philip has on the whole lost gi'ound 
 everywhere. Maurice is taking the place of Parma as 
 the military genius of the age ; Henry is holding his own 
 against the League, aided by subsidies from England. And 
 in the region where since the annexation of Portugal 
 Philip had reigned without a rival, he sees with indigna- 
 tion a plundering piratical state establishing a kind of 
 reign of terror, so that the harbours of his Atlantic coast 
 are not safe and English privateers lie in wait near the 
 Azores for his silver fleets. 
 
 But on July 23rd, 1593, an event took place which 
 altered all his prospects and commenced a new age for the 
 continent of Europe. Henry of Navarre was received on 
 that day into the bosom of the Catholic Church by the 
 Archbishop of Bourges at the Cathedral of St Denis. 
 
230 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 The full effect of this act was not immediately visible, 
 for it extended ultimately to Henry's international position. 
 But that it destroyed the very root of civil war in France 
 was not long doubtful. The decided adhesion of the 
 French nation, especially of Paris, to Roman Catholicism 
 had been apparent almost from the beginning of the wars 
 of religion, but in adopting the maxim of the Counter- 
 Reformation that no heretic should reign they had put a 
 great constraint upon their feeling of nationality and their 
 regard for ancient custom. In adhering to the Counter- 
 Reformation the French did not desire to surrender their 
 independence to Philip, nor even their old Galilean liberties 
 to the Pope. Henry now gave ample satisfaction to all 
 these feelings at once. He discovered, as it were, a new 
 variety of religion, which differed from pui-e Popery as 
 much as Anglicanism differed from pure Protestantism. 
 It was a modified form of Gallicanism, and its secret 
 resistance to Popery, which appeared more strikingly in 
 the seventeenth century, was indicated at the outset, when 
 Henry made his way back into Catholicism in spite, as it 
 were, of the Pope, appealing to the authority of French 
 bishops alone. 
 
 Neither the Pope nor Philip at first accepted the 
 recantation as sufficient, nor did Philip withdraw his 
 claim to the crown of France. But he could soon perceive 
 that his position in the French party-war was materially 
 lowered, and his chances greatly diminished. Nor could 
 he prevent himself from regarding Henry after his recan- 
 tation with different eyes. After all Henry was no longer 
 a heretic. It was no longer a matter of principle to 
 oppose him and to wage war with him. And Henry on 
 his side was henceforth prepared for alliance with Spain, 
 nay, for a marriage with the great Habsburg heiress of the 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 231 
 
 age, who seemed to be the Juana of the new time, Clara 
 Isabella, daughter of Philip II. As his religion was 
 changed, his sympathies began to change too. Hitherto 
 he had taken English subsidies and made common cause 
 with the Dutch. But he was not less open to conviction 
 in politics than in religion. He had, as it were, restored 
 France to her place among the Powers, and what alliances 
 she should make, to what system she should attach 
 herself, was a question which he considered with a mind 
 perfectly unprejudiced. 
 
 Hitherto there has been concert and mutual aid between 
 Henry, the Dutch, and England. But their concert has 
 been most strictly limited. It cannot be said that either 
 Henry or even Elizabeth herself wish success to the Dutch 
 in their struggle against Spain. Both alike perhaps ex- 
 pect, and are contented to expect, that Philip will, on some 
 terms or other, recover the Low Countries. Nor does 
 France "vvish triumphant success to England nor England 
 to France. But that any one of these three Powers 
 should be utterly crushed by Philip is what the other two 
 cannot allow, and so long as there is danger of this their 
 concert continues. Now, however, that Henry has made 
 his way back into the bosom of the Eomish Church, and 
 has acquii-ed a prospect of Spanish alliance and Spanish 
 marriages he begins to regard this concert as less indis- 
 pensably necessary, and has at least passing glimpses of 
 a wholly different system. It suits Philip to encourage 
 this new way of thinking, the more so as he is quite able 
 to admit the idea of alliance with Henry, now no longer a 
 heretic. 
 
 And thus the war enters into a new phase, which extends 
 to the year 1598. This is the year of a great settlement, 
 which is immediately followed by the death of Philip II. 
 
232 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 In this phase the concert of the three Powers against 
 Philip which, though seldom avowed, has existed ever 
 since the days of Coligny, takes a more articulate shape 
 than before, for the very reason that it is threatened with 
 dissolution. What had been secure because it was neces- 
 sary now requires to be secured by forms. France in the 
 fresh enthusiasm of restored religious unity seems likely 
 to break away from the alliance of heretical Powers, and to 
 go over to the side of Spain in politics as she has done in 
 religion. England and the Low Countries fear to be 
 deserted by their ally. And deserted in the end they are, 
 when in 1.598 Henry IV concludes the Treaty of Vervins. 
 Meanwhile however, as Spain and the Pope still refuse to 
 recognize the recantation, Henry must fight on, and accord- 
 ingly he is forced to give his allies a new security. In 
 January 1.595 he issues a formal declaration of war against 
 Spain. In 1596 a formal coalition against Philip is ar- 
 ranged by a Treaty of Alliance offensive and defensive 
 between Heiu-y and Elizabeth, to which alliance the States 
 General accede in the same year. 
 
 This league had indeed little duration, and was 
 cynically violated by Henry in the second year after it 
 had been concluded, when he signed a separate peace 
 with Spain at Vervins. In international history, however, 
 it stands as an important landmark, partly as dating 
 the admission of the United Netherlands into the number 
 of independent States, partly 9,s giving a precise picture 
 of the European system of that age. It has long since 
 passed away. Other ascendencies arose later, and other 
 coalitions were formed to meet them, till it began to be 
 almost forgotten that any European Power can be the object 
 of universal dread except France. In the latter half of 
 the sixteenth century however, as we see, the object of 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 233 
 
 dread is the Spanish Monarchy, and the coalition against 
 it is composed of England, France and the Protestant Low 
 Countries. This constellation, we shall find, did not pass 
 away speedily. It is still visible in the age of Cromwell, 
 and has not quite disappeared in the reign of Charles II. 
 
 Thus the whole Philippine war of Europe, as we 
 might call the struggle against Philip's ascendency that 
 began in 1588, falls into three periods. In the first, which 
 extends to 1596, the three Powers chiefly threatened fight 
 either separately or with a concert which is secret. From 
 1596 to 1598 they are united in a formal coalition, which, 
 be it observed, is a coalition between one Catholic Power and 
 two Protestant Powers against the Counter-Reformation. 
 After 1598 this coalition has been dissolved by the Treaty 
 of Vervins. The war is henceforth between Spain, now 
 ruled by Philip III, and England and the Netherlands 
 only. This phase extends beyond the death of Elizabeth. 
 
 Only we must bear in mind the very exceptional 
 character of Henry IV. If the character of Elizabeth 
 has been to many a stumbling-block, so that they can 
 scarcely believe that the modern greatness of England 
 was really founded by a sovereign capable of so much 
 fraud and meanness, much more bewildering must we 
 find the character of Henry IV. He is the founder of 
 Bourbon France. He established the Bourbon family, 
 which for a century rivalled the House of Austria and 
 for another century took the lead of it. Yet we must 
 recognise that scarcely any obligations of any kind were 
 able to restrain him. In particular he respected the faith 
 of treaties as little as he regarded religion or private 
 morality. Accordingly as he broke his engagements to 
 Elizabeth and the States by making the Treaty of Vervins, 
 so he disregarded just as cynically the Treaty of Vervins 
 
234 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 itself. And therefore in the last of the three phases 
 I have just distinguished it is not really true that France 
 no longer aids the opponents of Spain. Henry continues 
 to send help to the Dutch. He does so for his own sake, 
 and simply because he is convinced that the interests 
 of France require the weakening of Spain. Practically 
 therefore the third phase is not very different from the 
 first. 
 
 Such is the general character of the war between 
 Philip and the Three Powers. It is to be remarked 
 that France, which in no long time was to become so 
 great, is in this period quite on the defensive. Until 
 his recantation Henry controls but a small part of the 
 country. His position is like that of Charles VII in 
 the days of Jeanne d'Arc. When he begins to be recog- 
 nised as the national sovereign and when he has entered 
 Paris, he has still much of his own kingdom to reconquer. 
 Then comes the phase of the formal war with Philip and 
 the formal league with England and the Netherlands. 
 In this phase too he still wages war within the limits 
 of his own kingdom. While England takes the offensive 
 by sea, and the Netherlands are beginning to do so too, 
 France remains on the defensive. Thus in 1595 her 
 campaign is in Picardy and in Burgundy. Dourlens is 
 captured by the Spanish Fuentas ; so is Cambrai. On the 
 other hand Henry retakes Dijon. In 1596 the Spaniards 
 take Calais, while Marseilles, still in possession of the League 
 and about to be seized by Spain, is recovered for France. 
 Early in 1597 again Amiens is surprised by Spanish and 
 Walloon soldiers, and Henry is reduced to despair at the 
 news of the disaster. 
 
 Meanwhile in 1596 a great naval expedition consisting 
 of English and Dutch ships sailed for Spain. Howard, 
 
THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 235 
 
 Essex, Ralegh, and Lewis Gunther of Nassau presented 
 themselves before Cadiz. The Spanish fleet, consisting of 
 thirty-two ships with twelve hundred guns, was burnt, 
 and the town itself was taken and set on fire. This 
 achievement is described by Professor Laughton as the 
 Trafalgar of the Elizabethan war. It is also the first ap- 
 pearance of that concert of the Sea Powers, as they were 
 to be called in the seventeenth century, which dominated 
 the politics of Europe in the days of William III. 
 
 In 1597 England undertook what is called the Island 
 Voyage, pursuing still the same aggressive policy. The 
 results however were in this case disappointing. 
 
 Henry however was able to retrieve some of his ill 
 successes by the recapture of Amiens, in spite of an 
 advance of the Ai-chduke Albert from the Low Countries 
 to relieve it, in September 1597. He was therefore in a 
 favourable position to negociate for peace, and he made it 
 at Vervins with great honour to himself, so far as Philip 
 was concerned, though with great dishonour in respect of 
 his allies. In truth, if not Philip personally, yet the 
 Counter-Reformation in general had now no further 
 quarrel with Hemy. In particular the Pope, whose 
 subsidies were all-important to Philip, was now not only 
 willing but actually eager to make peace with a king who 
 was independent of Philip and able in some degree to 
 control him. For we must always remember that the 
 Popes were never led by their antagonism to heresy to 
 forget the older feud which had so long raged between 
 them and the emperors. 
 
 Philip, emperor in fact if not in name, was an object 
 of secret animosity to the Papal See for which he professed 
 to sacrifice so much. The Popes felt strangled by a Power 
 which threatened them at once from Milan and from 
 
236 GEOWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Naples. In the old time they had been in the habit of 
 looking to France for aid against the overwhelming power 
 of the Emperor. Now that Henry had become a Catholic 
 it became possible to return to this policy. Clement VIII 
 (Aldobrandini) helped materially to make the Treaty of 
 Vervins. It may be said of him, in the words which old 
 Rome applied to C. Gracchus, that he made the Catholic 
 Republic double-headed. For the Papal See his policy 
 may have been prudent. But when we seek a solution of 
 the great problem which the seventeenth century suggests, 
 how it was that the Counter-Reformation, at the outset so 
 overwhelmingly superior, nevertheless failed, so that in 
 the eighteenth century Protestantism appears to have the 
 upper hand, we seem to find the solution in that incurable 
 discord which was introduced into the bosom of Catho- 
 licism by the steady rivalry of the two great Catholic 
 Houses, that of Austria and that of Bourbon. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CLOSE OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 
 
 The year 1598 is a very considerable epoch both in 
 European and in English history. It is the year in France 
 of the Treaty of Vervins and of the signing of the Edict 
 of Nantes. In the Spanish Monarchy it is the year of the 
 Treaty of Vervins, of the transference of the Low Coun- 
 tries by Philip II to the Archduke Albert and his wife, 
 Isabella, daughter of Philip, and of the death of Philip II. 
 In England it is the year of the same treaty, by which 
 England was betrayed, and also of the death of Lord 
 Burleigh. 
 
 Elizabeth reigned for five years deprived of the help of 
 her old minister, who had stood by her side ever since her 
 accession, and relieved of that old enemy whom she had 
 dreaded and watched ever since her accession. During 
 these years her enemy was not Philip II but Philip III, 
 and her minister was not William Cecil but Robert Cecil. 
 
 These five years offer no international event of great 
 importance if we set aside the personal union of England 
 and Scotland, of which they witnessed the silent approach. 
 But the war dragged on, and the question for us is to 
 
238 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 consider what was the obstacle to peace. For at the time 
 when Henry made the Treaty of Vervins, everything tends 
 to show that Elizabeth desired peace as she had done all 
 along ; while the utter exhaustion of Spain, which Philip 
 II had acknowledged with singular frankness in the Treaty 
 of Vervins and the transference of the Low Countries, 
 leads us to wonder why Philip III should wish to continue 
 a war for which he was not responsible. 
 
 Since 1596 Ireland had been in rebellion, and the 
 task of pacifying the island was imposed upon Elizabeth. 
 A military operation of such magnitude was almost 
 beyond the resources of our state, such as it then was. 
 It opened the redoubtable financial problem which in- 
 volved, as the sequel showed, a constitutional revolution. 
 In any case it demanded rest from foreign war. It 
 admonished Elizabeth to make her way back at all hazards 
 to the happy time when she had been able to secure her 
 people from foreign complications. We learn that Bur- 
 leigh, who in his earlier days had sometimes found 
 Elizabeth too pacific, strongly opposed in his old age 
 the party of irreconcileables. He denounced upon the 
 Anti-Spanish faction the curse of the Psalmist which 
 says that bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half 
 their days. 
 
 And yet Elizabeth found as long as she lived that she 
 could not make peace, though as soon as she was gone 
 peace, as it were, made itself 
 
 It is easy to understand that Philip III may not at 
 the moment of his accession have admitted the necessity 
 of bringing the war with England to an end. His father 
 had bequeathed to him a new policy, which considerably 
 diminished the burden of war, and it was only reasonable 
 to allow this policy a fair trial. Philip II had made 
 
CLOSE OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 239 
 
 peace handsomely with France, not only abandoning for 
 his daughter the pretension he had made in her behalf to 
 the French crown, but also ceding all the acquisitions he 
 had lately made within the French frontier. It was not 
 unlikely that this peace might be followed by alliance and 
 intermarriage between the Spanish House and that of 
 Bourbon, now that the Bourbon prince was a Catholic. 
 Further Philip II had actually ceded his Flemish do- 
 minions to his daughter and her husband, the Archduke 
 Albert. He had indeed made rigid conditions, neverthe- 
 less he had ceded that dominion, as his father had 
 abdicated crown after crown to himself forty years before. 
 Had the archduke had a son, he would have succeeded 
 before Philip III or Philip IV to the Burgundian inherit- 
 ance, though indeed it was pretty well understood that a 
 son they would never have. But a considerable modifica- 
 tion was thus made in the aspect of the Dutch War. It 
 began again to appear probable that on some terms or other 
 the rebellious provinces, which had not yielded to Philip II, 
 would submit to Albert and Isabella, whose power seemed 
 less crushing, and also less likely to excite the jealousy of 
 France, than that of a king of half the world. And as for 
 Elizabeth, was she not now embarrassed by an Irish 
 rebellion ? This rebellion opened for Spain quite new 
 prospects, or at least revived the prospects that had been 
 extinguished by the death of Mary of Scotland. It had 
 begun to be clear that Ireland was won in the main to 
 the Counter-Reformation. Here then was a basis of 
 operations. Elizabeth had shown herself strong by sea, 
 but she had acquired little reputation by land, and it was 
 held that the British islands for want of fortified places 
 could, if once invaded, make little resistance. Moreover 
 Elizabeth had always acted as if she were in want of 
 
240 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 money. There was therefore reason to think that the 
 Irish rebellion would in any case paralyse her, and that if 
 Spanish troops could make their way to the assistance of 
 the rebels Ireland might be made a stepping-stone to 
 England. It was true that Philip II had failed not only 
 with his Armada of 1588, but also in later attempts to 
 effect a landing in the British islands. But was Spain to 
 resign without a struggle the empire of the sea ? Philip 
 II's old minister, Antonio Perez, who had himself spent 
 some years in England, handed in a paper to Philip III 
 on his accession, in which he argued that this was by no 
 means necessary. He proposed in the first place that the 
 maritime possessions of Spain should be guarded by six 
 fleets, one of which should be stationed off Gibraltar. In 
 the second place the arts of England should be turned 
 against herself She had acquired a certain ephemeral 
 greatness by privateering. Let the king of Spain en- 
 courage his subjects in like manner to prey upon the 
 English shipping. In Catalonia and in the Biscayan 
 provinces were many who had long been eager to do this. 
 By such a policy the piratical state would soon be brought 
 upon its knees. And the same policy would be still more 
 effective if applied to the Dutch provinces. For if Eng- 
 land had some internal wealth, the Dutch subsisted almost 
 entirely upon their foreign trade, which to the wonder of 
 the world they had maintained throughout the war even 
 with the Spaniards themselves. Without the help of 
 armies, without any military operations on the part of the 
 archdukes, the Dutch provinces might be starved out if 
 only their foreign trade were destroyed by privateers from 
 Corunna or Barcelona. 
 
 Surely a formidable scheme ! But here we see that 
 something depends on forms of government. The des- 
 
CLOSE OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 241 
 
 potism which the Habsburgs had introduced into Spain 
 could not tolerate such freedom of action on the part of 
 its subjects. And the same despotism had by this time 
 paralysed and stupefied the Government itself. Philip III 
 was as much inferior in intelligence to Philip II as Philip 
 II had been to Charles V. In the hands of Lerma, the 
 Vizir of Philip III, the Spanish Government was for a 
 while almost as inefficient as later under Charles II it 
 was permanently. In the meantime, however, it appeared 
 to this Government worth while to continue the war with 
 England. And this being so, it was still as necessary for 
 England as it had been in the days of Alva to see that 
 the Dutch provinces were not conquered. Elizabeth 
 threatened the States a great deal and drove a hard 
 bargain with them, but she continued to lend them 
 aid. 
 
 The last phase of her reign is in an international point 
 of view not very different from that earlier phase when 
 the Dutch rebellion was commenciug. That she is now 
 avowedly at war with Spain, whereas then she was not, is 
 a less substantial difference than it might seem. For at 
 that time she made covert war with Spain, by lending aid 
 to the Dutch, and even now her war consists principally in 
 lending such aid. Indeed throughout the whole period 
 the reality of international relations is very different from 
 the form. In spite of all treaties it remains true through 
 the whole period that England, France, and the Dutch 
 are in concert against Spain. As to Henry, whether he is 
 in coalition with England and the Dutch, or whether he 
 deserts that coalition at Vervins, in either case his forces 
 help the Dutch. And in like manner England, whether 
 she is not yet at war with Spain, or is at war with Spain, 
 or after the death of Elizabeth makes peace with Spain, 
 s. 16 
 
242 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 under all circumstances alike, as we shall find, sends 
 aid to the Dutch. 
 
 Almost the only occurrence of the war between 
 Elizabeth and Philip III, which needs to be mentioned in 
 a sketch like this, is the invasion of Ireland under Don 
 Juan de Aguilar. He landed at Kinsale with 6000 men 
 in January, 1602. But he was met by the able Deputy, 
 Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, afterwards Earl of Devon- 
 shire, who had already half accomplished the pacification 
 of Ireland. He was forced to a capitulation by which his 
 army was carried back to Spain in English transports. 
 
 Elizabeth lived but one year after this, and in her last 
 days she showed herself more hostile to Spain than at any 
 earlier period. In 1600 she had actually commenced 
 negociations for peace at Boulogne, but now we find her 
 actively striving to revive the coalition of 1596. In 
 January, 1602, just at the moment of Don Juan de 
 Aguilar's invasion, she proposes to Henry an offensive 
 alliance against Spain. This is declined, but Elizabeth 
 repeats it in July. In the interval the conspiracy of 
 Biron had broken out, and Henry had been alarmed by a 
 kind of revival of the combination which had caused the 
 ruin of Henry III. As Guise had conspired with Philip 
 II in 1588, so now Biron with Philip III, for the com- 
 plicity of Spain was manifest. It was a combination not 
 quite so dangerous as that of 1588, for the religious 
 question had been settled in the interval, but there was 
 danger enough in the feudal feeling of the great nobles 
 and in that total want of patriotism or national feeling 
 which was the old disease of France, which the religious 
 wars had increased, and which was not to be healed till 
 the time of Louis XIV. For a moment France and Spain 
 seemed on the verge of another war, and Elizabeth seized 
 
CLOSE OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 243 
 
 her opportunity. At first her offer was favourably received. 
 But on reflexion Henry decided to wait a little longer 
 before embarking on the new war with the House of 
 Austria which was the dream of his later years. Eliza- 
 beth encountered a second refusal. 
 
 The more interesting occurrences of her last days do 
 not concern us here. The deplorable story of Essex has 
 no international bearing except so far as Essex had 
 dealings with James of Scotland, and it is convenient here 
 to hold Scotch affairs distinct from the affairs of the 
 Continent. 
 
 Elizabeth died early on the morning of March 24th, 
 1603. 
 
 When we inquire how much had been accomplished 
 for England during the time and by the means of her 
 government we are astonished at the magnitude, as well 
 as at the thoroughness and permanence, of the work. 
 
 At the date of her accession the country seemed to 
 sway in a helpless manner between the two religions. 
 There was in England no overwhelming drift towards 
 Protestantism, as at that time there was in Germany, and 
 no decided adhesion to the Counter-Keformation, as in 
 France. The oscillations of the country in the last three 
 reigns had been violent and always terrible. How could 
 England ever come to know her own mind, and in the 
 meantime how could she, being neither Catholic nor Pro- 
 testant, face the religious storm which was about to sweep 
 over Europe ? 
 
 At the end of Elizabeth's reign the religious question 
 was practically settled. England had taken up her 
 religious position, and with such deliberation and con- 
 fidence that she has never since substantially altered it. 
 And this she had done calmly, without any religious war. 
 
 16—2 
 
244 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 At the date of Elizabeth's accession the country laboured 
 under another evil, scarcely less terrible, and of older 
 standing. The succession was uncertain. In the fifteenth 
 century this intestine disease had covered the country 
 with blood for thirty years, had darkened the national 
 character and stained the national history. In the six- 
 teenth century, when it broke out again in the difficulty of 
 fixing the succession to Henry VIII, in the wild rebellions 
 that accompanied the accession of Mary, then in the 
 dangerous abeyance of the question in the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, it showed itself as a deep-seated, almost incurable 
 evil. In the daughter of Anne Boleyn it seemed visibly 
 embodied. How was it possible that she of all persons 
 should cure this chronic disease ? 
 
 Yet at the end of her reign it was cured. Her suc- 
 cessor took his seat on the throne with almost universal 
 acclamation, and if in the seventeenth century and later 
 England again knew Pretenders, the disease was now 
 of a milder type and threatened no second War of the 
 Roses. 
 
 As a result of these two great evils, at her accession 
 the English temperament was troubled and gloomy. 
 People had grown accustomed to the sight of bishops at 
 the stake and queens at the block. Later they had to 
 accustom themselves to the danger of foreign wars and 
 Spanish Armadas. 
 
 During Elizabeth's reign this national melancholy 
 went on healing itself. It gave place to a sanguine self- 
 confidence, a robust and boisterous national pride, which 
 first led to a loving study of English history and anti- 
 quities, and then broke out in a national poetry, which in 
 Shakspeare overflows with jubilant patriotism. The 
 Scotsman Drummond a little later finds that the English 
 
CLOSE OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 245 
 
 school of literature errs principally by its extravagantlj' 
 national character, and Sully passes the same judgment 
 upon English statesmanship. -, 
 
 At her accession England was threatened by another ' 
 great evil. Almost all countries of Europe were passing 
 one after another by royal marriage into the Habsburg 
 estate. It was desirable not only to escape this calamity, 
 but also to reap the benefit which might accidentally flow 
 from royal marriage. On the one hand England must not 
 become a province of Spain ; on the other hand England 
 and Scotland ought to be united. 
 
 But it seemed almost impossible for Elizabeth either 
 to avoid the evil or to secure the good. For Elizabeth 
 was a woman, and must marry. If she married, it would 
 be beneath her dignity to accept any husband that 
 was not either a Habsburg or a Valois, and in either case 
 England would run the risk of becoming a province in 
 some continental Monarchy. But if by remaining a Virgin 
 Queen she should avert this result, there still remained a 
 difficulty in the way of the union of England and Scotland. 
 For the Scotch queen was a Catholic and a Guise, and 
 was almost certain to marry some leading Catholic prince. 
 Thus if England and Scotland were at last united they 
 would be united in the Counter-Reformation. 
 
 Nevertheless at the end of her reign England remained 
 in the first place free from all foreign entanglements. No 
 Habsburg or Bourbon prince had any dangerous claim 
 upon the succession. Secondly, England and Scotland 
 were prepared to unite themselves under one sceptre, and 
 that sceptre was in the hand of a Protestant. 
 
 It was the work of Elizabeth to have created such a 
 Monarchy of Britain. She laid the foundation of it in the 
 Treaty of Edinburgh. It has been since developed much 
 
246 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 furthei-, but the solid foundation, which lies in the Refor- 
 mation itself, remains where it was. 
 
 By abstaining from all foreign connexions and by 
 strengthening the connexion with Scotland Elizabeth 
 made our state for the first time truly insular. She gave 
 us that frontier which has hitherto proved impassable. 
 She thus raised us to a position of self-sufficing security 
 which few other states enjoy, so that since her time 
 Englishmen have seldom felt their country to be really in 
 danger. 
 
 Insularity has its intellectual and moral disadvantages. 
 And soon after Elizabeth's time we remark that English 
 people begin to be careless and ignorant of the affairs, the 
 interests and thoughts of the Continent. They become 
 too much wrapped up in themselves. But Elizabeth's 
 reign introduced another innovation which did much to 
 counterbalance this evil. For as she withdrew us from 
 the Continent she introduced us to the Ocean and to the 
 New World. We by no means ceased to have interests 
 outside our own island. Rather, we became for the first 
 time explorers, colonisers. And whereas the Spaniards, 
 while possessing half the globe, had contrived to keep 
 their minds intensely narrow and to learn as little as 
 possible from the new things they saw, we grasped the 
 New World in a more curious and sympathetic way, 
 acting as individuals and traders rather than as mere 
 officials. In the first generation of our truly insular life 
 we seem to have rather gained than lost in breadth of 
 intelligence by the transition. 
 
 Such are the vast results of Elizabeth's reign. When 
 we inquire how they were attained we certainly do not 
 find either that they were accidental or that they grew up 
 by natural development, so that no credit should be due 
 
CLOSE OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 247 
 
 for them to the Government. They were due in the main 
 to Elizabeth's policy, and would have been lost if she had 
 acted otherwise ; for example, if she had married Philip II 
 or Leicester or Alen9on, if she had stood out in the 
 fashion of Edward VI as an aggressive champion of 
 Protestantism, if she had squandered vast sums upon a 
 policy of adventure, or if in other ways she had acted 
 unwisely. But if we inquire further in what precisely the 
 wisdom of Elizabeth consisted, we are struck by one most 
 remarkable feature of her reign. 
 
 Never in the more recent centuries of English history, 
 has a ruler held the reins of government nearly so long as 
 Elizabeth. We have had since two great sovereigns and 
 several great ministers, but Oliver ruled but five years 
 and had a ruling influence not more than eleven, and 
 William ruled not fully fourteen. Of the great ministers, 
 Pitt held office in all less than twenty years. But Eliza- 
 beth reigned with full vigour for more than forty-four years. 
 
 As a matter of course a long reign offers more oppor- 
 tunities for strokes of statesmanship, more room for the 
 execution of large and complicated plans, than a short one. 
 But the peculiar feature of Elizabeth's rule is that in 
 dealing with foreign states she has no plans and no strokes 
 of statesmanship. The time which was allowed to her in 
 such ample measure is, as it were, not the room in which, 
 but the material itself with which she achieves her results. 
 We know how much time itself by its mere lapse, even 
 though nothing is done, may accomplish of good. And so 
 we call time the healer or the consoler. We know too 
 that other statesmen have been aware of this important 
 fact. ' Time and I against the world,' said Mazarin. 
 Among all great rulers it is the distinction of Elizabeth to 
 have shown how much may be achieved by simply allowing 
 full play to the influence of time. 
 
248 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Such statesmanship is not possible in a state where no 
 ruler can reasonably expect to retain power for more than 
 a year or two. Elizabeth herself, though she reached the 
 throne in youth, must before long have learnt the proba- 
 bility that her reign would be cut short by assassination. 
 But with that defiance of probability which belongs to 
 high courage she behaved as if she were to grow old on 
 the throne. And her faith was rewarded. She did grow 
 old on the throne. And if we ask what did she give to 
 England during this long reign, the answer is, the reign 
 itself ' Now, Mr Speaker,' said Elizabeth once, ' what has 
 passed in the Lower House ? ' Mr Speaker answered, ' May 
 it please your Majesty, seven weeks.' In like manner 
 what passed in Elizabeth's reign was chiefly forty-four 
 years. 
 
 But when we speak thus of time we include in it the 
 idea of rest. It was the business of Elizabeth during 
 those forty-four years to give England rest. This was her 
 one problem, difficult enough in one of the wildest half- 
 centuries that have passed over Europe. We have seen 
 how she preserved peace for twenty-six years, the very 
 years when Alva raged in the Netherlands and the Guises 
 in France. It is true that this long peace was followed by 
 eighteen years of war. And yet it may be said that, 
 except in Ireland, the war of Elizabeth was to her people 
 almost like a peace. For the enemy could not reach us. 
 Within the country there were few signs of a state of war. 
 Nor were the pursuits of peace suspended. Her parsi- 
 mony reduced the pressure of taxation. And the naval 
 war, so far from checking the development of the nation 
 was the very ferment which promoted it. The naval war 
 with Spain was but a name for the exploration, discovery 
 and colonisation in which England was feeling her way to 
 greatness. 
 
CLOSE OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 249 
 
 How Elizabeth came to have such a ' large faith in 
 time,' or whether she actually had it, has been discussed 
 above. Perhaps the extreme danger of her position, 
 making all action unsafe, first threw her back upon delay. 
 But for such deep-seated diseases as then racked England 
 there is no remedy but time. From those sick religious 
 doubts {perpet'iia formidine), those frenzies of religious 
 discord, or again from those obstinate clannish feuds that 
 arise out of a disputed title, there is but one escape. The 
 generation that is tormented by them must die out, and a 
 new generation spring up. But in the meantime what 
 shall be done ? The one thing is rest. Fresh action on 
 the old lines, which would aggravate all the diseases, must 
 be avoided. Civil war must not be allowed to break 
 out, nor religious war. Hence those devices of Elizabeth. 
 'Are we Catholics? are we Protestants?' said the people. 
 Elizabeth gave them a new variety of the Reformation 
 which we now call Anglicanism from the country itself. 
 She founded what may be called a nation-church. It was 
 a solution that served the turn. 'Who is our rightful 
 sovereign ? ' asked the people. ' You have me for the 
 present,' was the answer, 'but I shall have no children; 
 after me will come Mary or, it may be, a Grey, or James.' 
 This too was an answer which served the turn. And as 
 the years passed by, a new generation sprang up whose 
 minds were agitated by other thoughts. It was a more 
 cheerful generation. Some of them 'discovered islands 
 far away';' some of them devised systems of philo- 
 
 1 Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act i, So. in, where a list is given of 
 the ways by which young men sought preferment : 
 
 Some to the wars to seek their fortune there. 
 Some to diaco-ver islands far away, 
 Some to the studious universities. 
 
250 GEO^VTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 sophy ; some of them wrote sonnets ; some of them wrote 
 plays. 
 
 This could not but happen, because among the various 
 courses which Elizabeth could not safely take was the 
 course of cramping the impulses of her people by harsh 
 government. Some of the best sovereigns England has had 
 have been those whose title was weak. Such was William 
 III, such was Oliver, and, let us observe, such was Eliza- 
 beth, being to all her Catholic subjects both illegitimate 
 and excommunicate. In this respect she differed from her 
 father, whom for the most part she made her model. She 
 was Henry VIII with a weaker title. Thus it is that in 
 some respects she resembles Henry VII. Hence in spite 
 of her haughty bearing towards Parliament, and of her 
 studied mannishness, she is fully aware how much she 
 depends on public opinion. Though she will not act her- 
 self, she will let her people act. As she said herself, she 
 was married to her people. 
 
 All the modern life and greatness of England can be 
 traced to those forty-four years in which so many old 
 thoughts were forgotten and so many new thoughts 
 were conceived. This is Elizabeth's work. We do not 
 ask here what was her character. That too is a most 
 interesting question. But when we consider her, not in 
 herself but in relation to English history, we ask, what 
 was her work ? And we answer that the greatness of it 
 can scarcely be exaggerated, so that if, in her own lan- 
 guage, she was married to that generation of Englishmen 
 we may add that she is the mother of all generations that 
 have succeeded. 
 
PAET II. 
 REACTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OUTLINES. 
 
 At the end of Elizabeth's reign begins one of the 
 greater transitions of international history. Peace was 
 speedily made between England and Spain, and five years 
 later a truce suspended the war of Spain with the Nether- 
 lands. But though a new war did not begin immediately 
 afterwards, it was visible enough that no happy period of 
 peace was in store for Europe. The old differences were 
 indeed dead. Both France and England had fairly es- 
 caped the Habsburg net. The House of Bourbon was 
 firmly established, and had restored unity and greatness 
 to France. The piratical state which had shaken the 
 maritime dominion of Spain, maintained its position, and 
 had been raised to a higher level of greatness and security 
 by the personal union with Scotland and by the utter 
 extinction of all disputes about the succession. Perhaps 
 
252 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 too the truce with the Netherlands to which Philip III 
 consented in 1609 appeared at the time, though it was 
 not so really, but a disguise of a definitive peace, adopted to 
 salve the pride of Spain. But it was soon visible to all, 
 it was already clearly visible to Henry IV, that a new 
 arrangement of the European Powers was taking place, 
 out of which would arise new wars not less serious than 
 those in which he had passed his youth and middle age. 
 
 We have marked two causes which had operated 
 almost equally to produce those wars. First, royal mar- 
 riage, so handled by the House of Austria as to become 
 an instrument of conquest, had produced immense politi- 
 cal aggregates in which already more than half of Europe 
 had been, and the rest seemed likely to be, absorbed. 
 Secondly, the Counter-Reformation, arising out of the 
 Council of Trent and pressing with the most unscrupulous 
 urgency the religious reunion of Europe, had played into 
 the hands of the Habsburg family. 
 
 The Habsburg policy had been favoured by several 
 fortunate coincidences, by that ' regiment of women ' which 
 had so unseasonably commenced in England and Scotland, 
 and by the dying out of the House of Avis in Portugal 
 and of the House of Valois in France. On these co- 
 incidences and on the Counter- Reformation the greatness 
 of Philip II had been founded. Now after an obstinate 
 struggle his aggressions had been checked. To the end 
 however he had maintained a sort of military superiority 
 at least on land, and when the truce was concluded in 
 1609, what the Spaniards felt most bitterly was that it 
 would break up their army of the Low Countries, the 
 finest army in the world. But now that the war was over 
 there was no reason why the Habsburg Power, even if 
 worsted on the whole, should begin forthwith to decline. 
 
OUTLINES. 253 
 
 It could fall back upon its old methods. It could make 
 new marriages. For what royal family would not be 
 proud to furnish brides to Habsburg princes ? And yet 
 every such bride supplied the House with a new pretension. 
 The resources of the House had as yet by no means been 
 brought fully into play. Nor was the impulse of the 
 Counter-Reformation yet on the decline ; nay, it was at 
 this time more lively and more victorious than ever. 
 
 It was likely enough then that Europe would witness 
 a second aggression, perhaps a second ascendency, of the 
 House of Habsburg. It was not impossible that such a 
 second aggression might be little more than a repetition 
 of the first. That is, the House of Spain, now at peace, 
 might weave a new web of royal alliances and conquer the 
 world again by marriage. If we but cast a glance upon 
 the period, we actually see this process beginning. There 
 is a double marriage between the Houses of Habsburg and 
 Bourbon. The Prince of Asturias marries Elizabeth of 
 France, and Henry IV himself gives a great deal of thought 
 to that marriage of the Dauphin to the Infanta Anne, 
 from which (carried into effect after his death) sprang 
 Louis XIV. Spanish marriages, completed or designed, 
 make a great part of the history of the reign of our James I. 
 There are plans of a Spanish marriage for Henry, Prince 
 of Wales, and for Elizabeth Stuart, and finally there is a 
 plan, which absorbs for a long time the attention of both 
 nations, for marrying Charles, Prince of Wales, to a 
 Spanish Infanta. 
 
 Such a second aggression, even such a second as- 
 cendency, actually took place, but not in this way. For 
 another way was open, as Henry IV early perceived. It 
 may have already surprised us in tracing the fortunes 
 of the House of Austria to find that after the great 
 
254 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICV. 
 
 bifurcation at the retirement of Charles V the Austrian 
 branch, though in the division of spoils it carries off the 
 imperial dignity itself, seems to drop out of sight. How 
 completely does Philip II eclipse during his whole reign 
 the three relatives who, as Emperors, took precedence of 
 him in dignity, his uncle Ferdinand, his cousin Maximilian, 
 his nephew Rudolph ! He did not clearly surpass them in 
 ability, but he surpassed them beyond comparison in power. 
 It had been arranged by Charles V, as we remarked above, 
 that Philip should be his true successor, and really, though 
 not nominally, emperor. Even so, however, the obscurity 
 of these emperors is not accounted for. If not equal to 
 Philip, they were lords of a great territory, not merely 
 of Austria proper with Tirol and the provinces of the 
 Eastern Alps, but also of Hither Austria and of Bohemia, 
 with which went Silesia. Austria has been a great Power 
 since, even under weak rulers, and yet in the age of 
 Philip II his Austrian cousins not only do not rival him, 
 but do not much help him. Some members indeed of the 
 Austrian House take part in his wars, as the Archduke 
 Albert, but the Austrian state, as such, is not found 
 lending aid to him. 
 
 This might conceivably be altered. If we only suppose 
 some internal change to take place in the dominions of 
 the Austrian Habsburg, so as to make him as powerful 
 for international action as he is powerful in mere extent of 
 territory, or further let us suppose that not only in his 
 hereditary dominions, but in Germany itself the emperor 
 recovers something of his old power — and then let us 
 suppose that he coalesces in close alliance with his cousin 
 the Spanish Habsburg, and we have the conditions of 
 a new Habsburg Ascendency of the most formidable kind. 
 
 This then is what Henry IV foresaw, and what he was 
 
OUTLINES. 255 
 
 already bestirring himself to prevent, when Ravaillac so 
 suddenly frustrated all his plans. Within a few years 
 from that time nothing else was thought of in Europe 
 but the concert of the two branches of the House of 
 Habsburg. A new age was begun, a new series of wars 
 was unrolling itself Again the House of Habsburg was 
 alarming Europe ; Spain was again active ; the struggle 
 in the Low Countries began again, and the truce did not 
 ripen into a peace. But this time Spain is scarcely so 
 much spoken of as the emperor. This time the scene of 
 war is not mainly the Low Countries, but Germany itself, 
 from the Baltic to Bavaria and Hungary; it is the 
 Thirty Years' War. 
 
 Before entering upon a narrative of English policy 
 during this period, we may attend to some of the larger 
 features of the period itself, and especially to the altered 
 international position of England. 
 
 First let us observe that, though the Thirty Years' 
 War has Germany for its scene, and draws into its vortex 
 most of the states of Europe — England, France, Spain, 
 Denmark, Sweden — yet another war of great importance 
 goes on at the same time and in the neighbourhood of it. 
 This is the second war of Spain with the Low Countries, 
 which began in 1621, or three years later than the Thirty 
 Years' W^ar, and was brought to an end in 1648 at the 
 same time as the Thirty Years' War. It is the old war 
 recommencing after the expiration of the Truce. Philip 
 IV of Spain renews the struggle which Philip 11 had 
 carried on with such obstinacy, and which Philip III had 
 suspended for twelve years. 
 
 In the main the new European contest is a repetition 
 of the old. Again the Counter-Reformation threatens 
 to overwhelm the states of the Reformation. This time 
 
256 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 indeed its plan is more comprehensive, including Central 
 as well as Western Europe, but within Western Europe 
 the plan is the same as before. We have seen how in the 
 Elizabethan age everything turned on the Dutch rebellion. 
 By this England and France were irresistibly drawn into 
 the struggle with Spain, since Elizabeth in self-defence 
 could not allow the Dutch to be crushed and since the 
 Protestants of the Low Countries were in the closest 
 concert with the Huguenots of France. For twelve years 
 this danger has been suspended, but it returns when the 
 House of Habsburg and the Counter-Reformation open 
 the new age of war by their combined advance. Perhaps 
 then we might be led to conclude that England will be 
 forced in self-defence to revive the policy of Elizabeth, 
 and in like manner that France will return to the system 
 of Henry IV. 
 
 And in fact France did feel herself obliged to do this. 
 The great feature of the age before us is the activity of 
 France, which draws her by degrees into a career of 
 conquest. This age in France is the age of Richelieu and 
 Mazarin, but we shall find that the warlike policy of 
 Richelieu was not adopted at the outset from ambition, 
 but in self-defence. He feels the pressure of the same 
 necessity which made the last years of Henry IV restless, 
 the necessity of breaking loose from the imprisonment in 
 which France was held by the House of Habsburg, and 
 we shall find that though he is led to take part in the 
 German war against the Austrian Habsburg, yet the 
 Spanish Habsburg, his neighbour in the Low Countries 
 and Franche Comte, is the enemy he has principally in 
 view. 
 
 But with England it is otherwise. For her the 
 Elizabethan age is past, never to return; she not only 
 
OUTLINES. 257 
 
 does not revive, but has no need to revive, the Elizabethan 
 policy. Even in the Elizabethan age England, when she 
 was most hard pressed, was in less extreme danger than 
 France. The Armada could effect no landing in England, 
 but France was twice invaded by the army of Parma, and 
 Paris held out for Spain against Henry IV. There was 
 still in Richelieu's time but a land-frontier between 
 France and the seat of war in the Netherlands, and the 
 religious division, which had been the weakness of France, 
 still subsisted. Richelie\i had still to remember that there 
 was a Huguenot party in France, and that by aiding the 
 Dutch against Spain he might provoke the frenzy of a 
 second League. But Elizabeth's reign had raised England 
 into a security she had never known before and has never 
 lost since. We have had moments of anxiety since, as in 
 the early years of William III, but the chronic anxiety 
 which had weighed upon us for some thirty years together 
 in Elizabeth's time — this was an incubus which had been 
 removed once for all. Throughout the period of the 
 Thirty Years' War the interest which England takes in 
 Continental politics is of a different kind from what it had 
 been in Elizabeth's time. The devastation of Germany, 
 the danger of destruction under which the Protestantism 
 of North Germany laboured, might affect the generous or 
 the religious feelings of Englishmen, but they were evils 
 comparatively remote. Holland indeed was near at hand, 
 and Holland was now once more attacked by Spain ; but 
 the circumstances were wholly different from those which 
 had made it so imperative for England to interfere in 
 Elizabeth's time. Much is said of the littleness and 
 half-heartedness of the Stuarts, who could not rise to the 
 idea of protecting the interests of Protestantism abroad. 
 In this respect, however, they did not differ from Elizabeth, 
 s. 17 
 
258 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 who had always steadfastly refused the part of a champion 
 of Protestantism, and who had aided the Dutch grudg- 
 ingly, reluctantly, and always barely as much as was 
 needed, not for their deliverance, but for the safety of 
 England. Only what seemed enough when it was still 
 doubtful whether the English were a Catholic or a 
 Protestant nation dissatisfied a later generation which 
 was ardently Protestant. But in 1620 both England and 
 Holland were incomparably stronger than they had been 
 in 1580. Holland was now at the height of prosperity, 
 the richest country in the world, possessing a great 
 trade and important trading relations, and skilled from 
 long practice in the art of growing richer and more pro- 
 sperous by war with Spain. There was no fear then this 
 time that Holland would be overwhelmed, and that Eng- 
 land's turn would come next. But England too in 1620 
 was not the same state that she had been under the queen. 
 England and Scotland were united in the person of the 
 king and united in the Reformation. All those dangerous 
 and terrible discords which in the queen's time had laid 
 the island open to foreign invasion were extinguished. 
 There were no longer two sovereigns in the island and two 
 evenly balanced religions ; no longer two systems of alli- 
 ance and of royal affinity. The state ruled by James was 
 as much greater than the state ruled by Elizabeth as 
 James himself was less great than Elizabeth. 
 
 Hence a broad difference which for us is of capital 
 importance between the age of the first Stuarts and that 
 of Elizabeth. Elizabeth's reign is devoted to foreign 
 affairs. In reviewing it we have been constrained to take 
 notice of every great change that took place on the 
 Continent, because every such change was of importance 
 to England. The causes which determined English policy 
 
OUTLINES. 259 
 
 lay in that reign outside England. How the rebellion 
 might fare in the Low Countries, or the Huguenot move- 
 ment in France, who might be elected Pope, who might 
 be sent by Philip as governor to Brussels, these were 
 the all-important questions upon which English policy 
 depended. But after the accession of the Stuart and the 
 peace with Spain the tension is in some sense relaxed in 
 foreign affairs. It is true that in no long time another 
 kind of tension begins to be perceptible. The country 
 has become ardently Protestant, and is inclined to force a 
 Protestant policy upon its Government. 
 
 This appears most evidently from the commencement 
 early in the reign of James of the great constitutional 
 debate. Powers which Elizabeth had been allowed to 
 exercise are refused to James, and the parliamentary 
 leaders who enter on this new path take some pains, and 
 have some difficulty, in explaining their inconsistency. The 
 true explanation is evident when we compare the two 
 periods. Constitutional questions came into the fore- 
 ground because the greatest foreign questions had been 
 settled. Just as after the Napoleonic wars a period of 
 reform set in, and the kind of stagnation into which 
 legislation had fallen was broken up, so at the end of the 
 long Spanish war Pai-liament was relieved from a pressure 
 which had paralysed it. 
 
 We are not concerned here with the constitutional 
 question, but our narrative cannot but be affected by the 
 cause which led to the opening of it at this time. We 
 can proceed henceforth more rapidly, we have henceforth 
 less to tell, at least so far as English relations with the 
 Continent are concerned. In the religious war of the 
 seventeenth century England plays a less prominent part 
 than in that of the sixteenth. While Germany was laid 
 
 17—2 
 
260 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 waste and tiirned into a desert, England did not watch 
 every campaign with feverish interest as she had watched 
 the resistance of the Low Countries to Philip, but turned 
 her eyes away and undertook radical changes in hei- 
 domestic constitution. 
 
 It is however to be observed that in another direction 
 England looks abroad far more than formerly, that she has 
 acquired a new foreign interest which takes the place of 
 that which she has lost. She has now become a maritime 
 state. In Elizabeth's time the Ocean and the New World 
 lay there as a vast, almost unknown region, controlled by 
 the Catholic king. The task of her reign had been to throw 
 it open to Englishmen. But this commencement once 
 made, we became more and more familiar with it, and the 
 New World became gi-adually an arena for policy, a scene 
 of wars, a subject for treaties. 
 
 Under Elizabeth colonisation had been scarcely more 
 than an idea, working in the brain of Gilbert and Ralegh. 
 In the age now before us it takes the shape of a solid 
 reality, and one of the most pregnant changes in English 
 history takes place, when Englishmen, just after they 
 have begun to feel themselves islanders, enter upon a new 
 phase, and begin to be a double community, divided by 
 the Atlantic Ocean, and inhabiting islands on the one side 
 of it and a continent on the other. But since the latter 
 years of Elizabeth's reign another new feature has ap- 
 peared in the New World. The Dutch too have forced 
 their way into it, and, outstripping England, have founded 
 colonies and created a great trading power at the expense 
 of Spain. The result is that where the Catholic Empire 
 formerly reigned alone, and with a leaden sceptre, two 
 active Protestant Powers have now made themselves a 
 place, and these are not only hostile to Spain, but, as 
 
OUTLINES. 261 
 
 rivals in trade, begin also to be, occasionally at least, 
 hostile to each other. On the whole a complex maritime 
 system has come into existence. By the side of the 
 European group of States held together by royal marriages 
 and royal successions and by a common religion, and torn 
 at times by wars of succession and by religious schisms, 
 we begin to see a maritime group of states, united and 
 divided by quite other influences, and mainly by trade. 
 England, in proportion as she is less urgently drawn 
 towards the European gi'oup, attaches herself to the mari- 
 time gi'oup. And this new relation and the new field 
 thrown open to her industry increase her security by 
 I'apidly increasing her wealth. 
 
 Nevertheless, though it is no longer needful for us to 
 follow the course of Continental affairs so attentively as 
 when we studied the reign of Elizabeth, it is equally 
 necessary to have before us a clear outline of them. 
 Once or twice at long intervals in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury England came again into a close contact with the 
 great Continental Powers, and in order to understand 
 these collisions, all-important though now rare, we must 
 inform ourselves of the history of those Powers. In order 
 that we may understand Oliver's war with Spain, and 
 still more the wars of William and Marlborough first with 
 France and then with France and Spain in alliance, we 
 must follow the phases of Spanish history under Philip III, 
 Philip IV, Charles II and Philip V, and the phases of 
 French history in the age of the Cardinals, and in the age 
 of Louis XIV. Nor will it be possible for us to do this 
 without also obtaining a satisfactory outline of the affairs 
 of other states, particularly the Empire and the United 
 Netherlands. 
 
 We have passed from the sixteenth to the seventeenth 
 
262 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 century, from an age when England was deeply involved 
 in the struggles of the Continent and barely at the 
 starting-point of her maritime career to an age when she 
 had begun to enjoy insular security, and also to found 
 colonies and to grow rich by means of foreign trade. But 
 in some large features the seventeenth century also 
 resembles the sixteenth. As in the latter so in the 
 former England has mainly to do with the House of 
 Austria. Her rivalry with France does not begin till 
 the seventeenth century is drawing to an end, and belongs 
 mainly to the eighteenth. But further we are to observe 
 that, as in Elizabeth's time, so in the seventeenth centurj' 
 England has comparatively little contact with the German 
 branch of the House of Habsburg. It is still the Spanish 
 Habsburg, the master of the Ocean and of the New 
 World, upon whose decline her own rise depends. The 
 great development of English maritime power which marks 
 the age of Oliver corresponds, as we shall see, to a series 
 of disasters befalling Spain, which taken together may faii-ly 
 be called the Fall of the Monarchy of Philip II, and the next 
 great development, which carried England to the height of 
 greatness in the reign of Anne, was caused by the extinc- 
 tion of the Spanish Branch of the House of Habsburg. 
 
 England at the present time looks back upon a long 
 period during which she had frequent and for the most 
 part friendly relations with the Austrian House or, as we 
 commonly say, with Austria. But this period coincides 
 on the whole with that of our rivalry with France ; it 
 covers the eighteenth century, and only the closing years 
 of the seventeenth. In the present part of this book we 
 shall not reach it, and even in later parts we shall but 
 deal with the commencement of it. 
 
 Such is the outline which we now jiroceed to fill up. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 EPOCHS IN THE EEIGN OF JAMES I. 
 
 The reign of James I answers to no distinct period of 
 international history. His accession does indeed mark a 
 new international departure, for it gave us peace with 
 Spain. But Europe changes its aspect again in his later 
 years, and his death is almost unnoticed and marks no 
 epoch. 
 
 In his first years a work of pacification goes on. The 
 attack has confessedly failed which the Spanish House of 
 Habsburg, carrying the banner of the Counter-Reformation, 
 had directed against the Low Countries, France and Eng- 
 land at once. One peace has been made already in 1598, 
 but in making this Spain might profess to have sacrificed 
 no principle, since France had openly abandoned heresy. 
 Now however Spain brings herself to make peace with 
 heretical Powers, first with England, then with the Low 
 Countries. The pacification is completed in 1609 by the 
 conclusion of the Truce of Antwerp. 
 
 Age succeeds age in history after the manner of a 
 dissolving view. An interval of confusion often occurs in 
 which the new picture which is growing more distinct is 
 blended with the old picture which is fading away. Such 
 
264 GROWTH DF BRITISH POLICT. 
 
 a period of confusion is the middle period of the reign of 
 James. No sooner is the pacification complete than the 
 outlines of the coming war, the Thirty Years' War, become 
 visible for a moment. In 1610 Henry IV is about to take 
 the field against the House of Habsburg, not now, as before, 
 in the Low Countries or in Artois or in Italy, but in 
 Germany. Most significant is this change in the scene of 
 war ! But again the picture grows confused, Henry dis- 
 appears, and a dim period, without form and void, sets in. 
 In 1618 however Germany and Central Europe again 
 become prominent, while Spain again begins to be active. 
 The foresight of Henry is justified. A concert between 
 the two branches of the House of Habsburg is visibly 
 arranging itself In 1620 all confusion is cleared away, 
 and the new international age with distinct lineaments is 
 recognisable. In the summer of that year the Spanish 
 House openly aids the Austrian House. Spanish troops 
 from the Low Countries invade a province of Germany, 
 the Palatinate, in aid of the Austrian Habsburg, and in 
 the autumn the Habsburg Emperor, thus reinforced, deals 
 a blow at the Reformation such as it has hardly sustained 
 before, by the battle of the White Mountain, which is 
 followed by the overthrow of Protestantism in Bohemia 
 and in the Palatinate. 
 
 Accordingly James during the remaining five years of 
 his reign contemplates a new age, a new condition of 
 Europe. But the forces now unchained will rage long 
 after he has left the scene and will scarcely in his son's 
 time submit to restraint or suffer peace to be restored. 
 
 We take up the story where we left it at Elizabeth's 
 death, and consider first the pacification which James gave 
 us, and on the strength of which he laid claim to the 
 blessing promised to peace-makers. Elizabeth, as we saw. 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 265 
 
 had aimed at peace almost throughout her reign, nay at 
 the very moment when the Armada was sailing out of 
 Lisbon. Not till the very last years of her reign does she, 
 as if in despair, seek offensive alliances. She was as great 
 a peace-maker as James, and while she gave us peace she 
 accompanied the gift with economical government, which 
 James never knew how to do. If she was at last drawn 
 into a war from which she could never disentangle herself, 
 the fault lay not with her but with Spain. Accordingly 
 when we inquire why her successor was able to make 
 peace, it is natural again to look to Spain, and to ask why 
 at last Spain consented to lay down her arms, first against 
 a heretical Power, and then, five years later, against her 
 own rebels, heretics too. 
 
 We observe that both the treaty with England and 
 the truce with the Dutch were made by the same Spanish 
 Government, that of Philip III, and by the same Minister, 
 Lerma. We observe too that before the end of his reign 
 Philip III parted with this Minister, to whom he had 
 allowed a sort of omnipotence, that he did so mainly 
 because he was convinced of the sinfulness of that policy 
 ■of peace with heretics which Lerma had introduced, and 
 that at the expiration of the truce Spain recommenced hos- 
 tilities against the Dutch. And if we look at the history 
 of the Spanish Habsburgs since the accession of Philip II 
 as a whole, we see that Lerma's truce of twelve years is 
 quite exceptional and unique. From 1567 to 1648, that is 
 under Philip II, under Philip III for eleven years and 
 again in his last year, and under Philip IV for twenty- 
 seven years this war continued, and that it came to a final 
 end only when the Spanish empire was threatened with 
 utter dissolution. 
 
 So immoveably fixed was the Spanish mind under the 
 
266 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 influence of that stiff orthodoxy which is peculiar to it. 
 It is impossible to judge the Spanish statesmanship of the 
 seventeenth century by ordinary standards, as we see by 
 the simple fact that though Philip II himself had been 
 reduced to a repudiation of the public debt, yet after this 
 repudiation a ruinous war was waged by Spain for half a 
 century, with only the intermission of those twelve years, 
 and was terminated even then only because a war more 
 ruinous still had commenced. No amount of impoverish- 
 ment or depopulation, nothing short of the dissolution of 
 the Monarchy, could induce the Spaniard to admit the idea 
 of peace with heretics. When we consider all this, and 
 find that by a rare exception Spain had in the days of 
 Philip III a Minister who could admit this idea into his 
 mind, we are led to think that the Peace-maker was more 
 probably Lerma than James I, since certainly it was not 
 James I who afterwards brought about the truce, however 
 he may have assisted in bringing it about. What Lerma's 
 motive may have been, whether purely selfish, as has 
 often been maintained, whether he thotight the money 
 required for the war would be better spent upon himself 
 and his family, or, as Ranke holds, revived the peace policy 
 advocated in Philip II's time by the Eboli family, it is 
 perhaps not necessary here to discuss. But even Lerma 
 introduces the new policy under a sort of disguise. Peace 
 with England might be regarded as a necessary step 
 towards the subjugation of the Dutch, as indeed in Eliza- 
 beth's time it had been recognised that they could never 
 be subdued so long as they had the support of England. 
 In that age indeed it had been perceived that this support- 
 would always be given them either openly or secretly, and 
 in consequence Spain had made open war with England 
 rather than be exposed to her secret attacks. But 
 
EPOCHS IN THE EKIGN OF JAMES I. 267 
 
 this view was naturally reconsidered on the accession of 
 James. His throne was so much more secure than that of 
 Elizabeth that he might seem not to need the Dutch. It 
 was not necessary to him, as it had been to Elizabeth, 
 that the Dutch rebellion should succeed. He represented 
 strict legitimism, and therefore might be induced, it was 
 hoped, actually to take the side of Spain against her rebels. 
 He could probably well afford to do this, and if he 
 did it, his intervention, as he still had Brill and Flushing 
 in his hands, might well be decisive. But after all, was 
 he not a heretic ? Even this was not quite clear. At 
 least he was not a heretic by fatal necessity, as the daugh- 
 ter of Anne Boleyn had been. He for his part was the 
 son of Mary Stuart, a martyr of Catholicism. He was 
 known to hate Puritanism ; he was a learned student of 
 Church history, and in the days of Baronius and Bellar- 
 mine such students were commonly caught in the current 
 of the Counter-Eeformation. Moreover in paving the way 
 to his accession to the throne of England he had been 
 lavish of hints and assurances intended to avert the op- 
 position of the Catholic Powers. His queen too inclined 
 to Catholicism. All these facts taken together formed a 
 foundation upon which Lerma and Philip IH might build 
 a hope that James I intended to imitate the stroke of 
 policy of which the fame was still recent, that he would 
 establish the Stuart dynasty, as Henry IV had established 
 the House of Bourbon, upon a recantation. How im- 
 possible this was in the state of English and Scotch public 
 opinion, could not be realised in Spain. 
 
 As far as the Dutch rebellion was concerned, these 
 calculations might have proved correct but for one cii-- 
 cumstance. The Dutch had all along had another string 
 to their bow. England indeed ha;d often been of gi-eat use 
 
268 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 to their cause, when France was unable or unwilling to 
 help them. But they could commonly dispense with 
 English aid, because they could commonly obtain suf- 
 ficient aid from France. This was the case after 1604. 
 Henry IV at this time was revolving great schemes of 
 resistance to the House of Habsburg. Having restored 
 internal tranquillity to France, he was now restoring her 
 European precedence. His diplomacy was everywhere, 
 in Italy, in Savoy, in the Grisons, defeating that of Spain. 
 Even in England he made a great attempt by that mission 
 of Sully, upon which Sully himself has built such a ro- 
 mance, to prevent the conclusion of the Treaty of 1604. 
 Natiirally at such a time the Dutch rebels were most 
 necessary to him, and he supplied the place which Eliza- 
 beth had left vacant and which James had declined to 
 occupy. 
 
 In 1609 too as well as in 1604 some disguise is used. 
 Lerma does not even then actually make peace with 
 heretics. It is true that he covered Spain with humilia- 
 tion. ' The Spaniards,' wrote Pope Paul V in September 
 of that year, ' have lost their old knack. They are uni- 
 versally despised, and what has vitterly ruined their 
 reputation is the Truce in Flanders, by which they have 
 themselves admitted their helplessness.' Still it was a 
 truce, it was not a peace. No principle was actually 
 abandoned. The Dutch were not declared to be inde- 
 pendent, but were to be treated for twelve years as if 
 they were independent, and for the same time they were 
 not to be disturbed in their trade with the Indies. The 
 distinction might appear at the time j)urely illusory, but 
 it proved after all to be substantial. For when the twelve 
 years were expired that did not happen which might 
 perhaps have been expected. It was not found impossible 
 
EPOCHS IN THE EEIGN OF JAMES I. 269 
 
 to renew the war. On the contrary the war was renewed 
 and was waged for twenty-seven years. 
 
 This pacification, which occupies the earlier years of 
 James I, and which is the principal achievement of the 
 second Cecil, is mainly memorable as having established 
 England and the Netherlands in the possession of their 
 Oceanic trade. From this time they begin to be the Sea 
 Powers. Spain is forced tacitly to countenance the in- 
 fringement of her maritime monopoly. The two Protestant 
 Powers have torn up the Bull of Alexander VI, and take 
 open possession of their share in the New World. The 
 treaties indeed establish no new principle ; only by omis- 
 sions and ambiguous phrases does Spain acknowledge and 
 acquiesce in a new state of things. And this is the place 
 to note a new maritime developement, which was of capital 
 importance to England in all later times. We have traced 
 the maritime progi'ess of England. A little later, at the 
 cloSe of the sixteenth and in the first years of the seven- 
 teenth century, the Dutch enter with still greater energy 
 upon the same course. 
 
 Now that we see the two Sea Powers set out almost 
 simultaneously upon their career our attention is caught 
 by the striking difference between them. In the war 
 with Spain their position is quite different. England at 
 that time (otherwise now!) is unassailable except by direct 
 invasion. She is to Philip what Eussia was to Napoleon, 
 a distant Power difficult to reach and protected by Nature. 
 She has as yet no colonies, no trade on every sea exposed 
 to attack. She is self-supporting. Her people live on 
 the produce of her soil. In the naval war she takes for the 
 most part the offensive. Spain by a great effort essays 
 two or three times to strike her, and every time fails. 
 She on the contrary preys without intermission on the 
 
270 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 wealth of Spain, which is at her mercy either in silver 
 fleets near the Azores or in improtected towns in the Gulf 
 of Mexico. The conflict thus is unequal, as the Spaniards 
 themselves felt, and expressed in their rhyme 
 
 Con todos guerra 
 Y paz con Inglaterra. 
 
 ' Let us have war with all the world but peace with 
 England.' It is when we have noted this that we 
 become aware of the strangeness of the conditions under 
 which the Dutch conquered their independence from 
 Spain. It is easy to admire the obstinacy of their resist- 
 ance, the victories of Maurice, the patriotism which 
 enabled so small a population to resist the great Power 
 of the age. But the most notable feature of the struggle 
 is that the rebel population were not in the least self- 
 supporting, that they were throughout entirely dependent 
 on foreign trade. When we remember that, being such, 
 they had to resist the Power which professed to control 
 the sea, we begin to form a conception of the novel and 
 memorable character of this successful resistance, and also 
 of the hoUowness of the pretension which Spain made to 
 maritime supremacy. This population, which resisted a 
 series of great commanders attacking it by land, from 
 Alva and Don John to Spinola, must have succumbed 
 almost at once to a commercial blockade, had Spain 
 possessed the intelligence or the power to form it. Only 
 by maintaining its foreign trade could it live, only by 
 increasing and extending its trade could it support the 
 expense of a long war. Under this pressure the Dutch 
 far outstripped the English in the energy of their attacks 
 upon the Spanish monopoly in the New World. Thus 
 when England made peace with Spain in 1604 she had as 
 yet made no settlement, acquired no footing, in the New 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 271 
 
 World, except indeed some share in the Newfoundland or 
 Newland fisheries. We understand the name Newfound- 
 land when we perceive how for a series of years the only 
 practical interest our nation had in the world discovered 
 by Columbus was confined to that spot of territory. For 
 England was under no pressure of necessity. It was not 
 till the very year of the Truce, 1609, that the foundation of 
 Virginia, our first great colony, was successfully laid, and it 
 was laid in a territory remote from all Spanish settlements. 
 But even before 1604 the Dutch had boldly attacked the 
 Spanish settlements themselves, that is, those Portuguese 
 settlements in the Eastern Archipelago which by the revo- 
 lution of 1580 had become part of the Spanish Monarchy. 
 Here they foimded their trade-empire, avowedly at the 
 expense of Spain, and in this actual loss of territory and 
 of trade the Spanish government acquiesced by the Truce 
 of Antwerp. 
 
 Having once founded their trade-empire the Dutch 
 proceeded, under the same pressure of necessity, to devise 
 the institutions necessary for maintaining it. A whole 
 system of policy and finance was invented, and the world 
 saw a wholly new political phenomenon. There had been 
 little real prosperity or vitality in the colonial institutions 
 of Spain. But the trade-empire now founded by Protest- 
 antism had quite another sort of success. More slowly 
 the English now entered iipon the work of colonisation, 
 and one of the great features of the seventeenth century 
 is the rivalry of these two maritime Powers, and the 
 gradual adoption by England of the principles of trade 
 and colonisation first devised in Holland. 
 
 The first period of James is filled with the Pacification, 
 in other words, with the harvest of the seed sown by 
 Elizabeth. It is the time of Salisbury's Ministry; the 
 
272 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 present is prosperous for England, and Henry, Prince of 
 Wales, with his sister Elizabeth, offer a good prospect for 
 the future. While England withdraws from continental 
 affairs to plant her first colony, Henry IV of France, now 
 indisputably the first man- in the world, keeps vigilant 
 watch over the House of Habsburg, and prevents the loss 
 of the great Queen from being felt. These persons make 
 their exit soon after the Pacification has been accom- 
 plished, Henry IV in 1610, Salisbury and Prince Henry 
 in 1612. In 1613 Elizabeth Stuart leaves England to 
 make her home at Heidelberg, and to become the stock 
 from which the Brunswick dynasty should spring. An 
 age is ovei-, a long struggle has been brought to an end. 
 What shall come next ? 
 
 There was no reason why the gi-eat causes which had 
 brought into existence the Habsburg Power should not 
 continue to operate as in the sixteenth century. It had 
 been founded on marriages with the help of the Counter- 
 Reformation. There was no reason why new marriages 
 should not be made, and the Counter-Reformation was by 
 no means dead ; on the contrary it was in greater vigour 
 than ever. 
 
 But in fact it was found that the Spanish House of 
 Habsburg had lost the trick of those marriages by which 
 kingdoms were absorbed. The family furnishes brides, 
 but no longer such conquering bridegrooms as Philip the 
 Handsome or Charles V or Philip II. One reason for this 
 may be discerned. It was out of the question for the 
 Catholic King to marry a heretic, and Philip II himself 
 had ceased to crave the hand of Elizabeth as soon as he 
 saw her dallying with heresy. In the time of the great 
 marriages royal houses were scarcely yet infected with 
 heresy, so that this difficulty did not yet arise. But in 
 
EPOCHS IN THE EEIGN OF JAMES I. 273 
 
 the seventeenth century a king of Spain could no longer 
 marry an English princess, as appeared in 1612 when 
 Philip III conceived for a moment the idea of marrjring 
 Elizabeth Stuart. A French princess he might and did 
 marry, but the Salic law barred the way to the French 
 succession against foreign claimants whether of the 
 Habsburg or of another house. Accordingly the old 
 Habsburg method ceased to be practised outside the 
 family itself. Intermarriage between the two branches of 
 the Habsburg House is henceforth usual, and we even find 
 the Spanish branch hoping by this means to tear territory 
 away from the Austrian branch. And thus while the 
 Spanish Government occupies itself as much as ever with 
 pushing hereditary claims, yet it scarcely succeeds in 
 establishing new ones. Meanwhile other Houses learn 
 the trick which the Habsburgs have forgotten, and in the 
 end the Bourbons avenge themselves on the descendants 
 of Philip II by swallowing up the greater part of his 
 inheritance. 
 
 But if not by bridegrooms the Spanish House can still 
 push its interests by means of brides. England is no 
 longer ruled by a Virgin Queen, who not only does not her- 
 self marry, but has no royal relatives to give in marriage. 
 The long period is over when this question of marriage, in 
 those days the most momentous of all international 
 questions, was in abeyance for England, first because all 
 negociations about it ended in disappointment, and after- 
 wards because for some twenty years they entirely ceased 
 to be carried on. We had now a king and queen who had 
 sons and daughters. And marriage negociations soon 
 begin which are not intended to lead, and do not lead, to 
 nothing. 
 
 In recent times royal Houses seem on the whole to 
 
 S. 18 
 
274 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 have avoided such intermarriages as might establish great 
 territorial pretensions. Louis Philippe's imitation of the 
 famous masterpiece of Mazarin provoked disgust rather 
 than admiration. The Brunswick dynasty has usually by 
 preference sought brides in the lesser sovereign houses. 
 The Stuart dynasty was more ambitious. It is a capital 
 point in its history, especially in the earlier period, that it 
 desires to ally itself either with the Spanish or with the 
 French House. And indeed Elizabeth herself writes as if 
 a marriage with any prince of secondary rank would be a 
 degradation to her. To James, who was always in want of 
 money, it was also a leading object to secure a handsome 
 marriage-portion, since in proportion to his annual revenue 
 the sum he might expect was more important than can 
 easily be realised in the present age. James, whose boast 
 it was to have made peace with Spain, early set his mind 
 upon cementing this peace by a marriage-alliance. And 
 by allowing this to appear he gave the Spanish Govern- 
 ment a hold upon his policy. 
 
 The devotion to Roman Catholicism was an absolutely 
 fixed feature in the Spanish House. It would be diificult 
 to conceive a greater bigot than Philip II, but Philip III 
 was at least more exclusively, if not more strongly, 
 influenced by his religion than Philip II. There was 
 therefore from the beginning no real likelihood that a 
 Spanish princess could be obtained either for Prince 
 Henry or, later, for Prince Charles, unless the bridegroom 
 would consent to become a Roman Catholic. The Spanish 
 Government in its ignorance of English affairs might 
 hope to impose this condition, but at least the negocia- 
 tions, even if they led to no marriage, might be used so as 
 greatly to affect English policy. And thus Spain begins 
 to exert a new sort of iafluence over England, and con- 
 
EPOCHS IN THE EEIGN OF JAMES I. 275 
 
 ceives the hope of obtaining in peace results which 
 hitherto she had vainly sought by war. 
 
 We saw Philip II, as the Habsburg bridegroom, almost 
 conquering England in the time of Mary Tudor. We now 
 see a Habsburg bride, who however remains in the back- 
 ground, swaying the mind of James Stuart. 
 
 Through the greater part of Elizabeth's reign it had 
 remained doubtful whether the English people was at 
 heart Catholic or Protestant. And those were the days of 
 the Counter-Reformation. The tendency all over Europe 
 was more and more towards it. When Elizabeth first 
 came to the throne it had seemed possible that France 
 would declare for the Reformation. All was changed now. 
 France had chosen the Counter-Reformation and had 
 actually converted the leader of the Huguenot party. In 
 the Low Countries the larger number of provinces had 
 returned to orthodoxy. It was not unreasonable therefore 
 to suppose that the same tendency was secretly at work 
 in England, and that if only English opinion could find 
 free utterance it would pronounce in favour of Catholicism. 
 But it was silenced by law. Legally there was no such 
 toleration in England as the Religious Peace had given to 
 Germany and the Edict of Nantes to France. Thus there 
 was in England a feeling dangerously suppressed, of which 
 the intensity could not be measured, a bitter grievance, a 
 party hostile to the reigning system, of unknown numerical 
 force, but the very party which forty years before had made 
 a great rebellion and fifty years before, in the reign of Mary, 
 had ruled the country. All through the period of war 
 Spain had counted on this party, and now that war had 
 given place to marriage negociations she did so still. . Did 
 James desire the honour of a Habsburg daughter-in-law ? 
 The grandiose Spanish pride, which vastly exaggerated the 
 
 18—2 
 
276 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 greatness, real as it still was, of Philip III and his family, 
 and was impenetrably blind to the decay of the Spanish 
 state, made James keenly feel how great the honour was. 
 Was he tempted by the substantial advantages of the 
 match ? These too were of indefinite magnitude. They 
 included not only a great sum of money, but also an 
 immense possibility. The prince who married a Spanish 
 Infanta, whether Henry or Charles, might prove a new 
 Philip the Handsome. He might prove, as indeed Louis 
 XIV, by marrying an Infanta, did prove, the founder of a 
 House which should rule the Spanish Empire and his own 
 kingdom too. 
 
 This possibility, as Kanke shows, was openly discussed 
 in Spain with reference to Prince Henry, and Spanish 
 public opinion looked forward with perfect complacency to 
 the rule of a Stuart dynasty. But if James hoped to 
 obtain all this, what was he disposed to give for it ? It 
 would be only reasonable that the bridegroom should 
 become a Roman Catholic, but if this could not be asked, 
 it was at least essential that the bride should not find her 
 religion persecuted, her worship forbidden by law, and 
 prepare herself to see her children taken from her by a 
 heretical church, in the country of her adoption. This 
 demand seemed the more moderate as there was by this 
 time nothing new in the idea of toleration. Two religions 
 were already legal, under certain conditions, in France and 
 in the Empire. Why not then in England too ? 
 
 Thus the pressure of Spain upon England does not 
 cease with the peace of 1604. It has now been felt 
 continuously in one form or another since the reign of 
 Mary. This is its latest shape, and the agent who applies 
 it with most success is the ambassador sent by Spain in 
 1613, Sarmiento, afterwards Conde de Gondomar. 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 277 
 
 The grand diplomatic scheme, as we know, led to 
 nothing. While it was under discussion gi-eat changes 
 were taking place in central Europe, and a new prospect 
 of a wholly different kind opened for Spain. But the 
 discussion occupied and gave a character to the whole 
 middle period of James I. The scheme was characteristic 
 of the age, quite in accordance not only with Spanish 
 notions, but with the notions of international policy that 
 prevailed almost everywhere. Everything in the inter- 
 course of states turned on marriage, and the greatest 
 affairs, war and peace, union or separation of kingdoms, 
 rise and fall of religions, waited on the convenience of a 
 bridegroom and a bride. In England too this system 
 seemed more natural under James than it had seemed 
 under Elizabeth. The queen's time had been a kind of 
 interregnum in which a person without hereditary title, 
 and kinless, had ruled the country with regard to its 
 interest. James occupied no such strange lonely position, 
 but belonged more undeniably to the I'oyal caste. It was 
 natural for him to fall back into the ordinary groove of 
 monarchical policy, and to occupy himself with marrying 
 his sons and daughters. Gondomar met him on this 
 gi-ound, and used arguments founded entirely on the 
 interest of the royal family. The Eecusancy Laws are to 
 be abolished, the children of the Prince of Wales are to be 
 brought up as Catholics, in other words, England is in 
 future to be ruled by a Catholic, not because the interest 
 of England requires or even permits this, but because 
 these are the terms upon which Philip III is prepared to 
 give his daughter. 
 
 Had Gondomar been successful it is worth while to 
 consider what results would have followed. It was not 
 indeed to be imagined that in. the face of Parliament it 
 
278 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 would be possible for Spain to dictate in a marriage treatj^ 
 and thus to guarantee, a sort of Edict of Nantes for the 
 benefit of the English Catholics. Had this been done the 
 Spanish Princess and the Spanish Ambassador would have 
 become leaders of a great political party in England, who 
 would have leaned on foreign aid, as the French League 
 had leaned on Philip II. But short of this, if we suppose 
 Gondomar only half successful, that is, if we suppose only 
 that the Catholics had found their condition considerably 
 improved, and that the royal House of England had taken 
 a tinge of Spanish ideas and in the next generation an 
 infusion of Spanish blood, the consequences would probably 
 have been very serious. We can measure them roughly 
 by considering what actually happened. In fact, as we 
 know, Charles took his wife not from the House of Habs- 
 burg but from the House of Bourbon. And what was the 
 result ? It appeared most strikingly in the next genera- 
 tion. The sons of Charles I are half Frenchmen. Charles 
 II and James II look up to Louis XIV as to the head of 
 their House. They take subsidies from him ; they attach 
 themselves to his policy ; in the end the Stuart king, 
 driven from England, takes refuge in France while French 
 fleets and armies aid him against his rebels. In like 
 manner had the sons of Charles I been Spaniards, we can 
 imagine that they would have been alienated from the 
 nation over which they reigned, and as much more com- 
 pletely as the Spanish character was haughtier, more 
 inflexible and more bigoted than the French. 
 
 Gondomar was persuaded that the party upon which 
 he counted, that is the Catholics and those who were open 
 to conversion to Catholicism, was immensely numerous. 
 But, strong as was the tide of the Counter-Reformation 
 everywhere else, it seems evident that he underrated the 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 279 
 
 force of the religious movement which in England ran in 
 the opposite direction. Both Puritanism and Anglicanism 
 had a vitality of which he had no conception. And the 
 Gunpowder Plot had recently exhibited English Catholic- 
 ism as a cause which derived its energy rather from 
 despair than from hope, and also as a cause which the 
 nation would not easily be tempted to adopt. 
 
 But this middle period offers only barren tentatives 
 until the new movement in Germany begias to sweep 
 across the expiring movements of the Elizabethan age and 
 the feeble impulses that proceed from the court of James. 
 Before proceeding to consider the German movement it is 
 only necessary to mark how meanwhile the marriage 
 question, which had arisen between the courts of Spain 
 and England, was regarded outside the court by the Eng- 
 lish people. 
 
 For thirty years Spain had been the enemy. The 
 country was still full of people who could remember the 
 Armada, and almost the whole nation felt as a nation feels 
 which has lately passed through a mortal struggle. James 
 could have no share in this feeling and no comprehension 
 of it. The student of Shakspeare feels that the epic 
 period of England came to an end with Elizabeth, and 
 that the happy union of the kingdoms had the drawback 
 that it placed England under the rule of princes who had 
 had no part in its recent probation and its recent glory. 
 It was ' a lame and impotent conclusion ' of the national 
 drama, this humiliating bargain for a Spanish princess 
 who should come dictating terms. And clear-sighted men 
 could see, as Henry IV saw, that the struggle was by no 
 means over, and that the House of Habsburg would give 
 more trouble yet. There was a strong Anti-Spanish party, 
 which consisted in part of those who looked mainly forward 
 
280 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 and apprehended new encroachments of the Counter-Refor- 
 mation, in part of those who retained the feelings of the 
 Elizabethan age. There were such men as the diplomatist 
 Winwood, who had long watched international politics 
 from the Hague, or Abbot, the Archbishop, inclined to 
 Puritanism, and there was Ralegh, the prisoner of Eliza- 
 bethanism. 
 
 And the middle period of the reign of James shows a 
 policy which is a series of oscillations between this anti- 
 Spanish tendency and the contrary tendency set in motion 
 by the scheme of a Spanish marriage. That scheme 
 begins to be discussed almost as soon as the pacification 
 is complete ; in its first phase the object of it is Prince 
 Henry, and it is considered by Salisbury. On the other 
 hand in its final phase it loses itself in the first tremendous 
 events of the Thirty Years' War. But there is an inter- 
 mediate period, which may be said to commence in 1613, 
 after Prince Henry and Salisbury are gone, with the 
 arrival of Gondomar in England, and to close in 1618 with 
 the Revolution in Bohemia. This is what has been called 
 above the middle period of the reign of James. The 
 characteristic of it is that it is dominated by the one 
 question of the relations of England and Spain, as deter- 
 mined mainly by the marriage scheme. It is the period of 
 Gondomar. 
 
 In this period English policy is extremely indistinct, 
 not having even the distinctness which arises in the last 
 period of James from deplorable failure. We become 
 aware that it is guided by a ruler who wants the fixed 
 purpose which we were able to trace in the policy of 
 Elizabeth, even when the detail of it exhibited most vacilla- 
 tion. The views of James are rather speculative than 
 practical, and he is not schooled, as Elizabeth was, by the 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 281 
 
 pressure of a peremptory necessity, of a mortal danger. 
 The facts before us, out of which we have to infer his 
 system of foreign policy, are principally these — the marriage 
 of Elizabeth Stuart to the Elector Palatine, the negocia- 
 tion for a marriage of Prince Charles to a Spanish Infanta, 
 the expedition of Ralegh and the execution of Ralegh. 
 
 There is a certain apparent resemblance between the 
 position which James assumes towards the Catholic and 
 Protestant Powers and that of Elizabeth. Elizabeth had 
 laboured persistently for peace with Spain and had aided 
 the Protestant cause without identifying herself with it. 
 James takes up a similar middle position. But Elizabeth 
 had been able to hold both parties at arm's length because 
 she enjoyed the singular advantage of having no marriages 
 to make. As a modern statesman has said, it is easy to 
 govern with a state of siege, so might it be said in those 
 times that foreign policy was a simple matter so long as 
 there were no marriages to make. It was the ambition of 
 James not merely to stand as a blessed peace-maker 
 between the two confessions but also to make marriages 
 indifferently with Catholic and Protestant Houses. This 
 was in itself a difficult problem, but it might perhaps have 
 been solved by a careful selection of such Houses as were 
 moderate in their religious views or such Houses as he 
 might be able to dictate terms to. Perhaps when he gave 
 his daughter to the Elector Palatine he but half under- 
 stood what he did, for Frederick had not yet revealed his 
 character to the world. And yet he knew that Frederick 
 was a grandson of William the Silent and a leader of the 
 Calvinist party in Germany. The great peace-maker, the 
 elderly monarch who desired above all things a quiet life, 
 had deliberately planned, at a moment when, as any 
 intelligent man could have told him, a universal religious 
 
282 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 war was about to commence, to ally himself at the same 
 time with the greatest bigot in the Catholic world, Philip 
 III of Spain, and the greatest bigot in the Protestant 
 world, the Elector Palatine. It is indeed difficult to 
 picture the wild confusion that would have arisen had the 
 Infanta been already established in England as Princess 
 of Wales at the time when Frederick's troubles began in 
 Germany. On the one side a powerful Catholic party 
 depending on Spain would have come into existence by 
 that time in England ; on the other side the Protestant 
 feeling of the country would have been, as it was, stirred 
 to its depths, and both parties would have had their leader 
 in the royal family. Nothing less than a civil war, in 
 which the poor old king would have disappeared like a 
 second Henry VI, must have been the result ! 
 
 It is easy to form a judgment of policy when it leads 
 either to great success or to signal failure, but when, 
 owing to accidental circumstances, it leads to nothing, but 
 is effaced by some change in the whole aspect of affairs, 
 then we have a blurred illegible page of history. Such is 
 this middle period of James. The marriage scheme led 
 to no great disaster in foreign affairs. Spain was, as we 
 can now see, in decline ; no Spanish statesman after 
 Gondomar was ever in a condition to treat an English 
 Government with haughty superiority. Accordingly we 
 may be tempted, judging by the result, to imagine that 
 the inclination of James to a Spanish alliance was not 
 unreasonable, and that the animosity of Parliament and of 
 men like Winwood and Ralegh towards Spain was a pre- 
 judice, a survival of the feelings of a past age. Even while 
 the war lasted Spain had been unable for ten years before 
 1604 to inflict any serious blow on England. Why then 
 should we fear her in time of peace ? 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 283 
 
 But it was not unlikely that she might prove much 
 more dangerous in peace than in war. In peace the arts 
 by which the House had originally thriven, marriage and 
 the Counter-Reformation, would operate far more effectively 
 than in war. A Princess might land where the Armada 
 had failed to land, and she would bring with her priests, 
 Jesuits, and the new literature and learning of the Counter- 
 Reformation. There were also other arts, which had been 
 used repeatedly in the days of Philip II, and now began 
 to be applied again. 
 
 Let us consider the state of Europe at the time when 
 Gondomar arrived. About 1609, it is true, the credit of 
 Spain had sunk to a low point. The pacification had been 
 made on terms certainly unfavourable to her. Her con- 
 cessions to the Dutch had surprised the world. Everywhere 
 she was held in check by the diplomacy of Henry IV, who 
 put himself eagerly forward as the leader of European 
 resistance to the House of Austria. Spain was begin- 
 ning to be eclipsed by France. Such was the aspect of 
 E\irope in 1609. But it was far different in 1613. For 
 Henry had fallen in the moment when he exalted himself 
 against the House of Austria. The question whether 
 Ravaillac had accomplices, has recently been much dis- 
 cussed. Undoubtedly Henry was not murdered, as we 
 may say William the Silent was murdered, by the Spanish 
 Government, but if, as appears, Ravaillac was only a 
 fanatic, his act was perhaps only the more impressive as 
 a proof of the power of the House. Ravaillac had listened 
 to sermons, he understood that Henry ' intended to wage 
 war against the Pope, that is, against God himself In 
 other words, the influences of the Counter-Reformation 
 propagated the belief that resistance to the ascendency of 
 the House was impiety. If we enter into the ideas of 
 
284 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 that time we may easily understand the triumphant com- 
 mentary on the murder which was made in the Spanish 
 Council by the Cardinal of Toledo : If God be for us who 
 can be against us ? 
 
 Providence seemed to have said to the enemies of 
 Spain: Thus far and no further! They had lost their 
 leader ; and who should supply his place ? It is a capital, 
 fact in the age about to open that the Protestant party is 
 without a head. 
 
 When the critical moment came in 1618 France was 
 in confusion, the South-German Protestants were led by 
 the Elector Palatine Frederick, England was directed by 
 James I. Under such leaders what resistance could be 
 made to the House ? This was the work of Ravaillac. 
 But the more immediate result of his deed was that 
 France from being the chief antagonist of Spain became 
 her dependent ally. A period began similar to that which 
 had followed the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. It was 
 announced that Europe was henceforth to be guided by a 
 brotherly alliance of the Kings of Spain and France. Ac- 
 cordingly a double marriage was arranged, and the treaty 
 was concluded in 1612. The eldest Infanta, Anne, was to 
 marry Louis XIII, Elizabeth of France was to marry 
 the Prince of Spain, Don Philip. It was under the fresh 
 impression of this marriage-treaty, which seemed to make 
 a revolution in the system of Europe and to restore the 
 ascendency of Spain, that the middle period of James 
 begins and Gondomar arrives in England. 
 
 In such circumstances the English people, which for so 
 long a time had regarded Spain as the enemy, was not 
 likely to forget its hostility and its fear. It would not 
 easily learn to regard the peace of 1604 as the final end of 
 a long national struggle ; rather it would look forward to 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 285 
 
 a speedy renewal of the war. And this view of the public 
 would be shared by such as knew most of foreign affairs, 
 for these would have their eyes fixed on the cloud that 
 was gathering in Germany and round the Low Countries, 
 these would be already aware of the approach of the Thirty 
 Years' War. Such was the temper of English public 
 opinion at the moment when James set his heart upon the 
 Spanish match and showed himself ready almost to restore 
 Roman Catholicism in England in order to obtain it. 
 
 The story of Ralegh's last adventure and death is 
 principally instructive from our point of view as illus- 
 trating the wildness, the incredible confusion of English 
 foreign policy at this time. We need not perhaps feel 
 any great difficulty in understanding the conduct of Ralegh 
 himself He had never been famous for moderation ; he 
 had lain in prison for twelve years ; he was of the temper 
 to prefer a desperate adventure to inaction. His reckless 
 audacity seems indeed out of keeping with the age of 
 James, but we explain it by reflecting that it is quite in 
 keeping with the age to which Ralegh belonged, the age 
 of the War of Elizabeth. We have seen how a sort of 
 covert war with Spain had prevailed more or less through 
 the greater part of Elizabeth's reign, how from 1585 
 onward it had ceased to be covert, and after the failure 
 of the Armada had been waged by England with national 
 enthusiasm. Ralegh, we know, had been the representa- 
 tive of the extreme war-party, who had not been content 
 with Elizabeth's policy even when it was most energetic, 
 and had urged the feasibleness and the advisableness of 
 actually overthrowing the Spanish maritime empire. Such 
 a man was quite accustomed to the idea of war without for- 
 malities, and would not perhaps regard the treaty of 1604 
 as barring his right to seize the silver fleet if fortune should 
 
286 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 throw it in his way. So much we can understand, but 
 there is much more than this in his adventure of 1617. 
 We are to consider first that it was not the free enterprise 
 of a private man such as Drake had been in his first 
 expeditions, or Ralegh himself more than once in his 
 earlier days. Ralegh now sailed under a commission from 
 Government. Secondly it was undertaken not at a time 
 when we were only technically but not really at peace with 
 Spain, but in the very years when the English and Spanish 
 royal houses were meditating intermarriage. 
 
 We may say that at this time the policy of James 
 towards Spain varied through all gradations from intimate 
 obsequious alliance, through manly independence and firm 
 resistance, to deadly and treacherous hostility. In his 
 first acceptance of Ralegh's proposal he shows himself 
 independent of Spain. Ralegh will discover a gold-mine 
 in Guiana, from which the king shall draw treasure enough 
 to pay his debts. Guiana is territory to which the King 
 of Spain lays claim under the Bull of Alexander VI. 
 But James firmly refuses to recognise this claim, as he 
 has done already in 1609 when he granted a charter to 
 Virginia. The reasonable claims of Spain, however, he is 
 anxious to respect, and therefore requires from Ralegh a 
 distinct assurance that the territory in question is far 
 removed from all Spanish settlements and that he has no 
 intention of injuring any Spanish interest. So far the 
 position of James seems honourable. Only we are tempted 
 to ask whether it was consistent with a real regard for 
 Spanish interests to send the great enemy of Spain, a 
 desperate man too with a sentence of death hanging over 
 him, into the very heart of the Spanish world, and to 
 depend simply on his word for the assurance that Spain 
 should suffer no injury. That he would pay with his head 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 287 
 
 for any breach of his engagement was a very insufficient 
 guarantee. Was it certain that the daring adventurer 
 would ever return at all? But it was credible that he 
 would hold it a good deed if in any way he could succeed 
 in reviving the war with Spain. It would appear then 
 that James at least sets no great store by the friendship 
 of Spain. But there is much more. Ralegh before he set 
 out talked openly of seizing the Mexico fleet. In other 
 words after twelve years of peace, during which time, or at 
 least since the Truce of 1609, all hostilities not only 
 between the Governments but between the peoples had 
 ceased, Ralegh proposes to plunge them headlong into a 
 new war by an act which even in those times must have 
 been felt to be monstrous. But perhaps this was but a 
 reckless conversational flight. Nay, he spoke of it to Sir 
 Francis Bacon, who was Attorney-General at the time, and 
 he professed himself sure that such an act would be for- 
 given if only he could bring home two or three millions 
 worth of treasure, that is, a sum several times as great as 
 the marriage-portion which James could expect to obtain 
 with the Infanta. This at least is the story, which how- 
 ever even those who take the severer view of this passage 
 in Ralegh's life find it difficult to believe, while his latest 
 biographer, Mr Stebbing, dismisses it summarily as apo- 
 cryphal. Thus he was not afraid of allowing the Attorney- 
 General to know what he had in his mind. But, more 
 than this, the Venetian reports actually tell us that Win- 
 wood himself, the Secretary, that is the representative of 
 the Government in foreign affairs, not only knew of, but 
 strongly favoured, the monstrous scheme. So far it would 
 appear that while James himself regarded Spain with 
 friendly eyes, for it was at this very time that he laid the 
 marriage scheme before his Council, his Ministers, or some 
 
288 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 of them, regarded her as an enemy. But even if we suppose 
 that he was betrayed by these Ministers and had no know- 
 ledge of their secret wishes, we detect in James himself 
 passing fits of hostility to Spain, which seem to alternate 
 with his desire for a Spanish alliance. The impulse which 
 Henry IV in his last years had given to the European 
 opposition to the great House was still stirring both in 
 Germany and Italy, and in Italy there was actual war 
 between the Duke of Savoy and Spain. This war ceased 
 for a moment in 1615 but broke out again in the autumn 
 of 1616. James does not hold it inconsistent with his 
 Spanish policy to send a subsidy in 1615 to this enemy of 
 Spain. And now that Ralegh is let loose, what do we see ? 
 Instead of fixing his attention, as might be expected, on 
 the Orinoco, Ralegh allows his mind to wander in the most 
 suspicious manner over the whole field of European policy. 
 What is stranger, he does not care to conceal his dangerous 
 combinations from James himself It would seem as if at 
 this very moment James were ambitious of taking the 
 place that Henry IV had left vacant. A grand scheme of 
 an attack on Genoa, a city which, though independent, 
 was at that time a most useful ally and, as it were, a 
 financial agent, of the King of Spain, is actually taken into 
 consideration by James himself, and is not dropped till it 
 has reached an advanced stage. Then Ralegh enters into 
 relations with the French Huguenots. In short before he 
 sets sail for the West it must have become as clear to 
 James as to the rest of the world that there was scarcely 
 any wild adventure for which he was not prepared, and 
 that his favourite idea was to kindle a war with Spain, 
 buying his pardon in the old fashion of Drake with the 
 treasures he expected to bring home. 
 
 These plans were not properly Elizabethan, for if Eliza- 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 289 
 
 beth had coimived at the spoiling of Spain it was in self- 
 defence and at a time when she was in extreme danger 
 from Spain. They were in fact the plans which Elizabeth 
 had always rejected. But what is most observable is not 
 that James occasionally dallied with them, but that he did 
 so at a time when he meditated a marriage alliance with 
 the Spanish House, for which he was not unwilling to pay 
 in religious concessions of the most dangerous kind. Just 
 as he saw nothing incongruous in giving his daughter to 
 the Elector Palatine while he obtained an Infanta for his 
 son, so it seems to him not inadmissible to seize the 
 Mexico fleet at the same time that out of obsequiousness 
 to Spain he relaxes the Recusancy Laws and engages that 
 the children of the Prince of Wales shall be left in Catho- 
 lic hands till the age of twelve. 
 
 English foreign policy has in later times often been 
 rendered vacillating by the opposition of Parliament to 
 the plans of the Government. The plan of Charles II in 
 1672, the policy of Marlborough's Government in 1710, 
 that of the elder Pitt in 1762, were frustrated by a sudden 
 revulsion of popular feeling. The wild vacillations of the 
 middle period of James are of another kind. No Parlia- 
 ment sat between 1614 and 1621, and at the latter date 
 this middle period was over and Europe was already con- 
 vulsed by the German question. The conflicting impulses 
 came from the King and the members of his Council, and 
 if the result is confusion this apparently is because the 
 King is incapable of pursuing any uniform plan. He 
 displayed the same incapacity still more signally later in 
 dealing with the German question. But in both cases we 
 have to remark the new position of insular security into 
 which England has drifted. Under Elizabeth such aberra- 
 tions would have been fatal, but in the reign of James 
 s. 19 
 
290 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 they cause no particular disaster to the country. We 
 remark indeed that they sowed the seed which came up 
 in the Great Rebellion. By his trifling with Spain and 
 his concessions to Popery James forfeited for his House 
 the confidence of the people ; he seems to rehearse the 
 policy of Charles II and James II when in despair of 
 getting money from his Parliament he looks for aid, in the 
 shape of a marriage portion, to a foreign Power. But 
 the mismanagement of foreign affairs by James led to no 
 disaster in the foreign department. No Armadas, no 
 attacks from France through Scotland, are any longer to 
 be feared. For we are more completely insular than we 
 had been in earlier times, more so even than we found 
 ourselves in the eighteenth century, when our connexion 
 with Hannover had been formed. 
 
 The end of Ralegh's adventure furnishes an additional 
 illustration of the confusion of English policy. It is im- 
 possible to argue that Ralegh would not in a time when 
 international affairs were conducted in an orderly manner 
 have deserved his fate. His whole behaviour betrayed 
 that he was ready to disregard his instructions and to 
 violate his own solemn engagements for the sake of ob- 
 taining success at all hazards, and this at the cost of 
 huriying his master into a war with Spain. What may 
 be said in his excuse is that it was doubtful whether the 
 peace between the two countries had been solid, or whether 
 Ralegh had had reason to believe that the English Govern- 
 ment seriously wished to maintain it. But what James' 
 Government wished no one could say. The Secretary 
 wished for war with Spain, and James himself seemed at 
 times to agree -with him, though at other times he favoured 
 a close alliance with Spain. At any rate with the enemies 
 of Spain all over Europe James was at this very moment 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 291 
 
 in close concert, and Ralegh's whole scheme and his bearing 
 indicated hostility to Spain so clearly that he might fairly 
 infer that had not the Government itself been hostile to 
 Spain they would never have favoured him or granted 
 him his commission. This very view was presented to 
 James himself with trenchant severity by Gondomar. 
 
 Ralegh's fate, if it illustrates the mismanagement of 
 English policy at this period, marks also the direction 
 which English enterprise was taking. He had always 
 been a great Path-finder, and he died in his vocation. 
 He must also have had the satisfaction of observing that 
 his ideas had taken root. The Virginia which had been 
 his vision, and which for so long a time had refused to 
 take a solid shape, was now fairly realised ; it had received 
 the royal charter in 1609 ; and, as we may say, conti- 
 nental, as distinguished from insular, England had begun 
 to exist. In the reign of James, as in that of Elizabeth, 
 the natioti showed a vigorous vitality, and achieved great 
 things, even while the Government either remained inactive 
 or acted unwisely. In the growth of the Empire the reign 
 of James is a capital epoch, when the seed sown in the 
 Elizabethan age yielded its harvest. 
 
 In the matter of colonisation Elizabeth's reign had 
 witnessed chiefly failures. One body of settlers on the 
 American Continent had been brought back by Drake, 
 another had disappeared without leaving a trace. Never- 
 theless the necessary foundation had been laid. The way 
 had been paved to a colonial empire, though no actual 
 settlements had been founded. The only durable creation 
 nad been the East India Company. In that last period 
 of EKzabeth when, as we have seen, her persistent effort 
 to live at peace with Spain appeared to have finally failed, 
 and she seemed at last to have become really warlike, she 
 
 19—2 
 
292 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 had gi-anted a charter to this Company. Quite recently 
 the Dutch had shown the way to render war with Spain 
 profitable by annexing Spanish colonies. The)' had pre- 
 sented themselves to the native populations of the Spice 
 Islands as deliverers from the tyranny exercised by the 
 Portuguese, who were merged since 1.580 in the Sjianish 
 Monarchy, and by the heljj of the natives they had sup- 
 planted the Portuguese. About the same time Ralegh 
 had appealed for the first time to the native population 
 of Guiana against the Spaniards themselves. Elizabeth's 
 Government pi'ofited by the hints thus given, and in 1600 
 adopted the method of making war which Ralegh had 
 tried and the Dutch had practised with so much success. 
 Before that time England had seemed to avoid the terri- 
 tory already occupied by Spain, and had directed her 
 enterprise first towards the extreme north, then towards 
 Russia and the Caspian, later towards the unoccupied coast 
 of North America. In founding the East India Company 
 the English Government for the first time made a direct 
 attack upon the colonial empire of Spain. 
 
 What mighty results followed at a much later date 
 from this step does not concern us here. The immediate 
 result was not so much to damage Spain as to involve 
 England in disputes with the Dutch, and so to create 
 a maritime livalry between the two Protestant Powers. 
 
 England did not ultimately adhere to the plan then 
 adopted of annexing Spanish colonies and tearing to 
 pieces, as Ralegh proposed, the Spanish colonial empire. 
 Cromwell does indeed seize Jamaica ; in the eighteenth 
 century Florida is annexed, and the colony of Georgia 
 founded in the immediate neighbourhood of the Spaniards. 
 But this is all. The bulk of her colonies was left to Spain, 
 though probably there were many moments when Central 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 293 
 
 and Southern America might have been torn from her. 
 We preferred on the whole the other course of establishing 
 settlements in the more northerly territory unoccupied by 
 Spain. 
 
 The settlement of Virginia in 1609 is perhaps chiefly 
 memorable as first showing the peculiar character which 
 English colonisation was henceforth to maintain. The 
 early Spanish colonisation had been directed to mines of 
 gold and silver, and had therefore been controlled with 
 the most imperious jealousy by Government, which saw in 
 them an all-important source of revenue. The Dutch 
 enterprises had been mainly commercial, a means of 
 procuring wealth for a country which was in no degree 
 self-supporting. They were not much controlled by 
 Government, but fell into the hands of private companies. 
 These companies however did not want territory, but 
 only trade. They prospered best when they were able 
 to establish simple factories in the neighbourhood of 
 organised native states. In such circumstances they were 
 able to devote themselves to their trade, obtaining their 
 subsistence and the necessaries of life from the natives. 
 And such was the course we ourselves took in the East 
 where we followed most closely the example set by the 
 Dutch. But in Virginia the conditions were different. 
 
 Perhaps at the outset the object of the settlers there 
 had been gold and silver, and their disappointment may 
 account for the return of that first colony which was 
 brought home by Drake. A settlement of the Spanish 
 kind, it soon appeared, was not to be thought of. But 
 the settlement of 1606 — 1609 was also unlike the Dutch 
 model. For there were in the territory upon which the 
 settlers landed, no organised states but only Indian tribes, 
 nomad, rude, and hostile. Accordingly the great and 
 
294 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 difficult question for the settlers was to escape starvation. 
 They could not live as guests in the territory, but were 
 forced to make for themselves a home there. They were 
 forced to lay for themselves the solid foundations of a new 
 state, and the natives, far from being their hosts, soon 
 became enemies against whom they had to organise 
 defence. Trade was secondary, nay, until the cultivation 
 of tobacco was introduced, almost wanting. Colonisation 
 pure and simple, that is the occupation by private persons 
 of a new part of the earth's surface for the purpose of 
 establishing new homes, new cities and states, was now 
 witnessed almost for the first time. The territory was on 
 the one hand not appropriated for a merely temporary 
 purpose, on the other hand it was appropriated completely, 
 for there was no mixture of races, the natives being pushed 
 back into the interior of the Continent. The result was 
 neither a Government preserve, maintained for the puqDose 
 of revenue, like the Spanish colonies, nor a factory where 
 a few traders enriched themselves, but a new home for 
 Englishmen, hallowed by birth and death, and into which 
 English institutions could be transplanted; in short the 
 settlement was, as the northern part of it began soon after 
 to be named, a New England. 
 
 It has seldom happened in the history of the world 
 that human beings have been able entirely to fling aside 
 tradition and, as it were, to make a new beginning. No 
 such effect was produced merely by crossing the Atlantic 
 and settling in America, for it was observable that in the 
 vast Spanish colonisation the peculiar institutions of the 
 mother country instead of being cast off in the New World 
 became there doubly oppressive. In Old Spain the King, 
 the noblesse and the clergy had great power, but thej- 
 acquired much greater power in New Spain. Such effect 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 295 
 
 however tuas produced in the EngUsh colonies, partly 
 because Government, seeing no prospect of obtaining 
 revenue from them, regarded them on the whole with 
 indifference. A new circumstance was now added, which 
 helped to produce the same effect. We have remarked 
 that at this time England was somewhat behind the 
 leading continental countries in respect of religious tolera- 
 tion. In France there was an Edict of Nantes, in Germany 
 there was a Religious Peace. In Holland the interest of 
 the country made toleration imperative. In England there 
 was no legal toleration, but at the utmost a certain degree 
 of connivance. And at the beginning of the reign of 
 James I, though hopes of indulgence were held out to 
 the Catholics, they were refused at the Hampton Court 
 Conference to the Puritans. Meanwhile Protestant thought, 
 fed by the picture of primitive Christianity in the New 
 Testament, was dreaming over a kind of Church which, 
 jiist because it was so old, would be startlingly new. It 
 would be a congregation separate from the world, separate 
 above all from the state, a congregation which would 
 regard the Powers of the world. Christian though they 
 proclaimed themselves, precisely as the first Christians 
 had regarded the Pagan Empire. Accordingly at the very 
 time when James frowned on Puritanism, Puritanism was 
 passing in many instances into actual separatism. A 
 certain number of Englishmen began to feel themselves 
 as strangers and pilgrims in the midst of the English 
 world. In this condition, impelled by conscience actually 
 to separate from the national Chiu-ch, they could not be 
 let alone, they could not escape the law of the land. 
 Naturally therefore they began to look abroad, and to 
 inquire for some new home where they might live as 
 they desired to live, separate. The same impulse was 
 
296 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 upon them which di-ove the childi'en of Israel into the 
 wilderness and thence into the promised land. They 
 ' sought a country.' 
 
 It was a great coincidence which furnished at the same 
 time on the West of the Atlantic Ocean territory which 
 could only be used by settlers prepared to break with their 
 old ties and to found a community radically new, and on 
 the East of the Atlantic a ' little flock ' ready and eager to 
 do this very thing. 
 
 The charter had been granted to Virginia in 1609, 
 eight years before Ralegh's last adventure. In 1620 the 
 Mayflower set sail. 
 
 These are the events of the reign of James I which 
 are really great, though to contemporaries no doubt they 
 seemed insignificant in comparison with the Spanish match 
 or the question of the Palatinate. In a very few years it 
 came to light how radically the English state had been 
 modified when English citizens made their home and 
 English Assemblies met on the other side of the Atlantic, 
 and when Puritanism at the same time received, as it 
 were, an endowment in land. And not the English state 
 only. For in the eighteenth century this fundamental new 
 beginning, which the human race seemed to have made 
 on the other side of the Atlantic, had an incalculable 
 effect upon the thoughts and speculations of Eurof)e. 
 When the incubus of ancient institutions, feudal monar- 
 chies, hereditary privileges, a persecuting Church, seemed 
 intolerable, it was perhaps mainly the spectacle of America 
 that encouraged the Europeans to make a fundamental 
 change. Equality, toleration, and lepublican liberty, were 
 brought out of the sphere of speculation into that of 
 practical politics by the example of the English colonies 
 in America. 
 
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 297 
 
 But we must leave watching the current of events 
 which, though all-important, were little noticed at the 
 time. We must leave behind us the middle period of the 
 reign of James, and study that final phase which had 
 already commenced when the Mayflower set sail. James, 
 the peace-maker, lived to see Europe once more plunged 
 in a universal war. He himself and England with him 
 played a very important, though by no means a successful, 
 part in the affairs which led to this catastrophe. And the 
 Thirty Years' War arose out of a transformation of the 
 European system, so that England, though not much 
 involved in the war directly, was profoundly affected by 
 the causes and consequences of it. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEAKS' WAR. 
 
 We might perhaps afford to treat very briefly the 
 Continental occurrences of the age now before us, the 
 German War of Thirty Years and the second war between 
 Spain and the Netherlands, if we considered only the du-ect 
 share taken in them by England. But in these occurrences 
 lie the roots of two great developments which in a later 
 age were of infinite importance to England. These de- 
 velopments are the modern Great Power which we call 
 Austria, and the prominence which this new Great Power 
 begins almost immediately to assume in international 
 politics. 
 
 There is something strangely featureless and obscure 
 in the history of the German branch of the House of 
 Habsburg in the period after the abdication of Charles V. 
 Ferdinand, Maximilian II, Rudolph and Matthias are 
 Emperors of whom mankind has been able to preserve 
 but a very faint memory. And if the same may be said 
 not less truly of several of their successors, yet at least 
 since the accession of Ferdinand II in 1619 the Austrian 
 state itself has never ceased to be one of the most influen- 
 tial Powers in Europe, whereas under his predecessors 
 even this is scarcely the case. 
 
 We are to remember that their dominion was a mere 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 299 
 
 miscellaneous aggregate. They were kings of Bohemia, 
 with which went Silesia, Lusatia, Moravia, and also of 
 Hungary; but Hungary at that time, it has been said, 
 was rather a battlefield than a kingdom, the greater part 
 of it being in the hands of the Turk. They also raled 
 under various titles much scattered German territor)-. 
 And along with all this they bore the imperial title. It 
 was for a long time doubtful whether this loose aggregate 
 could be welded into anything like a whole. And if we 
 fancy that the imperial dignity would produce this effect, 
 let us remember that if the utter nullity of the imperial in- 
 stitutions began somewhat later than this jJeriod (being an 
 effect of the Thirty Years' War) the imperial function itself 
 had fallen into pretty complete abeyance as early as 
 the fourteenth century. None of the four insignificant 
 emperors above-named was at all more insignificant than 
 Frederick III had been long before. 
 
 The tru-th then is that after the abdication of Charles 
 V the Empire returned to the insignificance from which 
 it had been raised by him. A Rudolph, insignificant as 
 he may be, is not unlike Frederick III, or perhaps, as he 
 resides at Prague and puts Vienna under the govennnent 
 of an Archduke, we may rather compare him to one of the 
 Luxemburg Emperors, a Wenzel or a Charles IV. And it 
 appears that for a considerable time these princes did not 
 think it possible to form a great Power out of the scattered 
 dominions to which they succeeded by inheritance. They 
 had indeed the materials out of which the Great Power 
 called Austria has been composed, but the Great Power 
 itself was not called into existence till the time of Ferdi- 
 nand II. 
 
 How little the first Ferdinand thought of establishing 
 a great Power appears from the fact that he divided his 
 
300 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 dominions by testament among his three sons. Accord- 
 ingly Maximilian II and after him Rudolf II did not even 
 possess the whole Austrian inheritance. There were two 
 other independent Austrian courts, one in Tirol, the other 
 in Styria'. Hence in Rudolf's time the aggregate called 
 Austria had its centre of gravity rather in the Slavonic 
 than in the German world, and this Emperor, like some of 
 the old Luxemburg Emperors, resides at Prague. 
 
 It may be thought that the close connexion of the 
 Austrian state with that of Philip II, the dominant state 
 •of Europe, could not but give it prominence and raise it to 
 power. And in the time of Ferdinand 11 Austria did owe 
 much to the kindred Power of Spain. But we are to 
 remember that the division of the imperial family which 
 first created two distinct Powers was of the nature of a 
 quarrel. Maximilian II had the feelings of a personal 
 rival towards Philip II, feelings so bitter that, we are 
 told, nothing but opportunity was wanting to produce a 
 war between them (odio grandissimo ch' egli portava a' 
 spagnuoli ed al re, in modo tale que pareva che non gli 
 mancasse altro a moversi contra di lui che occasione e 
 facolta di farlo)'"'. Moreover Maximilian at the opening of 
 his reign appeared rather a Protestant than a Catholic, 
 and the immense prevalence of Protestantism in his 
 dominions made it at least impossible for him to enter 
 actively into the policy of Philip. 
 
 Thus it is that in sketching the history of the wars of 
 Philip II we have scarcely had occasion even to mention 
 Austria or the Emperor. 
 
 But the alienation between the two Houses did not 
 
 1 Gindely, Rudolf II und seine Zeit, Vol. i. p. 26. 
 - Tiepolo, year 1563, quoted by Gindely, Rudolf II und seine Zeit, 
 Vol. . p. 25. 
 
JAMES : AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 301 
 
 last very long, and another change took place whicli 
 enabled the Emperor Ferdinand II, after a violent and 
 for a time almost desperate struggle, to give a sort of 
 moral imity to his scattered dominions, and so by the help 
 of Spain to establish, as we have before expressed it, the 
 modern great Powei- of Austria. 
 
 Even before the death of Maximilian II the tendency 
 towards reunion between the two branches of the House 
 becomes perceptible. At the time when PhilijD II had no 
 son but Don Carlos, who did not seem destined to a long 
 life, Maximilian might hope that the succession in Spain 
 would fall to his familj'. His sons, Rudolf and Ernst, 
 were sent to live in Spain, where any bias towards the 
 Reformation which they might have received from their 
 father would be effectually corrected. Maximilian himself 
 too shared the change of disposition which was jjassing 
 over the world. His leaning towards Protestantism dimi- 
 nished rather than increased in his later years. Whereas 
 about the time when he succeeded his father (1565) the 
 Reformation reigned in South Germany almost as irresist- 
 ibly as in the North and seemed like a national or 
 German religion, he lived to see a turn of the tide and 
 to turn with it. As in France, as in Poland, as even in 
 the Low Countries, so in Germany, the impression began 
 to gain ground soon after 1570 that the Reformation 
 after all was a failure and was doomed to disappearance. 
 Among the many momentous results of this change in the 
 tendency of public opinion was the removal of the deepest 
 cause which had produced alienation between the two 
 branches of the dominant House. No later Emperor or 
 Archduke ever regarded a King of Spain, while the 
 Habsburg family ruled there, as Maximilian in his earlier 
 days had regarded Philip II. 
 
302 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 There followed several intermarriages between the two 
 families. Of these the most important was that which 
 was arranged by Philip II on the eve of his departure 
 from the world. His daughter Clara Isabella was married 
 to the Archduke Albert, and the pair were placed together 
 on the throne of the Low Countries, which was actually 
 made independent of Spain. That this anticipation of the 
 modern kingdom of Belgium, which lasted from 1598 to 
 1621, passed away again, and that the Catholic Low 
 Countries were reannexed to the Spanish Monarchy, was 
 caused simply by the fact that the Archdukes (so they 
 were called) remained childless. But during this period 
 the reunion of the two families was embodied in the most 
 visible manner by this independent state ruled by a 
 •German Habsburg and a Spanish Habsburg united in 
 marriage. For some years at the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century the plan was discussed of causing the Arch- 
 duke Albert to succeed Rudolf in the imperial dignity. 
 It was for a time favoured by Spain, and was only aban- 
 doned when it was perceived to involve practically a 
 surrender of the Low Countries to Austria. 
 
 But this reunion of the House, accompanied and caused 
 by the decided adhesion of the Austrian royal House to 
 the Counter-Reformation, evidently paved the way to a 
 religious war in Germany similar to those which had 
 devastated France and the Low Countries in the latter 
 part of the sixteenth century. On the surface of the 
 history of Europe it appears an anomaly that the great 
 religious war of Germany does not begin till the other 
 gi-eat religious wars have come to an end and till, as we 
 might think, the age of religious war was over. The 
 explanation of this is that, as the Reformation was 
 originally a German movement and dominated Germany 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 303 
 
 with Scandinavia far more completely than it dominated 
 any other country until later it acquired in the very teeth 
 of the Counter-Reformation the two kingdoms of Britain 
 and the Seven Provinces of the Netherlands, the Counter- 
 Reformation necessarily began later and had a far greater 
 work to achieve in Germany than elsewhere. For a long 
 time it seemed a settled thing that the greater part of 
 Germany would for ever belong to the Reformation. Such 
 was the aspect of affairs between 1555 and 1570, that is, 
 in the years when England oscillated doubtfully between 
 Romanism and Anglicanism, and France after a moment's 
 hesitation decided with fanatical vehemence for Catholi- 
 cism. And when in the seventies the Counter-Reformation 
 began effectively to take hold of Germany it had actually 
 to reconquer the southern part of the country from Pro- 
 testantism and not merely, as in France, to defend Roman- 
 ism from its attacks. 
 
 In one word the Counter-Reformation in France arrived 
 in time to save Romanism from defeat ; in Germany it 
 had to attack a dominant Protestantism and to reconquer 
 a large part of the country for Romanism. 
 
 The two countries offer an instructive parallel, which it 
 is desii-able to keep constantly in view, in respect of the 
 manner in which they dealt with the religious question. 
 In neither country was it found possible, as in England, to 
 maintain a single national religion or establish, as was said 
 above, a nation-church. In both countries two religions 
 stood side by side, and the question at issue was the terms 
 of the arrangement which might be concluded between 
 them. In Germany this arrangement was the Religious 
 Peace, concluded in 1555; in France after thirty-five 
 terrible years of war a settlement was made by the Edict 
 of Nantes. 
 
304 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 The main difference between these two settlements 
 was that the Religious Peace was practically a victory for 
 Protestantism, and the Edict of Nantes a victory for 
 Romanism. Both alike were but temporary halting- 
 places ; but Germany after the Religious Peace grew for 
 some time more and more Protestant, France after the 
 Edict of Nantes more and more Catholic. 
 
 In France however the tendency met with no inter- 
 ruption and ended in the fall of Protestantism ; in 
 Germany the tendency was suddenly aiTCsted by the 
 advance of the Counter-Reformation. Accordingly in Ger- 
 many all early anticipations were disappointed, and about 
 162.5 Romanism seemed likely to obtain a final victory. 
 This was averted, but the South of Germany was defini- 
 tively lost to the Reformation, and on the whole when the 
 struggle was over victory remained in Germany as in 
 France with Rome. It was by taking the principal part in 
 this victory of the Counter-Reformation in Central Europe 
 that Austria raised itself to the position of a great Power. 
 
 In an earlier chapter we examined the Counter-Re- 
 formation sufficiently to discern the causes of its success in 
 Western Eiu'ope. These causes operated also in Germanj', 
 but if we would fully understand the surprising reaction it 
 caused there we must take note of a circumstance which 
 hitherto we have disregarded. In the middle of the six- 
 teenth century the Reformation had taken possession of 
 Germany like a mighty national religion, and it might well 
 seem that the Council of Trent, whatever influence it might 
 have elsewhere, came too late for Germany. And yet in 
 twenty years from the conclusion of the Council by some 
 means or other the Counter-Reformation had invaded Ger- 
 many too and there too it eventually took the upper hand. 
 
 We noted it as a characteristic of that period, which 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS* WAR. 305 
 
 corresponds to the Elizabethan age, that it is not so much 
 busy with religion itself as with the problem of the relation 
 of religion to civil government. Thus the decided rejection 
 of the Reformation by France was evidently caused in a 
 great degree by the sense that it would lead in France to 
 anarchy and disintegration. Now the danger of disin- 
 tegration was much greater in Germany than even in 
 France. Before the Reformation began France had estab- 
 lished for herself a strong government, and all she had now 
 to do was to hold fast what she had enjoyed for the best 
 part of a century. But in Germany disintegration was 
 an evil of long standing. At the very moment when 
 some faint prospect of overcoming it was offered under 
 Maximilian and Charles V, the Reformation introduced a 
 new cause of disunion. 
 
 But the Lutheran Reformation, we have remarked, had 
 politically a strong dash of conservatism, and was even, in 
 a certain sense, carried into effect mainly by the agency of 
 government. If it led in the last years of Chai-les V to a 
 civil war in Germany we may perhaps say that the Revo- 
 lutionist was rather the Emperor than the Schmalkaldic 
 League. The settlement in which Ferdinand I took the 
 lead and which actually gave a long peace to Germany 
 was made by mutual agreement, and was maintained by 
 an understanding between the head of the Catholic party, 
 Ferdinand himself, and the leader of the Protestants, 
 August, Elector of Saxony. Hence when the Lutheran 
 Reformation was, as it were, concluded by the Religious 
 Peace, it left Germany tolerably free from disunion, and 
 modem German historians regret that the state of things 
 introduced by the Religious Peace, when Germany seemed 
 for a time to enjoy national and religious harmony, could 
 not last. 
 
 s 20 
 
306 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 It was no doubt a precarious equilibrium. The ma- 
 chinery of national government was extremely delicate. 
 The Emperor had little power, but the Electoral College 
 had a certain authority, and so long as the Confessions 
 were evenly balanced there, Germany had as much organi- 
 sation as it was accustomed to. 
 
 But the religious change had an aspect which was 
 painfully secular. In all countries alike the Reformation, 
 so far as it was successful, involved a vast confiscation of 
 ecclesiastical property. Such a confiscation, accomplished 
 regularly by a strong Government, might be harmless, 
 but where government was weak and the change was 
 made in a lawless revolutionary manner it was of the 
 worst possible example. The Lutheran Reformation in 
 one aspect was the purification of religion and the opening 
 of the Bible to the people ; but in another aspect it was 
 the appropriation of a vast amount of property by a 
 number of German princes. It raised these princes to 
 a higher level of power and independence, and so far it 
 enfeebled still further the central German Government, 
 atoning perhaps for this by increasing the efficiency of 
 provincial Government. At the same time it created a 
 ruinous precedent. It gave all secular princes or land- 
 owners, great and small, an unappeasable appetite for 
 church property, and a hankering after the anarchical 
 independence which they might acquire by favouring the 
 Reformation. 
 
 There was a kind of family likeness between the 
 institutions of the Holy Roman Empire and the insti- 
 tutions of the Slavonic countries adjacent to it, such as 
 Poland and the kingdoms of the Bohemian Crown. Both 
 alike had a turbulent aristocracy and a feeble monarchy. 
 The Austrian Habsburg was at this time the feeble 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEAES' WAR. 307 
 
 monarch in Bohemia as also in Hungary, and in these 
 kingdoms he had to contend against much such a turbu- 
 lent aristocracy leaning on the Reformation, as he had 
 to withstand in Germany in his capacity of Emperor. 
 
 It was thus that in the latter part of the sixteenth 
 century the Reformation began to be regarded ia many 
 parts of Germany, and with some considerable excuse, as a 
 mere cloak for aristocratic anarchy. The religious side of 
 it in many parts disappeared and nothing was left of it 
 but that painfully secular side. The anarchy appeared in 
 many different degrees. In a Hungarian or Bohemian 
 landowner it might appear as mere lawlessness and 
 robbery. In a great German prince it might take the 
 form of political ambition and issue in a scheme for 
 breaking up Germany into a group of independent princi- 
 palities. 
 
 And now grew up German Calvinism. The Reforma- 
 tion guided by Calvin was politically much more radical 
 than the Lutheran Reformation. It issued commonly in 
 rebelKon. If such rebellion proved successful, it might in 
 the end work well, as in Scotland or in Holland. But if 
 not, it necessarily alienated the governing class; it com- 
 monly led to civil war. 
 
 In Germany Calvinism soon gained one of the seven 
 Electors, the Elector Palatine. This new ingredient 
 thrown into the caldron could not but embitter the 
 religious politics of the country. This prince's position 
 was necessarily revolutionary. As a Calvinist, he was not 
 protected by the Religious Peace. He was hemmed in by 
 Catholic principalities, the ecclesiastical electorates, the 
 kindred House of Bavaria, the Spanish Low Countries. 
 Meanwhile he had France within call. 
 
 And thus as the influence of Romanism revived in 
 
 20—2 
 
308 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the world, Protestantism in Germany, while it felt the 
 influence of the Reaction, was at once secularised by 
 the prospect of spoliation and embittered by the admixture 
 of Calvinism. This occurred at a time when the German 
 branch of the House of Austria was weak, and imperial 
 institutions were almost paralysed. 
 
 At the opening of the seventeenth century it was safe 
 to predict that a revolution was at hand in Germany. 
 But the revolution which took place proved quite different 
 from that which then seemed probable. No one would 
 have predicted that the House of Habsburg was about to 
 strengthen and consolidate itself and to take in some 
 respects a firmer hold of Germany, or that the decrepit 
 Holy Roman Empire would linger on for two more cen- 
 turies. What seemed certainly at hand was something 
 widely different. The Empire seemed about to be dis- 
 solved into a number of independent states, and the Ger- 
 man branch of the House of Austria seemed about to be 
 dethroned. 
 
 The person who would take the leading share in this 
 transformation seemed also designated. The King of 
 France, Henry IV, would step forward, as his predecessor 
 Henry II had done in the days of Charles V, as, long 
 after, one of his successors. Napoleon, did in the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 Between 1606 and 1610, that is, in the first years 
 of the Great Truce, this movement was secretly ad- 
 vancing in Germany. The Union was organised under 
 the leadership of the Elector Palatine, Frederick IV, but 
 by the agency principally of Christian of Anhalt. These 
 and other leaders put themselves in close communication 
 with Henry. They formed a plan for breaking up the 
 Diet and destroying what remained of effective machinery 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEAES' WAR. 309 
 
 in the Empire. Their conduct at the Diet held at Ratis- 
 bon in 1608, where they frankly denied the right of the 
 majority to biad the minority, and where the members of 
 the Union seceded in a body, was plainly calculated and 
 intended to bring on a Revolution. 
 
 The death of Henry IV for the moment frustrated 
 these schemes, but when we compare the events which 
 began in 1618 and the share taken in them by the 
 Elector Palatiae Frederick V with these earlier events 
 in which his father Frederick IV took the lead, we 
 cannot but recognise the continuity of the policy of the 
 Palatine party. 
 
 What has now been said of the new greatness and 
 prominence of the Austrian Power, which may be held 
 to begin with the succession in 1619 of the Emperor 
 Ferdinand II to the Emperor Matthias, enables us to 
 describe in outline English policy as it shaped itself in the 
 later years of James I. The principal features of the 
 Elizabethan period had disappeared earlier, but that 
 change was chiefly negative ; new Powers now appear 
 and the Counter-Reformation carries on its struggle with 
 the Reformation by new agencies. 
 
 The system which had disappeared was that which 
 turned exclusively on the resistance of the Low Countries 
 to Spain. This resistance had been supported by aid 
 fitfully rendered to the rebels by England and France. 
 But in the earlier years of James not only had Spain 
 herself been led to take up a less aggressive attitude, for 
 she had made peace with England, but in 1609 she had 
 consented to suspend the original war itself, the war with 
 heresy, the war with the Low Countries, for twelve years. 
 This occurrence of 1609 was like the true conclusion of 
 the Elizabethan age. After taking note of it we ask 
 
810 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 ourselves whether James having disentangled himself 
 from the Continental politics of his predecessor, will 
 form new Continental relations for himself, and whether 
 some new question will take the place of that insoluble 
 Dutch question which seemed now to have been at least 
 shelved for some years. And at least we find that he is 
 influenced by considerations which had not troubled the 
 counsellors of Queen Elizabeth. He has sons and daugh- 
 ters to marry, and they must be married preferably into a 
 branch of the House of Austria or into the House of 
 Bourbon. He seeks a Spanish match for the Prince of 
 Wales, but at the same time he finds a husband for his 
 daughter Elizabeth, and by this latter marriage he calls 
 into existence a new international system for Western 
 Europe and creates almost a new Dutch question. What 
 the Dutch had been to Elizabeth, that in a great degree 
 was the Palatinate for this generation, and the chief 
 concern or interest that the English people had in the 
 Palatinate lay in the fact that the ruler of it, the Elector 
 Palatine, was the husband whom James had secured for 
 his daughter Elizabeth. 
 
 But the reason why this particular marriage had such 
 serious and such various consequences was that the 
 Elector Palatine by his position in Europe was closely 
 connected with those occurrences which gave so much 
 greatness and prominence to the Austrian House, and 
 which now appear in history as the occurrences in which 
 the Thirty Years' War took its rise. 
 
 The Thirty Years' War is held to begin in 1618 by 
 the marvellous ' defenestration,' at Prag, of Martinitz, 
 Slavata and the Secretary Fabricius. But the next year 
 to this, 1619, is almost more important in the revival of 
 the Austrian branch of the House of Austria, for in this 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 311 
 
 year Matthias was succeeded by the Emperor Ferdinand II, 
 one of the most energetic and characteristic represen- 
 tatives of the Counter-Reformation which that age 
 produced. But other occurrences followed by which the 
 prominence of Austria was still further enhanced. A 
 revolution in the institutions of the Empire was suggested 
 when it was proposed to declare the Bohemian crown 
 elective, and this revolution was pointed directly at 
 England when it was proposed that the Elector Palatine, 
 the son-in-law of James, should become a candidate for it. 
 When this revolution was actually accomplished in August 
 1619 by the election of Frederick by the Bohemian 
 Estates and by Frederick's acceptance of the election, 
 England seemed to stand on the threshold of a new 
 foreign policy wholly unlike that of the Elizabethan age, 
 for it was one in which neither the Spanish Monarchy nor 
 the Low Countries had any concern, and it was founded 
 entirely on the condition of Germany. Nevertheless we 
 can scarcely understand the change that had occurred 
 without looking forward a little beyond 1619. At the 
 end of October 1620 the new Austrian Power crushed the 
 new Bohemian Power, the elective Bohemian Monarchy, 
 at the battle of the White Hill outside Prag. A blow 
 was struck at the Reformation which might well seem 
 serious wherever, as in England, a strong national feeling 
 in favour of the Reformation existed. 
 
 So far the active offensive Power which James finds 
 always in his path is Austria. Austria has become re- 
 united and vigorous, Austria is an efficient representative 
 of the Counter-Reformation, Austria has crushed her 
 Protestant enemy and won the great victory of the age. 
 But in the new form which the great struggle of the 
 Confessions is now assuming will the Spanish Monarchy 
 
312 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 find no place at all ? The Truce has removed her from 
 the list of belligerents for twelve years. But now it is to 
 be observed that the twelve years were fast running out. 
 In fact they expired in 1621, so that in that year the old 
 interminable struggle of the Spanish Monarchy with the 
 Dutch began again. Henceforth there was not merely a 
 Thirty Years' War, but two wars were waged side by side, 
 one for thirty years in Germany, the other, only three 
 years shorter, between the Spanish Monarchy and the 
 United Provinces, and by the Treaties of Westphalia not 
 one of these wars but both of them alike were brought to 
 an end in 1648. 
 
 Thus both branches of the House of Austria take some 
 part together in the international drama which began in 
 the latter years of James I. It is indeed the characteristic 
 feature of the age that the two branches of the House act 
 in concert. It was now to be tried whether thirty years 
 after the Spanish Monarchy had threatened to overwhelm 
 all Western Europe in Philip II's time, Spain and Austria 
 might not be equally menacing in concert about the time 
 when Philip III was succeeded by Philip IV, and Matthias 
 by the Emperor Ferdinand II. In the year 1620, a little 
 earlier than the battle of the White Hill at Prag, this new 
 alarming concert of the Spanish and Austrian branches of 
 the House of Austria was placed in an imposing manner 
 upon the European stage. A question of the Palatinate 
 was growing up behind the Bohemian question. It was 
 contemplated, after the Elector Palatine should be driven 
 from his revolutionary throne at Prag, to attack him in his 
 hereditary dominions of the Palatinate, and already the 
 scheme was in the air of depriving him of these territories 
 and transferring them to his cousin the Duke of Bavaria. 
 Such unceremonious manipulation of the Electoral College 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEAES' WAR. 313 
 
 might alter the religious balance of the Empire and con- 
 stitute a political and a religious Revolution that would 
 convulse Europe. Nevertheless in 1620 Spinola, a general 
 of Spain, invaded the Palatinate, that is, a German Elect- 
 orate. The catastrophe of Prag followed in the same year. 
 But 1621 brought occurrences of the same kind and al- 
 most more momentous as affecting the position of the two 
 branches of the House of Austria. First, king Philip III 
 was succeeded by Philip IV, in whose long reign the 
 Spanish Monarchy underwent the great losses which 
 may be considered as equivalent to the fall of Spain — 
 the Spain, that is, of Philip II. Secondly, the Twelve 
 Years' Truce expired, and the war, which for thirty 
 years in the sixteenth century had been a kind of pivot 
 for international affairs, began again. In other words, the 
 great religious war which before had been waged between 
 one great Counter-Reformation Power, Spain, and one 
 great Reformation Power, the Low Countries, was now 
 to be revived as one of two religious wars, for besides the 
 revival of the old war there was now a second religious 
 war in Germany, the Emperor himself representing the 
 Austrian branch of the House of Austria and appearing 
 for the Counter-Reformation while the Elector Palatine 
 appeared as the champion of the Reformation. 
 
 In what way was England concerned with these 
 threatening relations of Europe thus transformed ? Under 
 Elizabeth she had feared in the unsettled state of her 
 succession and of her religion to be invaded by the 
 Spanish Monarchy. She was now less timid, having 
 defeated the Armada and settled the succession question 
 and having lived through several years of peace. She 
 could not however regard with simple indifference the 
 double religious war which was now about to break out. 
 
314 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 In the first place the leader of the Reformation party 
 in the Germanic war was a son-in-law of our Stuart king, 
 and so long as he should remain the most prominent 
 figure on the Protestant side of that struggle we could 
 not but feel interested in it. But, moreover, popular 
 feeling in England was other than it had been in Eliza- 
 beth's time. Then it had been perhaps doubtful whether 
 the English were at heart a Romanist or a Protestant 
 people, and even now Gondomar could persuade himself 
 that almost all persons of cultivation or property in 
 England were at least secretly Catholic. But he seems 
 to have been mistaken. At least there was much religion 
 in England which was both Protestant and fervent. Pro- 
 testant religion both in England and Scotland was a thing 
 alive and capable of self-sacrifice. The Reformation, it 
 appeared, had taken strong root in the two insular king- 
 doms. And now that on the Continent two religious wars 
 were breaking out at once, England was likely to show 
 herself less indifferent than in Elizabeth's reign. Public 
 opinion was likely to clamour to be led somewhat in 
 advance of political prudence in defence of Protestantism 
 assailed whether in the Low Countries or the Palatinate 
 or even Bohemia by the united House of Austria. 
 
 For, having taken note of the altered features of 
 Europe which exhibit the portentous approach of a new 
 or rather of two new religious wars, we are now to remark 
 that the problem is not to be dealt with by Elizabeth 
 and a people long accustomed to their virgin queen, but 
 by the first Stuart now at the end of his work of pacifica- 
 tion and declining in years. It must be decided somehow 
 between him and his Parliament, and it is to be seen 
 whether new Drakes will arise or the English soldier 
 penetrate into the heart of Germany, or on the other 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS* WAR. 315 
 
 hand whether diplomacy shall achieve a peace ; and 
 further, if a land army is required, whether the Stuart 
 monarchy and the Parliament between them will know 
 how to find the money. Long before the diplomatic and 
 the foreign question were fully discussed the domestic 
 question superseded both of them. After all, little war 
 took place, but there took place a good deal of revolution. 
 We took no prominent part in the Thirty Years' War 
 nor in the second war of the Low Countries, but about 
 the same time that the Continent was elaborating its 
 treaties of Westphalia we made the experiment of abolish- 
 ing monarchy in England. 
 
 Thus a short formula for this period is, rise of Austria 
 and approach of a great double religious war on the 
 Continent; this regarded by the Stuart House from the 
 dynastic point of view, but chiefly from the religious point 
 of view by public opinion ; and the whole foreign question 
 gradually overwhelmed and superseded by the growth of a 
 domestic revolution. 
 
 In short, our policy arrives just here at a parting of 
 the roads. A vista opens on the Continent, where two 
 religious wars are beginning at the same time, wars to 
 which the Stuart kings are called by their dynastic con- 
 nexions and their people by religious feeling. But at the 
 same time another vista equally extensive opens at home, 
 where the divisions, the topics and the personages that 
 afterwards furnished out the Great Rebellion are about to 
 appear. More and more the national vigour was drawn 
 off to this domestic movement, and England assuming an 
 active decisive policy in the Thirty Years' War was lost 
 in the great Might Have Been. Yet we can mark pretty 
 exactly the point at which the ways parted. Look at 
 that year 1621. On the Continent it was the year when 
 
316 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 in Spain Philip III was succeeded by Philip IV, and also 
 the year when the war of the Spanish Monarchy with the 
 Low Countries began again. In England in the same 
 year Parliament was summoned, the Parliament which 
 among other things made the famous protest in favour 
 of liberty of speech. In the four years which still 
 remained to James I, Parliament was summoned once 
 again (in 1624), and both questions, the question of re- 
 ligious war abroad and the parliamentary question at 
 home, moved forward. But another question, to James 
 himself more fundamental than either, the Spanish match, 
 was prosecuted eagerly during this closing period of 
 the reign, and we are able to perceive what after all lies 
 at the bottom of the policy of James I. His reign is 
 sharply contrasted with that of Elizabeth because it is 
 given up to royal marriage. The marriage of Elizabeth 
 Stuart has involved England in those questions of Bohemia 
 and the Palatinate which threaten the whole Continent 
 with confusion, and forces James to press on another royal 
 marriage, more important still, the Spanish match which 
 he prepares for the Prince of Wales. 
 
 If 1621 marks one of the greatest international turning- 
 points for England, and for both branches of the House of 
 Austria, the short period extending from 1621 to the death 
 of James I includes a turning-point equally memorable 
 in the history of the House of Bourbon. For 1624 may 
 be taken as the commencement of the period of Richelieu. 
 Fourteen years after the death of the founder Henry IV, 
 appeared the most original and powerful minister that 
 ever served the House of Bourbon, a minister who gave a 
 character to the Bourbon Monarchy which decided the 
 position it was to hold in Europe and ultimately also the 
 relation it was to bear to England. 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 317 
 
 Of the Thirty Years' War itself we need here only to 
 remark the transition from the Bohemian phase to the 
 phase of the Palatinate. The Protestant invasion of 
 Bohemia having failed was followed by an invasion of 
 Frederick's electoral dominion of the Palatinate by the 
 House of Habsburg. In other words, the war was trans- 
 ferred from the Slavonic world into the heart of the 
 German Empire, and questions were raised which touched 
 the very constitution of the Empire and therefore inter- 
 ested almost every leading state. The Bohemian question 
 was soon forgotten; the question of the Palatinate took 
 its place, and this could not so soon be forgotten. 
 
 What may be called the Balance of Germany depended 
 mainly on the equal number of Catholic and Protestant 
 Electorates. On the Catholic side were the three ecclesi- 
 astical Electorates (Cologne, Treves, and Mayence); on the 
 Protestant side the Palatinate, Saxony and Brandenburg. 
 The seventh Electorate, Bohemia, belonged to the House 
 of Austria itself Here was indeed a nice balance ! 
 When it was now proposed to take the electoral rank from 
 Frederick and to transfer it to his Catholic cousin of 
 Bavaria, it was proposed to make a revolution in Germany 
 in favour of Catholicism. 
 
 But all this was but dimly conceived in England, which 
 hitherto had had but little concern in the intricate politics 
 of the Empire. What came home at once to the English 
 and to the French mind was that the Palatinate was 
 invaded not by the Austrian troops of the Emperor but by 
 Spanish troops marching from the Low Countries. The 
 Power whose movements ever since the sixteenth century 
 England, France, and the Netherlands had been in the 
 habit of watching with anxious vigilance was Spain. The 
 King of Spain and the Austrian sovereign were kinsmen. 
 
318 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 but they had not hitherto been seen acting in concert. 
 About 1588, when the Spanish Power by itself had 
 overshadowed the world, the Austrian Power had not 
 been seen aiding it. It was therefore an alarming in- 
 novation that on the outbreak of a civil war in Germany, 
 Spain promptly interfered and moved her troops into a 
 German province to render aid to the kindred Power. 
 It was the more alarming because at this very time 
 that kindred Power began to display such unwonted 
 vigour. 
 
 But these continental movements did not directly 
 threaten England. We may safely say that Elizabeth 
 would have troubled herself very little about them. She 
 who had kept England at peace in a much more threat- 
 ening condition of Europe would scarcely have gone to 
 war for the Palatinate. But Elizabeth had neither sons, 
 nor daughters, nor sons-in-law. It was otherwise with 
 James, who had the ordinary interests and feelings of a 
 member of the royal caste. He had indeed resisted the 
 appeals of his children when they urged him to support 
 their Bohemian claim. But when they were threatened 
 in their own Palatinate James held it a family duty to 
 interfere. 
 
 Both James and Charles regard the Thirty Years' War 
 in a manner in which Elizabeth had never regarded the 
 continental movements of her time. For Elizabeth had 
 been married to her people, but James was only married 
 to Anne of Denmark and Charles to Henrietta Maria. 
 The Stuart kings see little more than the danger of a 
 relative ; for them the appalling convulsion in which the 
 German nation and the German Reformation seemed 
 likely to perish together is summed up in the question 
 of the Palatinate, which is like a lawsuit in which their 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 319 
 
 family is interested. In taking this view, in proposing to 
 involve England in war for a mere family interest, they 
 but followed the usual practice of European Monarchies 
 in their time ; it was Elizabeth who, owing to special 
 circumstances, had been able to rise to a higher point 
 of view. 
 
 And English public opinion was disposed on the whole, 
 though vaguely and uncertainly, to go with them. To it 
 too the rights of the royal family were something, but 
 besides these rights the nation was alive to the interest of 
 the Protestant religion. James and Charles might not be 
 quite insensible to this too, had not the Catholic match, 
 first with Spain, afterwards with France, clouded their 
 views. But what the English people saw in Germany was 
 an alarming series of disasters befalling their religion. 
 They understood indeed little in detail. The merits of 
 the Bohemian question or of the electoral question were 
 beyond their knowledge, but they could see the cause of 
 the Reformation sinking as low as it had ever fallen in the 
 darkest years of the sixteenth century. Bohemia hope- 
 lessly lost, all South Germany overflowed by the Counter- 
 Reformation, the Palatinate lost at least temporarily, and 
 an alliance formed between the two branches of the House 
 of Austria which might revive the ascendency which 
 Spain alone had had in the reign of Elizabeth — all this 
 they could see. And thus the Stuart kings, though 
 sympathising but little with their people, yet were in a 
 kind of vague general agreement with their people on the 
 policy demanded by the time. 
 
 But the public mind was embarrassed, as we have 
 frequently seen it embarrassed since, but as it had not 
 been embarrassed in the Elizabethan age. In that 
 age the danger which threatened England, and therefore 
 
320 GROWTH OF BEITISH POLICY. 
 
 the close interest of England in continental affairs, was 
 indisputable; for a long time it seemed barely possible 
 that England could escape. For this reason we aided 
 the Huguenots and the insurgents of the Low Countries, 
 and on this direct and undeniable interest our whole 
 foreign policy was founded. The German disturbance 
 of 1618 did not concern us at all in the same unquestion- 
 able manner. It was most serious for Germany, most 
 serious for Continental Protestantism, but in the most un- 
 favourable contingency it could scarcely be shown to en- 
 danger England. The Protestantism of England did not 
 depend on that of Germany, as it had really seemed to 
 depend, in Elizabeth's time, on that of the Low 
 Countries. 
 
 Perhaps if we had been able to consider this German 
 question, as we should consider it now, purely from the 
 point of view of the national interest and duty, we should 
 have held that England was not called to put herself 
 prominently forward. 
 
 It was right indeed that we should exert ourselves 
 to prevent the fall of Protestantism in Germany, but we 
 were not so situated that the principal responsibility 
 should fall on us. Those who were most bound to act 
 were the Lutheran princes of Germany, after these the 
 Dutch, and then the kings of Denmark and Sweden. All 
 these had the same interest as ourselves in the cause of 
 the Reformation, and they were nearer than ourselves to 
 the scene of action. And when the concert of Spain with 
 the Emperor was revealed to the world by Spinola's 
 invasion of the Palatinate, another Power, not Protest- 
 ant, might be thought to have a closer interest than 
 England, if not in saving German Protestantism, at least 
 in resisting Habsburg ascendency. We are to remember 
 
JAMES I AXD THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 321 
 
 that already in Henry TV's time France had felt herself 
 most dangerously hemmed ia by Habsburg power. The 
 Catholic Low Countries, Franche Comte and Alsace, were 
 in Habsburg hands. And now the Palatinate passed into 
 the same hands at the same time that Austria, a neigh- 
 bour of France in Alsace and Suabia, became much more 
 powerful than formerly. France then might be expected 
 to bestir hereelf 
 
 In these circumstances a Grand Alliance for the pur- 
 pose of watching over the interests of the Reformation 
 in Germany was needed. England would be a member 
 of it, and would supply aid in money, perhaps at need 
 in ships and men. But England would not be expected 
 to take any leading part. 
 
 This simple view of the matter was obscured by the 
 family relation between James and Charles and the Elector 
 Palatine. To assert his rights, to recover for him his 
 hereditary possessions, was regarded as a family duty 
 by the King of England. The English people were on the 
 one hand not prepared to say bluntly that these family 
 interests did not concern them; on the other hand they 
 too wished to see the Elector righted, because the cause 
 of the Reformation was involved in his. Accordingly 
 England found herself taking a more prominent part in 
 the question than was reasonable. Frederick himself and 
 the whole Protestant world looked to the King of England 
 for the solution of a question in which England was not 
 primarily concerned. Nor was England able to meet this 
 unreasonable expectation by announcing a firm and con- 
 sistent policy. 
 
 This phase of our Policy may be taken to end in 1629, 
 in which year the domestic dispute in England begins to 
 paralyse her action abroad. We must however distinguish 
 s. 21 
 
322 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 between the phase of it which belongs to James and that 
 which belongs to Charles. Only it is to be observed that 
 the division does not fall at the moment of the death ol 
 James but a year earlier, at the return of Prince Charles 
 ft-om Spain. At this time the reins fall out of the hands 
 of James, and pass into those, not so much of Charles as 
 of Buckingham. And -with the peace ^vith France and 
 Spain in 1629-30 we may say that the second phase ends. 
 
 We have found the policy of James I tolerably con- 
 fused in every part of his reign. It had however one re- 
 deeming feature which saved him from disaster, namely, 
 that it was always peaceful. England had reached that 
 secure position that if she chose to hold aloof from foreign 
 complications, or even to trifle with them and then dis- 
 honourably to withdraw, she could do so without suffering 
 much for it. It marks therefore the first of the two phases 
 that England undertakes a great deal and accomplishes 
 nothing. Had James been left alone he would probably 
 have put up with his failure and sunk into inactivity. But 
 by this time the national feeling has been aroused, and the 
 question is taken out of his hands by those who by no means 
 share his passion for peace. Now begins the second phase, 
 not less confused than the first but infinitely more danger- 
 ous. England in her bewilderment finds herself dragged 
 into wars which she neither understands nor approves, but 
 to which she sees no end. For England herself means 
 one thing by the war, but the English Monarchy means 
 another. Hence in the end a breach between the nation 
 and the Monarchy, a revolution. 
 
 But one strange characteristic belongs to both phases 
 alike. The real enemy who threatens Protestantism is 
 the Emperor wielding the power of Austria. He is indeed 
 assisted by Spain, but Spain is by this time much enfeebled, 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 323 
 
 far advanced in an incurable decline. We remark, however, 
 that the English mind, whether we look at James, Charles 
 and Buckingham, or at the popular party so suspicious of 
 their policy, seems unable to see any enemy but Spain. 
 The Palatinate is to be saved, so the King judges at one 
 time, by a marriage alliance with Spain, at another time 
 by war with Spain. And yet throughout the decision 
 really lay with the Emperor. On the other hand the 
 popular party when they are in their most warlike mood 
 pay little regard to the Palatinate, but meditate a grand 
 maritime war with Spain. It is evident that the im- 
 pressions left behind by the Elizabethan war still hold 
 their minds. They remember Drake, Essex and Ralegh, 
 and are unable to grasp the new development which is 
 really all-important, or to understand that Germany, not the 
 Sea and the New World, is the scene of the new struggle 
 between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. 
 
 The episode of Ralegh, standing midway near the 
 commencement of the Thirty Years' War, explains this 
 universal misconception, for it shows how much alive the 
 animosity towards Spain and the wish for war with Spain 
 continued to be more than twelve years after the conclusion 
 of peace and almost at the moment when the new danger 
 from Austria was beginning. The misconception was 
 favoured by the action of Spain in occupying the Palati- 
 nate. This step, taken really with reluctance and in mere 
 self-defence by the Spanish Government, was interpreted 
 as if Philip II had been still on the throne. It was taken 
 as an act of tyrannous ascendency. Spain still appeared 
 alarmingly great and Austria comparatively weak after 
 the relative position had been reversed, after Spain had 
 fallen into languor and Austria had become the tyrant of 
 Germany. 
 
 21—2 
 
324 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Accordingly throughout this period English policy 
 makes the mistake of trying to settle the German ques- 
 tion at Madrid instead of at Vienna. It adopts first a 
 peaceful, then a warlike method. At first the Elector is 
 to be rescued, and his territory restored to him, by an 
 article in a marriage-treaty, afterwards by military opera- 
 tions. But both the marriage-treaty and the military 
 operations are directed to Spain, with whom the settle- 
 ment of the question did not really lie, and not to the 
 Emperor, with whom it did. 
 
 We have seen the Spanish marriage already under 
 negociation before the German question broke out. At 
 the outset the plan had been favoured by James, partly 
 because it promised him a sum of money, partly because 
 of the splendour of the match. Spain had favoured, if not 
 the plan itself, yet the discussion of it, as furnishing a 
 lever by which she could at least strongly influence 
 English policy and might hope to undermine English 
 Protestantism by procuring a toleration for the Catholics. 
 Now came the German question, and modified the character 
 and object of the negociation. Henceforward, while the 
 King of Spain regarded it much as before, James and 
 Charles came to regard it chiefly as a means of procuring 
 relief for their relative in Germany. The Infanta was to 
 give in return for the position of Queen of England and 
 for large concessions to her Church in England, no longer 
 merely a sum of money, but also the Palatinate to the 
 son-in-law and daughter of James. 
 
 This is the grand scheme upon which James staked his 
 reputation, and he had at the outset the advantage that if 
 his conciliatory advances failed he could at any time fall 
 back upon war, in which he would be supported with 
 enthusiasm by his Parliament and people. But besides 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 325 
 
 the misconception that lurked in the plan itself he was 
 thwarted by his inability to maintain a popular course 
 and by the good-natured indolence which made the 
 thought of war intolerable to him. In 1621 he stumbled 
 into a quarrel with his Parliament, which, as he depended 
 for money either upon Parliament or upon the Spanish 
 match, threw him against his will into dependence upon 
 Spain. Hence between 1621 and 1623 the marriage- 
 negociation enters upon its intense phase, and in the latter 
 year occurs the wild visit of Prince Charles and Buck- 
 ingham to Madrid. 
 
 The course of this long negociation presents many small 
 points, which for the moment seemed of intense interest. 
 It filled months and years with fussy excitement, and gave 
 occasion to infinite diplomatic fencing, to misunderstandings 
 and explanations, to ambiguous promises now given, now 
 revoked. This kind of thing is precisely what an essay 
 like this avoids. For the question at issue was after all 
 simple, and when the whispering was over the time neces- 
 sarily arrived for deciding this simple question, whether 
 Spain would, or indeed whether she could, restore the 
 Palatinate to the Elector. 
 
 Had the Elector conducted himself in the meanwhile 
 honourably and discreetly, he might have obtained resti- 
 tution, not so much from Spain as from the Emperor 
 himself. But he had behaved with such perverseness, 
 and had created such confusion in Germany by letting 
 loose military adventurers such as Mansfeld and Christian 
 of Brunswick upon the country, that he had made it 
 impossible for the Emperor to treat him with indulgence. 
 Accordingly the demand of England practically came to 
 this, that Spain should put force upon the Emperor, 
 should go to war with him in the cause of the Elector 
 
326 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Palatine. And this on the ground that the royal House of 
 Spain was henceforth to be connected by marriage with 
 that of England. 
 
 But the royal House of Spain was connected much 
 more closely, not only by many marriages, but by a 
 common origin, with the Emperor himself Accordingly 
 the time came when it was necessary to explain to James 
 and Charles that by a fundamental maxim of the 
 Spanish House war between it and the Emperor was 
 inadmissible. 
 
 In the course of his stay at Madrid, Charles after 
 making incredible concessions came at last to perceive 
 that no concessions could purchase that which he had most 
 at heart. Hitherto he had been the agent of his father's 
 policy, but after his return in 1624 the policy of James 
 stood condemned. The only alternative, since it occurred 
 to no one that not Spain but the Emperor really held the 
 fate of the Elector in his hands, was war with Spain. 
 The reign of the Peace-maker in foreign policy is at an 
 end. Charles and Buckingham put themselves at the head 
 of the popular movement which presses for war. 
 
 The period which follows stands alone in the history 
 of the early Stuarts as exhibiting a Stuart prince acting 
 in unison with public opinion. The agreement did not 
 indeed last long; as a leader of public opinion Charles 
 failed almost as disastrously as he failed later when he 
 put himself in opposition to it. If he did not fail quite at 
 once, and if he failed partly through ill-luck and not 
 entirely through perversity, this was due to the influence 
 of Buckingham, who has a right to give his name to this 
 phase of our policy. 
 
 Buckingham in these years resembles not so much his 
 immediate predecessor Carr as those fixvourites of Queen 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEAKS' WAR. 327 
 
 Elizabeth, Leicester and Essex, who like him had dealt 
 with foreign affairs in a time of war. Between 1624 and 
 1628 the Elizabethan age might seem in some respects to 
 be revived. What Ralegh had clamoured for was now at 
 last seen. The peace with Spain came to an end, and the 
 nation might look forward to a renewal of those lucrative 
 triumphs which in the last years of Elizabeth had been 
 found so easy to win. The Netherlands since 1621 were 
 again at war with Spain, and now that England joined 
 them, as she had done in the former war, the interval of 
 peace might seem a mere pause, and the old struggle to 
 have recommenced by a sort of necessity. England sees 
 again, for the first time under the Stuarts, a spirited, 
 nay momentarily a popular foreign policy, and for this 
 she is indebted to Buckingham. The favourite is no 
 doubt a favourite, that is a spoiled and demoralised 
 politician, but he is less helpless than either of his 
 two masters, and seems by no means devoid either of 
 the instinct of statesmanship or of energy or of patriotism. 
 But the new policy is in reality as far as possible from 
 being Elizabethan, and in a few years it involves the 
 country in greater difficulties than had ever resulted from 
 the feebleness of James. Elizabethan policy, as we have 
 seen, had never been in the slightest degree adventurous. 
 When it was most warlike it had been justified by absolute 
 necessity, and it had been economical in the extreme. 
 The marked peculiarity of it had been that it had always 
 lagged somewhat in the rear of public opinion. What 
 triumphs it had won had been forced upon it, and there 
 had never been the slightest uncertainty about the object 
 or the justification of its warlike proceedings. It had 
 never lost sight of peace; it had steadily resisted the 
 urgency of the war-party represented by Ralegh. The 
 
328 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 progi-am of Buckingham is wholly unlike this. His war 
 with Spain is for a moment popular, but it could not for a 
 moment be represented as undertaken in pure self-defence. 
 England was not now threatened by Spain ; no Armada 
 was now preparing in the harbours of Cadiz or Lisbon. 
 Nor could the object of it be distinctly stated or justified. 
 It was not clear that Spain could, if she would, restore the 
 Palatinate and the Electorate to Frederick, or that there 
 was any reason why England should take the burden of 
 the Elector's cause so prominently upon herself. 
 
 At the outset the policy seemed not only popular, but 
 even parliamentary. Parliament was summoned more 
 frequently in this Buckingham period than it had been 
 in the peaceful years of James or in the warlike period of 
 Elizabeth. For Parliament committed itself in 1624 to a 
 warlike policy, and accordingly when Charles succeeded to 
 the throne a prospect appeared of a grand war to be 
 conducted by King and Parliament in close union. And 
 yet this very Buckingham period created a more fatal and 
 irreparable division between King and Parliament than 
 had ever been witnessed before. 
 
 We see the powerful reaction of foreign policy upon 
 domestic government. It has been too common to explain 
 our civil troubles solely by internal insular causes. The 
 long peace and security had no doubt allowed the constitu- 
 tional question to come under discussion, and even now the 
 somewhat unnecessary character of the war enhanced the 
 discontent. But a foreign war, with all its exigencies and 
 excitements, was needful to create our civil troubles, which 
 probably would not have taken place but for the war with 
 Spain which began in 1625 and the war with France which 
 speedily followed it.' 
 
 These wars belong to the reign of Charles not to that of 
 
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEAEs' WAR. 329 
 
 James. James witnessed but the commencement of the 
 active policy. He lived to see his peace maxims pass out 
 of date and his own son and the favourite whom he had 
 raised from insignificance unite with the Parliament in 
 destroying the work which was his pride, the settlement 
 of 1604. 
 
 At his arrival in England he had brought in his hand 
 peace with Spain. He had had a considerable share in 
 extending the pacification to the Low Countries. He had 
 been able in spite of his feebleness and indolence to hold 
 in check the wild impulse, half heroic, half lawless, which 
 still impelled the nation against Spain. He had put to 
 death Ralegh, the prophet and leader of that crusade. 
 
 So far as his reign has unity it is ia this peace policy. 
 But it seemed as if the tide was against him, and through 
 his last year he drifted helplessly into war. The grand 
 marriage which was to crown the edifice could not be 
 arranged. Spain had again threatened the Reformation 
 by occupying the Palatinate. The spirit of Ralegh, 
 ' ranging for revenge,' took possession of the Parliament, 
 of Buckingham and of Prince Charles. The strongest 
 conviction of James was not strong enough to resist 
 such opposition in his own family. He seemed to see 
 the country fall back into Elizabethan times, aird he 
 acquiesced. 
 
 He had always wanted the vigour to stamp his o-vvn 
 mind upon events. But when he was allowed to close his 
 eyes before war actually began, a sort of unity, a faint 
 distinctness of character, was given to his reign. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 
 
 The new time, which promised to be Elizabethan, 
 proved, we have seen why, less Elizabethan than even the 
 reign of James. Between the reigns of James and Eliza- 
 beth there were large resemblances in the midst of great 
 difference. Both Elizabeth and James loved peace, both 
 gave prosperity to their country and maintained for a long 
 time her influence abroad. Charles, opening his reign 
 with unnecessary war, alienated his people, ruined his 
 credit in Europe, and came at last to be regarded with 
 contemptuous indifference by the great statesmen of the 
 Continent, by Richelieu, Gustavus Adolphus, and Frederick 
 Henry. 
 
 The part of his reign which preceded the Great 
 Rebellion, that is, the thirteen years between his accession 
 in 1625, and the rising in Scotland in 1638, falls into 
 two Avell-marked divisions. There is first the age of 
 Buckingham, in which the Minister impresses his energy 
 upon the proceedings of Government, an age of wars, in 
 the midst of which falls a kind of rehearsal of the Great 
 Rebellion, the age of the Petition of Right. Secondly 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES L 331 
 
 there is the period which is marked in constitutional 
 history by the abeyance of Parliaments. In the history 
 of Policy its characteristic feature is that Charles is his 
 own foreign Minister, but at the same time is debarred 
 by want of supplies from doing anything decisive. In 
 the former period our policy is certainly ill-advised and 
 disastrous, but energetic, and at least not contemptible. 
 In the latter, which is the stormy period of the victories 
 of Gustavus Adolphus, of the murder of Wallenstein, of 
 the battle of Nordlingen, and of the intervention of France 
 in the Genxian war, our policy is painfully confused and 
 ineffective. 
 
 Buckingham's was the only strong influence which was 
 brought to bear on the foreign policy of the Stuarts at this 
 period, partly because, their policy being mainly occupied 
 with marriage questions or family questions, it could only 
 be influenced by a Minister who stood in a most intimate 
 confidential relation to the royal family. It may strike us 
 as strange that Buckingham should have been in an equal 
 degree a favourite to two kings in succession, but he had 
 been in Spain with Charles, and Charles needed a minister 
 who might stand in a peculiarly intimate personal relation 
 to him. So two generations of Hydes served the later 
 Stuarts, being personally connected with James II by 
 marriage. 
 
 The events of this age were in themselves great, and 
 might, but for accidental circumstances, have had a pro- 
 found effect upon our policy. They were in one word the 
 breaking of the Spanish match, and the marriage of 
 Charles a few months after his accession to Henrietta 
 Maria, daughter of Henry IV of France. Once more a 
 royal marriage ! But when the Spanish match was broken 
 war with Spain followed. This is the second in the series 
 
332 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 of our wars with Spain, and, since in war with. Spain our 
 empire has mainly gi'own up, it might have led to vast 
 changes in the colonial world. In like manner the mar- 
 riage alliance with France, formed at the very time when 
 the reunion of the House of Austria alarmed both France 
 and England, might have led to a concerted intervention 
 of the two states in the Thirty Years' War. But Bucking- 
 ham's policy, if it had energy, had no clearness. Instead 
 of concert the marriage was followed by war. We fovmd 
 ourselves at war with Spain and France at the same time. 
 Again such energetic intervention in the affairs of the 
 Continent, favoured as it was at the outset by Parliament, 
 might have restored that internal union which had been 
 seen under Elizabeth and which James had in a great 
 degree trifled away. Constitutional bickerings spring up 
 in peace, but in the midst of a great national peril they 
 may be expected to subside again. 
 
 All these possibilities withered away. The great enter- 
 prises failed and were abandoned. Peace was made with 
 France at Susa in the year 1629 ; peace was made \vith 
 Spain at Madrid early in the year 1630. Nothing was 
 gained for England in either war. Instead of national 
 union the enei'getic foreign policy produced a discord more 
 alarming than the country had witnessed since the accession 
 of Henry VII. On the one side Parliament presented 
 to the King a solemn Petition of Right ; on the other side 
 the King, offended by the violent conduct of Parliament, 
 dissolved it, and began a serious and persistent attempt 
 to make the Monarchy independent of parliamentary 
 support. 
 
 What was the cause of so much failure ? 
 
 We have traced the gradual unexpected rise of English 
 maritime power in conflict with Spain. We saw Spain in 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 333 
 
 the days of Lepanto taking the lead of all maritime States 
 and scarcely thinking of England as even a possible rival. 
 Twenty years later we saw the relation almost reversed, 
 Spanish ships not safe in their own harbours against 
 English attack, while Spanish Armadas are wholly unable 
 to inflict any damage upon England. Thus ended in 1604 
 the iirst war of England and Spain. England has con- 
 quered her place upon the Ocean, Spain meanwhile has 
 recovered nothing of her lost reputation. Twenty years of 
 peace between the two nations succeeded, but in this 
 period too Spain has no revival in naval or military 
 reputation, whatever successes she may have in the field 
 of diplomacy. Accordingly now that the war broke out 
 again the nation may naturally have expected to see 
 Buckingham take up the work of Drake, Essex and 
 Ralegh where it was left, inflict more defeats upon Spain, 
 bring home more spoils. But somehow the spell has 
 been snapped, the talisman lost. The expedition of Sir 
 Edward Cecil against Cadiz in October 1625 does not 
 remind us by any feature of those expeditions of the 
 Elizabethan age. The history of it tells of little but 
 mismanagement, disorder, indiscipline, cowardice and 
 failure. The naval glory of England would seem to 
 have passed away again like a dream. 
 
 But let us call to mind how it had grown up. The 
 open war of England and Spain had been preceded in 
 Elizabeth's time by a long unavowed war. For twenty 
 years before the Armada, Hawkins and Drake had been 
 plundering' Spanish ships and Spanish towns ; in short, 
 the nations had been at war, while the Governments were 
 nominally at peace. This had been a period of apprentice- 
 ship to maritime affairs for England. Without this Eliza- 
 beth and her Government would have found themselves 
 
334 GROWTH OB' BKITISH POLICY. 
 
 powerless, when the crisis arrived, to resist the naval 
 power of Spain. 
 
 Buckingham had not the advantage of his predecessor 
 in the office of Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham. He 
 could fall back upon no school of adventurers who, under 
 the mask of peace, had become veterans of naval war. 
 For there had been peace, real peace, not covert war, with 
 Spain now for twenty years. He had therefore only the 
 resources of government, the official machinery, and how 
 rotten this became in time of peace, not only in the reign 
 of James I but even a century later in the ministry of 
 Walpole, it is not difficult to discover. There is little 
 reason to suppose that Buckingham had any great power 
 •of organisation, any qualification in fact but a certain 
 energy, but he had to use an instniment which would 
 probably have broken in a much more skilful hand. 
 
 This may be said of the expedition to Cadiz, which 
 otherwise was hopeful, being directed against Spain, in 
 that age regarded as the national enemy, and at a time 
 when the war was still popular in England. If two years 
 later Buckingham's policy and Buckingham in person 
 suffered a much more disastrous defeat at the Isle of 
 Rhe, the explanation of this is different. The enemy 
 here was France, and the nation could hardly just then 
 understand a war with France. They felt the recklessness 
 ■of a policy which had made an enemy of the state which 
 in Elizabeth's time had been our ally against Spain at 
 the very time when we were at war with Spain herself 
 Buckingham's short-lived popularity was already at an 
 end. He had been impeached by the Commons and thus 
 branded as a public enemy. Accordingly, not to speak of 
 unavoidable misfortunes, such as the contrary wind which 
 ■deprived him of his reinforcements, he had to deal with a 
 force which was in great part mutinous. 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 335 
 
 Thus we had no success in these wars, and at Rh^ we 
 suffered terrible loss. But this has happened to us again 
 and again at the opening of a war, and it has usually had 
 the effect of rousing and uniting us until we arrive at 
 victory through the discipline of disaster. Why had it no 
 such effect in the case before us ? 
 
 The answer is that the policy of these wars was 
 essentially unsound, and would not bear the examination 
 to which it was stibjected. Unfortunately it had met for 
 a moment with popular support, and thus the war had 
 been allowed to begin. But no sooner had it begun than 
 signs of discontent and misgiving showed themselves. In 
 particular it was not clear who was the enemy nor in what 
 way the war should be conducted. By a kind of accident 
 the Court and the Parliament were both for a moment 
 disposed to war, but they could scarcely agree in any 
 warlike measures. 
 
 The popular feeling was simply that Protestantism was 
 in danger and ought to receive aid from England. The 
 enemy, it seemed evident, must be Spain, and the way to 
 attack him had been pointed out by the naval heroes of 
 the last war. 
 
 But what was the view of Charles ? It was this, that 
 he was bound by family duty to recover the Palatinate for 
 his brother-in-law. To him Spain was only the enemy so 
 far as Spanish troops had occupied the Palatinate, and so 
 far as he felt himself aggrieved by the treatment he had 
 received in Spain. His Government would be prepared to 
 meet the wishes of the people, to send ships to Cadiz and 
 lie in wait, as in old times, for the silver fleet. But what 
 in the popular view would be the whole war seemed to 
 the Government of Charles the lesser half of it. Naval 
 victories over Spain would be unprofitable if they did 
 
336 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 not procure the cession of the Palatinate. And this they 
 could only do, if at all, by an indirect process. It was 
 necessary to bring pressure to bear not only upon Spain 
 but upon the Emperor. What after all was most urgent 
 was either to send troops to Germany or at least to assist 
 by subsidies the Protestant princes who commanded troops 
 in Germany. 
 
 Accordingly when Charles at his accession tried to 
 represent the war as one which Parliament had already 
 sanctioned in the last year of James and which therefore 
 Parliament was bound to support by subsidies, it soon 
 appeared that he had in view a war far more extensive 
 than Parliament had contemplated. They were prepared 
 to support a naval war against Spain, but he asked them 
 also to support a war in Germany. His family politics led 
 him not only to stand by his brother-in-law the Elector, 
 but also to cooperate with his uncle the King of Denmark, 
 who in this phase of the German war took the lead of the 
 Protestant party. Thus Parliament found itself in danger 
 of being tempted to make immense and unheard-of 
 grants for a war which it only approved in part. Leading 
 members, for example Sir Francis Seymour, protested that 
 in the debates of 1624 no such war was contemplated as 
 the Government was now undertaking. 
 
 And as the plan so the spirit of the Government was 
 wholly different from that of Parliament. For a while 
 there seemed to be sympathy between them in hatred to 
 Spain, the Parliament hating Spain as the great Catholic 
 Power, Charles as the Power that had insulted him. But 
 the difference of feeling appeared almost immediately ; it 
 appeared before the first Parliament of Charles met. The 
 nation had always eagerly prayed that Charles might take 
 a Protestant wife. But no sooner were they relieved from 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 337 
 
 the prospect of seeing a Spanish Queen than Charles 
 married the Catholic Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis 
 XIII of France. No sooner was he liberated from all 
 those humiliating engagements to allow Catholic worship, 
 and to relax the Laws of Recusancy, which he had taken 
 at Madrid, than he entered into the same engagements 
 with France. Like most royal marriages in that age the 
 marriage of Charles and Henrietta Maria was intended to 
 have a political meaning. It was to involve an alliance 
 between England and France for the purpose of waging 
 war against Spain and recovering the Palatinate. But 
 agaiu this French alliance had not been contemplated by 
 the Parliament of 1624 when the foundation of the war- 
 policy had been laid. 
 
 Thus it may be said that Charles and his Parliament 
 found themselves at cross purposes. A certain general 
 agreement in anti-Spanish feeling was being miscon- 
 strued and misrepresented so as to involve the Parliament 
 in a policy of boundless adventure and expense. A 
 dangerous ambiguity weighed on English politics and 
 seemed embodied in the person of Buckingham. The 
 discontent of the nation fixed on him. The mention of 
 his name broke the first Parliament. His impeachment 
 disturbed and finally broke the second. And when in the 
 third the struggle came to a height, and a decision was 
 reached which for a long time appeared to close the consti- 
 tutional question, though now it is seen to have only 
 opened it, Buckingham still seemed, more than Charles, to 
 be the enemy with whom the Pyms and the Eliots had to 
 contend. Then came his assassination. 
 
 If we regard foreign policy, neither party can be 
 thought to have taken a rational view. There was no 
 ground for reviving the maritime war with Spain, still 
 s. 22 
 
338 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 less for combining such a maritime war with a lavish 
 support, by means of the King of Denmark or otherwise, 
 of the Elector Palatine in Germany. If we take Eliza- 
 bethan policy as our standard, we shall say that England 
 ought at this time to have remained at peace, though she 
 might fairly have supported the Protestant cause with 
 diplomacy and with money. 
 
 Much has been written about the apostasy of Went- 
 worth, who in the third Parliament . is found playing a 
 prominent part among the patriots, whereas later he 
 contends and dies for the King. But if we regard 
 Wentworth simply as an Elizabethan statesman, such 
 conduct requires no explanation, least of all the explana- 
 tion of apostasy. A politician might very fairly oppose 
 Buckingham, and yet not oppose Charles after Bucking- 
 ham's disappearance. Foreign policy was the question of 
 Buckingham's time, but after his fall there followed a 
 period of peace with foreign Powers. Miserable as was 
 the diplomacy of Charles between 1629 and 1638, it 
 was at least peaceful, and being at the time little known 
 to the public, might wear a superficial resemblance to the 
 delaying, 'peddling,' negative policy, which had served 
 Elizabeth so well. Buckingham's policy of adventure 
 had something portentous and ruinous about it, which 
 a statesman fed on Elizabethan ideas filtered through 
 the mind of Bacon might well think it a patriotic duty 
 to resist to the utmost. But the course taken by Charles 
 after the death of Buckingham stood, as we shall see, on 
 quite a different footing. 
 
 Instead of a certain modest assistance steadily ren- 
 dered to the Protestant cause in Germany, a grand war 
 with Spain had been planned, which was probably quite 
 unnecessary and at least required to be supplemented by 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 339 
 
 operations or expenses in Germany. This was the first 
 blunder, committed by King and Parliament alike. By 
 itself it opened a serious prospect. But the aberration 
 became portentous when a quarrel with France also grew 
 up, so that in 1627 we were at war with Spain and France 
 at once, and Spain and France enter into an alliance 
 against us. Wentworth, who, like Bacon before him, 
 took the comprehensive view of a statesman rather than 
 the partial view of an ordinary politician, may well have 
 asked himself whether the Government was going 
 mad. 
 
 Taken by itself, the war with France was not without 
 rational, nay, what is rare in Stuart policy, popular, 
 grounds. In the last year of James, the Huguenots 
 rose in rebellion against Louis XIII. It was traditional 
 in English policy to render help to the Huguenot cause, 
 but in the first months of Charles, at a moment when the 
 royal marriage and the grand schemes connected with it 
 brought the English and French Governments into very 
 close alliance, Charles was induced to promise naval help 
 against the rebel Huguenots. This put him in a false 
 position, not only because he himself was sincerely Pro- 
 testant, but because at this time he depended very much 
 upon the Protestant feeling of the country. He adopted 
 many expedients to avoid actually rendering the help he 
 had promised, but in the end a ship of war and six 
 merchantmen were handed over to the French, though 
 without their crews. It was believed when this was done 
 that peace was already assured between the Huguenots 
 and the French Government, but the war broke out 
 again, so that Charles found himself aiding a Catholic 
 king against his Protestant subjects. In these circum- 
 stances it appeared to him a point of honour to see at 
 
 22—2 
 
340 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 least that the Huguenots suffered no injustice at the 
 hands of Louis. 
 
 There was little real reason to be anxious on this 
 point, for the government of Louis was directed by a 
 great statesman, Richelieu, who thoroughly entered into 
 the system which Henry IV had founded when he issued 
 the Edict of Nantes, and had no intention whatever of 
 reopening the era of religious wars. Charles however 
 persuaded himself that the Huguenots were threatened 
 with destruction. Meanwhile there was another ground 
 of quarrel between Charles and Louis. Henrietta Maria, 
 it had been promised, would bring with her considerable 
 relief to the English Catholics, but in this very peculiar 
 phase of Stuart policy the promise could not be kept. 
 Charles at this moment was a staunch champion of 
 Protestantism. Accordingly a pretext was invented for 
 breaking the engagement. It was represented as having 
 been a mere formality arranged between the two Govern- 
 ments for the purpose of obtaining the Pope's dispensation 
 for the marriage. 
 
 Thus Charles interfered between Louis and his Pro- 
 testant subjects, while Louis on his side interfered be- 
 tween Charles and his Catholic subjects. The relation of 
 the two countries was evidently unsatisfactory, but it was 
 one which might easily be mended, as appeared in the 
 sequel. An exchange might be made which would cost 
 nothing to either religion and remove the grievance of 
 either Government. Let Charles leave the Huguenots to 
 their Government, which was pledged to toleration. Let 
 Louis leave his sister to her husband. In this way after 
 the Buckingham age was past the difference was actually 
 arranged by the treaty of Susa in 1629, and no arrange- 
 ment was ever more satisfactory. France gained the free 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 341 
 
 hand in European affairs, by which she achieved her great- 
 ness. On the other hand, Charles, who in his whole reign 
 scarcely succeeded in any undertaking, did really in this 
 one matter of his Queen's position achieve a solid success. 
 Ever since the beginning of the negociation of the Spanish 
 match the Counter-Reformation had reckoned upon under- 
 mining English Protestantism by means of a Catholic 
 Queen. It seemed impossible that the English Recus- 
 ancy Laws could resist the influence of a Catholic Queen 
 backed by the condition of a marriage-treaty concluded 
 with a great Catholic Government. 
 
 By the treaty of Susa Charles succeeded once for all 
 in averting this danger. Henrietta Maria herself de- 
 clared herself satisfied with her position, France resigned 
 the position of patron to the English Catholics, and a con- 
 siderable step was taken in securing England against the 
 machinations of the Counter-Reformation. It is however 
 not to be forgotten that, after all, the sons of this marriage, 
 who afterwards became Charles II and James II of Eng- 
 land, both became Catholics. 
 
 But this happy arrangement was made after a disas- 
 trous war with France, though perhaps it might have been 
 made without any war. When we look not at the termina- 
 tion, but at the commencement and the course, of the con- 
 troversy, we see one of the wildest aberrations to be found 
 in the whole history of English policy. 
 
 War with France had passed by this time almost out 
 of the traditions of English policy. Since the rise of the 
 Spanish Power under Philip II, England and France had 
 passed, as it were, into the same system and felt them- 
 selves in the presence of this enemy natural allies. At 
 no time was an alliance between them more necessary 
 than in 1627, when England was already at war with Spain, 
 
342 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 and France was looking with dismay upon the Habsburg 
 Alliance and upon the victorious progress it was making 
 in Germany. It seemed indeed that England was aware 
 of this, and had on that account planned with France 
 one of these more solid unions which were cemented by 
 marriage. Thus at the opening of the reign of Charles 
 there reappeared for a moment against the House of 
 Austria that formidable combination which had held it in 
 check before. What Elizabeth, Henry IV and Prince 
 Maurice had done for Europe at the end of the sixteenth 
 century, seemed about to be done again now by Richelieu, 
 Frederick Henry and Buckingham. Here, in spite of all 
 the errors which the English Government had already 
 made, might be seen the outline of a statesmanlike 
 system which would prove sufficient foi- the needs of the 
 day. 
 
 Just at this moment to coinmence a war with France 
 after so many years of friendship, and to drive France into 
 the arms of Spain, was monstrous and preposterous policy. 
 It was the more dangerous because it had a certain popu- 
 lar tinge so far as it professed to have in view the inter- 
 est of Protestantism. But while the Huguenots of France, 
 who in reality needed no protection, were protected by 
 England, the Protestants of Germany were neglected, and 
 the King of Denmark, who had come forward in reliance 
 upon English subsidies, bitterly cursed the faithlessness of 
 Charles and made peace at Liibeck with the Emperor. 
 The one good feature of Buckingham's excessively active 
 foreign policy had been the chance it gave of saving Pro- 
 testantism in Germany, but now if Protestantism was 
 more endangered than ever, if the Imperial army of 
 Wallenstein appeared on the Baltic and actually threat- 
 ened not only North Germany but the Scandinavian 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 343 
 
 kingdoms, this was due in a great degree to the wild 
 confusion introduced by the war of England with France. 
 
 This chapter of our policy ends with the Petition 
 of Right, the stormy scenes which accompanied the 
 dissolution of the third Parliament of Charles, and the 
 assassination of Buckingham. 
 
 A period followed which was sharply contrasted with 
 the age of Buckingham, a period of peace. This second 
 division of the reign of Charles perhaps gave to con- 
 temporaries an impression very different from that which 
 it gives to us. To us it seems a mere interval between 
 two tremendous struggles, and we imagine it overshadowed 
 by the coming revolution. It hardly seemed so to con- 
 temporaries, who saw England enjoying peace in the thirties, 
 while Germany was ruined and Holland and France were 
 disturbed by war. It was no doubt unsatisfactory that 
 Charles had conceived a dislike to Parliaments ; never- 
 theless the special dangers which his third Parliament 
 had struggled to avert, namely, the wild foreign policy 
 of Buckingham, had really passed away with Buckingham 
 himself The stormy time of the Petition of Right re- 
 ceded into the past. Sir John Eliot and Sir Edward Coke 
 followed Buckingham into the grave, England had peace 
 and prosperity. Court-poets at least proclaimed a golden 
 age, and perhaps few foresaw a revolution which, though it 
 came so soon, was produced by causes materially different 
 from those which had operated in the time of Buckingham. 
 
 In the singular character of Charles no one can fail 
 to remark a certain blind obstinacy. It is not however 
 true that he absolutely refused to be taught by experi- 
 ence. Once or twice in his reign we may perceive him 
 changing his mode of action in such a manner as to 
 show that he recognises himself to have erred. His 
 
344 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 foreign policy after the death of Buckingham undergoes 
 a complete change. The wild energy that has character- 
 ised it not only since his accession but since his return 
 from Spain disappears at this time. Hitherto he has 
 caused uneasiness to his subjects by large indefinite war- 
 like plans which he carries into effect with reckless vigour. 
 Hitherto his parliamentary difficulties have mainly arisen 
 from this recklessness. Eliot refers in dismay to the 
 confusion reigning in foreign affairs, the failure at Cadiz, 
 the failure at the Isle of Rhd, the infinite expense incur- 
 red, the ruin of Protestantism in Germany. What Eliot 
 thinks Wentworth thinks also. If we studied only this 
 particular phase of Charles, we might be led to think 
 that if he could only adopt a different system of foreign 
 affairs, if he could only reconcile himself to non-inter- 
 vention, he might escape all his difficulties. 
 
 Now Charles actually does this. In the second period 
 of his reign his foreign policy is indeed open to criticism 
 but to criticism of the very opposite kind. Henceforth 
 he involves himself in no foreign wars. He does indeed 
 negociate ceaselessly, he involves himself in a labyrinth of 
 negociation, but his mistake is now not that into which 
 Buckingham had led him but that of his father, the mis- 
 take which in 1624 he had so impatiently opposed. 
 Henceforth he will negociate, but he will not act, and 
 gradually he becomes an object of contempt to foreign 
 statesmen, who have discovered that his schemes and pro- 
 posals have no force to support them. His policy is now 
 that of his father, whereas before it had been suggested 
 by a strong reaction against the policy of his father. 
 Henceforth no Elizabethan expeditions against Spain, no 
 championship of the Huguenots ! All such large ideas are 
 now discarded, and the foreign policy of Charles is reduced 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 345 
 
 to pertinacious indefatigable negociation in behalf of his 
 brother-in-law the Elector Frederick and, after Frederick's 
 death, of the Elector Charles Louis, but negociation which 
 is necessarily fruitless, because not backed by action. 
 
 The Treaty of Susa closed the French war in 1629 and 
 the Treaty of Madrid closed the Spanish war early in 
 1630. Now begins the Peace of Charles I, which is not 
 again broken. Like the Peace of Elizabeth it covers a 
 period which for the Continent was most stormy. When 
 England woke up again to the affairs of Europe she found 
 a new world which had formed itself during her trance of 
 insularity. 
 
 What we call the Thirty Years' War is a series of wars 
 which, though distinct, are not clearly divided by any inter- 
 vals of peace. To call it a great final struggle of the rival 
 confessions is to give to the whole series a name which 
 is appropriate only to one of these wars. The war in 
 Bohemia (1618 — 1620) was but a partial disturbance, 
 from which all Lutheran Germany stood aloof and which 
 the English Government regarded without sympathy. It 
 led to the war of the Palatinate, which indeed created 
 alarm in the Protestant world by threatening to destroy 
 the balance of the Electoral College, yet again did not 
 bring into the field the united forces of Protestantism. 
 This was followed by a straggling war in North Germany, 
 in which Catholicism pursued its advantage in an alarm- 
 ing manner, but the war which may absolutely be called 
 religious, was brought on by the Edict of Restitution is- 
 sued in 1629. This revolutionary Edict, striking at the 
 whole settlement of property, especially in North Germany, 
 drove Saxony and Brandenburg, the chief Lutheran States, 
 into union with the Calvinistic Powers. The period which 
 followed is the most intense and decisive passage of the 
 
346 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Thirty Years' War, but it is short. The Treaty of Prague, 
 signed in 1635, brought it to an end by withdrawing these 
 Powers again, so that out of thirty years of war scarcely 
 seven saw the rival Confessions openly arrayed against 
 each other. This intense struggle commenced about the 
 time when Charles I resigned himself to an insular policy. 
 It would scarcely have taken place had he acted more 
 wisely in those earlier years when he had shown himself 
 warlike. If instead of undertaking a maritime war against 
 Spain, and following this up with a war against France, 
 he had helped to organise, and had steadily supported, an 
 alliance of the Protestant Powers against the Emperor, 
 perhaps the Edict of Restitution would never have 
 been issued. The obvious course was to put Gustavus 
 Adolphus, whose great qualities had long been known to 
 the world, at the head of the Protestant forces and to sup- 
 port him with subsidies, leaving it to the English and 
 Scotch nations to support him with volunteers. But the 
 strong family feeling of the Stuarts seems from the outset 
 to have alienated them from Gustavus, who had been the 
 enemy of their relative, the King of Denmark. For this 
 reason, many years earlier, James had refused to Gustavus 
 the hand of his daughter Elizabeth, and now Charles 
 prefers to lean not on him but on the King of Denmark. 
 And great results might have followed had Charles but 
 steadily and effectively supported this leader of his choice. 
 But he could not do this and wage war against Spain and 
 France at the same time. The King of Denmark was 
 deserted, the subsidies promised to him were not paid. 
 He was defeated at Lutter and in the end withdrew from 
 the war by making the Treaty of Liibeck with the 
 Emperor. 
 
 Charles now retires from the European contest, in 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 347 
 
 which henceforth he sees only the Palatinate and his 
 brother-in-law's claim ; and this he asserts only by nego- 
 ciation. Hitherto England had been regarded as the 
 natural leader of the Protestant cause, for it is to be 
 remarked that at the opening of the Thirty Years' War 
 France, under the influence of Marie de Medicis, had quite 
 lost the position which had been given her by Henry IV. 
 
 It is a great event in general history that England 
 now retired from this leadership. For the natural result 
 of it was the age of Richelieu and the foundation of 
 French ascendency in Europe. Already in the age of 
 Buckingham Richelieu is Minister, but he is still embar- 
 rassed by the Huguenot opposition and the intrigues of 
 the Queen Mother. His great period begins in 1630 and 
 extends to his death in 1643. During this time he trans- 
 forms the whole aspect of Europe. And it is precisely 
 the time when Charles I has renounced foreign policy, 
 at first from conviction, afterwards from the embarrass- 
 ment of the civil troubles. 
 
 We may go further and lay it down as a striking 
 characteristic of the whole period which includes the reign 
 of Charles I and the Interregnum, that the English and 
 French Monarchies, though drawn together in an unusual 
 manner by the marriage of Charles and Henrietta Maria, 
 are yet prevented by circumstances from acting in concert 
 or rendering aid to each other. Fu'st comes the war 
 between them, then the retirement of Charles from foreign 
 affairs, which causes France to act alone and leads to cool 
 relations between the two Powers, then the civil troubles 
 in England, in which France might have been expected 
 to interpose in behalf of the Queen, but has her hands 
 too full of German affairs. The same fatality operates even 
 later than this. The English Monarchy falls, Henrietta 
 
848 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Maria, the aunt of Louis XIV, becomes an exile, Prince 
 Charles, his cousin, is debarred from his succession to the 
 English throne. Yet France does not interfere, though 
 we know with what haughty decision forty years later 
 Louis XIV took up the cause of his younger cousin, 
 James II. The reason is that at the very moment of the 
 catastrophe of Charles I the disturbances of the Fronde 
 began to embarrass the French Government. Just when 
 Revolution triumphs in England it begins to threaten 
 France. Accordingly the English Commonwealth is safe 
 from French intervention ; Mazarin is forced even to seek 
 its alliance ; and at last men saw with astonishment Louis 
 XIV forming a close alliance with the Regicide Govern- 
 ment, and actually crushing with its help at the Battle 
 of the Dunes his own cousins the English princes. 
 
 We return to the second period of Charles, which, 
 when looked at from the English point of view, need not 
 detain us long. 
 
 Under the pressure of the Edict of Restitution Ger- 
 man Protestantism adopts the system which from the 
 outset had appeared the best. Gustavus Adolphus takes 
 the lead and receives the support of Saxony and Bran- 
 denburg, but France takes the position which has been 
 left vacant by England. At Barnwalde Richelieu and 
 Gustavus arrange the concert which forms the foundation 
 of a new international system. Hitherto in the struggle 
 against the House of Austria we have always seen a 
 union more or less avowed between England, France and 
 the Netherlands, but England now drops out of the Coali- 
 tion and her place is taken by Sweden. This change is 
 not altogether unnatural, since the danger now comes not 
 from Spain but from Austria, and is less felt by mari- 
 time England than by Sweden threatened on the Baltic. 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 349 
 
 Accordingly the Alliance of France and Sweden dominates 
 the middle period of the seventeenth century, dictates the 
 Treaties of Westphalia and outlasts the age of Oliver. 
 
 The violent changes produced by this new combination, 
 the meteoric career of Gustavus, the anarchy which fol- 
 lowed in the Empire, the revolutionary designs and sudden 
 catastrophe of Wallenstein, the restoration of Austrian 
 power in South Germany by the battle of Nordlingen, 
 finally the arrangement of a new Balance of Germany by 
 the Treaty of Prague; all this can only be noted, and 
 must not be examined or estimated in a review of the 
 reign of Charles I, since he took no interest and no share 
 in it. We must find a later opportunity of considering it. 
 Charles, who has renounced all foreign schemes that are 
 far-reaching, schools himself to see, after the fashion of his 
 father, in all these great affairs simply the interest of his 
 brother-in-law and to pursue this in his father's way by 
 peaceful negociation. Shall he lean on the help of Spain, 
 or of Sweden, or of France ? His whole policy turns on 
 this question, and consists in endless hesitation. The 
 history of it is a labyrinth, to which we need not here 
 seek a clue. 
 
 It was an abrupt transition from a policy of adventur- 
 ous activity to one of utter inaction. This must have 
 been felt all the more as the age became more stormy 
 and the war more universal. The Elizabethan tradition 
 had not yet died out, and it had been in some degree 
 revived by Buckingham. Once more the English fleet 
 had threatened the coast first of Spain and then of France. 
 Now that Charles had reconciled himself to non-interven- 
 tion, it became important at least to maintain in some 
 degree the naval reputation of England. And this was 
 the more difficult because the Dutch, since 1621 again at 
 
350 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 war with Spain, were daily winning fresh laurels in naval 
 war. They had long since outstripped us in commerce 
 and colonisation, and now the names of Tromp and of Piet 
 Hein, who in 1628 succeeded in taking the silver fleet, 
 filled the trumpet of fame while England rested in peace. 
 And their war was waged, and many of their victories 
 won, in our own seas, on the very waves over which Drake 
 and Howard had pursued the Armada. 
 
 Accordingly Charles, while he pursues his pertinacious 
 negociation for the Palatinate, feels himself obliged to have 
 also a maritime policy. He asserts the old pretension of 
 England to naval supremacy in the narrow seas. Selden 
 writes Mare Glausum, and Charles devotes himself to 
 maintaining a navy which shall correspond to this high 
 ambition. Hence the writs of ship money. 
 
 We can imagine that by his carefal abstinence from 
 foreign intervention Charles might have ultimately won the 
 victory over the parliamentary party but for a new diffi- 
 culty, comparatively unknown to the age of Buckingham, in 
 which he involved himself In that age it had been proved 
 that a king of England could not influence the affairs of 
 Europe in a commanding manner without the support of 
 Parliament. It was not so clear that he could not reign 
 peacefully and maintain the dignity of his insular throne 
 without much help from Parliament. But he was led 
 during this second period to undertake a wholly different 
 task, of which, as it proved, the Monarchy unsupported by 
 Parliament was just as incapable as of an energetic foreign 
 policy. It was by an attempt to unite, and give a sort 
 of uniformity to, his three kingdoms that he raised an 
 excitement with which he was utterly unable, without 
 popular support, to cope. He might have dealt with 
 England alone ; he might have succeeded had he been in 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 351 
 
 the position of Elizabeth. But Laud stirred up Scotland, 
 and Strafford put Ireland in a position from which it was 
 capable, as never before, of exerting an influence on Eng- 
 land. Here was an alarming novelty. It was not indeed 
 in itself undesirable that the three kingdoms should draw 
 closer together. What seemed dangerous was that the 
 consolidation should be effected by a government in which 
 the people had no confidence. In the age of Buckingham 
 perhaps the loyalty of the people towards Charles had not 
 been much impaired, since they threw the blame of mis- 
 go vemment far more than was just upon Buckingham 
 himself. But the consolidation of the three kingdoms 
 opened fundamental questions, questions of religion. And 
 in the thirties Charles, influenced by Laud, forfeited the 
 confidence of his people in religious matters. He threw 
 the weight of government on the side of a doctrine which 
 ran counter to the prevailing Calvinism, a doctrine which 
 seemed, and to those who saw a Catholic Queen at White- 
 hall could scarcely but seem, intended to lead the country 
 back to Poperj^ 
 
 We must not linger on the causes of the Great 
 Rebellion. But even in international history it is all- 
 important to remark that in the thirties of the seven- 
 teenth century the foundations were shaken upon which 
 our state had hitherto rested. Two or three events of 
 capital importance had happened since the time of Eliza- 
 beth, and it now appeared that by these events the stability 
 of government was for a time at least destroyed. 
 
 First, England and Scotland had been brought together 
 in personal union. This change had been quietly made, 
 and the permanence of it was guaranteed by the general 
 agreement of the two nations in religion. 
 
 But England had held aloof from the Protestantism of 
 
352 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 the Continent. Scotland on the other hand had adopted 
 Calvinism with more decision and more national convic- 
 tion than any Continental State. Calvinism, as the most 
 systematic form of Protestantism, had also become the reli- 
 gion of the most zealous religious party in England. Here 
 was a position of unstable equilibrium. As Scotland and 
 England drew nearer together it seemed likely that Angli- 
 canism, which wore the appearance of a compromise, would 
 give way before the energetic Calvinism of Scotland. 
 
 Secondly, Ireland had been pacified, and the grasp of 
 the English Government upon it had been tightened, in 
 the reign of Elizabeth. But the mass of the people re- 
 mained Catholic. Accordingly the Catholics of England 
 became aware that they had, as it were, a reserve in the 
 Irish population. As England and Ireland drew together 
 the Catholic cause in England was likely to be strength- 
 ened, and in the same degi'ee Catholicising tendencies 
 within the English Chiirch would be strengthened. 
 
 Thus England was assailed at the same time on oppo- 
 site sides by her two yoke-fellows, Scotland and Ireland. 
 The great religious struggle of the age, which in England 
 had been so successfully evaded by the government of 
 Elizabeth, now entered England by way of Scotland and 
 Ireland. It is a leading feature of our civil troubles that 
 the parliamentary party has always its reserve in Scotland 
 and the royalist party its reserve in Ireland. Of this 
 feature a visible trace remains to this day in the fact that 
 the word Whig comes to us from Scotland and the word 
 Tory from Ireland. 
 
 The third great event which had taken place was the 
 colonisation of North America. This too had taken place 
 quietly and gi'adually. But from America too there now 
 came a reaction unfavourable to the stability of govern- 
 
THE POLICY OF CHAELES I. 353 
 
 ment. Since the voyage of the Mayflower the colonisation 
 had had a Puritan character. In 1630 a second swarm 
 went out, numbering not less than fifteen hundred colo- 
 nists, and in this case too the emigration had a religious 
 motive. 
 
 It has often been remarked that these emigrants 
 admitted no principle of religious toleration, and that at 
 least at the outset they were by disposition less tolerant 
 than other Christians. But it was the peculiarity of their 
 religious position that they depended upon toleration in 
 the Home Government. Anglicanism in England was not 
 tolerant any more than Calvinism in Scotland, but in its 
 relation to New England Anglicanism was tolerant. Thus 
 first crept into England the idea of toleration in a form 
 similar to that which had been given to it in France. 
 A sort of unwritten Edict of Nantes protected the settlers 
 of New England, and the imitation of the French model 
 is still more visible in the colonisation of Maryland by 
 Calvert, Lord Baltimore. For here the founder was him- 
 self Catholic, and he introduces toleration frankly, and his 
 colony is named after Henrietta Maria, herself a Catholic 
 and the daughter of him by whom the Edict, of Nantes 
 was issued. 
 
 In the thirties while English Calvinism gi'oaned under 
 the yoke of Laud it looked wistfully towards America as a 
 land of refuge, in which men might worship God accord- 
 ing to their conscience. Henry Vane lived for a time in 
 Massachusetts; Cromwell said that had the Grand Re- 
 monstrance failed to pass he would have fled to America. 
 Thus in a strange way English Calvinism became associated 
 in many minds with the idea of toleration. And there 
 sprang up gradually that third religious party which 
 complicates the history of the war of King and Parliament, 
 s. 23 
 
354 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 and which with Oliver came to the head of affairs and 
 played a great part on the stage of Europe. 
 
 Thus as the elements which were to compose the British 
 Empire began to combine the State was shaken and for a 
 time suffered revolution. But at the very same time 
 changes equally great were proceeding even more rapidly 
 in some of the continental states. In England the thirties 
 are years of incubation, during which great events are- 
 prepared, but do not take place ; on the Continent the 
 thirties witness tremendous events and the careers of 
 great men. The greatness and abrupt fall of Gustavus 
 Adolphus and Wallenstein in Germany are contempora- 
 neous with the achievement by which Richelieu in France 
 raised himself from the rank of capable Ministers into 
 that of great creative Statesmen, and in the few years, 
 between 1630 and 1636 two states, Austria and France-, 
 had assumed a new position, the position on the whole 
 which they have maintained since. 
 
 The capital event of this crowded period is the trans- 
 formation of France. Hitherto in this review we have 
 seen France occupying on the whole a secondary position 
 in Europe. She has been on the defensive against the 
 Spanish Monarchy almost since the accession of Philip II. 
 Her triumphs have been great but transient, momentary, 
 as under Henry II, who humbled Charles V, but soon 
 afterwards had to sign the unfavourable peace of Cateau- 
 Cambresis, or under Henry IV, who in his last years held 
 the whole House of Austria in check but then suddenly 
 perished and left his throne to a Regent who capitulated 
 with Spain. This chapter of French history now comes 
 to an end. France now, under the guidance of Richelieu, 
 moves irresistibly forward and becomes in a very few 
 years the first Power in the world. And her developement 
 
THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 355 
 
 is SO strong and ^ital that, when Richelieu himself disap- 
 pears and all the circumstances are changed, it contiQues 
 through the whole period of Mazaria until under Louis 
 XIY's personal government the commanding greatness of 
 France becomes a fixed feature of the European system. 
 If in the eighteenth century this greatness was not 
 always mairitained at the same level, this was evidently 
 due to temporary causes, and later on it rose to a higher 
 level still. 
 
 The transformation of France, so rapidly effected in 
 the thirties, while it raises her to the first place, leads 
 almost immediately to the disastrous decline of the Spanish 
 Monarchy. Hitherto from its foundation in 1555 we have 
 seen that Monarchy, whether ia good or evil fortune, 
 always the greatest of Christian Powers. It now declines 
 so rapidly that Eichelieu himself lives to see it on the 
 verge of total dissolution ; and this decline, though after- 
 wards retarded, is never suspended, much less repaired. 
 
 Thus France, Spain, Austria and England are all aKke 
 on the eve of a great transformation. But the transfor- 
 mation of England is of such a nature that while it takes 
 place the foreign policy of England is, as it were, in 
 abeyance. Charles in his second period has no foreign 
 policy worthy of the name. In his third period, that of 
 our civil troubles, he is iadeed closely watched by RicheHeu 
 and then by Mazarin. The internal convulsions of England 
 might well have led to an active foreign policy, whether 
 of intervention in contiaental affairs or of resistance to 
 foreign iutervention in English affairs. And indeed 
 Charles was convinced that he could discern the hand 
 of Richelieu in the Scotch disturbances which began in 
 1638. We are to remember that there was an old 
 alliance between France and Scotland. And Charles, 
 
 23—2 
 
356 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 though closely connected with the royal family of France 
 through his marriage, regarded Richelieu as an enemy 
 because Richelieu's system had been established, as we 
 shall soon see, in spite of the French royal family and by 
 actual war with the mother of Henrietta Maria and with 
 her brother Gaston. Accordingly in the Short Parliament 
 Charles produces evidence of the complicity of the French 
 Government with the Scotch rebellion. 
 
 It does not however appear that Richelieu took any 
 very active part in our domestic troubles. He was at 
 this particular time too busy in continental affairs, for he 
 was meditating the schemes by which shortly afterwards 
 he almost dissolved the Spanish Monarchy and paved the 
 way to the conquest of Alsace. And' though at later 
 stages of our civil war, for instance when Charles after 
 his defeat put himself into the hands of the Scots, we find 
 French diplomacy active, yet on the whole, as was said 
 above, the Great Rebellion worked itself out with sur- 
 prisingly little help or hindrance from France. 
 
 If then we would understand the transformation of the 
 Continental States which took place at this time — and we 
 must do so if we would understand the foreign jDolicy of 
 England in the next age — we must leave England for a 
 while and study Continental affairs directly. For England 
 was then in one of her insular phases, when her affairs 
 were so much dissociated from the affairs of the Continent 
 that the latter cannot be understood bj' studying the 
 former. And therefore, as we introduced our review of 
 the reign of Elizabeth by a chapter on the gi'owth of the 
 House of Habsburg, we must preface our examination of 
 the policy of the Commonwealth and of the later Stuarts 
 by a chapter on Richelieu. 
 
358 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 preceded and caused the latter. On the contrary, they 
 were entangled together, foreign war being used as an 
 instrument to produce domestic reform not less than 
 reform to facilitate foreign aggression. 
 
 The condition of France about 1629 continued to be 
 in the main such as we left it in the last period of Henry 
 IV, only that the great king was gone and the disintegi-a- 
 ting forces which he had held in check had gained head 
 again. It was not a condition in which the ruler would 
 naturally dream of undertaking foreign con(juest. It was 
 a feeble precarious condition in which safety and defence 
 must be the first objects of the Government. Not only 
 was France feeble within, but she was always in danger 
 <if falling into dependence upon a foreign Power. The 
 Spanish Monarchy, which we shall soon see made a passive 
 prey to France, was at this time the tyrant which France 
 feared. Let us call to mind the situation of 1590, when 
 Henry IV, the rightful king, had been reduced almost to 
 the condition of an outlaw within his own dominions, and 
 Philip II, supported by the League, had almost conquered 
 the country. There had since been improvement, but 
 the causes of the evil had not been eradicated. The 
 unpatriotic spirit of the League remained among the 
 nobility. Nay, even twenty years later than 1630 Conde, 
 a member of the royal House, fights without scruple under 
 the King of Spain against France. For a moment Henry 
 IV had reduced this chaos to a kind of order; he had 
 even shown how short was the way for France from such 
 miserable dependence to a commanding position in Europe ; 
 but this had been a transient phase, and after his death 
 the dependence of France on Spain had been sealed by a 
 double marriage. 
 
 Henry IV himself had shown what kind of reform was 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 359 
 
 needed when he sent Biron to the scaffold. The reform 
 needed was to teach the nobles not to commit high 
 treason. Richelieu now bettered the instruction he had 
 received from Heniy IV. But it is certainly not reason- 
 able to suppose that he had foreign conquest directl}' in 
 view, though foreign conquest so speedily followed. It 
 was quite as necessary for the pm-pose of self-defence as 
 for the purpose of conquest that France should not lie at 
 the mercy of noble traitors, conspirators with the King of 
 Spain. We are further to remark that the Thirty Years' 
 War had greatly increased her embarrassment and danger. 
 She felt herself far more intolerably hemmed in by the 
 House of Habsburg when Austria, so close a neighbour, 
 suddenly became a great Power, while Spain occupied the 
 Palatinate and resumed hostilities against the Dutch. 
 
 The plan which Richelieu formed was no ingenious 
 idea, no happy inspiration which could only occur to an 
 original mind, but a plan forced upon him by the necessity 
 of self-defence. He was threatened by two enemies, at 
 home the turbulent nobility, abroad the House of Habs- 
 burg, especially the Spanish branch of it, and these domestic 
 and foreign enemies acted still, as they had acted during 
 the reign of Philip II, in the closest concert. He dealt 
 his blows at each in turn, now cnished some gi-eat 
 noble for conspiring with Spain, now attacked Spain for 
 supporting the rebellious nobles. As he met with success, 
 in the end the French Government suddenly found itself 
 absolute at home and superior to its enemies abroad. 
 Accordingly it drifted into foreign conquest, but the cause 
 of this was not precisely that it desired conquest. It 
 desired such an augmentation of strength as might make 
 it equal to its enemies, but it obtained an augmentation 
 which made it vastly superior. 
 
•360 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 England and France entered about the same time 
 upon opposite courses. In England royal power was re- 
 duced, in France it was made absolute. This strong 
 divergency was no doubt rooted in the whole history of 
 the two countries, but if it appeared now so suddenly and 
 decisively this was due mainly to the fact that in insular 
 England, party-conflicts were isolated and so moderated, 
 whereas in continental France the domestic parties were 
 in close and dangerous concert with the foreign enemj^ 
 And for the same reason the French movement guided by 
 Richelieu is in international history far more important 
 than the contemporaneous English movement. The latter, 
 though all-important for ourselves, had but a gradual and 
 indirect influence upon Europe ; the former, while it trans- 
 formed France within, transformed just as completely the 
 system of Europe. 
 
 Richelieu is the dictator of international history in 
 this period ; he dominates the early seventeenth century as 
 Charles V had dominated the first half of the sixteenth. 
 The next great European dictator is Louis XIV. 
 
 Richelieu had a surprising immediate success, and yet 
 the developement which took its first impulse from him 
 continued long after his death. It also suffered more than 
 one reaction so serious that his work for the time seemed 
 almost cancelled. It was not fully completed till the time 
 when Louis XIV commenced his personal government. 
 Thus a period of thirty-one years between 1630 and 1661 
 stands out in French history as the period of transforma- 
 tion. It is the age of the Cardinals. The unity of it 
 consists in this, that throughout its whole course the 
 Government has to contend with an opposition consisting, 
 as in the days of the League, of traitorous nobles and 
 princes of the blood acting in concert with Spain. What 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 8G1 
 
 the Guises had been in the time of Philip II, that are 
 Gaston Duke of Orleans and Montmorency at the begin- 
 ning of this period, Soissons and Cinqmars ten years later. 
 And again, what these were in the lifetime of Richelieu,, 
 that were the great Frondeurs headed by Cond^ in the 
 time of Mazarin. All alike had an understanding with 
 Spain against their own Government. Accordingly through 
 the whole period the French Government is forced into an 
 aggressive policy against Spain and into a despotic policy 
 against the malcontents at home. And through the 
 whole period gleams of sviccess which cause France to 
 stand out as the tyrant of all Europe alternate with 
 gloomy moments of failure when the Spaniard and the 
 rebel threaten Paris itself. But through all these vicissi- 
 tudes the idea of Richelieu takes root and steadily grows, 
 until France, hitherto the home of disorder, the seat of 
 the most disintegrating feudalism and the wildest civil dis- 
 cord, becomes an example to all states for unity and there- 
 fore in its foreign relations the most powerful of all states. 
 And as a consequence Spain, hitherto the tyrant of France 
 through its understanding with French feudalism, passes 
 at once into the contrary position and becomes the prey 
 and victim of French military superiority. 
 
 As we cannot treat in any detail a developement which 
 is not English, we must regard the whole transformation 
 together, survey at once thirty years of French history, 
 and content ourselves with noting large outlines. The 
 struggle is between the French Government on the one- 
 side and an alliance of the Spanish Monarchy and the- 
 noblesse on the other. Accordingly the constitutional 
 struggle at home and the foreign war are inseparable,, 
 they proceed simultaneously and come to an end together. 
 But for a considerable part of this time France is also at 
 
362 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 war with the Emperor. The Thirty Years' War in its 
 last phase is indeed in the main a contest between France 
 .and Sweden on the one side and Austria and Bavaria on 
 the other. This great foreign war of France, in which she 
 .acquires Alsace, naturally attracts the attention of history. 
 But her other war, closely connected with this, but of 
 much longer duration, her war with the Spanish Monarchy, 
 taxed her energies much more, left much deeper traces in 
 her organisation, and had much greater historical results 
 ■even than the gi-eat war in Germany. The latter came to 
 a,n end in 1648, but the former lasted on till 1659. The 
 latter gave Alsace to France and profoundly modified the 
 whole condition of Germany. But the former both es- 
 tablished the throne of Louis XIV, raising France once 
 for all to the commanding position she held for two 
 ■centuries, and also, we may fairly say, dissolved the 
 Spanish Empire. The two wars were no doubt so closely 
 ■connected that it scarcely occurs to lis to distinguish 
 them ; nevertheless from our point of view it is natural, 
 and in the general history of Europe it is instructive, to 
 •contemplate the struggle of France with the Spanish 
 Monarchy by itself dismissing for a time her simultaneous 
 struggle with Austria. 
 
 For here is the last act of a drama which has been 
 presented in this book. We have followed the complex 
 Spanish Monarchy from its foundation at the retirement 
 ■of Charles V. We have seen it confronting France from 
 the time of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. We have re- 
 marked that in relation to France it represents Burgundy, 
 and that its princes trace themselves back through Charles 
 the Bold to the House of Valois. Accordingly throughout 
 the reign of Philip II we saw that its wars with France 
 had something of the nature of civil wars, that it was able 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 363 
 
 to rally to its side a strong party of adherents from the 
 French noblesse, and at times to set up the ruler of Spain 
 as rightful King of France. Now it may be said that this 
 peculiar relation of the two states lasted a whole century, 
 and that if it began before the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis 
 it did not absolutely come to an end till the Peace of the 
 P}Tenees. From the time when the House of Guise looked 
 lip to the King of Spain to the time when the great Conde 
 fought in his armies and made terms for himself in the 
 treaty of peace between France and Spain, France is 
 involved with Spain so as to be incapable of developing 
 its full power. Henry IV set it free but for a moment. 
 Then came Richelieu with his powerful idea of the state, 
 and a movement began which in thirty years created the 
 modern France. But during those years France almost 
 fell back into the old entanglement. When she was at 
 the height of her new developement, a great reaction set 
 in. The League was, as it were, revived in the Fronde. 
 Spain once more headed a domestic party in the heart of 
 France. The consummation came in 1659 by the Treaty 
 •of the Pyrenees, when the relation was not so much 
 destroyed as reversed. Hitherto Spain had had claims on 
 France ; now France establishes a claim on Spain, and 
 with such success that at the end of the seventeenth 
 century a Bourbon prince ascends the Spanish throne. 
 
 But two unexpected consequences followed. The first 
 was that absolutism was established in France, all institu- 
 tions that might have been vehicles of liberty being, as it 
 were, tainted by connexion with Spain. Accordingly from 
 the moment of the Treaty of the Pyrenees the turbulence 
 of French parties is seen to subside, and Louis acquires 
 an unbounded authority, which lasts through his long life 
 and is handed down to his successor. 
 
364 GEOWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 The second consequence was the dissolution of the 
 Spanish Monarchy. 
 
 We may venture to use this phrase, since by the 
 Spanish Monarchy is not meant simply the kingdom of 
 Spain. It is the name we give to an immense aggregate, 
 of which the nucleus is not Spain, but united Iberia, or 
 Spain and Portugal together. The greatness of Philip II 
 had been founded on the annexation of Portugal and of 
 the vast Portuguese colonies. 
 
 Now in the course of the struggle with France, Portugal 
 with her colonies recovered her independence. And during 
 the same time the United Netherlands, now also a great 
 New World Power, definitively acquired the independence 
 for which they had contended through eighty years. Such 
 mighty changes were caused indirectly by the struggle 
 of France and Spain. Hence at the time when France 
 entered upon her new greatness the rival state was left a 
 wreck. Spain after 16.59 was no longer the Great Power 
 of Philip II. There was still a kingdom of Spain, sunk 
 indeed in bankruptcy and decay, but this was no longer 
 the Spanish Monarchy which had overawed the world in 
 the Elizabethan age or even in the days of James I and 
 Marie de Medicis. Thus too in the time of Charles II or 
 William III English policy has to deal with a changed 
 world. The Spanish Monarchy is gone and France has 
 come. The Power that sent the Armada, against which 
 Drake and Ralegh contended, has disappeared. We begin to 
 fear another Power, France, the Power which in later times, 
 under Napoleon, was to assail us yet more formidably. 
 
 But there is an intermediate period, the thirty years 
 of the transformation of France. During the greater part 
 of this period English policy is in a sort of abeyance in 
 consequence of our civil troubles. But after the military 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 365 
 
 revolution and the death of Charles, England acquires 
 again an active policy. This is the age of Oliver. We 
 can see beforehand what question such a policy must take 
 up. Oliver has to consider what side he will take in the 
 decisive and final struggle now taking place between the 
 Spanish Monarchy and the rising French Power. He 
 decides for France, he helps to give the coup de grace to 
 Spain and procures for England a certain share in 
 her spoils. The position assumed by Oliver is in the 
 main accepted by Charles II at his restoration. The age 
 of Oliver may therefore be taken for our purpose to include 
 the first part of the reign of Charles II. 
 
 Such in largest outline was the international change 
 initiated by Eichelieu. But we ask. What was the basis 
 which he found for French power and which proved so 
 solid that France was able to rest securely upon it for 
 centuries ? To explain the power of the House of Austria 
 we have found the formula, royal marriage and the Counter- 
 Reformation. In particular we have had frequent occasions 
 of remarking that in Habsburg times the mere marriage 
 of a prince and princess had an almost inconceivable effect 
 in uniting kingdoms, as though in fact kingdoms were 
 neither more nor less than territorial estates. To our 
 generation this seems scarcely conceivable, because we are 
 accustomed to the opposite idea of nationality, which puts 
 the interest of a living organic community infinitely above 
 any family or dynastic interest. But this idea of nation- 
 ality is of recent growth ; it belongs to the age of the 
 French Revolution ; it was not an idea of which Richelieu 
 could make use. This is so true, that in that very France 
 regenerated by Richelieu a Louis XIV reigned, who so 
 arrogantly identified the state with his own person and 
 family and who so successfully turned the weapon of royal 
 
366 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 marriage against the Habsburgs themselves, when he 
 established his grandson on the throne of Spain. 
 
 We do however find that before the idea of nationality 
 was distinctly expressed and began at the end of the 
 eighteenth century actually to inspire the minds of men 
 it had had a perceptible influence in some states even 
 where the dynastic or feudal view of monarchy prevailed. 
 Thus in Elizabethan England we have remarked that 
 the Queen's personal isolation, and her want of royal con- 
 nexions and affinities, all this concurring with the loss of 
 continental possessions and the gradual fusion of England 
 and Scotland under the influence of religion, had produced 
 a strong sense of national interest and a strong glow of 
 patriotism, even though the word ' nationality ' might be 
 unknown to Shakspeare. In like manner we remark that 
 Richelieu now sets himself in a determined spirit against 
 the family view of politics, opposing to it an idea, not 
 precisely of nationality, but of the state or the public good. 
 This is the more striking as the Bourbon family in the 
 person of Henry IV had asserted hereditary right more 
 successfully than it had ever been asserted before. But 
 Richelieu now, aided by the son of Henry IV, just as 
 successfully resists family influence and expels it from 
 French politics. 
 
 Spain since the death of Henry IV had turned its old 
 weapon against France. An Infanta was queen of Louis 
 XIII, a French princess was queen of Philip IV. A 
 family policy united the two states, and Marie de Medicis, 
 assisted by her second son Gaston, directed it. It was 
 the extraordinary achievement of Richelieu to thwart and 
 crush this policy. Though himself the servant of an 
 absolute hereditary king, he boldly defied the royal family. 
 He expelled the Queen-Mother from the country, and 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 367 
 
 when Gaston, who, it is to be remembered, was before 
 1638, when Louis XIV was born, not merely brother of 
 the king but his presumptive heir, aided by Spain, raised 
 rebellion and drew to his side one of the greatest nobles 
 of France, Montmorency, son of Montmorency Danville, 
 and grandson of Constable Montmorency, he crushed the 
 movement by military force and brought this great rebel 
 to the scaffold. Not only so, but in his foreign policy he- 
 seems to take no account whatever of family relationships. 
 Under his guidance Louis XIII wages war at one time 
 with England, at another time with Savoy, and persis- 
 tently with Spain. Now a sister of Louis XIII, Henrietta 
 Maria, is Queen of England, another, Christina, is Duchess 
 of Savoy, and another, Elizabeth, is Queen of Spain. The 
 King of France, complains one of these princesses, will not 
 be content until he is at war with all his three sisters. 
 How novel this system was may be judged from the fact 
 that when Prince Charles at Madrid was pressing the 
 claims of his brother-in-law, the Elector Palatine, and 
 urging that in case of need Spain should use military 
 force against the Emperor, he was told that by a funda- 
 mental principle of the Spanish Monarchy it could not 
 make war on the Emperor, as he was a kindred prince. 
 
 It is extraordinary that Richelieu should have been 
 able to procure acceptance for this system. But perhaps 
 it is more extraordinary that it should take such root as. 
 to flourish long after his death. It might be thought 
 that, when both he and the master over whom he had so 
 much influence were no more, reaction must set in irre- 
 sistibly. And who succeeded to the Government of 
 France when in 1643 Louis XIII followed Richelieu into 
 the grave ? The Queen Anne, that is, an Infanta of 
 Spain. And what was the task committed to her ? It 
 
368 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 was the task of crushing and overwhelming the Spanish 
 Monarchy. This task however the Infanta of Spain reso- 
 lutely and most effectually performed. We think of 
 Mazarin as the statesman who directed the armies which 
 'Crushed the military reputation of Spain at Rocroi and 
 ■elsewhere, who later made the alliance with Cromwell by 
 which the Spanish Monarchy was finally overwhelmed. 
 But Mazarin held his power at the pleasure of another, 
 and this other was a Spaniard and the sister of Philip IV 
 of Spain. 
 
 As the Bourbon is henceforth to take precedence of 
 the Habsburg, let us note what new ideas and forces he 
 sets in motion.' He does not once for all abjure family 
 politics, nor does he go so far as to assert the principle of 
 nationality. But he takes up a sort of middle position. 
 He is not, like the Habsburg, ruler of a great polj^glott 
 aggregate held together only by his person ; he is ruler of 
 France, a homogeneous population with strongly marked 
 ■character and genius. He is able therefore to speak of 
 the state and the public good, and under that great 
 standard he can put down family intrigue. On the other 
 hand he can also appeal to the family and make use, when 
 it suits him, of the weapon of royal marriage. It is the 
 great difference between the age of the Cardinals and the 
 age, properly so called, of Louis XIY, that in the former 
 the family element almost disappears, the personal king 
 being at one time at war with his family and at another 
 time a minor, but in the latter, the monarch being now 
 his own Minister, it reappears, and a certain retrogression 
 takes place. The really great age is that of the Cardinals; 
 the age of Louis XIV is rather triumphant and brilliant 
 than great. 
 
 Monarchy of the medieval type requii'ed in all coun- 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 369 
 
 tries a certain amount of correction before it could become 
 consistent with intelligent statesmanship. In England, as 
 we have seen, the good kings had frequently a weak title. 
 In France the periods of good government were, like the 
 quinquennium Neronis, periods of minority or quasi- 
 minority. French kings attained their majority on enter- 
 ing their fourteenth year. Not only before reaching this 
 age, but even more for some years, at times for many 
 years after, there was room for a great statesman to 
 govern with almost absolute sway. And such periods were 
 frequent under the House of Bourbon. In the eighteenth 
 century we may say there was practically a minority of 
 almost thirty years (1715 — 1743), and in this period 
 falls the prosperous time of Fleury. But in the age now 
 before us we may almost say that the Monarchy was in 
 abeyance for fifty years (1610 — 1661). For Louis XIII, 
 having once found Richelieu, remained in permanent tutel- 
 age to him, and thus the whole reign of Louis XIII may 
 be reckoned as a minority. Nor did Louis XIV adopt the 
 questionable resolution of being his own Minister until 
 Mazarin was dead. Mazarin ruled France till his death, 
 although technically the minority was at an end nine years 
 earlier. 
 
 The Government of Richelieu or Mazarin was as 
 monarchical, as absolute, as that of Louis XIV himself, 
 but it was Monarchy free from the family element. In 
 foreign affairs, where the family element was apt to have 
 an almost exclusive influence, this correction of Monarchy 
 was most beneficial. To it in the age of the Cardinals 
 France owed almost all her greatness. Liberty indeed 
 was wanting, but the public good was considered with an 
 earnestness and an insight of which the House of Austria 
 had given no example. For half a century, from the Day 
 s. 24 
 
370 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 of Dupes till the death of Colbert, France witnessed a 
 reign of intelligence in public affairs which was wholly 
 without precedent. After Richelieu had laid deep the 
 foundations of government he began to establish the 
 economic and maritime greatness of France, and this part 
 of his work was taken up in the next age by Colbert. 
 He began also to found a school of diplomacy, which 
 afterwards throve still more under Mazarin. He saw but 
 the commencement of the redoubtable army of modern 
 France, but in Mazarin's time this rapidly took shape, 
 nurtured and tended for many years by Turenne. This 
 great developement proceeded during the time of Eng- 
 land's civil troubles, but it struggled for a long time with 
 reaction. In the days of Oliver, though Richelieu had 
 long been in his grave, France was still in an embarrassed, 
 at times in a depressed condition, and it was only in the 
 days of Charles II that England, having leisure to take 
 up again the thread of foreign policy, found the aspect of 
 the Continent definitively altered, the Spanish Monarchy 
 lying there a helpless wreck and France dominating 
 Europe with an immense ascendency. 
 
 So much of the period in general. Let us approach 
 nearer to it, so as to be able to distinguish the phases of 
 which it is composed. 
 
 We begin at the death of Henry IV in 1610, when 
 the influence he had held in check, that of the concert 
 between Spain and the noblesse, is suddenly restored. 
 Internationally France, which had acquired an actual 
 ascendency, now sinks into an insignificance, which lasts 
 about fourteen years. The double marriage seals her de- 
 pendence upon Spain. But in 1624 the rule of Richelieu 
 commences, and his energetic intervention in the Valtellin 
 opens the long period of French precedence in Europe. 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 371 
 
 When we have noted the fundamental fact, that the 
 developement of modern France is a reaction against the 
 concert between Spain and the noblesse, a second fact, 
 only less fundamental and more curious, claims our atten- 
 tion. That concert had been arranged in the days of 
 the League as a means of opposing heresy or Huguenotism. 
 It was natural therefore to expect that the French kings 
 in resisting it would seek the help of the Huguenots. 
 Thus we have seen Coligny advising Charles IX to lean 
 on the Huguenots in a great policy of opposition to Spain. 
 Since that time the leader of the Huguenots had founded 
 the Bourbon dynasty. It is true that he had been forced 
 to abjure his creed ; but he had procured for the Hugue- 
 nots toleration. He had in a manner realised the system 
 of Coligny by founding the Bourbon throne upon a 
 recognition of the Huguenots and even a certain amonnt 
 of resistance to Rome. Such was the model Richelieu 
 had before him. Would not he then, as soon as he 
 undertook to assert the national independence against the 
 concert of Spain and the noblesse, see the necessity of 
 conciliating the Huguenots ? Would not the Edict of 
 Nantes become the corner-stone of Bourbon policy? 
 Would not Richelieu be led to declare himself a sort of 
 Liberal in religion? We find indeed that he does so in 
 the most resolute manner in forming foreign alliances. 
 
 It was the great religious scandal of the age of Riche- 
 lieu that the Most Christian King, advised by a Cardinal 
 of the Roman Church, who again was advised by a Capucin 
 monk, puts himself at the head of the Protestant Powers 
 of the Continent and with the help of Protestant Sweden 
 saves the Protestantism of North Germany from the 
 Emperor and the Protestantism of the Netherlands from 
 Spain. In this period Protestantism was saved from de- 
 
 24—2 
 
372 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 struction by the intervention of Catholic France. This 
 is the complication which gives a plot to modem history. 
 But it becomes much more curious when we remark 
 that at home Richelieu is opposed to Protestantism as 
 decidedly as he is favourable to it abroad. It is visible 
 from the very commencement of his rule that he does not 
 mean to seek the support of the Huguenots, and that the 
 Edict of Nantes, so far from being a germ out of which 
 Liberalism will grow, is destined to be, in Napoleon's 
 phrase, a vaccine of Protestantism. 
 
 The first phase after the death of Henry IV shows 
 the Huguenot party in rebellion. But its rebellion is 
 rather the effect of despondency than of hope. It is 
 defeated once and again, even though it receives at one 
 time the help of England. And not till Protestantism at 
 home has been effectually tamed does Richelieu enter 
 upon his audacious support of Protestantism abroad. It 
 is startling to find that in this respect there is throughout 
 the seventeenth century a total want of correspondence 
 between the domestic and the foreign policy of France. 
 Huguenot influence counts for nothing in Richelieu's 
 foreign policy, though that is such as Huguenots might 
 approve. On the other hand a foreign policy favourable 
 to Protestantism has no reaction upon Protestantism at 
 home, for the French Government having saved Pro- 
 testantism in Germany proceeds later to destroy it with 
 the most ruthless violence in France itself. 
 
 In truth that decided aversion to Protestantism which 
 the French displayed so early does not waver for a moment 
 after the Edict of Nantes has been given, in spite of the 
 modern commonplace that religious toleration once given 
 is certain to take root and can never be withdrawn again. 
 The catastrophe of Henry IV was a lesson which Richelieu 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 373 
 
 could not neglect. It showed that the king's abjuration had 
 not sufficed for French public opinion, that a man not free 
 from the suspicion of heresy could not venture to stand 
 out before France as an opponent of the House of Habs- 
 burg. It was fortunate for Richelieu that he was a bishop 
 and a cardinal. Even so he could scarcely have succeeded 
 in his resolute attack on the House of Austria had he 
 not first given a pledge of Catholic orthodoxy by the 
 capture of Rochelle from the Huguenots. Only because 
 Huguenotism was perceived to be a lost cause, could 
 France allow a foreign policy which after all was a revival 
 of that of Coligny. 
 
 But what positive reason was there for reviving this 
 policy ? 
 
 When the Thirty Years' War broke out France was 
 powerless in Europe, preoccupied with the domestic 
 troubles which accompanied what we have called a quasi- 
 minority. We have remarked that in England the troubles 
 in Germany were somewhat unreasonably interpreted as 
 indicating a revival of the ascendency of Spain. The same 
 impression could not but be produced in France, where 
 Spanish influence was much closer and more dangerous 
 than in England. Accordingly in the twenties the pres- 
 sure of Spain began to be regarded by the Government 
 of Louis XIII as intolerable. Spain had occupied the 
 Palatinate, and she had renewed her war with the Nether- 
 lands. Both these acts seemed most dangerous, while a 
 Spanish Queen sat by the side of Louis XIII and half the 
 great provincial governments were in the hands of nobles 
 who had either themselves been members, or were the 
 sons of members, of the League. The rise of Austrian 
 power, and of the Catholic party in Germany, which was 
 indeed startling, struck the French chiefly by the augmen- 
 
374 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 tation which it brought to the power of Spain. From 
 Holland all down the French frontier, and along the 
 fr-ontier of their allies to Venice, the French saw the 
 Spanish Monarchy grow suddenly more irresistible than 
 ever. Between the Low Countries and the Palatinate 
 they saw the ecclesiastical electorates, between the Pala- 
 tinate and Switzerland they saw Alsace, between Switzer- 
 land and Milan they saw the Valtellin, and in all these 
 regions the power of Spain seemed to have been increased 
 by the growth of Avistria and of German Catholicism. 
 
 Here was reason enough why a strong Minister should 
 feel the necessity of taking measures of resistance to Spain. 
 And thus at the outset Richelieu's policy was adopted in 
 self-defence. 
 
 With Austria indeed he had at the outset no quarrel. 
 But in this phase Austria was inextricably iuvolved with 
 Spain. The immense growth of Austrian power alarmed 
 him, because Austrian power was available for Spanish 
 purposes. And thus Richelieu is soon led to give assist- 
 ance to the Protestant party of Germany against the 
 Emperor, and in this way France drifts gradually into the 
 great German war. In the last ten years of the Thirty 
 Years' War France and Sweden are the leading belligerents 
 against the Emperor, and yet it is not very apparent what 
 concern, except as a rapacious conqueror, France has in 
 this German quarrel. In fact here too France has but 
 drifted gradually from a policy of self-defence into one of 
 conquest. 
 
 After the phase of confusion and dependence on Spain 
 which extends from 1610 to 1624 comes the first phase of 
 the Richelieu policy. This may be said to last till 1629. 
 It is also somewhat confused, and exhibits the new system 
 in the making. 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 375 
 
 That system consists, as we have seen, in opposition 
 to the Spanish Monarchy abroad (and in this is included 
 opposition to the Emperor in Germany) and to the 
 noblesse, who are in concert with Spain, at home. But 
 before 1629 the issue is confused. Among the noblesse 
 there is beside the party of Spain, which is the residue 
 of the League, also the Huguenot party who in the main 
 look to England. Richelieu therefore has to oppose both 
 combinations in turn or at times both together. Thus in 
 1629 we see the Huguenots under Rohan taking subsidies 
 from Spain. 
 
 In this phase it was by no means clear what form 
 Richelieu's policy would ultimately take. Instead of sid- 
 ing with the Protestant Powers of Europe against the 
 House of Habsburg it was on the cards about 1628 that 
 he would form an alliance with the Spanish Monarchy 
 against England and the Huguenot party, and that he 
 would revoke the Edict of Nantes. Such a course seemed 
 conformable to the spirit of the time, when the Counter- 
 Reformation was more than ever triumphant; such a course 
 was recommended by the example of the Emperor, who at 
 this very time was purging his hereditary dominions of 
 heresy. About 1628 indeed there were omens everywhere 
 of the final catastrophe of Protestantism. 
 
 But at this crisis European Protestantism was saved 
 by blows struck at French Protestantism. The failure of 
 England at Rochelle, the fall of Rochelle, and then the 
 failure of Rohan in the south, introduced a modification 
 of the religious settlement of France, which is a further 
 stage in that process which ended by the Revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes. The Edict itself was maintained, 
 but, as the Huguenots now lost their strongholds, they 
 had henceforth no security but the honour of the Govern- 
 
376 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 ment, and honour in the long run can hardly maintain 
 itself against religion. After 1629 Richelieu could feel 
 that he had done enough for orthodoxy. As the conqueror 
 of the Huguenots, who were now disabled materially, 
 and also morally discredited by their concert with Spain, 
 he could proceed to ally himself with Protestant Powers 
 without provoking the dagger of a Ravaillac. 
 
 Already the war against the House of Austria had 
 begun, for it is characteristic of Richelieu to advance 
 against the foreign enemy without waiting to disarm 
 domestic treason. Let us again remark that the foreign 
 enemy is the Spanish Monarchy, not Austria. Since the 
 Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis Italy has been almost at the 
 mercy of Spain. France has been excluded from it, and 
 her Italian policy has been confined to lending occasional 
 relief to some Italian Powers who were stifled in the 
 Spanish atmosphere, especially to Venice and Savoy and 
 occasionally to the Pope. A change now comes in the way in 
 which change was possible in the monarchical seventeenth 
 century. The House of Gonzaga at Mantua dies out, and 
 a French prince, Nevers, succeeds by relationship to 
 Mantua and Montferrat. Spain resists the succession 
 and calls in the help of the Emperor as feudal suzerain. 
 Again the two branches of the House of Austria act in 
 conjunction, but the aggressive Power is Spain, the Em- 
 peror appearing, as it were, only in the background. From 
 the Duchy of Milan Spanish troops advance to besiege 
 Casale. The feeling prevails in Italy that the servitude 
 of the country to Spain is about to be established for 
 ever. 
 
 It may be regarded as the commencement of the great 
 European career of modern France that Richelieu, fresh 
 from his victory at Rochelle and disregarding the move- 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 377 
 
 ments of the Huguenot party in the South, leads Louis 
 XIII across the Alps in the winter of 1628 and success- 
 fully relieves Casale. Here too practically begins the war 
 with Spain which was only closed thirty-one years later 
 hy the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Immediately after his 
 return Louis XIII put the last hand to the suppression 
 of the Huguenot rebellion. 
 
 And thus we arrive at the second phase of Richelieu, 
 which I have described as a great revolution. His task is 
 now simplified, but it is a task of immense difficulty. He 
 has henceforth but one enemy, viz., the concert between 
 the Spanish Monarchy and the French noblesse. For the 
 thirteen years which remain to him he wages this war 
 and then he bequeaths it to Mazarin. By this war is 
 effected what we call the Transformation of France. 
 
 It is effected by purging out the old poison of the 
 League. The nobles in whom feudalism still survives as 
 an anarchical instinct, who covet the sovereign position of 
 German princes and would break up France into a loose 
 federation of independent states, must be overawed by 
 Government. The scaffold must come into play. But 
 the traitorous faction is not isolated. It has an old 
 understanding with the Spanish Monarchy. Over an 
 immense region of French-speaking people the House of 
 Austria exerts a ruling influence, in Franche Comt^ and 
 Artois, in the Three Bishoprics, which are still reckoned 
 to the Empire, in the Walloon Country. And then there 
 is Lorraine, still independent under its sovereign family ; 
 and of this family one branch is called Guise, a name 
 identified with the League. How slight is the difference 
 between the Guise of this time who passes for a French 
 noble and holds the great government of Provence, in 
 which like the other French governors he affects in- 
 
378 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 dependence, and his cousin the Duke of Lorraine, who 
 is really independent and whose descendant was to become 
 Roman Emperor ! Accordingly the traitorous noblesse 
 must be attacked in their patron and ally the King of 
 Spain as well as in themselves. War with Spain must 
 go hand in hand with judgment upon traitors. And 
 the secure throne of Louis XIV is built upon the ruin 
 at once of the aristocratic faction and of the Spanish 
 Monarchy. 
 
 But as the Spanish Monarchy supports the noblesse, 
 so Aiistria supports the Spanish Monarchy. This is the 
 new and peculiar feature of the age of Richelieu. In the 
 early days of Henry IV the enemy was simply Spain, but 
 now Spain cannot be attacked without attacking Austria 
 at the same time. And in this second phase of Richelieu 
 his relation to Austria is so important and leads to results 
 so striking that for the time it draws attention away from 
 his relation to Spain. The sudden growth of Austria and 
 its tyrannous ascendency in Germany, marked by the Edict 
 of Restitution, were alarming to France not so much in 
 themselves as for the reinforcement they brought to the 
 power of Spain. 
 
 Richelieu did not at first interfere directly in the 
 German question, but acted as Charles I had done 
 when he proposed to aid the King of Denmark with a 
 subsidy. He called in the King of Sweden in order, as 
 he says himself, to prevent the Emperor from interfering 
 in Italy or in France itself, that is, from aiding Spain. 
 It was the decisive step, by which France placed herself 
 at the head of the Protestant cause, but in taking it 
 she had in view neither the Protestant interest itself 
 nor her own aggrandisement on the side of Germany. 
 Her struggle was with Spain, and at that particular 
 
THE TRANSFORMATIOX OF FRANCE. 379 
 
 moment the scene of it was Italy. If she called in 
 Gustavus it was to detain the force of Austria, and to 
 prevent it from crossing the Alpine passes to the help of 
 Spain. 
 
 But Gustavus, when he came, inflicted such a wound 
 on Austria and on the whole Germanic system that a 
 wholly new prospect for France opened on the side of 
 Germany. Gradually France herself was drawn into the 
 Thirty Years' War, she became in time a principal belli- 
 gerent, and ended by making the conquest of Alsace. 
 Nevertheless her war in Germany, great and memorable 
 as it was, is but an incident in her war with the Spanish 
 Monarchy. This, as it may be said to have begun long 
 before — for it is in fact the old war which had come down 
 from the age of Philip II — so continued twelve years after 
 the German war had been brought to an end by the 
 Treaties of Westphalia. 
 
 We must not wander too far away from English policy. 
 We are concerned with these mighty events only so far as 
 they explain to us the new aspect which France, Austria, 
 and the Spanish Monarchy are found to wear when Eng- 
 land, resting from her civil troubles, finds again leisure to 
 look at them. 
 
 The arrival of Gustavus in Pomerania opens a German 
 Revolution which extends beyond his own short career 
 and beyond the death of Wallenstein, until a new equi- 
 librium is established by the Treaty of Prague and the 
 Battle of Nordlingen. During this time it had seemed 
 probable that the Germanic system would be entirely 
 dissolved, that the House of Habsburg would lose the 
 imperial dignity, and perhaps that Germany would be 
 partitioned among a number of independent princes. 
 What Gustavus himself meant to take for his share no 
 
380 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 one knew; Wallenstein dreamed of becoming King of 
 Bohemia; Bernard of Saxe Weimar would be Duke of 
 Franconia. But the Battle of Nordlingen, won by the 
 King of Rome, afterwards the Emperor Ferdinand III, 
 caused the disturbance to subside which had been raised 
 by Gustavus' great victory of Breitenfeld. It saved the 
 imperial dignity for the House of Habsburg, saved South 
 Germany for the Catholic Church, and, conjoined with the 
 Treaty of Prague, brought the Germanic system to the 
 shape which it maintained on the whole till the wars of 
 the French Revolution. What this was we may inquire 
 later ; meanwhile we are to note what effect these revolu- 
 tions had upon the policj'' of France. 
 
 Richelieu was probably himself surprised at the result 
 of his policy of calling in Gustavus. Not only was the 
 victory of Breitenfeld far more crushing than he could 
 have expected, but it was followed up by Gustavus in an 
 unexpected manner. It might have seemed natural for 
 the conqueror to advance upon"*Prague and Vienna, in 
 which case he would perhaps have dissolved and destroyed 
 the Austrian State. Such a result would have been a re- 
 volution for Germany, but not necessarily or immediately 
 very important for France. Gustavus however turned 
 westward. In the last months of 1631 he made the 
 conquest of Franconia. At the end of the year he entered 
 Mainz, where he passed a triumphal winter, which may 
 remind us of Alexander at Babylon or Napoleon at 
 Dresden. 
 
 Now here he was in the neighbourhood of the Palatinate, 
 and he soon found himself, contrary to his original inten- 
 tion, engaged in hostilities with Spain as well as vrith 
 Austria. He had in fact by his sudden entrance broken 
 the sort of blockade in which Spain held France from the 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 381 
 
 North Sea to the Alps'. And in the first months of 1632 
 he continued to give trouble to the Spaniards. 
 
 There was much in his conduct which might alarm 
 Richelieu, but his appearance on the Rhine proved in the 
 end to have given a decisive advantage to France in her 
 struggle with the Spanish Monarchy. It was at this 
 moment that the noblesse, headed by the Queen-Mother 
 and Gaston of Orleans the presumptive heir, made their 
 great rising in concert with Spain. They were put down 
 with a high hand. Guise was driven into exile, the duchy 
 of Lorraine was occupied, Montmorency was brought to the 
 scaffold. But all this was possible to Richelieu because 
 Spain was now paralysed by the Swedish power on the 
 Rhine. 
 
 Such relief from the incubus on the eastern frontier, 
 joined to his success in Italy, might have contented 
 Richelieu bvit for a new danger which arose in the 
 fluctuations of that stormy time. Gustavus passed away 
 in 1632, leaving the Swedish power in Germany still help- 
 ful but no longer very alarming to France. Wallenstein 
 began to take, with respect to the Emperor, almost the 
 place of Gustavus, for he had a commanding army in the 
 heart of the Empire and into which scale he would throw 
 this weight no one could tell. Then came his downfall. 
 About the same time a new Habsburg prince, Ferdinand, 
 brother of Philip IV (called the Cardinal-Infant), took 
 the government of the Low Countries, and then the army 
 of Wallenstein, now commanded by the King of Rome, 
 after effecting a junction with the Spanish army under 
 the Cardinal-Infant, won the great victory of Nbrdlingen. 
 
 1 Er sprengte die ganze Verbindung der spanisch-kaiserlich-katho- 
 lischen Interessen, die den Franzosen so widerwartig war, aus ein- 
 ander. Eanke. 
 
382 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 It was a kind of new birth for the House of Habsburg. 
 Naturally therefore it revived at once all the anxiety of 
 Richelieu. 
 
 And thus the year 1635 opens a new phase in the 
 career of Richelieu. He must again make war in self- 
 defence. The work of Gustavus has been undone in 
 Bavaria and Franconia. Saxony and Brandenburg have 
 reconciled themselves to the Emperor by the Treaty of 
 Prague. The Alliance of Spain and Austria is stronger 
 than ever. France is compelled to resist it more openly 
 than ever. In her alliance with Sweden she must now 
 become the active, the leading partner. 
 
 In May 1635, formal war was declared between France 
 and the Spanish Monarchy. At this date openly com- 
 mences the struggle in which the Spanish Monarchy, in 
 the sense which we have explained, fell, and France 
 established her European ascendency. 
 
 Seven years of Richelieu's life were yet to run, and 
 within that time the Spanish Monarchy was brought to 
 the verge of ruin. And yet we are to remark that at 
 this time France had no great military reputation, was 
 held wholly inferior as a military state to Spain, and that 
 the victory which reversed this relation, that of Rocroi, 
 was not won till Richelieu and Richelieu's master had 
 both passed away. It was not by war that the Spanish 
 Monarchy was brought to the verge of ruin. What means 
 then did Richelieu use ? 
 
 When once domestic treason was scotched, if not killed, 
 and Richelieu faced directly the problem not of resisting 
 at some one point but of overthrowing the Spanish Mon- 
 archy, he discovered that without actual superiority in the 
 field he had the means of inflicting great injuries upon it. 
 
 In the first place he could feed the war in Germany 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 383 
 
 and take part in it so far as to prevent Austria from 
 rendering much aid to Spain. 
 
 Feuquieres had been sent to Heilbronn to represent 
 France when Oxenstierna organised the great Coalition of 
 Sweden and the Protestant princes. This is the beginning 
 of the final phase of the Thirty Years' War. From this 
 time France becomes more and more a principal belli- 
 gerent against the Emperor and Bavaria. It is chiefly by 
 means of Bernard of Saxe Weimar that she is led into 
 this position. At first she subsidises him, and after his 
 death in 1639 she takes over his army. This becomes a 
 kind of nucleus round which, chiefly under the direction of 
 Turenne, the great French army of the age of Louis XIV 
 forms itself 
 
 Secondly he could form a close league with the United 
 Netherlands. 
 
 The renewed war of Spain and the Netherlands had 
 been proceeding since 1621. The Stadtholder Frederick 
 Henry showed himself a worthy successor of his father 
 William and his brother Moritz. In 1628 the Admiral 
 known as Piet Hein achieved what Spain had long appre- 
 hended, yet fondly hoped the God of Catholics would 
 never suffer to be done, he captured the silver fleet. 
 From this time the Dutch, no longer as in the former war 
 a community of rebels in whom despair became heroism, 
 but a great Power and the richest nation in the world, 
 showed themselves superior to their enemy. When Riche- 
 lieu in 1635 brought them the aid of France he trusted 
 that the two allies would be easily able to partition 
 between them the Spanish Low Countries. 
 
 This hope was disappointed, but it soon began to 
 appear that the Spanish Monarchy laboured under certain 
 serious strategical weaknesses. It consisted of three masses 
 
384 GKOWTH OF BEITISH POLICY. 
 
 of territory between which there was but a precarious 
 communication, the Iberian and Italian peninsulas and 
 what still remained of Burgundy. Under Richelieu the 
 naval power of France began to be considerable, and this 
 naval power threatened the communications of Spain 
 and Italy, and of Spain and the Low Countries at once. 
 How could Spain support the war with Holland when the 
 sea began to be closed to her by the united force of 
 Holland and France ? Only by the resources of Italy and 
 Franche Comte, which must be brought to bear by way of 
 the valley of the Rhine. And now began to be felt the 
 consequences of Gustavus' march to the Rhine and of his 
 occupation of Mainz. Gustavus had severed the connexion 
 between the northern and southern parts of the Spanish 
 Monarchy. 
 
 In an unexpected way France reaped the benefit of 
 what had been done by Sweden. It was the most Catholic 
 part of Germany, it was Priest-street itself, that had thus 
 been occupied by the Protestant Swedes. As the power 
 of Sweden somewhat declined and that of France began 
 to rise after the death of Gustavus the princes and popu- 
 lations of this region put themselves eagerly under the 
 protection of France, which was at least Catholic. Thus 
 the Elector of Trier gladly handed over to the French 
 the two great fortresses he had founded, Philipsburg and 
 Ehrenbreitstein. And without calculation, by a natural 
 process of developement, France began to find herself in 
 possession of Alsace. As it were the spinal cord of the 
 Spanish Monarchy was cut, but henceforth France, not 
 Sweden, took the government from its fainting hand. 
 
 But it was possible, still without military superiority, 
 to strike even more deadly blows at Spanish power. For 
 the moral union of the vast mass was almost more pre- 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 385 
 
 cariovis than the material. It was so especially in the 
 Iberian peninsula itself, where no organic union had ever 
 taken place between the provinces, where no true Spain 
 existed, but only a sovereign Castille surrounded by states 
 which had been not so much reconciled as neutralised. 
 
 On the one side Olivarez provoked, and on the other 
 Richelieu fomented, first a rebellion in Catalonia, then 
 much more than a rebellion, a national war of liberation, 
 in Portugal. The latter is the decisive event; it took 
 place in December 1640. What we have called United 
 Iberia was nov after sixty years dissolved again. There 
 is a curious contrast between this union, so suddenly made 
 and so short-lived, and the gradual consolidation of Eng- 
 land and Scotland. It is especially curious to observe that 
 whereas Scotland gained by the union a share in a great 
 and growing colonial empire, Portugal on the contrary by 
 her union with Spain lost a great colonial empire. It 
 was the sense of this injury that caused the noble 
 families of Portugal, which sixty years before had 
 favoured the cause of Philip II, now to rally resolutely 
 round the native House of Bragan9a. They could perceive 
 that their union with Spain had exposed their vast colonial 
 possessions to the attack of Spain's enemy, the Nether- 
 lands, that at their expense the Dutch colonial empire 
 had been founded. At this very moment they had bitter 
 occasion to feel what price they paid for their connexion 
 with Spain, for Brazil, their greatest colonial possession, 
 was now passing rapidly into the hands of the Dutch. 
 
 Thus a new war, not less great than the war with the 
 Netherlands, began for Spain. It lasted more than twenty 
 years, and we shall have other opportunities of studying 
 the events of it. It ended in the secession not only of 
 Portugal but of all her vast colonies. But the mere 
 s. 25 
 
386 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 outbreak of it, following those changes on the Rhine, 
 completely reversed the old relation between the Spanish 
 Monarchy and France. Hampered with two civil wars at 
 once, in Catalonia and in Portugal, the Spanish Monarchy 
 as a European Power suffers paralysis. It seems to be on 
 the verge of a catastrophe. 
 
 And now Richelieu himself and his defeated antagonist 
 Olivarez quit the scene almost at the same moment. 
 Richelieu lived long enough to see the commencement of 
 the civil war in England. A new English policy, which 
 we must soon examine, begins when the Parliament takes 
 the place of the King in the direction of affairs. But 
 before we return to English policy it is convenient to 
 mark the principal phases through which the transforma- 
 tion of France passed after the death of Richelieu. 
 
 First there was a period of five years (1643 — 1648) 
 during which the mighty impetus which France had 
 received from him carries her forward unchecked. Her 
 military glory begins at Rocroi, and the names of Conde 
 and Turenne are soon bruited abroad. The Treaties of 
 Westphalia are made. 
 
 This settlement is triumphant for France. But we are 
 to remark that it does not affect her great struggle with 
 the Spanish Monarchy. She makes peace with the Em- 
 peror, but not with the King of Spain. She conquers 
 Alsace, but this is a German not a Spanish territory. As 
 against Spain she gains nothing but an assurance that 
 Spain for the rest of the war will have no assistance from 
 the Emperor. 
 
 Spain however gains a corresponding advantage. For 
 another treaty was made in 1648 beside those which the 
 Emperor made with France and her allies and Sweden 
 and her allies. This was the Treaty between Spain and 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 387 
 
 the United Netherlands, by which their dispute after 
 eighty years was finally wound up. For the Spanish 
 Government was conscious of inability to reconquer both 
 the Netherlands and Portugal; it sacrificed the former 
 for the sake of the latter — vainly, as the sequel proved. 
 But at the outset in 1635 France had undertaken her 
 struggle with Spain in firm dependence on the Dutch 
 alliance, and her position was seriously altered when this 
 alliance failed her. 
 
 Thus after 1648 the war from being a confused medley 
 becomes a simple duel between France and Spain, the 
 former being deserted by the Dutch and the latter by the 
 Emperor. But we remember that Spain has all along 
 counted on another ally, the faction of nobles in France. 
 Richelieu had quelled this for a time, and in the 
 triumphant quinquennium which followed his death by 
 an unexpected good fortune it had not raised its head 
 again. But in 1648 the concert of Spain and the noblesse 
 breaks out again almost as violently as in the times of 
 the League. 
 
 The disturbances of the Fronde make a chapter of 
 history which is perplexing if we study it by itself, because 
 they are caused by the meeting of several currents, and 
 we may doubt which is the main-current. On the surface 
 we see a struggle between King and Parliament, somewhat 
 similar to, and perhaps imitated from, that which had just 
 taken place in England. But if we look at the whole de- 
 velopement of France from Henry IV to Louis XIV in 
 his manhood, we become aware that the main-current is 
 not this but a movement towards national union under the 
 Crown in resistance to the concert between the noblesse 
 and the Spanish Monarchy. Behind the surface of the 
 Fronde, the parade of Parliament and liberty, we may see 
 
 25—2 
 
388 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 a dispute strikingly similar to that of the regency of Marie 
 de Medicis. Again there is a regent, Anne of Austria, 
 and she has her Concini, her Italian favourite, Mazarin, 
 and the princes of the blood become mutinous under the 
 leadership of Cond^, and Mazarin imprisons Cond^, as 
 Concini had imprisoned Condi's father, and civil war 
 breaks out fomented by Spain. Finally Cond^ openly 
 joins the Spanish side and serves as a general of Philip 
 IV. In the hands of these turbulent nobles, the Parlia- 
 ment of Paris and the Parisian populace are but puppets. 
 And the great principle sown by Richelieu, the principle 
 of the State, of the public good, continues to grow and 
 develope. It subdues in time the great Condd itself It 
 establishes the union and the greatness of France. It 
 crushes down all that makes for disintegration, including 
 those very Parliaments and those popular principles which 
 have discredited themselves by cooperation with the party 
 of treason. 
 
 It subdues also in the end the Spanish Monarchy, but 
 not without new international combinations, in particular 
 not without the aid of England. 
 
 And it is now time to inquire what England has been 
 doing during the years of the Transformation of France. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TEANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 
 
 England as well as France suffered transformation 
 in this period. It may even be said that the change 
 began in the two countries about the same time, in 
 France on the Day of Dupes, in England with the dis- 
 solution of the Third Parliament and with the resolution 
 of Charles to make himself independent of Parliament. 
 But as in France the Government had success and in 
 England opposition to the Government triumphed, the 
 actual transformation began in England later than in 
 France. The decisive event in England as much in 
 foreign as in domestic affairs is the outbreak of civil 
 war. 
 
 In England, as we know, the civil war began in 1642, 
 but in Scotland it had begun four years earlier, and 
 rebellion had begun as early as 1637. As Eichelieu 
 died at the end of 1642, we see that he witnessed but 
 the commencement of the English Great Rebellion, but 
 on the other hand that he lived through the whole of that 
 stormy period which was introductory to it, that he saw 
 the two Bishops' Wars, the Short Parliament, the meeting 
 of the Long Parliament, the fall of Strafford, the Irish 
 
390 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Rebellion, and then the fatal breach between King and 
 Parliament. 
 
 But the grand epoch of transformation for England 
 is the moment of the outbreak of civil war. For we are 
 to observe that, though at that moment the Parliament 
 had no great military superiority, yet by getting posses- 
 sion of the fleet it acquired at once the main control 
 of foreign affairs. Hence the year 1642 marks in some 
 sense the close of the reign of Charles as far as foreign 
 policy is concerned ; at least in a history of policy he falls 
 in that year almost from the position of a King to that of 
 a Pretender. But before 1642 foreign policy is still in his 
 hands : and as by the commencement of war between 
 the Spanish Monarchy and France in alliance with Holland 
 a new chapter of European affairs, most interesting to 
 England, had begun in 1635, that is about two years 
 before the outbreak of disturbance in Scotland, we may 
 see that the period of seven years between 1635 and 1642 
 may be called the last phase of the policy of Charles I, 
 as it is also of Richelieu, and at the same time the last 
 phase of the old rigime of England. Before 1642 our 
 state was still in most of its large features what it had 
 been in the Elizabethan age, but the discord which broke 
 out in that year transformed it, so that it has never been 
 the same since. 
 
 In 1635 Charles has but one foreign object, to procure 
 the restoration of the Elector Palatine, and but one 
 personal ambition, to maintain the naval supremacy of 
 England in the narrow seas. 
 
 How does he regard the great struggle of Bourbon and 
 Habsburg, which in that year entered upon an acute 
 phase ? 
 
 We saw him at the beginning of his reign break off a 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 391 
 
 marriage negotiation with the Bang of Spain and soon 
 after marry a sister of the King of France. When we 
 remember how much in that age depended upon royal 
 man-iage this may seem to involve a complete change of 
 policy, as though he had passed over from one side to the 
 other in the European controversy. For when we look 
 back from such a distance upon the France of that age 
 we may easily imagine it represented solely at this time 
 by Richelieu and before him by Henry IV, and conceive it 
 therefore as the steadfast determined foe of the Spanish 
 Monarchy. As a matter of fact however Henry IV had 
 died in 1610 and Richelieu's system was not made clearly 
 manifest to the world till 1630, and in the intervening 
 twenty years the rivalry of France and Spain did not 
 merely slumber, but gave way at least in intention to a 
 close union and family alliance. The Queen of France 
 was a sister of the King of Spain; the Queen of Spain 
 was a sister of the King of France. If this family union 
 did not carry with it a union of policy, that was the work 
 of Richelieu, and a work not yet accomplished or visible 
 to the world. 
 
 Now it is to be observed that Richelieu met with 
 opposition not merely in the French nation but especially 
 in the royal family. To establish it he had to push aside 
 the Queen Mother and the presumptive heir; he had 
 also severely to hold in check the Queen herself. If 
 then Charles entered by marriage into the French royal 
 family, this by no means implies that he entered into the 
 ideas of Richelieu or into antagonism to Spain, but rather 
 the contrary, for the French royal family was in the main 
 opposed to those ideas and to that antagonism. Hemietta 
 Maria sympathised with her mother, the victim of Riche- 
 lieu's persecution and the foundress of the alliance with 
 
392 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Spain ; she associated too with the Duchesse de Chevreuse, 
 who was not only Richelieu's opponent but actually a 
 Guise by her second marriage. We are also not quite to 
 forget that Charles himself was descended from a Queen of 
 France, whose mother had been a Guise. 
 
 Mme de Chevreuse, who had fled from Richelieu across 
 the Spanish frontier, came to England from Spain in 
 1638 ; the Queen Mother herself came to England in the 
 same year ; about this time Henrietta Maria's influence 
 over Charles began visibly to increase. The English Court 
 was assuming already something of that French com- 
 plexion which became so marked after the Restoration ; 
 the effects of the French marriage were becoming visible. 
 But those effects were not at this time such as might have 
 been expected, for, as we have remarked, Richelieu had 
 introduced a new thing into politics. He had dictated to 
 Louis XIII a policy which was not that of his family. 
 He had disregarded marriage and blood-relationship. 
 There was an Opposition in France, and the nucleus of 
 this opposition was in the Royal Family. Henrietta 
 Maria belonged to it. Accordingly the growth of French 
 influence at the English Court did not incline the English 
 Government towards the French Govermnent, but towards 
 the French Opposition, and in the struggle which had 
 commenced in 1635 it inclined England to favour Spain 
 rather than France. 
 
 The Spanish Monarchy had not yet lost its ascendency 
 though it was on the point of doing so. In this last phase 
 the European opposition to it takes a somewhat new form. 
 England is now an indifferent spectator. France enters 
 in 1635 upon a new struggle with it, in which she is 
 assisted by Holland. There is a more direct and equal 
 duel between France and Spain than has been witnessed 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 393 
 
 before, and after 1648, when Holland withdraws, these 
 two Powers are left alone in the arena. After 1635 
 therefore it begins to be the grand question of English 
 policy whether England shall side with France or with 
 Spain, and twenty years later the energetic decision of 
 this question by Cromwell led European history into a 
 new course. About 1638 we see Charles watching the 
 two combatants with a very indifferent eye. His con- 
 nexion with the French royal family and the influence 
 of his queen do not, for the reason just given, incline 
 him towards France, but rather towards Spain. On the 
 whole however he is prepared to receive offers from both 
 sides, and to weigh what Spain can undertake against what 
 France can undertake for the benefit of the Elector Palatine. 
 
 About the time when the disturbances began in 
 Scotland, when the Covenant was signed and the Bishops' 
 War broke out, a crisis occurred in the foreign policy 
 of Charles. Two of those disastrous and ignominious 
 failures which are characteristic of the reign of Charles I 
 overtook him nearly at the same time, and produced a 
 sort of catastrophe in which his direction of foreign affairs 
 comes to an end. One of them relates to the war of the 
 Low Countries, the other to the German war. 
 
 In the duel of France and Spain which began in 1635 
 and which was to end in so complete a victory for France, 
 Spain had at the outset much success and even appeared 
 likely to be victorious. The attempt of France and Holland 
 to effect a partition of the Catholic Low Countries was 
 energetically resisted, and the tide of invasion was rolled 
 back on France. The fortresses of Picardy fell into the 
 hands of the Cardinal-Infant, and Richelieu trembled in 
 Paris itself. But in 1638 fortune began to declare for 
 France at the very moment when the child was born who 
 
394 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 was to be Louis XIV. His bu-th was indeed in itself a 
 very substantial gift of fortune, for it gave a future to the 
 conquering system of Richelieu, which hitherto had seemed 
 to depend absolutely upon the frail life of Louis XIII. 
 As later in 1729, so now in 1638 the birth of a dauphin 
 changed the aspect of politics. But in the same year a 
 great military event occurred. We have seen how Gus- 
 tavus had, as it were, raised the siege of France by breaking 
 through the Spanish lines in the Palatinate and on the 
 Rhine. In 1638 Bemhard of Saxe Weimar completed 
 the process which his master Gustavus had begun by the 
 capture of Breisach. The establishment of a great Pro- 
 testant prince with an important army at this place broke 
 the connexion between two great limbs of the Spanish 
 monarchy, the Spanish Low Countries and the Spanish 
 possessions in Italy. It also opened a gate for French 
 armies into Germany. 
 
 Hitherto Charles has pursued his confused system, in 
 which the end and the means are almost equally unjustifi- 
 able and inexplicable. Why the restoration of the Elector 
 Palatine should be a matter of such paramount importance 
 to English policy Strafford himself acknowledges that 
 he cannot comprehend. As in the age of Buckingham, 
 so now he abides by the Elizabethan view. 'It affects 
 me very much,' he -writes (March 21, 1637), 'to hear the 
 peace and prosperity of your affairs at home disquieted by 
 entering again into action upon any foreign hopes or 
 engagements abroad until the Crown were discharged 
 of debts, the coffers filled, and your Majesty's profits and 
 sovereignties set upon their right foot throughout your 
 three kingdoms.' He hates war as much as Queen 
 Elizabeth had done. And he goes on to question whether 
 the Elector Palatine had any claim upon England. 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 395 
 
 Charles however seems at moments prepared to give 
 ships and money in this cause and to allow the levy of 
 volunteers, in fact to take steps which might speedily 
 involve him in the European war. To which side he will 
 attach himself seems a matter of indifference. He ne- 
 gociates with France and Spain at the same time, and 
 his aid is at the service of whichever Power will most 
 freely promise the restoration of his nephew. Yet it 
 had from the beginning of the reign of Charles been 
 most doubtful whether Spain had the power of effecting 
 that restoration, and Strafford freely questions now 
 whether France has either the power or the will to 
 effect it. 
 
 In 1639 all the world was admitted to watch the 
 turnings and windings of this tortuous sj^stem. The 
 capture of Breisach had forced Spain to fall back upon her 
 fleet in conducting the war of the Low Countries. A 
 great Armada under Oquendo appeared in the Channel. 
 It was the last of the great Spanish Armadas. Not again 
 did the Spanish maritime Power display itself on at all 
 the same scale in these northern seas until in quite other 
 conditions the allied fleets of France and Spain swept the 
 Channel in the days of Lord North. In this enterprise 
 the Spanish Government applied for the countenance of 
 Charles, and a negociation began in which Charles, as 
 usual, stipulated for the restoration of the Palatine 
 Prince. In September the fleet appeared, and was speedily 
 forced by Tromp to seek shelter on the English coast. 
 Then began a curious bargain. Oquendo and Tromp 
 had to wait while Charles set his aid up to auction. 
 Cardenas, the Spanish Ambassador, on one side, Bellifevre, 
 the French Ambassador, on the other, were required to 
 state how much their respective Governments were pre- 
 
396 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 pared to do for the Prince Palatine. If France should 
 bid highest, Tromp was to be allowed to destroy the 
 Spanish fleet. On the other hand if Spain should make 
 a satisfactory offer, and also pay a large sum of money, 
 Charles would interfere to save it. The auction was open 
 for about a month, until on October 21st Tromp took 
 the decision into his own hands, attacked the Spanish 
 fleet, sank some ships, burned others, and captured about 
 eleven. The English Admii'al, Pennington, having no 
 orders, did not interfere. Oquendo himself -with a con- 
 siderable part of his armament made his escape into 
 Dunkirk harbour. 
 
 Meanwhile Charles had been busy with another scheme. 
 A crisis in the German war had occurred in July when 
 Bernhard of Saxe Weimar, at the moment the most con- 
 spicuous military figure, a sort of minor Gustavus Adol- 
 phus, died suddenly, leaving the best army in Europe to 
 seek a new commander. Could but the Palatine Prince 
 fill the vacancy thus made ? So thought Charles. But 
 in fact it was natural for France to desire to get posses- 
 sion of this army. Charles however frankly communicated 
 his idea to Bellievre, professing to wait upon the decision 
 of the French Government. But without any delay the 
 Prince was to set out for the army, which he was to join 
 as a volunteer, and he was to travel through France 
 incognito, as Charles and Buckingham had done twenty 
 years before. On October 15th, while the Spanish and 
 Dutch fleets still watched each other in the Channel, the 
 Prince crossed to Boulogne and proceeded to execute this 
 scheme. It had not been concealed from Bellifevre, and 
 yet the French Government were thought likely to be 
 deceived by a disguise of which they had had notice, 
 though it was intended to bring about a result extremely 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 397 
 
 disagreeable to them. The scheme perhaps, had it been 
 executed with real secrecy and suddenness, might have 
 had great results. Charles had taken in hand to steal a 
 march upon Richelieu, and yet he seemed not to feel the 
 necessity of using any extraordinary energy or prompti- 
 tude. It is almost needless to say that the prince was not 
 allowed to reach the camp. He was detained at Moulins 
 and brought under arrest to Vincennes. In the end the 
 army of Bemhard, instead of recovering the Palatinate for 
 Prince Charles Louis, passed into the service of France and 
 became the nucleus of the victorious host of Louis XIV. 
 
 These two mishaps befel Charles almost at the same 
 moment. They left him in a position among the 
 European Powers than which nothing can be imagined 
 more pitiable, though probably it never came home to 
 his dim consciousness. He had long been regarded by 
 continental politicians as a Sovereign whose alliance was 
 of no value, but their slight regard now became bitter 
 dislike. He had given disgust to all at once, to Spain 
 whose fleet he had given up to destruction, to France and 
 Holland, since he had in no way aided Tromp and had 
 made a clumsy attempt to deceive the French Govern- 
 ment, while he had shown how utterly indifferent he was 
 to that which in his negociations with Richelieu was 
 called the ' common cause.' In the great European 
 struggle he appeared perfectly ready to take either side 
 and at the same time perfectly useless to both sides. 
 Louis XIII expresses this disgust in a memoir to Belli^vre 
 written on October 29th of this year, 1639. Bellievre is 
 charged to conjure the King of England to consider that 
 to remain on his present terms is to ruin his nephew's 
 states and to lose the opportunity of acquiring much 
 reputation. His Majesty is quite ready to bring all his 
 
398 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 allies to enter conjointly with himself into a league 
 offensive and defensive with the King of England and to 
 bind himself not to make peace without the restoration 
 of the Palatinate.... If the King of England says that he 
 has had a great share in the defeat of the Spanish fleet, 
 M. de Bellievre is to answer that so far from having had 
 any share he has permitted the Spaniards, who have 
 spoiled his nephew, to receive much help from his states, 
 where they have been supplied with victuals, powder, 
 rigging, and, what is more, several ships, which have 
 carried two or three thousand of them to Dunkirk. He 
 is to add that the Spaniards boast on all sides that they 
 are on the point of making a treaty with the King of 
 England to be furnished with 10,000 Irishmen in return 
 for a round sum which they offer to lend him, a thing 
 so contrary to the design he professes to have of re- 
 establishing his nephew in his States that if the treaty 
 were real it would be impossible to make one with him 
 for the advantage of the common cause. M. de Bellifevre 
 is to speak of all this to the Queen and to make her 
 understand what a disgrace it would be to the King of 
 England that for a money loan he should furnish the 
 Spaniards with an army to be used against himself 
 
 With such impatient contempt had Louis and Riche- 
 lieu come to regard the policy of Charles ! The rebellion 
 had already begun in Scotland, and we may see from 
 Mme de Motteville's account of English affairs, which was 
 derived from Queen Henrietta Maria, that to the English 
 Court it wore the appearance of a rebellion fomented by 
 Eichelieu. ' The Cardinal de Richelieu,' she writes, ' who 
 governed in France, hated the King of England because 
 his heart was Spanish,.. he thought it absolutely necessary 
 for the weal of France, that that prince should have 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 399 
 
 trouble in his country.' It is no doubt true that Riche- 
 lieu's policy required at the moment when he was pressiag 
 the Spanish Monarchy so hard that England should not 
 be free to interfere, and we see with what feelings he 
 regarded Charles. Modern inquiry however leads to the 
 conclusion that his influence was not very active in fo- 
 menting our civil troubles, because in fact it was super- 
 fluous. Charles might be trusted to do Richelieu's work 
 for him, and to provide those troubles in Great Britain 
 which his vast European schemes demanded. 
 
 These events of 1639 may be said to close a period in 
 our foreign policy. The civil war was now at hand which 
 was to transform England as the administration of Riche- 
 lieu transformed France. In domestic affairs and particu- 
 larly in respect of the relation between the three kingdoms 
 the Stuart Monarchy had strayed into a false position. 
 The convulsion which now took place was the consequence. 
 It led to a change which modified our foreign policy as 
 much as our constitution. 
 
 These proceedings of 1639 are of a piece with all the 
 foreign measures of James I and Charles I, and exhibit 
 the foreign system of these kings in a particularly naked 
 form. In one word, they regard foreign affairs purely from 
 the point of view of the family. They are allied by mar- 
 riage to the Palatine House, to the Danish House and to 
 the House of Bourbon. But they enter the House of 
 Bourbon only after having failed to enter the Spanish 
 House, and at a time when the Houses of Bourbon and 
 Spain were closely interwoven. These simple facts furnish 
 the clue to their policy from the outbreak of the great 
 twofold European war. They see but one object, the 
 Palatinate, and even this they do not see in the same 
 light as their subjects. To the English people also in the 
 
400 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 age of Buckingham the question of the Palatinate was 
 interesting, because they saw in it the cause of the 
 Reformation. To James and Charles it is a family- 
 question, and they have at the same time a family 
 attachment to Spain, one of the great enemies of the 
 Palatinate, mainly because Charles courts an Infanta. 
 Hence he pursues the restoration of the Palatine Prince 
 at first through alliance with his Danish relative, and, 
 when that has failed, through his Catholic relatives of 
 France and Spain, inclining to Spain rather than to France. 
 He will lend help to his Protestant nephew, but as he is a 
 nephew, not as he is a Protestant, and in such a way as to 
 render the slightest possible service to Protestantism. 
 
 It was time that the Monarchy in England should be 
 reformed not less in the interest of foreign than of 
 domestic policy. And now a transformation took place 
 which did in the end cure this particular evil. 
 
 We regard this transformation purely from the inter- 
 national point of view, from which of course only the 
 lesser half of it is visible. Monarchy and Commonwealth, 
 Prelacy and Presbytery, these are matters which do not 
 concern us. What we see is the fall, and after a time 
 the restoration, and then again at a later time the second 
 fall, or partial fall, of a dynasty, and involved in this the 
 fall, restoration and second fall of a dynastic system of 
 foreign policy. But lest we should stray where so many 
 attractive paths, which nevertheless are misleading, offer 
 themselves at every step, it is necessary to obtain a chart 
 of the journey that now lies before us, that is, to begin by 
 taking a general view. 
 
 We set out then from a system of foreign policy which 
 is founded almost solely upon the family relationships of 
 the king. But in 1642 the royal family is for the purposes 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 401 
 
 of foreign policy dispossessed. Henceforth the Government 
 in possession is the Parliament, and from this time to the 
 rise of the Protectorate the Parliament, not the King, 
 represents England before the states of Europe. 
 
 This new Government is for some years much hampered 
 hy the opposition of the King and his party. But in 1651 
 it succeeds in crushing this opposition, and then for nearly 
 nine years the state is guided securely in foreign affairs on 
 a system wholly uninfluenced by family relationships. The 
 system is indeed not wholly national, it is in some degree 
 partisan. But the Long Parliament, the Council of State, 
 and the Protector alike were not guided in their policy by 
 the interests of a brother-in-law in France, or a nephew in 
 the Palatinate, or an uncle in Denmark. 
 
 The dynasty is restored in 1660. But it is not brought 
 back by any effort of its own or by the aid of its foreign 
 connexions, but by the very party which in 1642 had 
 raised rebellion against it. In 1642 King and Parliament 
 had been at war ; they had represented opposite principles. 
 But in 1660 these two opposite parties absolutely melt 
 into one. They combine to resist the third party which 
 in the years 1648 — 1651 had overpowered both. They 
 are so completely merged that in the first months of 1660 
 ' Parliament ' was the watchword of those who wished to 
 bring back Charles Stuart. At that crisis he who said 
 Parliament said King. 
 
 Charles II therefore inherited, as it were, the un- 
 ■dynastic policy that had grown up during his exile. 
 Meanwhile in his own mind the dynastic system had 
 been strengthened and hardened by that very exile. 
 He had dreamed during years of suspense of winning 
 his restoration by the same methods by which his father 
 had hoped to obtain the restoration of the Palatine Prince, 
 s. 26 
 
402 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 that is, by the armies and subsidies of his foreign relatives, 
 his French nephew, his Dutch brother-in-law, his Danish 
 uncle. Necessarily therefore in his policy there is a 
 struggle between the dynastic system in which he had 
 been bred and the more national system which had 
 developed itself under the Commonwealth. In this 
 struggle is the clue to the reign of Charles II. 
 
 In the simple soldier-like mind of his brother James 
 there is no struggle. He adopts the dynastic system once 
 for all, and tries to found his throne upon Catholicism and 
 the family alliance with his cousin Louis XIV. 
 
 But these two brothers adopted the dynastic system in 
 its extreme form. They were the sons of a Frenchwoman 
 who was a bigoted Catholic, while Catholicism was odious 
 to the English people and anything like a close alliance 
 with France scarcely less so. They placed themselves 
 therefore in a false position with respect to their sub- 
 jects. 
 
 Now the dynastic system was not necessarily in- 
 consistent with the national system of policy. It was 
 conceivable that they might be brought into harmony, as it 
 was conceivable that monarchy and liberty might be recon- 
 ciled. The same man was born to effect both reconcilia- 
 tions. What the Revolution of 1688 means in constitu- 
 tional history we all know. Its aspect in international 
 history is not less important. William, as well as Charles 
 or James, belonged to the royal caste. He was the first 
 member of the House of Orange of whom this could be 
 said. His mother was a Stuart and so was his wife. But 
 he was a Protestant and he came from a country which, so 
 far from being the ancient enemy, had always been felt 
 to be a close relative, a cousin or almost a brother, of 
 England. 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OP ENGLAND. 403 
 
 Accordingly his accession in England finally reconciled 
 the dynastic with the national system and introduced an 
 era of English policy in which the Monarchy appeared free 
 from the defect which we have remarked under James I 
 and Charles I. 
 
 This glimpse of the road which lies before us, joined to 
 our knowledge of the road we have already travelled, may 
 enable us to understand the progress which England made 
 in the whole period treated in this book. The ' growth of 
 our policy ' consisted in throwing off the dynastic system 
 and adopting instead a national system. We now see the 
 principal stages of the process. At the accession of Eliza- 
 beth the dynastic system prevailed so much that we were 
 on the point of being swallowed up in the Habsburg 
 Estate. By her disputed title, by her purely English 
 descent, and by her want of all royal connexions, Elizabeth 
 was thrown back upon the national system, or, in her own 
 words, found herself ' married to her people.' In the forty- 
 four years of her reign, this system was enabled to take a 
 certain root, and meanwhile the dynastic influence in its 
 better form counteracted the same influence in its worse 
 form, when it brought together England and Scotland. 
 Under the first Stuarts the dynastic system is restored, 
 but somewhat slowly, the Stuart family being also poor 
 in royal connexions at the time of its entrance into 
 England. But by the time of the outbreak of the Great 
 Rebellion, English policy, as we have seen, has become 
 again thoroughly and coldly dynastic. By the Eebellion 
 the national system is violently revived. The age of 
 Oliver in respect of foreign policy is evidently similar 
 to that of Elizabeth. It is also a kind of anticipation, 
 though premature and precarious, of the national British 
 policy of the eighteenth century. With the Restoration 
 
 26—2 
 
404 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 begins a struggle between the two systems. At the 
 Kevolution this struggle is brought to an end by a 
 reconciliation between the national system and the dy- 
 nastic system in its better form represented by William 
 of Orange. 
 
 We may add that this reconciliation proved lasting, 
 though William himself had but a short reign. The 
 dynastic system might easily have revived, even without 
 the restoration of James or of the Pretender. Had Anne 
 been married to a Bourbon or a Habsburg or to any 
 Catholic prince and had she left heirs of such a marriage, 
 the struggle might have recommenced. But her Danish 
 marriage created no difficulty, and after her death that old 
 connexion with the Palatine House, which under the 
 earlier Stuarts had caused so much trouble, helped us 
 to maintain the reconciliation of the national and dynastic 
 systems introduced by William. A sister of that very 
 Palatine Prince whose distresses and mishaps in the 
 year 1639 we have just contemplated, and who in 1642 
 accompanied Charles in his attempt to arrest the Five 
 Members, stood before the world in 1714, that is, more 
 than seventy years later, as heiress to the throne of 
 England. Between these two dates lies almost the whole 
 immense reign of Louis XIV, and some years beside. 
 Had she lived half a year longer this princess, then 
 called the Electress Sophia, would have been proclaimed 
 Queen in London. As it was, her son succeeded Queen 
 Anne and founded the dynasty which has lasted to this 
 day. 
 
 Enough for the present of large surveys and distant 
 prospects. When we return to the period of Richelieu 
 and look again at Charles I just entering the civil war 
 we find that we have learnt from our anticipatory survey 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 405 
 
 to understand the importance of an event which took place 
 in 1641. This event again is a marriage. 
 
 James I, we remarked, gave a daughter to the leading 
 Protestant prince of his time, while he offered his son to 
 a leading Catholic princess. But the marriage of Elizabeth 
 Stuart to the Elector Palatine might seem to have been 
 unfortunate, and no one could yet foresee that a great 
 English dynasty, for which the eighteenth and nineteenth 
 centuries were reserved, was to issue from it. Charles I 
 however follows his father's example. Though himself 
 standing a degree nearer than his father to Catholicism, 
 though his children were half Bourbons as he himself was 
 partly a Guise, he too decides to give a daughter to the 
 great representative of the Protestant cause. The Princess 
 Mary is married in 1641, that is, about the time of Straf- 
 ford's trial, to William, son and heir of the Stadtholder 
 Frederick Henry. This is the first of the two great 
 marriages of William and Mary by which the House 
 of Stuart was united to the House of Orange, and which 
 led to one of the greatest reigns in English History and 
 also to an alliance of the Sea Powers upon which depended 
 the international relations of Europe through a great part 
 of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The second William and Mary and their marriage are 
 known to all of us ; the first William and Mary, who had 
 but a short married life and passed that in Holland, have 
 indeed a place in Dutch history, but are almost forgotten 
 in England. And yet we shall find that the alliance 
 which was created by their marriage between the Houses 
 of Stuart and Orange was scarcely less important from its 
 very beginning than the alliance of the Houses of Stuart 
 and Bourbon, which is represented by the marriage of 
 Charles I and Henrietta Maria. It was a new military 
 
406 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 resource for the Stuart Monarchy, the importance of which 
 was felt early in the English civil war. And if between 
 the marriage of William and Mary in 1640 and the marriage 
 of William and Mary in 1675 England waged three Dutch 
 wars it will be found that this too was in a great degree a 
 consequence of the connexion between the two Houses, as 
 later the same connexion united the two states in a firm 
 alliance. 
 
 As the occurrences of 1639 seemed to mark the close 
 of the old policy, so if we watch the confused tumult of 
 English affairs in 1641 about the time of the King's 
 return from Scotland, we may note the commencement 
 of several new systems of policy which one after another 
 were to prevail in England in the second half of the seven- 
 teenth century. The Parliament was making itself inde- 
 pendent and lajdng the foundation of a republican policy. 
 On the other hand a party in the Parliament was beginning 
 to lean towards the King, the party of Falkland and Hyde. 
 But by the side of these Anglican Royalists there was 
 already clearly discernible another type of Royalism. This 
 had at once a French tinge and a Catholic tinge. It also 
 looked towards the army. It was the party of the Queen, 
 who was already seeking money from the Pope and debating 
 whether it would be possible to induce the King to declare 
 himself a Catholic, while at other times she meditated 
 retiring to France and applied for help to Louis XIII. 
 In this system of Henrietta Maria we cannot mistake the 
 germ of that policy which was characteristic of the later 
 Stuarts, which broke out under Charles II with the Treaty 
 of Dover, under the auspices of another French Henrietta, 
 and was at last fully revealed under James II. But more- 
 over a marriage of William and Mary has newly taken 
 place. Already the Queen, repulsed by Richelieu, begins 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 407 
 
 to look for aid to the Stadtholder. The royal family has 
 formed a new comiexion, which, though less brilliant than 
 its connexion with France, has advantages of its own. 
 This germ too will develop, there will be another William 
 and Mary, who will sit side by side upon the throne of 
 England. 
 
 And now the transformation of England began in 
 earnest. One great movement was over. The Scotch 
 disturbances had led in the first months of 1641 to 
 the fall of the system of Charles in England and of 
 those who directed it and to the restoration of Parliament 
 in more than its old power. But now occurred the rising 
 in Ireland, and the reaction of this upon England produced 
 a new convulsion more serious still. It led to the Grand 
 Remonstrance, which was the prelude not to one of those 
 short spasms of revolution such as had just happened and 
 had happened several times in the sixteenth century, but 
 to a long and desperate discord comparable only to the 
 Wars of the Roses, to a Civil War. 
 
 This second movement could not but have an immediate 
 effect upon foreign poKcy. Henceforth there were two 
 Englands instead of one, England represented by the 
 Parliament and England represented by the King. The 
 former had its foreign relations still to make. At the 
 outset of the Civil War Parliament rests maiuly on its 
 own resources, as it obtains possession of almost all the 
 whole machinery of Government and well-nigh succeeds 
 in putting the King himself into the position of a rebel. 
 It does not therefore at the outset look abroad for help, as 
 the Scotch insurgents in 1638 had applied, though with 
 no great success, to Richelieu. The King on the other 
 hand depends in a very great degree upon foreign aid, 
 siace the foreign department has been all along in his own 
 
408 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 hands. The surprising effect with which the Parlia- 
 ment launches its rebellion, carrying the greater part 
 of the nation with it, throws the King back upon his 
 continental connexions and, as it were, makes him a 
 foreigner. He had already sought to obtain Spanish 
 troops for his Scotch war. He now hopes to get a 
 Spanish loan, while Henrietta Maria applies for a con- 
 tribution to the Pope. It is also thought possible to 
 obtain a Danish force. This Continental basis of opera- 
 tions is brought to light at the very commencement 
 of the Civil War by the King's attempt to get possession 
 of Hull and Portsmouth, posts important not merely in 
 themselves but as securing a communication with the 
 Continent. It appears still more clearly soon after by 
 the conduct of the Queen. 
 
 The dynastic system, as it turned on marriage and the 
 family, had naturally its centre in the Queen. It is worth 
 remarking that from the accession of the Stuart family to 
 the Revolution of 1688 the Queen of England is invariably 
 a Catholic, though the creed of Anne of Denmark was not 
 publicly avowed. In Henrietta Maria especially all that 
 was unnational in the Stuart Monarchy was embodied. It 
 was her presence and the Court that surrounded her that 
 brought the King himself and the Anglican Church under 
 so much unjust suspicion of Catholicising. It was she 
 who alienated more and more the dynasty from the nation, 
 so that the later Stuarts, resembling her and not their 
 father, are French in disposition, morals and political 
 affinity, and are also Catholic. From the outset of the 
 Civil War she sways the royal party in the direction 
 of Catholicism. The rising in Ireland was commonly 
 called the Queen's rebellion. Could she have had her 
 way she would probably have so arranged matters that 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 409 
 
 her husband would have suffered immediate expulsion, 
 and her son would have had no hope of restoration. The 
 Revolution of 1642 would have anticipated that of 1688. 
 The dynasty would have called in the aid of France and of 
 the Catholic world, and the party of Falkland and Hyde 
 would have been driven by patriotism to adhere to the 
 cause of the Parliament. 
 
 Had France in 1642 been what it was in 1688, pro- 
 foundly tranquil within and serenely preeminent in Europe, 
 it might have been tempted, and had it been ruled by a 
 Louis XIV instead of a Richelieu, it might have resolved, 
 to gratify Henrietta Maria, and thus to turn the civil war 
 of King and Parliament into a national war of England 
 and France. But Richelieu desired nothing better, at 
 that critical moment when both branches of the House 
 of Habsburg were beginning to give way before the 
 arms of France, than that England should be paralysed 
 for some considerable time by civil troubles, and Louis 
 XIII had been taught by Richelieu sternly to thwart 
 his nearest relatives. To refuse all help to his sister 
 cost little to the king who had driven his mother into 
 exile and was that moment overthrowing the monarchy 
 in which another of his sisters was queen. 
 
 And thus, fortunately for the Stuart family, it could 
 get no serious help in 1642 from the Bourbon. It was 
 therefore driven to apply to another family, with which 
 it had so recently formed a connexion, the House of 
 Orange. A political combination begins precisely at this 
 point, which soon became highly important, even though 
 no one could foresee the vast importance it was to have in 
 the next generation. The marriage of Mary, Princess 
 Royal, with William, eldest son of the Stadtholder, had 
 taken place on May 2nd, 1641 ; but now on Feb. 3rd, 
 
410 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 1642, the Queen set sail, carrying the Princess to her 
 husband and at the same time the Crown jewels, with 
 which she hoped from the friendly shelter of the Hague 
 to purchase an army, while at the same time she sought 
 assistance and mustered all the resources of the dynasty. 
 At the Hague she remained for a year and executed 
 her design with considerable success. It illustrates the 
 composite nature of the Royalist party that while Charles 
 gathered round him a national army and a national party 
 inspired by Anglican principles, the Queen formed another 
 army abroad and thus consolidated the unnational element 
 of the party. 
 
 These two facts, that France declined to interfere, and 
 that the Stadtholder was from the first disposed to inter- 
 fere, in behalf of Charles, are of the highest importance. 
 
 After 1688 France intervened promptly, and the Revo- 
 lution of that year led to a great war, the gi-eatest war we 
 had waged since the sixteenth century, and the first of 
 a series of great wars with France. It is therefore the 
 more remarkable that the Rebellion of 1642 was followed 
 by no similar intervention, although it affected the French 
 royal House much more directly, a daughter of France 
 being on the English throne and being most pointedly 
 attacked and endangered by the rebellion. And the non- 
 intervention of France, which in 1642 was due to Richelieu, 
 was maintained after his time through the whole period 
 of our civil troubles. The remarkable characteristic of 
 our Great Rebellion, that France had no share in it, 
 appears again not less remarkably in our Restoration 
 eighteen years later. 
 
 Richelieu himself died a few months after Charles 
 raised his standard at Nottingham, in the last days of 
 1642. Louis XIII followed him in April 1643 in a crowd 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 411 
 
 of notable men — Hampden, Falkland, Pym — who took 
 their leave about the same time, and Louis XIV became 
 king of France. The unparalleled reign of seventy-two 
 years began. There was every reason to expect at this 
 moment a sudden change in French policy. The great 
 statesman with his austere system of opposition to family 
 interests made way for the principal victim of that very 
 policy, the natural head of the Spanish party in France. 
 A Spanish Infanta would surely refuse to overthrow the 
 Spanish Monarchy ; a woman, beautiful and indolent, 
 long persecuted by Richelieu, an old friend of Mme de 
 Chevreuse, would surely decline Richelieu's task. From 
 her surely Queen Henrietta Maria might expect the 
 sympathy and aid which Richelieu had so coldly refused. 
 
 But the change was so sudden and complete that in 
 any case France could not be expected to intervene at 
 once. Some months passed, while Louis XIII reigned 
 on without Richelieu, and again some months during 
 which Anne of Austria was fully occupied in settling her 
 government, in breaking her husband's will and es- 
 tablishing her own unrestricted regency. Meanwhile 
 the great victory of Rocroi was won by the heir of the 
 House of Conde, and the war of France with the Spanish 
 Monarchy entered upon a wholly new stage. France 
 stood forth as a gi-eat military Power, the new reign 
 had a splendid opening, and the Regency too was covered 
 with glory. But by this very success Anne was, as it were, 
 caught in the tide of the Richelieu system, she was hurried 
 along the career of victory over Spain, her policy became 
 identified with that of the young hero, whose house was 
 closely connected with that of Richelieu. To pursue the 
 war with Spain became her absorbing task, and thus 
 intervention in England became more unadvisable than 
 
412 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 war. The party called the Importants, who were pre- 
 paring to seize the reins and to cancel Eichelieu's work, 
 found their endeavours frustrated, and Mazarin, adroit 
 and unassuming, presented himself as a sort of lady's 
 Richelieu. 
 
 Thus France remained almost as insensible as ever to 
 the distresses of the daughter of France. 
 
 But it was otherwise with the Stadtholder, Frederick 
 Henry. The Dutch state had had from the outset a 
 peculiar, double character. It had become a Republic 
 almost in its own despite, because it had not been able 
 to find a monarch. Elizabeth had declined to become 
 its ruler, the French prince of Anjou had betrayed it. But 
 out of its own bosom a kind of Monarchy had been 
 developed. The House of Orange stood in the midst of 
 the United Provinces, an object of popular loyalty, and 
 furnished regularly in each generation a defender and 
 patron to the free state which William the Silent had 
 called into existence. In succession these princes held 
 certain public offices, that of General, that of Admiral, 
 and that of Stadtholder in some of the provinces. As in 
 so many states we see the name of Monarchy without the 
 thing, so here in the first ages of the Dutch state we see 
 not less clearly the thing without the name. These 
 princes were of great rank — they boasted of an ancestor 
 who had been Roman Emperor — and of vast wealth. 
 But they were not considered to be of royal rank, as 
 we may see by their marriages. William the Silent 
 had been several times married, and the mother of the 
 third Stadtholder, Frederick Henry, who held the office 
 in 1642, was a daughter of Coligny. The second Stadt- 
 holder, Maurice, had remained single ; Frederick Henry 
 married Amalia van Solms. 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 413 
 
 In these peculiar circumstances it was a great event 
 for the Hoiise of Orange that the son of Frederick Henry 
 was allowed to marry the Princess Royal of England. 
 It raised the House out of the rank of noble, into that 
 of royal Houses. In the standing controversy of the 
 Dutch state between the Orange party and the repub- 
 licans of the Province of Holland, the party formerly 
 led by Oldenbarneveldt and now led by De Witt, it gave 
 a new advantage to the former. And as a natural con- 
 sequence it gave to the Stuart family a new ally, powerful, 
 and yet not too powerful, an ally that might prove more 
 serviceable than the House of Bourbon, being in some 
 degree dependent and also Protestant. From the Stadt- 
 holder therefore the King and Queen received a certain 
 amount of aid immediately, and by the residence of the 
 Queen for a whole year at the Hague, and afterwards by 
 the presence of an English princess in the midst of a 
 republican people, the Dutch state was drawn, as it were, 
 into the eddy of the English civil war. Ten years later 
 we shall find a war breaking out between the Dutch and 
 the English Commonwealth, and we shall perceive that 
 it has something of the nature of a continuation of the 
 English civil war. 
 
 Such in outline are the foreign relations of Royalist 
 England. If the King who in the winter of 1641 seemed 
 almost without support, as helpless as John at Runnymede, 
 found himself in the summer of 1643 greatly superior 
 in his struggle with the Parliament, so that he might 
 look forward to victory, this was indeed due in great 
 part to the growth in England of a powerful Royalist party, 
 which had not existed before the Grand Remonstrance ; 
 but in great part also it was due to the aid which the 
 Queen had been able to bring from the Continent. 
 
414 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 Throughout we see Royalism woven out of two distinct 
 threads ; there is national royalism, which is that of 
 Falkland and Hyde, and there is dynastic royalism, 
 which is Catholic and Continental, the royalism of the 
 Queen. 
 
 At this period Parliamentary England had com- 
 paratively slight foreign relations. And yet it was in 
 a certain sense by the aid of a foreign ally that the 
 Parliament succeeded in 1644 in turning the scale against 
 the King. 
 
 At the opening of Queen Elizabeth's reign we saw 
 England threatened, as we see her threatened now, by a 
 French princess residing on the Continent. Mary Stuart 
 was then Queen of France, and she laid claim to the 
 throne of England. For a moment Elizabeth's position 
 seemed scarcely tenable. She saved herself by an 
 alliance with the party of the Reformation in Scotland, 
 and we remarked that Elizabethan England rested 
 thenceforward amid the storms of the age of the Coun- 
 ter-Reformation upon the agreement in religion of the 
 English and Scotch nations. Now in a similar extremity 
 this foundation proved again firm and sufiScient. The 
 rebellion in England joins hands with the rebellion in 
 Scotland. The Solemn League between the two nations 
 which was made on the basis of the Covenant signed in 
 Scotland in 1638 restored the balance between the war- 
 ring parties. 
 
 Our Civil War is by no means a simple struggle 
 between a king and his people ; it is rather, as we have 
 already remarked, a disturbance caused by the mutual 
 action of three kingdoms with three distinct Churches, 
 which happen to be united under one king. It is an 
 effort to establish a modus vivendi between Anglicanism, 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 415 
 
 Scotch Presbyterianism and Irish Catholicism. England, 
 we see, has foreign relations of two radically different 
 kinds. Those relations with the Continent which we 
 have lately examined are at this epoch comparatively 
 unimportant. The relations of England with Scotland 
 and Ireland are so important in our Civil War that almost 
 everything turns on them. We must take note of this, 
 but we must recognize at the same time that there is not 
 room in this book for even an outline of relations which 
 are only foreign in a secondary sense. 
 
 We remark only how each stage of the Civil War is 
 introduced by some new contact between England and 
 Scotland or Ireland. The Bishops' Wars of Scotland led 
 to what we may call the first Eevolution, that is; to the 
 fall of Strafford and his system. Next, the rising in 
 Ireland led to a second convulsion, to the Grand Remon- 
 strance and the Civil War. Thirdly, when the Eoyal 
 Party is seen to have the advantage Scotland comes to 
 the help of the Parliament and restores the balance. 
 Next, we find the King labouring to meet this move by a 
 counter-move of the same kind. The Irish Cessation is 
 arranged, which sets free some regiments for the King's 
 service in England. Afterwards the Glamorgan negotia- 
 tions take place, the object of which is to oppose to the 
 alliance between the Parliament and the Scots an alliance 
 between the King and the Irish Catholics. This mutual 
 action of the Three Kingdoms upon each other does not 
 stop at this point, but continues to the end to characterise 
 the Stuart period. Charles after his defeat in England 
 throws himself into the hands of the Scots. From Scot- 
 land comes the second civil war of 1648. By negotiating 
 with the Scots Charles II attempts to recover his throne ; 
 he establishes himself in Scotland; thence he invades 
 
416 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 England, and it is a Scotch army that is defeated at 
 Worcester. From Scotland the Restoration is at last 
 brought to us by George Monk. And when a quarter of 
 a century later the struggle begins again, James II, 
 driven from England, maintains the war in Ireland. In 
 Ireland are fought the decisive battles. Finally, in the 
 eighteenth century the Stuart cause lives on in Scotland, 
 and gives rise to new invasions of England in 1715 and 
 1745. 
 
 The period in which England was so absorbed in her 
 domestic struggle as to be almost without a foreign policy 
 extends from 1642 to the earlier part of 1646, when by 
 the surrender of Hopton at Stow-on-the Wold the victory 
 of the Parliament may be said to be decided. Now these 
 are the years during which France by the victories of 
 Cond^ and Turenne was taking her position as the great 
 military Power of Europe. Scarcely any period witnessed 
 so momentous an alteration in the military balance of the 
 Continent. To the superiority of statesmanship which 
 Richelieu had given to France was now added a military 
 superiority almost more imposing still. After the first 
 great stroke at Rocroi, by which France (under the govern- 
 ment of a Spanish Infanta) crushed the great army of 
 the Netherlands, which since the days of Alexander of 
 Parma had been the pride and stay of the Spanish 
 Monarchy, there opened a period of grand strategical 
 combinations. Distant armies are brought together and 
 produce great results by surprising junctions. First, 
 Conde leaves his war with Spain on the frontier of the 
 Low Countries, and carries his army to the help of Turenne 
 against Austria and Bavaria. The great battles of Frei- 
 burg and Nordlingen are fought. This is followed by the 
 still more comprehensive and decisive operation of 1646, 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 417 
 
 by which France and Sweden, entering Germany from the 
 West and North, unite their armies, and together force 
 their way into Bavaria. It seems the original of which 
 the Blenheim campaign is a somewhat close copy. 
 Hitherto the main belligerents on one side, Austria 
 and Bavaria, had had the advantage of close communica- 
 tion, while on the other side France and Sweden had 
 waged the war successfully indeed yet far apart. The 
 consequence was that while the rest of Germany had long 
 been abandoned to unrestrained pillage and desolation, 
 Bavaria, whose Elector, more than almost any other man, 
 was responsible for the war, enjoyed a happy exemption. 
 It was therefore a deadly and decisive stroke when Turenne, 
 the Frenchman, and Wrangel, the Swede, joined then- 
 armies on the Lahn and, instead of giving battle to the 
 Austro-Bavarian army near Frankfurt, left it behind them, 
 and crossing the Main made their way to the Danube, 
 where they occupied all the posts from Ulm to Donauwerth. 
 The way into Bavaria was now open, and this country too 
 soon shared the dismal fate of the rest of Germany. 
 
 Thus the obstinate knot which for nearly thirty years 
 had refused to yield to war after war was at last cut by 
 the sword of Turenne and Wrangel. The close union of 
 Austria and Bavaria was dissolved. France reaped the 
 benefit of being a Catholic Power while she fought on the 
 Protestant side. To yield Alsace to her seemed not 
 inadmissible, since she was Catholic, and by the expedient 
 of creating a new Electorate, Bavaria was satisfied, while 
 at the same time the Catholic majority in the Electoral 
 College, and so the Catholic character of the Holy Roman 
 Empire, was preserved. Bavaria being satisfied, the Ger- 
 man Powers in their exhaustion and despair were able to 
 force the Emperor to separate the interest of Germany 
 
 27 
 
418 GROWTH OF BBITISH POLICY. 
 
 from that of the Spanish Monarchy, and so to abandon 
 that Family Alliance of the House of Habsburg which had 
 originally caused the intervention of France and Sweden. 
 The Treaties of Miinster and Osnabriick, followed by the 
 Treaty of Westphalia, brought peace to Central Europe, 
 while the war of France with the Spanish Monarchy still 
 continued to rage. 
 
 While this mighty change took place our islands 
 remaiaed a prey to civil war, and the principal events 
 took place even before the first Civil War could be said to 
 be altogether at an end. The King was indeed conquered 
 in 1646, but the victorious Parliament could not for a 
 moment feel at ease, and in 1648 a new Civil War broke 
 out. It is a fact of great importance that the French 
 Government was thus completely preoccupied at the 
 time when changes took place in England which might 
 otherwise have tempted it to interfere. Had France been 
 at leisure we may suppose that she would have felt bound 
 in honour to come to the aid of Henrietta Maria. On the 
 other hand, had England been at leisure she would perhaps 
 not have looked on indifferently while such a revolution 
 was made in the system of Europe. 
 
 But early in 1646 foreign politicians became aware 
 that an event had happened in England which was of 
 prodigious magnitude. The English Monarchy had been 
 completely and hopelessly beaten in its struggle with the 
 Parliament. This event is historically perhaps greater 
 than the more thrilling event of January 1649, and more- 
 over it must have seemed at the time even more moment- 
 ous than it really was. Many kings in many European 
 countries had been defeated before, but they had given 
 place to other kings, as Richard III to Henry VII or 
 Mary of Scotland to James. In this case the Monarchy 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 419 
 
 itself seemed to have received a mortal wound, and to 
 Mazarin looking on England must have seemed to be un- 
 dergoing a transformation which would assimilate her to 
 the Netherlands. Already in 1646 he may have foreseen 
 the English Commonwealth. What he could not then 
 have foreseen was that the English Monarchy would 
 revive, and in such power that late in the eighteenth 
 century its influence would still be held excessive, and 
 that it would still subsist in the closing years of the 
 nineteenth. For what hope could remain to the English 
 Monarchy after a struggle in which it had put forth its 
 utmost resources, and had been slowly, gradually, com- 
 pletely defeated ? It might indeed be nominally reinstated 
 after due submission, but, deprived of the military power 
 and schooled by a Presbyterian Church, the English Mon- 
 arch could only be for the future a ceremonial functionary, 
 who would disappear in the first fit of economy that might 
 seize the victorious Parliament. 
 
 Such a prospect was most serious for Mazarin. Hither- 
 to he had had to deal in England simply with a family, 
 and a family half French, half Catholic, half Bourbon. 
 For nearly twenty years English policy had given the 
 French Government no serious trouble, only occasional 
 cause for irritation. Yet England was rich and great, 
 'an old and haughty nation, proud in arms.' What if 
 she should put forth her power and announce her will? 
 A new Government practically republican, and now too in 
 possession of a veteran army, might cause her to do this. 
 
 But instead of conjecturing what Mazarin must have 
 felt, let us read in his Instructions to Bellifevre (July 1646) 
 what he actually did feel. 
 
 'The invariable object of the Embassy of M. de 
 Bellifevre, the centre to which all his efforts must tend, 
 
 27—2 
 
420 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 is this. He is to try to promote and foment the discord 
 between the Independents and the Presbyterians and Scots 
 in such sort that they may never be able to agree or unite 
 to abolish the Monarchy and constitute themselves as a 
 Eepublic. That would be to us a mischief beyond all 
 comparison. It would be far less prejudicial to us that 
 the King of Great Britain should be restored to his former 
 authority, even if we were certain that he would be an 
 enemy to us, than that there should arise a Republic of 
 England and Scotland, though it were uncertain if it 
 would be friendly or hostile to his crown. 
 
 The reasons of this difference are very easy to under- 
 stand. 
 
 First, the revenue of the King is so restricted that it 
 can barely suffice for his ordinary expenditure, and con- 
 sequently if he wanted to make war he would have to 
 make it without money, which is impossible, or else he 
 would have to levy it from his subjects, and in this he 
 would either meet with complete resistance or would 
 obtain but very moderate subsidies. 
 
 As to that, we cannot be surprised that those popula- 
 tions who have some right in certain matters to resist the 
 views and wishes of the Prince should almost always resist 
 if only to make use of their right, since they are extremely 
 tenacious of the use of it. Whereas in a free state such 
 as a Republic is, the money grants being voluntary and 
 given by consent and by the concurrence of all to a design 
 unanimously adopted, they make such grants without 
 murmur or reluctance, and to the amount needful for the 
 success of the design. 
 
 Add to the above what consideration and power such 
 a new Republic would acquire by alliance with that of 
 Holland ; which alliance for several reasons would assuredly 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 421 
 
 become indissoluble, if only the empire of the sea were 
 to be in their hands, and by this it would be easy 
 for them to cause annoyance to any one at pleasure, 
 whether in the Old or New World. 
 
 For these reasons M. de Bellifevre is to bring into play 
 every sort of contrivance and adopt every kind of expedient, 
 whether by courtesy and civility, by presents and promises, 
 or by fears and threats, and apply all the friendships and 
 familiarities he has contracted in that country to avert 
 so great a calamity. 
 
 We have here the key-note of French policy towards 
 the transformed England, which already in 1646 begins to 
 appear. It is the more striking because this very Mazarin 
 afterwards did more than any man to support the so-called 
 Republic by the alliance which he formed with Cromwell. 
 It is also striking because it points to further consequences 
 which in the end did not fail to follow, but yet did not 
 follow so speedily as Mazarin expected. Such was that 
 union with Holland. In fact the immediate consequence 
 of the establishment of a Republic in England was war 
 with Holland. And yet after a long course of time, and 
 when certain obstacles had been removed, the new England 
 did unite with Holland in that powerful alliance which 
 humbled the pride of Louis XIV. 
 
 Mazarin vainly hoped to prevent the Revolution which 
 he apprehended. But he perceives clearly what causes 
 are at work to retard it. Bellifevre is to 'foment the 
 discord between the Independents and the Presbyterians 
 and Scots.' And thus this same document, while it opens 
 a long vista, marks at the same time the new struggle 
 which is immediately at hand. An act in the drama is 
 at an end, that which began in 1642, the Civil War 
 between King and Parliament, in which the King has 
 
422 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 had some help from the Stadtholder, but very little from 
 France, and the Parliament has had very effective help 
 from Scotland. Another act now begins, which will end in 
 1651 with the battle of Worcester. This also is a period 
 of Civil War, though intermittent. But the Koyalist 
 Party has fallen into an inferior position, the main dis- 
 putants being at iirst the two branches of the Parlia- 
 mentary Party. The Monarch himself, divorced from his 
 personal following, falls back upon a series of negotiations, 
 not unlike those negotiations with France and Spain about 
 the Palatinate which had occupied so many of his more 
 prosperous days. He palters in turn with the Presbyterians, 
 with the Scots, and with the Independents, and irritates 
 Cromwell now as he had irritated Richelieu before. 
 
 If we recognise in general that one of the great questions 
 throughout our civil troubles was to establish a satisfactory 
 relation between England, Scotland, and Ireland, we shall 
 readily understand the nature of the new struggle which 
 began in 1646. At the outset England had offered to 
 absorb Scotland in ecclesiastical uniformity by means of 
 Laud's Service-book. Disturbances had then arisen, and 
 in course of time Scotland had found an opportunity 
 of retaliating. By means of the League and Covenant 
 Scotland had, as it were, imposed a Service-book upon 
 England. Scotland now took the lead in the alliance 
 between the two countries ; England was in some sort 
 conquered by Scotland. And to France, as the Civil 
 War itself, which bound the hands of her old rival, was 
 extremely convenient, so it was convenient that Scotland, 
 her ancient ally, should give the tone to British policy in 
 general. But now began a new fluctuation. England 
 was uneasy under Scottish influence. The Scottish re- 
 ligious system was as intolerable in the South as Laud's 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 423 
 
 Service-book had been in the North. When Anglicanism 
 or Prelacy had been routed, a reserve of opposition came 
 into view. The Triarians of the religious war between the 
 two countries were found in the most Puritan of English 
 Puritans, in the Ironsides themselves. Baxter, when he 
 visited the Parliamentary camp about the time of the 
 battle of Naseby, heard those godly warriors practising 
 their wit upon the Priestbiters, and the Bryvines of the 
 Westminster Dissembly. The wit of this new party was 
 not its sharpest weapon. And it had a leader in the man 
 who had played the most striking part in that great effort 
 of the Parliamentary party which in 1644 and 1645 had 
 turned the balance of fortune against the King. Oliver 
 Cromwell was already the most impressive person on the 
 public stage, and he represented more than any other man 
 the national, the anti-Scottish, feeling which now began to 
 gain ground. 
 
 It was this latest developement which inspired the 
 keen apprehension expressed in the above observations of 
 Mazarin. Hitherto France has not found it necessary to 
 interfere very actively in British affairs, since they have 
 taken of themselves a course highly agreeable to her. 
 But we see her now girding herself up for intervention. 
 We see too that Mazarin's apprehensions are by no means 
 unfounded. The increase of British power which he fore- 
 saw was soon realised ; the alliance of Great Britain with 
 Holland was realised in the end. He had other anticipa- 
 tions, which were equally just. In his Instructions to 
 Bellievre he speaks of 'the bad example which will be 
 offered by the insurrection of the English and Scots against 
 their king to the subjects of other princes, whose interest 
 accordingly it is not to suffer an evil which can easily be 
 checked to run its course and be completely successful' A 
 
424 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 remarkable prophecy of those troubles of the Fronde which 
 were to follow so speedily upon the rise of Cromwell's 
 party in England, and were for a time almost to over- 
 whelm Mazarin himself! He also fears, we can plainly 
 see, a revival of the Huguenot party. 'The condition 
 of the Catholic religion,' he writes, ' cannot but suffer 
 in England from this change of Government, where those 
 who have brought it about will seek to justify it in 
 part by the rigour with which they will try to expel 
 Catholicism entirely and not to suffer it there even con- 
 cealed, and where the ministers of religion, who have 
 always more credit in republics than in monarchies, will 
 neglect no means of causing it to be persecuted in that 
 realm, and of causing the interests of those who are of the 
 same religion in the states of other princes to he embraced 
 there! 
 
 All this leads us to anticipate that the phase which 
 begins in 1646 will be marked, among other features, by 
 French intervention. In the war of King and Parliament 
 France has been on the whole a spectator ; in the second 
 struggle which now begins, and which may be called the 
 War of England, Scotland, and Ireland, we see France 
 preparing to take an active part. 
 
 Mazarin, as we know, was prevented ultimately from 
 pursuing the course he laid down for himself in 1646. 
 When the so-called Republic was actually set up in Eng- 
 land, we find it after a time most effectively supported by 
 Mazarin. None the less important is this rough sketch of 
 a policy which he lays down under the influence of a first 
 impression. For the French Government returned to it 
 after Mazarin had passed away. 
 
 It is one of the grand differences between the later 
 and the earlier part of the Stuart period that the later 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 425 
 
 Stuarts lean very much upon French aid in their struggle 
 with their subjects, whereas before 1646 France has either 
 looked on indifferently or has inclined to the side of the 
 Parliament. 
 
 Another transition is also observable in the combina- 
 tion sketched by Mazarin. Hitherto the Stuart King has 
 been rather more estranged from his Scotch than from his 
 English subjects. In Scotland the rebellion took its rise, 
 and afterward it prospered by Scotch help. But, once 
 fairly defeated in England, the Stuart finds a refuge among 
 his original subjects. In 1646 Charles takes up a position 
 which reminds us of that of Mary Stuart. At Newark 
 and Newcastle he reminds us, as Kanke has remarked, of 
 his grandmother at Fotheringay. This too is a charac- 
 teristic of the later phase. The Stuart is once more 
 a Scotch King in the days of Preston, Dunbar, and 
 Worcester, as again later in the time of Sheriffmuir, 
 Preston Pans, and Culloden. In the eighteenth century 
 indeed the very combination sketched by Mazarin re- 
 appears when Scotland and France are united in the 
 cause of the Stuart against the English Government. 
 
 But in 1646 the Stuart Prince, nay the Monarchy 
 itself, was but a secondary matter of consideration in 
 English politics. The English Monarchy is at its nadir, 
 and those who fancy that by observing main currents they 
 can predict at least in outline the future of a state, might 
 have held it certain that, whatever might happen, at least 
 the monarchy and the Episcopal Church were sunk beyond 
 the possibility of a resurrection. The struggle was now 
 between two parties, the Presbyterians and the Scots on 
 the one side, and the Independents on the other, who 
 were agreed in wishing to reduce royal power to a nullity. 
 All that remained to Charles was the power of selling a 
 
426 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 certain traditional influence which still belonged to the 
 Crown to one or other of these two parties at the price of 
 some concessions, and so contributing to decide the victory. 
 The phases between 1646 and 1648, so profoundly 
 interesting in the internal history of Great Britain, — 
 when the two parties consolidated themselves and ranged 
 themselves in order of battle, while the Monarchy passed 
 backwards and forwards between the two camps, — must 
 not detain us here. We cannot speak of the flight of the 
 King to the Scots, of the negociations at Newcastle, of the 
 surrender of the King by the Scots to the English Com- 
 missioners, of his residence at Holmby, of his seizure by 
 Cornet Joyce in the name of the army and his transference 
 to Hampton Court, of his negociation with Fairfax and 
 Cromwell, of the Agitators and the division in the military 
 party, of the King's flight to the Isle of Wight and his 
 residence at Carisbrooke Castle, of the reunion of the mili- 
 tary party and their agreement in a policy hostile to the 
 Monarchy, of the ascendency acquired by the military 
 party over the Parliament. Nor can we speak of the re- 
 action among the Scots after their surrender of the King, 
 of the growth of a Royalist Presbyterianism, having its 
 headquarters in Scotland, but at the same time strongly 
 influential in the City of London, and how this was pro- 
 voked by the growth of Independency and its ascendency 
 in the army. The result was seen in 1648 when a 
 second Civil War broke out, a Civil War widely different 
 from the first. The event of 1648 resembles in some of 
 its larger features those of 1715 and 174.5 ; it may even 
 be compared with the old Rising of the North under 
 Queen Elizabeth. It consists in an invasion of England 
 from the North in the cause of a Stuart prince supposed 
 to have a hereditary right, which is not sufficiently 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 427 
 
 recognised by the English Parliament. The main bulk of 
 the party which takes up arms is in this case Presbyterian, 
 but Anglicans and Cavaliers appear also in the background. 
 It resembles those other events in another feature which 
 concerns us here more closely, namely, that aid from 
 France might have been hoped for, but was not given. 
 
 But this second Civil War, though so strikingly diffe- 
 rent from the first, is blended with it in the prevalent 
 view, because that view is rather biographical than his- 
 torical, and contemplates the person of Charles rather than 
 the English state. It is the last act in the tragedy of the 
 Fall of Charles I, and as such seems naturally connected 
 with the earlier acts, with the first Civil War, and beyond 
 that with the fall of Strafford, and even the initial stages 
 of the constitutional struggle. In a historical view of the 
 growth of Policy, the second Civil War, with its conse- 
 quences till 1651, is separated from the first, as being a 
 war between the dominant parties in England and Scot- 
 land, whereas in the first war the dominant parties in 
 England and Scotland had acted for the most part in 
 union. This poiut of view at the same time presents a 
 new aspect of the events of 1648 by exhibiting the con- 
 nexion of Contiaental with British affairs. 
 
 The death of the King in January 1649 is a cata- 
 strophe so thrilling that it makes us more indifferent even 
 than we usually are to the Continental history of the time. 
 Yet on the Continent too mighty events were taking 
 place, events worth consideration not only on their own 
 account but also by their influence upon English history. 
 
 I. On January 30th, 1648, peace was signed at 
 Miinster between the King of Spain and the States- 
 General. 
 
 This is one of the greatest events. It is the settle- 
 
428 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 ment of that dispute which for eighty years had troubled 
 Western Europe, which had occupied more than any 
 foreign question the minds of Queen Elizabeth and Henry 
 IV, which had given rise to a new European state, now 
 the richest in the world, and to a new Colonial empire. 
 This dispute was now at length closed for ever, and the 
 Dutch question ceased henceforth to trouble international 
 politics. 
 
 II. Since 1644, when a Pope of anti-French leanings, 
 Innocent X, had succeeded the Barberini, Mazarin had 
 studied to carry the war against Spain into Italy. Of the 
 three great masses which composed the Spanish Monarchy, 
 the Peninsula, the Low Countries and Italy, the two 
 former had been invaded in Richelieu's time, and French 
 troops had long given aid to the rebels in Portugal and 
 Catalonia. Mazarin followed the example of Richelieu ; 
 in particular he fomented rebellion in Naples. Masaniello's 
 rising commenced in July 1647 ; his death took place 
 before the end of the same month. Here was an opportu- 
 nity for Mazarin, who at once conceived the idea of sending 
 Cond^ to detach Naples from the Spanish Monarchy and 
 rewarding him with the crown for himself This scheme 
 had to be abandoned, but a Guise presented himself to 
 play the part which Conde declined. The French Go- 
 vernment did not indeed authorise the attempt of this 
 adventurer, but a French fleet arrived before Naples in 
 December, and a naval battle was fought off Castellamare. 
 The fleet however withdrew soon afterwards. Guise failed 
 in his military operations, and in April 1648 fell into the 
 hands of the Spaniards. 
 
 III. On October 24th, 1648, peace was signed at 
 Munster between France and the Emperor and the Empire, 
 and at Osnabriick between Sweden and the Emperor and 
 
THE TBANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 429 
 
 the Empire. Thus in the same year in which what we 
 may call the Eighty Years' War came to an end the 
 Thirty Years' War also, the most disastrous and destruc- 
 tive war of modern history, was terminated. 
 
 IV. In the course of the same year 1648 discord 
 steadily grew between the French Government, directed 
 by Mazarin, and the Parliament of Paris. It is the com- 
 mencement of what is known as the troubles of the 
 Fronde. Because this movement proved abortive, and 
 ended only in confirming the absolutism founded in France 
 by Richelieu, we are not to conclude that the symptoms 
 which appeared in 1648 were not in the highest degree 
 alarming. Monarchy, which had almost disappeared in 
 England, was now threatened in France also. Mazarin 
 had predicted two years earlier that the English contagion 
 would spread, and already the Parliament of Paris was emu- 
 lating that of Westminster. Republicanism at the same 
 time was assuming a militant form in the Netherlands, 
 and there seemed reason to think that the ancient Monar- 
 chical system was crumbling away in Western Europe. 
 
 These vast perturbations must have pressed more 
 heavily upon Mazarin than upon any other man. In 
 France he already began to feel his authority under- 
 mined, and the conclusion of peace between the Dutch 
 and the Spaniards created a new difficulty for his Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The war in Italy did not prosper with him, nor yet 
 since 1646 the war in the Catholic Low Countries. The 
 negociations in Westphalia proved more difficult than he 
 had anticipated. And that the States-General entered in 
 1647 upon a separate negociation, and in 1648 actually 
 concluded a separate peace with the King of Spain, was 
 to Mazarin nothing less than a great calamity. 
 
430 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 We may say that the year 1646, when he actually 
 contemplated intervention in Britain, was the zenith of 
 that great age of French history which may be called the 
 age of the Cardinals. It has been too much effaced by 
 the more conventional brilliancy of the period which 
 followed. In 1646 the Italian who shortened his name 
 to Mazarin had a position before Europe similar to that of 
 the other Italian who when he came to rule France 
 shortened his name to Napoleon. His armies fought at 
 once in Spain, Italy, Bavaria, and Flanders, and they were 
 commanded by Conde, Turenne and Harcourt. Meanwhile 
 he negociated at Miinster, through Longueville, D'Avaux 
 and Servien. At home he appeared as the great patron 
 of letters. Descartes and Comeille were his pensioners. 
 Scholars, including Grotius, studied in the library which 
 his munificence had thrown open to them. And while 
 Virgil's line, Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento, 
 was pointedly applied to himself, his nieces began to give 
 the law to the world of French society. But it is an 
 important fact in English as well as in French history 
 that the decline of his fortune, and a temporary decline in 
 the fortune of France, began in 1647. 
 
 France had waged war since 1635 with both branches 
 of the House of Habsburg at once, and in both wars she 
 had met with equal success. In both wars likewise she 
 had had a most efficient ally. Sweden had aided her 
 against the Emperor, the Netherlands against Spain. 
 She had pressed on towards a consummation which had 
 seemed well within her reach, and which would have 
 placed the boy Louis XIV on a throne of well-nigh uni- 
 versal dominion. But in 1647 it began to appear that 
 this utmost good fortune would not be granted to her. 
 
 She was indeed successful in the Westphalian nego- 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 431 
 
 ciations, where she herself at Miinster and Sweden at 
 Osnabriick exacted so much from the Emperor that 
 Germany might be said to be partitioned between Austria, 
 Sweden and France. Louis XIV obtained Alsace by way 
 of ' satisfaction' for the French crown, and as guarantor of 
 the new settlement of the Empire he took up a position 
 within Germany which was little inferior to that of the 
 Emperor. There was even some reason to think that, on 
 the death of Ferdinand III, Louis XIV would become 
 Roman Emperor. 
 
 But in her war with Spain, which was more important 
 to her, and in which hitherto she had been equally suc- 
 cessful, France now met with a misfortune. Everything 
 here depended upon her alliance with the Netherlands, as 
 in Germany on the alliance with Sweden. But here Spain 
 had a grand diplomatic triumph. She brought the States- 
 General to conclude a separate peace. 
 
 What was the consequence ? Relieved at last of the 
 burden which had weighed upon it for eighty years the 
 Spanish Monarchy was now set free for war with France. 
 And this happened at a moment when other internal 
 difficulties, in which Spain was closely concerned, were 
 growing up for the French Government. It has been 
 pointed out that from the outset the French war with 
 Spain had been more than half a civil war. Spain had 
 been all along in concert with the turbulent noblesse, the 
 turbulent princes of the blood, and the House of Lorraine. 
 And so at the very moment when the French Government 
 seemed to have surmounted all ancient difficulties and to 
 have overcome all enemies, the old evil broke out again, 
 the old concert between Spain and the turbulent noblesse. 
 The Ligue itself seemed to revive in the Fronde. 
 
 It is necessary to attend to this sudden change in 
 
432 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 French affairs if we would understand why at the critical 
 moment of the transformation of England Mazarin, who 
 watched it with so much anxiety and with such a resolute 
 purpose of intervening, after all allowed it to run its 
 covirse. In October 1646 Henrietta Maria writes to 
 Charles : ' Mazarin has assured me that the general peace 
 will be made before Christmas, and when that happens 
 you will be powerfully aided.' Mazarin himself writes to 
 the same effect to Bellievre as late as December 10th. 
 His diplomacy through Bellifevre and Montreuil is very 
 active during the time of the King's stay at Newcastle. 
 
 This is not the place for a discussion of the decisive 
 step taken at this time by Charles. He disappointed at 
 once his Queen and Mazarin, and made French interven- 
 tion impossible for the moment. We remark again the 
 double character of English Royalism, that there is a royal- 
 ism of the King, which is essentially Anglican, and also a 
 royalism of the Queen, which is Continental and Catholic. 
 The King will not sacrifice the Bishops, but the Queen 
 remarks that, whereas the King has hitherto held firm 
 on this point, at present ' il faut de necessity que ce pas-Id 
 se franchisse gaillardement et que Sa Majeste se declare 
 hautement pour le Presbitere Escossois ' (Memoir by the 
 Queen accompanying the Instructions to Bellievre). This 
 is not the place to point out how by his firmness on this 
 occasion Charles on the one hand sacrificed his own life, 
 but on the other made his cause respectable and paved 
 the way to its ultimate triumph. We are concerned with 
 the immediate result, which was to alienate the Scots and 
 so to frustrate the scheme of Mazarin, since that was 
 founded on a concert between the Scots and the French 
 Government in favour of Charles. 
 
 Mazarin lost his opportunity, and it never returned. 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 433 
 
 His unfortunate year, 1647, now overtook him, a year in 
 which he declares himself convinced that some astral 
 influence, adverse to his fortune, prevails. There is indeed 
 a great contrast between his position when the King was 
 at Newcastle and when the King was before his judges, 
 two years later. In 1646 the position and prospects of 
 France were better than at any time in Louis XIV's 
 reign, if we except a few months in 1701. Indeed Louis 
 throughout the second half of the seventeenth century 
 is mainly occupied in climbing laboriously back to the 
 eminence from which his government had descended in 
 1647. In 1646 France had possession of Lorraine, and of half 
 the Catholic Low Countries, while within the Iberian penin- 
 sula itself and in Italy her position was such that Mazarin 
 could calculate upon exacting from Spain at the peace the 
 Low Countries, Franche Comte and Lorraine, that is, more 
 than Louis XIV could ever acquire. In such a position 
 he could afford to meditate intervention in England. 
 
 In 1648 all was changed. His ally, the States-General, 
 had deserted him, and at the same time society in France 
 was undergoing all the perturbations which naturally follow 
 the conclusion of a great war. For the Thirty Years' War 
 was over, and Alsace was conquered. The abuses and 
 oppressions that had accumulated in a long period of war, 
 fiscal grievances, the misery of the people, — all this was 
 now to be overhauled ; now at last it was called to mind 
 that France had once had something in the nature of a 
 constitution, which had perished in the war now ended 
 and by the hands of the Cardinal whose place had since 
 been taken by Cardinal Mazarin. Probably the example 
 of England had already produced its eSect, as Mazarin 
 had foreseen. 
 
 At least in 1648 the moment was passed when France 
 s. 28 
 
434 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 could prevent revolution in England ; the time seemed to 
 be come for England to arouse revolution in France. The 
 French constitutional movement of 1648 corresponded in 
 a striking manner to the English movement of 1641. It 
 was a rising of Parliament against Koyal Power, all the 
 more startling because the Parliament of Paris was an 
 assembly so different from the English Parliament, and 
 the attack upon Mazarin brought to mind that which had 
 been made in England upon Strafford. Very different, no 
 doubt, was the French movement from the English in its 
 result, but the superficial correspondence lasted a good 
 while, and at a later stage Conde might seem for a time 
 to answer to Cromwell. One resemblance at least it had 
 which concerns us here. We have seen England paralysed 
 by her civil troubles while France established her 
 ascendency in Europe. The civil troubles which now 
 arose in France paralysed her in turn for several years, 
 so as to give room for revolution and for the growth of 
 Cromwell's power in Britain. 
 
 Thus when the second Civil War occurred the aid of 
 France had to be omitted from the calculation of the 
 composite party of Presbyterians, English and Scotch, and 
 old Royalists who took up arms for Charles I. 
 
 Hitherto since the commencement of the troubles the 
 Monarchy had not been directly assailed. Its powers had 
 indeed been relentlessly curtailed, but the opponents of it 
 had kept in view everything rather than foreign policy. 
 Their grievances had been mainly religious ; they had 
 scarcely since the age of Buckingham been seriously 
 disquieted about any foreign interests or relations. Nor 
 had they yet been driven to have a foreign policy of their 
 own by any success of the King's party in procuring 
 foreign alliances. Much help had been obtained by the 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 435 
 
 Queen on the Continent, but no foreign Power had openly 
 intervened, and the aid of France could now, as we have 
 seen, no longer be expected. 
 
 A profound innovation, the most profound innovation 
 we have yet had to record in foreign policy, could not but 
 be produced when in the course of the second Civil War 
 the dominant party, that is, the parliamentary Indepen- 
 dents combined with the army, broke with the Monarchy 
 itself. In 1647, we know, it had seemed possible for a 
 time that this party should reconcile itself with the King, 
 but in 1648 when the King's name had drawn together so 
 mighty a resistance to its ascendency it naturally enough 
 became republican. For the first time in our history a 
 revolution, in the full sense of the word, was consciously 
 made. The Army which had been formed during the first 
 Civil War took violent possession of the Government. 
 England passed under an Imperialism, which in a short 
 time assumed, as was natural, a monarchical form, and 
 Oliver Cromwell rose to the head of affairs. 
 
 For us this means that the connexion by ties of family 
 and marriage between the Government of England and 
 foreign Governments was absolutely dissolved. In Eliza- 
 beth's time, as we have seen, that connexion had become, 
 at least in the latter part of her reign, very slight. When 
 at last it became apparent that Elizabeth herself would 
 not marry, a period began in which a national policy took 
 the place of a dynastic, and the Queen became a sort of 
 embodied Britannia. This result was reached approxi- 
 mately and, as it were, accidentally. By the violent 
 revolution and catastrophe of 1649 the same result was 
 brought about absolutely and deliberately. All questions 
 of dynasty, marriage, and succession lapsed at once. 
 Foreign policy began to concern itself with questions of 
 
436 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 
 
 another kind, with the relations and dealings of the com- 
 munity itself with foreign Governments and communities. 
 
 This transformation was peculiarly abrupt because, as 
 we have seen, the dynastic system of policy, almost evane- 
 scent under Elizabeth, had returned upon us with the 
 arrival of the Stuart, and had grown stronger and stronger 
 as their family connexions had multiplied. They had 
 woven a web which united us with the Houses of Denmark, 
 of the Palatinate, of France, and of Orange. In this re- 
 spect we had passed through a long period of reaction. 
 
 The new system, introduced so suddenly, was not 
 indeed destined to last long. Imperialism had but a short 
 day, and when the ancient Monarchy was restored it 
 brought in its train all the old dynastic connexions. But 
 the brighter side of Oliver's government, his foreign policy, 
 could not be forgotten, nor could the nation unlearn again 
 the new idea of policy. Under the later Stuarts we 
 witness a struggle between dynastic and national policy, 
 until the great reconciler, William III, effects a satis- 
 factory compromise in foreign as in domestic policy. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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