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ALFRED E. PERKINS FUND

THE GEOWTH

OF

BEITISH POLICY.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, Manager
LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.C. 4

NEWVORK ¦ THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY j
CALCUTTA I MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
MADRAS I
TORONTO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF
CANADA, Ltd.
TOKYO : MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE GEOWTH

OF

BEITISH POLICY

BY

Siii J.^ E.°"SEELEY, Litt.D., K.C.M.G.

CAMBRIDGE :
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922

First Edition 1895.
Secotid Edition 1897
Reprinted 19035 19 ti
Reprinted in one volume 1922

DEDICATED
BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION
TO
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN

MEMOIR.

John Robert Seeley was bom in London on Sep
tember 10, 1834. He was the third son of -Mr Robert
Seeley, the publisher, a man of great mental and bodily
energy, and of no mean literary skill. Mr Seeley was a
contributor to Fraser's Magazine and a leader-'writer for
the Times. A strong churchman, and an evangelical, he
published a volume of essays, which passed rapidly through
several editions, in defence of the Establishment, and he
was one of the founders of the Church Pastoral Aid Society.
Late in life he 'wrote a work on Edward the First, entitled
" The greatest of the Plantagenets," which has the merit
of being among the first books to do adequate justice to
that king. He was fond of good novels, and made his
boys acquainted with Scott, Dickens and Thackeray at an
early age.
From his father Seeley imbibed a love of books, a bias
towards history, and a habit of thinking about religion.
He learnt unusually young to read, and he read eagerly
and widely. As a child he went to school under the Rev.

VIII MEMOIR.

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 iq the sixth at the same time, the
eldest— afterwards a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
— beiag 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 Robert 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 bim, 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

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 erispness
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 years, 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 distiriguished.
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
ouri*ent 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 Modem
History at Cambridge, then vacant through the resignation
of Charles Kingsley. 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
suGces.s. For many years — in fact, till illness began to
62

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 carefully
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 to'wns. 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. Xlll
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
life 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 modem 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
suggesti'Ve 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 de-poted much
research both in England and Germany, made known
to Englishmen a subject hitherto little studied in this
country. But it is the period father 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 re-vival of Pmssia,
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, sia
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
for-ward 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 iil 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

X^'l MEMOIR.

before the public. His original intention was to write a
history of British foreign policy from the Revolution 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 do-wn. 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. xvii
tinuous thought and application. The exceeding com
plexity of the subject made the attempt to systematise
and generalise it very difiicult. 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 type. 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 re-vdsing and amplifying some papers on Goethe,

XVUl 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 ahd 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 plealsure, 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 kno^wn 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 ovm 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
concemed, 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 synonymous 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-
ser^rang, 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 con'vic-
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 oreat

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 any.
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 fire 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 afcquired 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 afready 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

XXII 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.

Introduction

PAGE 1

PART I.
ELIZABETH.
I. The growth of the House of Hahsburg
II. The first phase of poUcy . .
III. The Counter-Reformation .
Vf. The British question
V. The middle period of Elizabeth
VI. The Spanish Monarchy
VII. From peace to war ....
VIII. The war of Elizabeth ....
IX. Close of the Elizabethan age .

9
31
63
92
112
139172
212237

PART II.
BE ACTION.

I. Outlines 
II. Epochs in the reign of James I
III. James I and the Thirty Years' 'War
IV. The policy of Charles I .
V. The transformation of France
VI. The transformation of England

251263
298330
357389

xxiv CONTENTS.

VOLUME II.

PART III.
CROMWELL AND THE MILITARY STATE.

CHAP.

FAOG

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 Restoration and Charles II ... . 101.
IL The French ascendency  135
III. Revival of the dynastic system, .... 171
ly. 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
J^NDKX  ''¦^;'' 335

INTRODUCTION.

THE 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
s. 1

2 GROWTH OF BRITISH 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
affairs 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
that I 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
hut 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 1816, 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 modem
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 EHzabeth 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 tbe
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 tum 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 acquired 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 BRITISH POLICY.
what it has been since. Here is the commencement of
modem 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.

PAET I.
ELIZABETH.
CHAPTER L
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 with
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
4evised 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 greatest 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, t%,feUx Austria, nube! This vers^,
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 1588, 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 uom senza
fede of Dante) reigned in close succession, and then the
Luxemburg dynasty supplanted that of Habsburg. For
more than a century there was no third Habsburg Emperor,

THE GROWTH OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 13
but 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
transformations 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 1745 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 Ronian 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
1 Matthias Dbring ap. Mencken (Ranke, Deutsche Gesahichte, Vol. i,
p. 31).'

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 bad
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
iharriage. 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 ah-eady 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 imperial
Crown, it was already evident that a vast change impended
over Europe. The nullity of the Empire, already of long

THE GROWTH 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 Philips 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 Castillo 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. Aggregation was
already far advanced in Southern Europe. The united
• 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, Gesahichte 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 Southei'n 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 ha,d sq
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 reasonably 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 oSice 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 HABSBURG. 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 govemment 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 hotne 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 ;
ahd yet in the end he failed in Germany as he had failed
in Spain at the beginning.
Froin 1503, when Isabella the great Queen of Castille
died, to 1519, when Charles was elected Roman Emperor,
is the period of the gradual formation of the Habsburg
power. First ocicurs 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) Roman 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 Charies 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 aU 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 anddn 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
Reformation ini 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
nOi 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 tha,t. 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 e^vidently threatened vrith 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 Castille 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
aaid of the family alliance of France and Spain ; the mar-
' riage of William and Mary made possible the Revolution
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
iwhich 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
iweb. 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 their loyalty — and called on her to assume the govem
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 ¦^iew a Habsburg kingdom,
standing on the same level as the Low Countries. De
liverance, it is true, then came suddenly, but it c,ame, 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 Castille, 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 Mm, 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 rhuch a Spaniard,
in feeling almost as much a Habsburg, as Philip him
self Everywhere 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, Wyaflt,
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 HABSBURG. 27
The conquest of England then seemed complete, and
she was soon seen fumisMng 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 1664, 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
Charies 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 govem
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,
1658, 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. Assuredly the work of Eliza
beth yields to that of no other ruler in respect of magni
tude or of difficulty.

CHAPTER II
THE FIRST PHASE OF POLICY.
At the moment of the accession of Elizabeth the
Habsburg Po^wer, 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 bi^other 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, liis 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 and Magyar territory, and by the custom of many
years this 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 pennanent, and thus

32 GROWTH OP 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 AUjStria,
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,v1
in the days of Wallenstein, in the days of Eugene, in the
d^,ys 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 agej
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 bf 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.
s. 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-stonQ
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 ^ade. 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 furthei;
to wish for but that cro-wning 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 different 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 -srith 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 in.structed 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 Belphoebes 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 rnight
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 I 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 sho"WTi 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 GRO^WTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
she might refuse would be given to a Valois princess.
She might find herself confronted by a great 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 marry 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 govemment, 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-
ireignty 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 BRITISH 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
foriner 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 absorption
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
concems 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 OP 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 Ond with thC'
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 nanies 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 Pa^via, 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 thap

THE FIRST PHASE OP 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
House 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 Charies, 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 OP 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 OP 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
rehgious, 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 offered to the Stuarts. But we must pay some atten
tion to the special cii-cumstances under which this was
done, as they arose in 1559.
4—2

52 GROWTH OP 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 Stuai-t 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.
Fer 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 difed

THE FIRST PHASE OF 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 doubtful 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 Regent, 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 modem 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 Govemment.
This fact by itself created a new difficulty for Elizabeth ;
but the government in Scotland was a French govemment.
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 FIRST 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 govemment 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 ,'Jreaty 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 triumphi
Shortly befpre it had appeared to be almost confined to
Germany, and the Religious Peace of Augsburg had been
its only trophy, which had been ahnost 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 governmen*
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 thus 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 EKza-
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 makmg
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 foundation-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 from 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 GROWTH 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 HuguOnot 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 polities of Europe it has not been necessary
for us to enter further than simply to take note of th^
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
allbVed 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 — npt
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
t^win of the Habsburg system, as Luther appeared in 1517
and Charles was elected Emperor in 1519. 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 frre-
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 OP 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 inquire what is the
Counter-Reformation ?

CHAPTER IIL
THE COUNTER-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
inonopoly ; and it was now considered the sum of kingcraft
to apply or to resist it. The House of Valois had but

64 GROWTH 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 dra^wn 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 opposition
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 ReformatioiL Hitherto the
Reformation had been opposed indeed to the hierarchy,
but had been loyal to Government, as on the other hand
Govemment 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. 6

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 S^witzerland 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 Reformatioh and Rebellion went hand in hand,
where a disaffected party openly attacked the mass as
idolatrous ahd established a new religious system by op6ii
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 ¦wta
strong and Catholid; 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 whirl^wind, 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 from 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 profited 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

gg 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, p. 85) : The
Ohancellor L'Hdpital 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 ot
different forms of faith.

THE OOUNTER-REFORWATION. 69
because at this very time England asserted her insular
character in the most emphatic manner by deciding
irrevocably in favour of the Reformation. 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,
and 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 Netheriands. These were successfully tom 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. 7 J
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 upon
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
aibout within Britain similar to those which had already
transformed the Continent. England and Scotland might
be united as Castille 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 OP 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 desfre war with England for its o^wn 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 Hes 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
rehgious 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 thefr Catholic subjects, but also because it
provoked to deadly hostility against the Reformation the
Catholic Governments, among which were tbe 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 acqufred in the sixties of the century some new
resource of immense importance, so suddenly and over
whelmingly does the tide turn in thefr favour. About
1560 Catholicism seems to be falling into its final dissolu-

THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 73
tion, England and Scotland ha-ying 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
ground 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 inqufre 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 con'victed of pfracy 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 sho^wn 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 PhiUp 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
1559 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 frreligious 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 thfrd 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 OP 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, desfred to see thefr own bishops invested ¦with an
independent spfritual 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. 77
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 spfrit 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 orthodoxv.
It was natural to think that Luther would share the fate
of Arius, and that the Spaniard Philip would now estabhsh
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 Couiicil 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 Famesian Papacy
¦Was so notoriously heathenised that the cry, Come out of
her ! might fafrly 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 tindeniably serious and
considerable. On what ground then could Lutherans and
Calvinists still justify thefr secession? On the ground
that they disapproved the decisions, dogmatic or other,
arrived at by the Council ? This was at least a new
gTound, different from that which Luther had taken at

80 GROWTH OP 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 inspfred
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 Jesua
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 Phihp 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 tjrpe 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 Camesecchi 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 Nuno 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 Mil man 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 spfrit of a particular nation. It is
Spanish Christianity. Its precursors in past time had
been Dominic in the distant thfrteenth 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. PMlip
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 cfrcumstances 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
acqufre 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 con^VTilse tbe 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, o^wing to the laxity of central and tbe
solidity of local govemment 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 1562
by an Edict than civil war broke forth uncontrollably
This first civil war, which carried off Francois 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 Charies V, but under Philip it breaks out
again in a reversed form. Charies 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
govemment 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 everywhere Catholic, and the Reformation
everywhere took the character of rebellion against the
govemment, in France because it was ardent and san-
g,uine, 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 1564 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 ffrst
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 Cathoh-
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
Empfre. 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 thefr 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 bad 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 Bdarn. 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 Chiistendom 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 empfre, 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 OP 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 Maroks, '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 thefr pwn 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 follow.ed
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 cfrcle.
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 distintt
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 Mary 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. Afready
' ^ Histoire du regne de Marie Stuart, i. ¦yiii.

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 govem
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 1559 Scotland was m
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 Elizabeths
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 o^wn 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 Henry 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 aspfred 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 OP 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 acqufred 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 policy. For the attitude of
hostile rivalry towards Elizabeth which she had maiin-
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
ffrst 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 Britfiin ! 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, f^hat 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 thafrof the
7—2

100 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
haill sede of dissentioun taken up by the rute, we doubt
nocht but herefter oure behavour togidder in all respeetis
sail represent to the warld als grite and ffrm 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, 1566. 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-pro^vided the House of Tudor
always was with the instruments of a marriage poUcy,
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 aSbrd 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
sfrname 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 simame.'
And thus Mary Stuart acqufred 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 Darnley, 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 tn-ed of contemplating. Never has history fumished
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 policyl
Mary's one stroke of deliberate policy as Queen of
Scotland is her marriage ¦with Darnley. 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 EUzabeth had taken no step, and now her rival
in the North, as it were, outstripped her in the raee.i
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,
afready so strong in title, would soon have hefrs. For
it was as a Catholic that Mary chose Damley, 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 bad 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 ha^ving 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 Damley proved to Mary either an able adviser or,
Hke 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 marry and both
have children, what would become of that grand ideal,
which all parties alike had in ¦view, the union 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 franklj^
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 retum 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 cfrcumstances 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 govemment 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 Affafrs. 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,
inspfred by fear, of Elizabeth. I need not tell again the
tale of the murder of Riccio. But to show that the con-
spfrators 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 kilHng of the Italian secretary, who had
conspfred 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 bfrth
of an hefr, 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 cycles of
tragedies in which the historical interest is utterly lost
in the personal. Ffrst there is the tragedy of Febmary
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 murdered 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 Stfrling 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 retum
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 OP BRITISH POLICY.
curred with it. And what are the natural influences by
which nations, as distinguished 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 bands 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 bfrth 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 EHzabeth 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.
1 Teulet, Vol. i., p. viii. ed. 1862.

110 GROWTH OP 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 11
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
admfrable 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 thfrty-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
Refomoation, 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 gaming 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 bfrth might
possibly be applied in these islands. As Castille 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
possibility 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 a,fter 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 EHzabeth ¦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 rivafry ¦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 perio'd
which is just as decidedly Spanish, when she makes war
with the Spanish Monarchy, has to withstand a great
Spanish invasion, and ha^ving 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 CathoHcs 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 t^wice 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,
^ Catharine to La Mothe, September 13th, 1572, cited in the article
on the Massacre of St Bartholomew, Noi'th British Review, New Series,
¦Vol, xn. , 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 Httle 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 togetheiJ
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 govemment which could
resist hostile pressure? had it even a religion? The
Continental assailants would be supported fri 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
altemative prospect could Elizabeth offer? The Refor
mation seemed about to disappear, and Elizabeth had no
hefr. 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 di^vdsion, for a
Puritan party began to disengage itself in the bosom of
Anglicanism. All these difficulties 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
sHght 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 PhiHp, 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 acqufres 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 EHzabeth did not altogether recover
from the blows which Mary had struck in 1565. The
CathoHc party had been considerably roused by her suc
cesses of that year, and meanwhile EHzabeth had done
nothing to settle the question of the succession. Hitherto
the Catholics had been reconciled to Elizabeth's govem
ment partly by tbe 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 thefr 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 thefr leader Condd Alva

THE 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 Hkely, now that both Philip and the French govern
ment were on the point of putting down internal rebellion,
and were united in the Counter-Reformation, that they
would cross the Channel once more and reestablish thpfr
influence in the island of Britain ? If so, thefr intervention
would 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 Damley, when
the husband Elizabeth offered her was Leicester. But
Mary's policy had now exhausted itself. Damley was dead,
and Bothwell, the ruffian, was buried in a Danish prison.
Accordingly the discussion among those who stiU 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 ffrst 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
nobiHty. And yet such a scheme involved the total do^wnfall
of Elizabeth, and retrogression to the disturbed times
which she had brought to an end. A Catholic hefres^,
married to a great EngHsh 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 CathoHcism 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 rebelhon
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
rivafry 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
tumed 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 successor, 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 BRITISH 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
rehgious 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 ofltalybyCharles 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 PhiUp 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 rebelhon 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 Elizabeth
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 Afya and
Catharine de Medici, we see in 1567 the alarming entrance
of Alva upon his govemment 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 thefr 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 Repubheof
the Netherlands.
But in both countries Catholicism has the upper hand
The Belgian rebels lose thefr 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 thefr 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 nauch 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
CathoHc, though foreign, prince over the native House
of Valois. Such is the age of the Counter- Reformation ! 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 thefr orthodoxy above
thefr 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
ItaHan troops of Alva. The years 1568, 1569 saw at last
the combined effort of the Counter-Reformation to put
do^wn 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
Hc govemment, firm and efficient, been ready in Scotland
to act in concert with Alva in his hour of success and with
the French govemment after Jamac 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 1570 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 PhiHp universal monarch and would
depress, if not dissolve, France. For the religious war
occupied France entfrely, 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
ifrm footing in Holland and Zealand, so did the Huguenots
now, retreating from the interior, establish themselves in
Rochelle 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 stmggle and by the help of
Philip, who with his claims on Navarre and his naval
superiority would perhaps acqufre 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 ci^vil 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
desfre 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
thefr 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 OP BRITISH POLICY.
cemed 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 CathoHc
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 rehgious 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 CathoHcism 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.
Ffrst it is Charies IX himself that would marry her, then
his brother Anjou, afterwards King Henry III, and then
again Alen§on.
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
imlike 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 CathoHcism. 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
CathoHc CoaHtion in which PhiHp 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 poHtics. 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 troublesr 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 thei
CathoHc 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 cHd not cease in
France till almost the close of the sixteenth century..
These convulsions remind us in many details of the grea/t
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 worid of abuses and raise human natui'e 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 religious
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 Chafr, 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 thfrd 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-
& 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 thfrd Catholicism
won the battles of Jamac 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 poHcy definitely checked
the Counter-Reformation. Charles IX of France begms
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 poHcy 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 Jamac
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
speecHly. 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 bilt be jealous of
the glory his brother Anjou had won at Jamac. 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 retfring

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 11th, 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 thefr 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 Empfre
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 CathoHc
and Protestant Powers in concert to the burdensome
ascendency of Philip II as (Hsplayed 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 Countries, 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 bothto
France and England which would arise from the succesg,
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
desfre 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 fafrly
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
I La Perriere, Le xvi» Siecle et les 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 cfrcumstances Elizabeth had seemed at first
to have a position almost as precarious as Lady Jane
Grey, and it would seem that her safety requfred 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
gro^wn 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 findiag
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
accomphshed 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
thisy 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
thefr 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 OP 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 1564 by
the treaty of Troyes. Mary Stuart 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 vsdth 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 Cond6 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 thfrd 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, Alen9on, takes Anjou's place.
All these facts taken together point to the year 1572
as a memorable tuming-point. England is not indeed
yet placed in direct mortal opposition to the Spanish
Monarchy. The Spanish period of EHzabethan 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 fibrst 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
Damley, and in the Loav 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 (Hfficulty 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

138 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 cHfferent populations might henceforth
justly be called from its ruling 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 empfre 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 govemment 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 rebelHon 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 Spain could not act together for the
suppression of heresy all over the world. From this
time forward 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 ¦nctor of Mohacz, lived till 1566;
that is, the series of invincible sultans, who had overthrown
the Greek Empfre, 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
SoHman, 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 frresistible 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 OP 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 come to speak of its dfrect
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 MecHterranean relations as well as to its relations in
the North Sea. This reflexion prepares us for the phase
through which PhiHp's affafrs 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 in^vincible 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 immediatelyj
caused by the campaign of Lepanto. That campaign was
in fact the cro^wn 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 in 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 cHvisions, 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,
ahd 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. PhiHp 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 SeHm II succeeded Soliman in 1566, Cyprus
was still a province of the Venetian Republic. There was

144 GROWTH OP 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 Cathohc
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 invincible 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 Phihp's
govemment. As then forty years earHer Soliman had
struck dovm 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 re^vdve 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 retfred 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-Kebfr
against Algiers; the most western pro^vince 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 perishecL 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-Kebfr were successfully defended in
1563, and in 1564 Penon de Velez was actually taken
from the Moslem corsafrs by the Spanish Admfral, 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 pecuHar
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 himseff 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 rebelHon to restore
Islam in Spain itself He might depend for success upon
his o^wn mighty military power, but he had another
resource in the divisions of Christendom. France waa
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 (Hplomacy of
one of the great sultans, a SoHman or a Mohammed II,
might have played successfully upon the jealousy of Phihp
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 Admfral, setting sail from Cyprus,
took possession of the greatest position that still remained
to PhiHp 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 1571 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 arriving 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 Cyprus, 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 leacHng 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 OP BRITISH POLICY.
a decisive tum 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 Woom 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 cfrcumstances that
the Republic of the United Netherlands might come into
existence. For undoubtedly but for the united oppositiqn
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 thefr forces.'
And thus we pass out of the age of the Counterr
Reformation proper, when all Catholic Powers are united
under the guidance of the Pope to put do^wn 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 insurrectioij 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 fi-ontier
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 thefr
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 Alencon.
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 Alengon represents this unsatisfactory inter
val. For he represents on one side the feebleness into

150 GROWTH OP 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 aspfres to rule the Netherlands as Duke of
Brabant and Count of Flanders, and also to marry Queen
Elizabeth. His sudden death without an hefr in 1584
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 disappear
early in the seventies, and a new group takes thefr 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, WilHam of Orange, and
that French Duke who may be taken to represent the
period, Alencon.
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 comprehensive views and the military talent
of Charles V, so that we may surmise that in the seventies
the unwieldy dominion might, under his sole dfrection,
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 straggle with the Porte, and the Holy
League had been long since dissolved. For PhiHp had no
large views corresponding to the greatness of his position.
But such large views, at least where the subject was miH-
tary, Don John appears to have had. In his short life he
dealt in turn with all the great mihtary 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 thfrdly 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 aspfres
to an independent crovrai. 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 rain of these countries and the impossibility of
preser^ving them to your Majesty's crown, ¦will result from
the contrary position of English affafrs. At Rome and
elsewhere the rumour prevails that in this belief your
Majesty and His HoHness 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 cfrcumstances 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 con^viction
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
govemment 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
' Given in Miguet, 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 (Hfficulty, 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 chafr. 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-
soHdating her govemment, he seems indeed to have
neglected an opportunity which never retumed.
Imperceptibly a great international change has been
advancing between the accession of Elizabeth and that
transitional year of her middle period, 1572. The ancient
alHance of England and Burgundy has been breaking up
and signs are afready 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 alHance against
France. To Elizabeth when she came to the throne the
friendship 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 Charies': 'By marriage with him the Queen shall
have the friendship of King Philip, which is necessary
considering the HkeHhood 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
any 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 written, the Spanish Monarchy
and England began to be regarded as belonging to opposite
systems in Europe. Ffrst 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-
Reformation reached its height in Europe and Philip
assumed the lead of it. Then the rebellion of the Low
Coantries 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
rebelHon 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 rivafry 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 1570 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 desfreth 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 retum to Don John, who in the last phase of his
career, between 1576 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 afready 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 thefr 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 cfrew up in
February 1577 and runs thus : ' That I may not contravene
the glory, honour, and safety of the Catholic, ApostoUc,
and Roman Church in which I would live and (He — 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 hefr of my kingdom of Scotland and of the
just right which I assert to the cro^wn 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 HoHness,
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 affafrs had since been entfrely 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 with(fraw 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

J i

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 withcfrawn
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 unHke 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 concemed 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 1577. 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 caUed transformation, that befel it in 1580.
That event, the annexation of Portugal, the substitutioii

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 (fr'eam 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 PhiHp -II is an embodiment of ignorant statesmanship,
narrowness and dulness of mind, perverted morality, every
quality iwhich brings a state to ruin, q,nd '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 (ialled glorious. Germany was
passing through a period of strange obscurity ; Elizabeth
had won no battles, the French king only the (Hsmal
victories of Jamac and Moncontour. Only Spain had
eamed 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 npw Spain ¦was suddenly to rise higher than ever,
and at the same time France was to sink as suddenly
l®wer. These changes took place between 1580 and 1584, so
that in 1585 Europe assumed a wbolly new aspect. No
transition so abrupt occurs at any othpp point in the second
half of the sixteefrtb century.
The occurfen<3es which produced this great alteration
ifl. the relative pp^itipn of France 9,n(i Spain are
(1) the annexation of Portugal by Philip II.
(2) the recommencement of religious war in France,
S. 31

162 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
when by the death of Alencon the Huguenot Henri of
Navarre became presumptive hefr to the throne of France.
Hitherto we have seen Philip availing himself prin
cipally of his character as the champion of CathoHcism
and of the Counter-reformation. But we are to remember
also that he is the head of the House of Habsburg, the
hefr 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 PhiHp II something like what the death
of Fer(Hnand of Aragon had been to Charles V. Don
Sebastian of Portugal falls ' ¦with all his peerage ' in battle
against the Moors at Alcazarkebfr. He leaves no heir,
and the Cardinal Henry, his successor at sixty-seven years
of age, dies in 1580. 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 n 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 wlhich Portugal recovered her inde
pendence under the House of Bragan9a. 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 thefr
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 (Hscovery of the New World. The fusion
of them therefore produced a single state of unlimited
maritime dominion. This at the moment when its
rivafry ¦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 (Hstinct 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 sixty years the
11—2

164 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
King of Portugal is also King of Spain, Philip II,
Philip III and PhiHp 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 cfrcunmavigating
Africa, then in laying open the IncHan 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 bfrth 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 sta/te
of Philip II, at a time too when PhiHp was so hard
pressed in the Low Countries and was making enemies
of France and England.
This great European change was effected at very
Httle 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 PhiHp II's moth^
had been Isabella, daughter of Manoel the Fortunate, that
king of Portugal who represents the highest greatness of
the old house of A^vis, and because in 1578 king Sebastian
died childless. Thus there befel Portugal what might at
any time have befallen England had EHzabeth died leaviag
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 twofolci
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
CarcHnal 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 requfred
that he should leave hefrs, we fiand the authorities of
Lisbon requfring 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 OP BRITISH POLICY.
absolutely upon this personal question, and because two
years later no hefr 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 Braganza, 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 bfrth. There were also foreign
pretenders, among whom Catherine de MecHci 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
EngHsh history, it is also one of the greatest 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
o^wn history, is it not evident that PhiHp 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 acqufred 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 thefr way to Macfrid was closed to
England or any other naval Power so long as Portugal and
Spain were under the same Government, i 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 concemed
If Spain had been by much the greatest 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 cfrcumstances of this event
will engage our attention later. It was caused imme
diately by the death of Alencon- Anjou in 1584.
And to Elizabeth, brooding on all these things, there
(5ame 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 mfraculous 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
intemational relations of Spain, the Counter-Reformation
phase, when she threatened in union with France tdput
do^wn heresy aU o^er tbe world, and the phase when
France threatened war againct Spain in tbe cause of the
Low Countries. A thfrd 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.
Afready 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 hefrs and
bridegrooms for ¦vfrgin queens. And now the Counter-
Reformation had complicated the succession-problem by
laying it do^wn that no heretic could sit on a throne. And
the legitimate hefr 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-Beformation, 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 intemational 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 affafrs. If the
Spanish war with England lasts till 1604 the Spanish war
with France lasts till the Treaty of Ver^vins concluded in
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 CathoHcism ; 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 (io^wnfall 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
acqufring 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 Tercefra in the
Azores, the scene of the great Spanish ¦victory in the war
of Portugal. It was written by the victor himself, Santa
Cruz, and it solemnly exhorted Philip to follow up bis
victory over Portugal by a dfrect 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. 1 Dure, La Armada Invincible, i. p. 241.

CHAPTER VI
PROM PEACE TO WAR.
The transition of 1585 brings the Counter-Reformation
once more into the foreground, but in a Umited 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 EHza
beth. Accor(Hngly he is (friven back upon his own re
sources, and scarcely any Pope has assumed more purely the
attitude of a belHgerent against England than Pope Gregory
XIII. He does not confine himself to spiritual weapons,
nor does he content himself vrith 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 thfrteenth
Gregory hopes to send out missionaries who may restore the
ruined work of the ffrst Gregory. Parsons and Campion
arrive in 1580 ; the Counter-Reformation begins to blow up

PROM 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 beHeved
that the Grand-Duke hopes to further designs upon Ur-
bino by thus ingratiating himself ¦with PhiHp 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 cavafry, the Catholic King fifteen thousand
infantry and fifteen hundred cavalry, and the Grand-duke
eight thousand infantry and one hun(fred cavafry ; 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 thefr
obedience and devotion to the Roman CathoHc 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 CathoHc 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 Henry. (4) That Queen EHzabeth be declared a
usurper, and incapable to reign, because she was bom 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 shaU 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 Alen9on,
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 tum 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 o'vm
efforts, but upon the efforts of others. She does not come
forward herself to help Orange vrith 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 o^wn. It is true that
'from the outset they had received much English help.
In thefr sieges and battles EngHshmen had taken part
sometimes by the hun(fred. EngHsh sea-rovers had plun
dered the Spanish marine. EHzabeth 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 intemational relations, that not only
France and England but even the Austrian House of
1 Calendar of State-Papers CVenetian), ed. Cavendish-Bentinok, No. 826.

FROM PEACE TO WAR. 175
Habsburg interferes between Philip and his rebels in a
manner most damaging and practically hostile to Philip.
But we 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 fron 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 CoHgny and Orange had afready fallen, though other
Guises and Henry III and Henry IV were still to fall by
this doom. But she had never sho-wn the slightest incU-
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 Hfe' 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
thefr 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
entfrely to the French prince ; pubHc 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 negooia^
tion is taken up so seriously at this late stage in the hfe
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 Sfr 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 empfre, and in
the end she founded the greatness 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 in 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
Alen9on serves a definite political purpose. It enables her
to play at once a passive a.nd a very prominent and im
pressive part in the affairs of the Netherlands. While
Alen§on 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
running no risk, presented herself as taking an equal
part and advancing an equal claim to thefr loyalty in the
character of his affianced bride.
And so the rings were exchanged, and when Alengon, 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
Govemment, 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
poHtical purpose the marriage-negociation might serve,
s. 12

178 GROWTH OF BEITISH POlilCY.
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 Alen9on, a risiag of the
CathoHc party in concert with an invasion from France, —
part of this had been already foreseen by Sfr Nicolas Bacon,
and it is impossible not to assume that Elizabeth-, to whose
thoughts assassination must have been only too fe.miliar,
foresaw- it too.
When in the twenty-sixth year of her reign a new
chapter o.pened by the deaths of Alen9on and Orange, how
did the reign of Elizabeth, then more than half expfred,
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 o^wn, but had enjoyed a halcyon calm, such as no other
country knew, such as England herself had never known
before. The result was almost mfraculous, but it is as
suredly not the result which has given ELzabeth her fame
in history. EHzabeth 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. EHzabeth however was not to give her name

PROM PEACE TO WAR. 179
to any such catastrophe. We think of heroism, adventure,
victory and glory when we name the Elizabethan age. But
in that sense the EHzabethan 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
rupted 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 tjrpe ; the oceanic side is wanting, 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 modem 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 Eliiiabeth, 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 ffrst years of her War. He has
given a minute and damaging description of Elizabeth's
vacillations, frauds, and frivolities, and seems to (fraw the
conclusion that she had really no policy at all. He
despafrs 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
frresolution, 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 narro^wing 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 doing 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.
Everjrthing 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 govemment
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 caU itself Protestant. What
right had Elizabeth on the ground of any private opinions
to give England a position in the religious straggle 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 Govemment in intemational action. Had
the Govemment 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 famiHar maxim of statesmanship that difficulties
insoluble by action are often soluble by lapse of time. In
such cases the hand-to-mouth policy is the wisest, because
it is (Hrected to gaining time. The disease of England in
1568 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 cfrcumstances 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
Jamac 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 Peacei
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 govemment to a mihimwm. By the most
extreme economy she avoided all those disputes about
taxation which proved so cHsastrous to the Stuarts, and
which her government, weak in title and hanging by a
hafr in religion, could not, at least in her earlier time,
have sustained. Thus she gradually inspired a deep
feeling of satisfaction, which lay deeper do^wit than all
discontents, and bore up her govemment.
But as she early acqufred 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 frresolution 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
(friven 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 ¦dew 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 CathoHc and even England not Protestant,
accor(Hngly 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 (Hstinct
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
Couiitries 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 RebelHon 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

PROM 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 reaciy 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 Alen9on, 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 Spain
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 fi.eld 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 pro^vdnces, 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 words, the Peace of EHzabeth must at last
come to an end. And indeed in the last scenes between
Elizabeth and Alen9on 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 cfrcumstances which
brought the Peace of Elizabeth to an end and led to the
War of EHzabeth 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 Charies 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 EHza
beth as a glorious period, which called out as no other
period before or since, the genius of the EngHsh 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 EHzabeth, 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
(Hsappeared 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 XIIL While Philip and EHzabeth stiU hold
thefr 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 (frama. 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-Reformation 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-
Reformation. 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 BEITISH 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 defy 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
modem world. It marks the ffrst 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

PROM PEACE TO WAR. 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 rivafry 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 despafred of French aid, and when
it appeared that Elizabeth was prepared to come to
thefr help, the petition of the States-General to her
took this form: 'Recognising 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 Priuce
of Orange was to become subjects of Queen Elizabeth.
Yet Elizabeth steadfastly rejected thefr proposal.
There are positive events and there are negative
events, and in the whole of EngHsh history there, is
no greater negative event than this. Acquisition of
territory has been the business of most sovereigns, and
thefr estabHshed 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 acqufred since;
nothing had been acqufred, unless we reckon the ru(h-
ment of a colony which had been formed in Newfound
land. And now there was laid at her feet a new kingdom
which desfred 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, (Hsposition, tum of mind, religion, the
Dutch closely resembled the English. Elizabeth herself
said that the EngHsh 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 thefr 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. Thefr intercourse,,
even thefr 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 ci^vil 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 ha^ving converted her feudal into a rational or
poHtical monarchy, and the Netherlands having created
a similar political monarchy out of a republic.
We cannot therefore see how EHzabeth'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 EHzabeth. It is difficult to grasp the fact that a
ruler of so high spfrit, 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 are commonly sudden and rapid strokes of well-
timed audacity. But though we trace almost all that
makes modem 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-i
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 PhiHp from action than to take action herself.
Peace and war were not in those days international
conditions so sharply (Hstinct 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 tvrice a Spanish Ambassador had been'
expeUed from England by Elizabeth. Philip indeed 'had
sho^wn 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. ii
And now when we look at the operations of war
which followed we perceive that the naval and- thei
military operations must be considered 'separately; Th©
former are of immense historical importance, as showing;
that the EngHsh nation had found a new path to great-;

PROM PEACE TO WAR. 193
ness. The latter are in themselves somewhat insigni
ficant, but they throw Hght 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
tesult, 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 despafr, 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 (Hsgust 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 PhiHp 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 afready submitted to him, Bra
bant and Flanders were afready 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 considerably
concessions to Holland and Zealand as he had done
already to Artois and Hainault. Philip had all along
recognised the extreme (frfficulty 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 possesision of Brill and Flushing,
those positions in which the rebellion had first ¦with
the help of England maintained its ground in 1672.
She seems indeed to have regarded the Low Countries
much as the English Govemment 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 neighboiiring 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 with (fraw, 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 empfre requfred
the suppression of the pfratical and heretical Power.
And while EHzabeth at war was blundering so
stiangely 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 queea
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 pubhc
opinion. There can be no greater mistake, for, as we
have just remarked, it was not in EHzabeth's character
to act with decision at all, nor, we may add, in any

FRCVr 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 rale 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 frresolution 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 frresolution 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 desfred 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 despafr, 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 EngHsh 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 Hke manner it appears that in the case of Mary Stuart
she was as un^willing 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 populi suprema
lex ? 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 throvm 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 affafr, 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 Reformation, but threefold,
namely, how to do this in such a manner as to establish
a clear succession to the House of Tudor, now e^vidently
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
concemed with the execution of Mary Stuart. It affected
these in two principal ways. Ffrst 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 EHzabeth's death Mary would stand before
the English nation representing legitimacy, promising at

200 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY. 1
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
EHzabeth 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, hefr' to the French throne, so this
made James of Scotland, the Protestant, hefr 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 Alen9on had been immediately followed by the
formation fri 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 desfred 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 CathoHc 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 (fraw out of the Habsburg quiver
one of those innumerable succession-claims. He had
afready laid claim to the French succession. He could
now lay claim to the succession in England, for was he not
(Jescended 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-
vaHdated by heresy. It must be put aside, and Philip's
Qwa. 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
desfre war with England. But PhiHp now desfred war
with England, partly because his maritime empfre was
seriously threatened, partly because it was now open to
him, with the enthusiastic approval of the whole CathoHc

202 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
world, to strike for the cro^wn of England. And so Eliza
beth, who as late as 1587 desfred 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
©¦wn achievement is the long peace ; the war is forced upon
her partly by cfrcumstances, 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 dfrect 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 thfrty 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 aspfrations 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 ia-
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 WAR. 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 thfrty 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 kno^wn 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 thefr 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
Hmited, 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. Govemment
connived at this during the peace, as it connived at
breaches of neutrality committed in the Low Countries by
hun(freds 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 iu,
and some considerable share of the plunder might be
appropriated by Elizabeth herself
We thus see that the war with Spain which was fir.st
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 afready
led to covert, and must in the end have led to open, war.
It ¦Rras the same difference which later under Oliver and
again ua 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 ci^viHsed 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 spfrit 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
in Cecil and Walsingham, 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 admfration by the
Spaniards themselves. In our o'wn history few men have
originated so much. The British trade, the British Em
pfre, 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 OP 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 Plymouth, 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 earHer explorers had met with no
enemies but the feeble aborigines of the New World;
Drake fought the Spamards wherever he met them, or
wherever he could attack them with advantage. As yet
they regarded him only as a daring pfrate, 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, Sfr 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 crash England.
Hitherto England had been regarded by Philip merely as

PROM 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 thefr 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
English 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 worid 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 re^vival of her terrible civil dissensions.
We must consider England and France together if we

208 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
would understand the European crisis which is marked in
English history by the Armada. 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 Cateau 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 pro^vinces had taken
Antwerp to the admfration 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
formidable CathoHc League and even, so long as Henry
remained a Huguenot, by the pubHc 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 m-
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 quesbion of the age, whether a heretic could
reign, by placing Henry of Navarre in the position of im
mediate hefr to the reigning king. France entered upon
the two last of its long series of religious convulsions. By
the first 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 PhiHp.
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 thfrd Henry,
Henry of Guise, headed a party not less independent of
the Govemment and secretly paid by the king of Spain.
This thfrd party represented in fact the Counter- Reforma
tion, whereas the Govemment inclined more to the
PoHticians. I 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
a 14

210 GROWTH OP 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
affafrs 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
e(Hct, 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 PhiHp 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 empfre 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 inspfre alarm. When he died in
1598 he was still unquestionably ruler of the greatest
Power in the world. But that Power was then effectually
hehl 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.

CHAPTER VIL

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 beHeve that PhiHp 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
quaUties of her govemment.
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 Govemment because it brought in money. And now
on the grandest scale the naval power of England was
(Hsplayed 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
1 On this subject see especially the volume on the Defeat of the
Spanish Armada recently published by the Navy Records 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 cHstinct 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 thefr cables and drifted eastward
It remembers also thefr 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,
August 8th, 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 Httle 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 anjnvhere 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 eipeditions. 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 sayi-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 goveriiment 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 Tercefra came to an end. The battle of
Gravelines deprived Spain of her maritime preeminence.
And the English sailors were sho^wn to be not mere pfrates,
but promising candidates for the empfre of the sea.
After September a thfrd 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 tbist 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 acqufred
a self-confidence which it has never lost since.
But what course should now be pursued ? 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 dfrection of it to Parma alone.
For whatever unexpected superiority the EngHsh naval
captains might have sho^wn, 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
som3 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, Hke Elizabeth herself, desfred only
peace, might regard the disaster of the Armada as leading
dfredily 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 (fraw the conclusion that they must make
terms with the Low Countries. On this ground a settle
ment of the great (Hspute 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
cairry 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 b
desultory. It could not indeed become again covert, a wax
under the mask of peace, but it was scarcely avowed wsr.
It was unlike later wars that have been waged by England,
in having no definite object, unless Philip's claim to the
English throne were still the object. It could therefore
hardly end while Philip lived, nor, unless Spain co^ld
learn to tolerate heresy on a throne, while Elizabeth
Hved. I
But between 1588 and the death of Elizabeth tlere
intervened fifteen years. So long the war lasted, wlich
on the side of England was chiefly a series of plundci'ing
expeditions, in which the Govemment scarcely aimed at a
single national object, but rather allowed naval adventirers
to make reprisals for thefr exclusion from the Nc!/ World
It is a peculiar and unique period of English b'i.itoiy, in
which war is waged, but freely, ¦with a triump] ^ . sense
of power, with scarcely any sense of danger, ,^ ,u 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^wn. 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 frresolute 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
(Hd not readily conform to it, and we often find Elizabeth
called ' the king.' That she should remain unmarried was
still stranger. A Vfrgin Queen was a personage who
seemed to requfre 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 iweaknesses, 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 mosfsiwhile she was gro'wing old and the form of
worship tfefh)' had been gradually devised for the Vfrgin
Queen wi.ajsrfast becoming inappropriate, just when her
daim to 'iiiweive worship and the general inclination to
render it beewsne 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 Vfrgin 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 preferred 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 1586, 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 chil(fren, men who can remember: no
other sovereign but the Vfrgin 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 disfigures 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 arranged, and she had grown accustomed to her
pose, in an earHer time. The Vfrgin Queen could not be
conceived as a mother, but as an object either of devoted
human courtship or mystic transcendental courtshipi ' In

THE WAR OP ELIZABETH. 219
the Alen9on period this view already began to pall upon
the taste of her subjects, and by the time of the Armada
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 (fropping 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 Vfrgin 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 (freamed of her as a Vfrgin 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-
Hfe 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 appHes to persons. Now
the Vfrgin Queen as she had gro^wn 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 (fream 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 EngHsh 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 spfrit, no conventionalism or pharisaism.
We confine ourselves always to foreign affafrs, and we
have now to remark that a new PoHcy, which henceforth
is the national policy, begins to be consciously enter
tained. Sfr Francis Drake passed lately over our stagej
and led us to reflect how many of the characteristics of
modem 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 Sfr Walter
Ralegh. As Sfr Francis reaches his zenith with the

THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 221
Armada, Sfr Walter culminates a little later, and in him
everything is more developed. The plundering raid with
him is the colony ; while Sfr Francis explores the Ocean,
Sfr Walter penetrates the newly discovered Continent;
while Sfr Francis 'singes the King of Spain's beard,'
Sfr Walter lays down a strategical plan for overthrowing
his empfre ; finally, while Sfr Francis is dumb, Sfr Walter
gives utterance to the new ideas in Discourses, Maxims,
Speeches, even in Histories. On this side indeed, if he is
unlike Sfr Francis Drake, he resembles Sfr 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 follo^wing 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 empfre in pieces and made thefr 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 for him by sea, and
had the Hollanders to help us, who are 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 o^wn
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 discipHned since Charles V's time, he is nowhere
strong^.' Here indeed is a large and simple ¦view, and a view
founded upon intimate knowledge. Ralegh might fafrly
have (frawn from it a prophecy, but he attempts to deduce
from it a policy. He sees, it is evident, the future British
Empfre as clearly as if it afready existed ; it is clear to him
that the Spanish Power ¦will (Hsappear from the Oceanib
world and that the British Power -will take its place. But
he also assumes, as if it requfred no proof, that Queen
Elizabeth ought to have destroyed the Spanish Empire
and to have set up an English Empfre 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 Semframis,
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
1 See Ralegh's Works collected by Oldys and Birch ; vol. vm. p. 246.
The passage occurs in 'A Discourse touching a Marriage between Prince
Henry of England and a daughter of Savoy.'

THE WAR OF ELIZABETH. 223
object she had held before her for thfrty 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
prbbably 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 Empfre 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 empfre and a great
trade more spee(Hly 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
a,lways avoided
Before the Armada the great question in Elizabeth's
Cdjuncil 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 bf the Hugue
nots, or should' she remain officially neutral, and confine
herself to rendering secret help ? But after the Armada
the party-(Hvision 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 desfre 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
Empfre. And the result of the new balance of parties was
such as Ralegh so impatiently describes. England (Hd
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 (Hd 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 do^wn before Drake, Howard and Ralegh, Spain was
winning victories on land, which perhaps attracted greater
attention, just as two hun(fred 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. . i
In 1588 Philip had been able for a moment to separate
France from England. In that year the straggle 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 ELIZABETH. 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 (Hed 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 principal 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 empfre 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 entfrely different. i ^
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 shovm 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
Httle 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 Govemment 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 only leader of the opposition. Henry was
indeed reduced to great straits, but the conservative
feehng 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 great
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 Republic. 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 1592 Parma (Hes, and soon
afterward (1593) Henry's acceptance of Catholicism gives a
mortal blow to the League and with it to PhiHp'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 Hve at peace
with Spain, and that we should undertake to destroy the
Spanish Empfre, 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. W^as 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 thefr own coast, than a g^reat 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 Englaiid

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
(Hsease 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 ground
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 pfratical 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 internationaLposition.
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 thefr feeling of nationality and thefr
regard for ancient custom. In adhering to the Counter-
Reformation the French did not desfre to surrender thefr
independence to Philip, nor even thefr 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 pure 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 (Hd Philip ¦with(fraw 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 dimmished. 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 Spam,
nay, for a marriage with the great Habsburg hefress of the

THE WAR OP 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 EngHsh subsidies and made common cause
with the Dutch. But he was not less open to ujon^viction
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 thefr concert has
been most strictly limited. It cannot be said that either
Henry or even Elizabeth herself wish success to the Dutch
in thefr 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 ¦wish 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 thefr
concert continues. Now, however, that Henry has made
his way back into the bosom of the Romish Church, and
has acqufred 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 requfres 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 1598 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
Jfinuary 1595 he issues a formal declaration of war against
Spain, In 1596 a formal, coaHtion against Philip is ar
ranged by a Treaty of Alliance offensive and defensive
between Henry 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 intemational history, however.
it stands as an important landmark, partly as dating
the admission of the United Netherlands into the' number
of independent States, partly as 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 PhiHppine 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 betweeh 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 o^wn sake,
and simply because he is convinced that the interests
of France requfre the weakening of Spain. Practically
therefore the thfrd phase is not very different from the
first. Such is the general character of the war between
Philip and the Three Powers. It is tb 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 despafr 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 fri 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 Archduke 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 mth Henry. 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 thefr 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 GROWTH OP 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 retum to this policy. Clement VTII
(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 Cathohc
Republic double-headed. For the Papal See his pohcy
may have been pradent. 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 rivafry of the two great Cathohc
Houses, that of Austria and that of Bourbon.

CHAPTER VIII.
CLOSE OP 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 PhiHp, 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 intemational 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 OP BRITISH POLICY.
consider what was the obstacle to peace. For at the time
when Henry made the Treaty of Ver^vins, ever3d;hing tends
to show that Elizabeth desfred 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 EHzabeth to make her way back at all hazards
to the happy time when she had been able to se(jure her
people from foreign complications. We leam that Bur
leigh, who in his earHer days had sometimes found
Elizabeth too pacific, strongly opposed in his old age
the party of frreconcileables. He denounced upon the
Anti-Spanish faction the curse of the Psalmist which
says that bloody and deceitful men shall not Hve out half
thefr 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 fafr trial. Philip II had made

CLOSE OP 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 Hoikse and that of
Bourbon, now that the Bourbon prince was a CathoHc,
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 cro^wn 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 JI,
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
EHzabeth, was she not now embarrassed by an Irish
rebellion? This rebellion opened for Spain quite new
prospects, or at least re^sived 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 sho^wn herself strong by sea,
but she had acqufred 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 thefr way to the assistance of
the rebels Ireland might be made a stepping-stone to
England. It was true that Philip II had failed npt 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 empfre 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 acqufred 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 pfratical 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 thefr 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 OP 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 Govemmeiit itself. Philip III
was as much inferior in intelligence to Philip II as PhiHp
JI had been to Charles V. In the hands of Lerma, the
Vizfr of Philip III, the Spanish Govemment 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 (frove a hard
bargain ¦with them, but she continued to lend them
aid. The last phase of her reign is in an intemational point
of view not very different from that earlier phase when
the Dutch rebellion was commencing. 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 intemational 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 maimer 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 aHke, 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-
shfre, whohad 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.
EHzabeth 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 1696. 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 decHned, but Elizabeth
repeats it in July. In the interval the conspfracy of
Bfron 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 conspfred ¦with Phihp
II in 1688, so now Bfron -with Philip III, for the com-
pHcity 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
(ianger 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 (fream 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 affafrs distinct from the affafrs 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.
^t the date of her accession the country seemed to
sway in a helpless manner between the two religions.
There was in England no overwhelming (frifb towards
Pj-ptestantisin, as at that time there was in Germany, and
no decided adhesion to the Counter-Reformation, as in
France. The oscillations of the country in the last three
reigns had been violent and always terrible. How could
Engla^(I 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 t,he 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 ^Jie had done calmly, without any religious war.
16—2

244 GROWTH OP 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 thfrty years, had darkened the national
character and stained the national history. In tbe 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, tbe disease was now
of a milder type and threatened no second War of the
Roses. As a result of these two great e^vils, at her accession
the English temperament was troubled and gloomyi
People had grown accustomed to the sight of bishops at
the stake and queens at the block. Latel' they had to
accustom themselves to the danger of foreign wars and
Spanish Armadas.
During Elizabeth's reign this natiofral 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 extravagantly
national character, and Sully passes the same judgment
upon EngHsh 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 (Hgnity to accept any husband that
was not either a Habsburg or a Valoisj and in either case
England would run the risk of becoming a province in
some continental Monarchy. But if by remaining a Vfrgin
Queen she should avert this result, there still remained a
(Hfficulty 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.
further, but the solid foundation, which Hes 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 trtily insular. She gave
us that frontier which has hitherto pro^ved 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 thefr country to be really in
danger. Insularity has its intellectual and moral disadvantagea
And soon after Elizabeth's time we remark that English
people begin to be careless and ignorant of the affafrs, 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 e^vil. For as she with(frew 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
thefr minds intensely narrow and to leam as little as
possible from the new things they saw, we grasped the
New World in a more curious and sympathetic way,
acting as in(Hvidual& and traders rather than as mere
officials. In the first generation of our traly 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 inqufre how they were attaiiiedwe 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 OP THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 247
for them to the Govemment. They were due in the main
to Elizabeth's policy, and would have been lost if she had
acted other^wise ; 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 inqufre 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 frilly 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 allo^wing
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 OP 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 (perpetua formidine), those frenzies of religious
(Hscord, 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.
' Ai'e 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 chil(fren;
after me will come Mary or, it may be, a Grey, or James.'
This too was an answer which served the tum. 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 pf 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 discover islands far away,
Some to the studious universities.

250 GROWTH 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
govemment. Some of the best sovereigns England has had
have been those whose title was weak. Such was WilHam
III, such was Oliver, and, let us observe,' such Was Eliza
beth, being to all her CathoHc 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
stu(Hed 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 modem 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 EngHsh history, we ask, what
was her work ? And we answer that the greatness of it
cjan scarcely be exaggerated, so that if, in her o^wn lan
guage, she was married to that generation of Englishmen
we may add that she is the mother of all generations that
have succeeded.

PART II.
REACTION.
CHAPTER L
OUTLINES.
At the end of Elizabeth's reign begins one of the
greater transitions of intemational 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 fafrly es
caped the Habsburg net. The House of Bourbon was
firmly; established, and had restored unity and greatness
to France. The pfratical 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 GROVSTH OF BRITISH POLICTY.
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 afready 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. Ffrst, royal mar
riage, so handled by the House of Austria as to become
an instrument of conquest, had produced immense poHti
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 A^vis 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 ah 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
1 609 j what the Spaniards felt most bitterly was that it
would break up thefr 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. 263
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 POLICY.
bifurcation at the retfrement of Charles V the Austrian
branch, though in the division of spoils it carries off the
imperial dignity itself, seems to (frop out of sight. How
completely does Philip II ecHpse 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 PhiHp should be his trae 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 Tfrol and the provinces of the
Eastern Alps, but also of Hither Austria and of Bohemia,
with which went Silesia. Austria has been a great Ppwer
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 tbe 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 intemational action as he is powerful in mere extent of
territory, or further let us suppose that not only in his
here(Htary 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 bestfrring 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,
froni the Baltic to Bavaria and Hungary; it is the
Thfrty 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 Thfrty 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 Thfrty
Years' 'War, and was brought to an end in 1648 at the
same time as the Thfrty Years' War. It is the old war
recommencing after the expfration of the Trace. PhiHp
IV of Spain renews the straggle which Philip II 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 OP 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 (frawn into
the struggle ¦with Spain, since Elizabeth in self-defence
could not allow the Dutch to be crashed 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-Reformati(m open
the new age of war by thefr combined advance. Perhaps
then we might be led to conclude that Enjgland ¦will' be
forced in self-defence to re^vive the policy of Elizabeth,
and in like manner that France ¦will retum to the system
of Henry IV. 1
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 RicheHeu and
Mazarin, but we shall find that the warlike poHcy of
Richelieu was not adopted at the outset from ambitioni
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 Countriea
and Franche Comt^,* is the enemy he has principally in
view. Ii
But with England it is otherwise. For her the
Elizabethan age is past, never to retum; she not only

OUTLINES. 257
does not re^vive, but has no need to re^vive, the EHzabethan
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 lan(Hng 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. Richelieu had still to remember that there i
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 kno^wn 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 thfrty years together
in Elizabeth's time — this was an incubus which had been
removed once for all. Throughout the period of the
Thfrty Years' War the interest which England takes in
Continental politics is of a (Hfferent 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 e^ls
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 Httleness 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 OP 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 thefr 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-
laijd^s , tum would come next. But England too in 1620
was not the same state that she had been, under the queen.
England and Scotlajid were united in the person of, the
king Bind 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 t-wo sovereigns in the island, and two
eyenly balanced religions ; no longer two systems of aUi
ance and of royal affinity. The state ruled by James was
as much greater than the state ruled by EHzabeth as
James himself was less great than EHzabeth.
Hence a broad difference which fpr us is of capital
importance between the age of the first Stuarts and that
of EHzabeth. Elizabeth's reign is devoted to foreign
affafrs. 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 EngHsh 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 govemor to Brussels, these were
the all-important questions upon which EngHsh poHcy
depended. But after the accession of the Stuart and the
peace with Spain the tension is in some sense relaxed in
foreign affafrs. It is trae 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 tbe 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 thefr inconsistency. The
trae 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 Parliament was relieved from a pressure
which had paralysed it.
We are not concemed 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 rehgious 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 turned 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 ra(iical changes in her
domestic constitution.
It is however to be observed that in another dfrection
England looks abroad far more than formerly, that she has
acqufred 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 unkno^wn 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 gradually 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 sohd
reality, and one of the most pregnant changes in EngHsh
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, (Hvided 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
thefr way into it, and, outstripping England, have foundedi
colonies and created a great tra(Hng power at the expense
of Spain. The result is that where the Catholic Empfre
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 tom
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 dra-wn
towards the European group, attaches herself to the mari
time group. And this new relation and the new field
thro^wn open to her industry increase her security by
rapidly increasing her wealth.
Nevertheless, though it is no longer needful for us to
follow the course of Continental affafrs 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 Mariborough 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 Empfre and the United
Netherlands. We have passed from the sixteenth to the seventeenth

262 GROWTH OP 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 (frawing 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 century
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 o^wn 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 fafrly
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 rivafry ¦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 proceed to fill up.

CHAPTER IL
EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OP JAMES L
The reign of James I answers to no distinct period of
intemational history. His accession does indeed mark a
new intemational departure, for it gave ifs 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 (Hrected 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 OF BRITISH POLICY.
a period of confusion is the middle period of the reign of
James. No sooner is the pacification complete than the
(.•utlines of the coming war, the Thfrty Years' War, become
v-'sible for a moment. In 1610 Henry IV is about to take
tht 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
becomf. 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 intemational 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. 205
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 despafr, seek offensive alliances. She was as great
a peace-maker as James, and while she gave us peace she
accompanied the gift "with economical govemment, which
James never knew how to do. If she was at last dra^wn
into a war from which she could never disentangle herself,
the fault lay not with her but with Spain. Accordingly
when we inqufre 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
Govemment, 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
ibecause he was convinced of the sinfulness of that policy
of peace vrith heretics which Lerma had introduced, and
-that at the expfration 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 trace, 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 thought the money
required for the war would be better spent upon himself
and his family, or, as Ranke holds, re^vived the peace policy
advocated in Philip II's time by the EboH 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 REIGN OF JAMES L 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-Reformation. 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 CathoHcism. All these facts taken together formed a
foundation upon which Lerma and Philip III 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 concemed, these
calculations might have proved correct but for one cfr-
cumstance. The Dutch had all along had another string
to their bow; England indeed had often been of great use

268 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
to thefr cause, when France was unable or unwilling to
help them. But they could commonly (frspense with
English aid, because they could commonly obtain suf
ficient aid from France. This was the case after 1604.
Henry TV 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.
Naturally 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 humiha
tion. ' The Spaniards,' ¦wrote Pope Paul V in September
of that year, ' have lost thefr old knack. They are uni
versally despised, and what has utterly ruined their
reputation is the Truce in Flanders, by which they have
themselves admitted thefr 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 purely 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 REIGN 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 thefr
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 tom up the Bull of Alexander VI, and take
open possession of thefr 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 progress 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 thefr career our attention is caught
by the striking difference between them. In the war
with Spain thefr position is quite different. England at
that time (otherwise now!) is unassailable except by dfrect
invasion. She is to Philip what Russia was to Napoleon,
a distant Power (frfficult 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 Hve 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 unprotected towns in the Gulf
of Mexico. The conflict thus is unequal, as the Spaniards
themselves felt, and expressed in thefr 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 thefr independence from
Spain. It is easy to admire the obstinacy of thefr 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 hollowness 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 thefr 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 L 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 (Hscovered
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
Vfrginia, 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 founded their trade-empire, avowedly at the
expense of Spain, and in this actual loss, of territory and
of trade, the Spanish govemment acquiesced by the Trace
of Antwerp, i
Having once founded thefr trade-empire the Dutch
proceeded, under the same pressure of necessity, to devise
the institutions necessary for maintaining it; A whole
system of poHcy and finance was invented, .and the world
saw a wholly new political phenomenon. There had been
Httle real prosperity or vitality in the colonial institutions
of Spain. But the tradcTompfre now founded by Protest
antism had quite another sort of success. More slowly
the English now entered upon 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,:
ihiiother words, with the harvest of the seed so^wn by
Elizabeth., It is the time of Salisbury's Ministry; the

272 GROWTH OP 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 with(fraws 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
thefr exit soon after the Pacification has been accom
plished, Henry IV in 1610, Salisbury and Prince Henry
in 1612. In 1613 EHzabeth Stuart leaves England to'
make her home at Heidelberg, and to become the stock
from which the Brunswick dynasty should spring. An
age is over, a long struggle has been brought to an endi
What shall come next ?
There was no reason why the great 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 gi-eater 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 thei
Handsome or Charles V or Philip II. One reason for this
may be (Hscemed. 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 infectedi ¦with.
heresy, so that this difficulty did not yet. arise. Eut im

EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OP JAMES L 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 marrying
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 Govemment occupies itself as much as ever with
pushing hereditary claims, yet it scarcely su(3ceeds in
establishing new ones. Meanwhile other Houses leaa'n
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 Vfrgin 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 thfey entfrely 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 admfration. The Branswick 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 periodj,, that it
desfres 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
degrJidation 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. Andi
by allo^wing this to appear he gave the Spanish Govern
ment a hold upon his policy.
The devotion to Roman Catholicism was an absolutely
fixfed feature in the Spanish House. It would be (Hfficult
to conceive a greater bigot than PhiHp 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 bridegroomi
would consent to become a Roman Catholic. The Spanish
Govemment in its ignorance of English affafrs 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 influence over England, and con-

EPOCHS IN THE REIGN 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 ffrst
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
retumed 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 desfre the honour of a Habsbuirg 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 Louisi
XIV, by marrying an Infanta, (Hd prove, the founder of a
House which should rule the Spanish Empfre and his own
kingdom too.
This possibility, as Ranke shows, was openly discussed
in Spain with reference to Prince Henry, and Spanish
public opinion looked forward with perfect complacency to
the rale 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 CathoHc, but if this could not be asked,
it was at least essential that the bride should not find her
rehgion persecuted, her worship forbidden by law, and
prepare herself to see her chil(fren 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 religionsi
were afready legal, under certain conditions, in France and
in the Empfre. 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 apphes
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 (Hscussion great 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 royal 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
ground, and used arguments founded entfrely on the
interest of the royal family. The Recusancy 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 requfres or even permits this, but because
these are fthe 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 treaty,
and thus to guarantee, a sort of E(Hct 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 PhiHp II. But short of this, if we suppose
Gondomar only half successful, that is, if we suppose only
that the Catholics had found thefr con(frtion 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
thefr 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 CathoHcs 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 dfrection. 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
despafr 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 begins to sweep
across the expfring movements of the Elizabethan age and
the feeble impulses that proceed from the court of James.
Before procee(frng 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 thfrty 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 EHzabeth, and
that the happy union of the kingdoms had the (frawback
that it placed England under the rale of princes who had
had iio part in its recent probation and its recent glory.
It was 'a lame and impotent conclusion' of the national
(frama, this humiliating bargain for a Spanish princess
who should come (Hctating 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-
ioaation, in part of those who retained the feelings of the
Elizabethan age. There were such men as the diplomatist
Winwfiod, who had long watched international politics
jfrom the Hague, or Abbot, the Archbishop, incHned 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
,beg;ins 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 fibrst tremendous
events of the Thfrty Years' War. But there is an inter-
me(Hate 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 hy the marriage scheme. It is the period of
Gondomar. In this period English policy is extremely indistinct,
not having even the (Hstinctness 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
pjirppse 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 OP 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 expe(Htion 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
in(Hfferently with Catholic and Protestant Houses. This
was in itself a difficult problem, biit it might perhaps have
been solved by a careful selection of such Houses as were
moderate in thefr 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 (Hd, 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 desfred above all things a quiet Hfe,
had deliberately planned, at a moment when, as any
intelligent man could have told him, a universal religious

282 GROWTH OP 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 afready estabHshed 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 thefr leadesr
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 cfrcumstances, it leads to nothing, but
is effaced by some change in the whole aspect of affafrs,
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 affafrs. Spain was, as we
can now see, in decline ; no Spanish statesman after
Gondomar was ever in a condition to treat an English
Govemment 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 Parhament and of
men like Winwood and Ralegh towards Spain was a pre
judice, a sur^vival 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 L 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 cHplomacy 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
Europe 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 ?
Pro^vidence seemed to have said to the enemies of
Spain: Thus far and no further! They had lost thefr
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 dfrected 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. 286
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 thefr 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 incretfrble 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 empfre. 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
expe(Htions, or Ralegh himself more than once in his
earlier days. Ralegh now sailed under a commission from
Govemment. 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
ffrst acceptance of Ralegh's proposal he shows himself
independent of Spain. Ralegh will discover a gold-mine
in Guiana, from which the king shall (fraw 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
Vfrginia. The reasonable claims of Spain, however, he is
anxious to respect, and therefore requfres 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 OP JAMES L 287
for any breach of his engagement was a very insufficient
guarantee. Was it certain that the daring adventurer
would ever retum at all ? But it was credible that he
would hold it a good deed if in any way he could succeed
in re^viving 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 Trace 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 Sfr
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 t.ake 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 allo^wing 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 affafrs, 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' desfre 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 (fropped till itl
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 L 289
beth had connived 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 oc(^asionally dallied with them, but that he (Hd
so at a time when he meditated a marriage alliance ¦with
the Spanish House, for which he was not unwilling to pay
in rehgious 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 chil(fren 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 Govemment. The plan of Charles II in
1672, the policy of Marlborough's Govemment in 1710,
that of the elder Pitt in 1762, were frustrated by a sudden
re^vulsion 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 confHcting 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
w^hich 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 aidy'in the
shape of a marriage portion, to a foreign Power. But
the mismanagement of foreign' affafrs 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 coimexion
with Hannover had been formed.
The end of Ralegh's adventure furnishes' an ad(frtional
illustration of the confusion of English policy. It is im
possible to argue that Ralegh would not in' a time when
intemational affafrs were conducted in an orderly manner
have deserved his fate. His whole beha^viour betrayed
that he was ready to disregard his instructions and to
violate his o^wn solemn engagements for the sake of ob
taining success at all hazards, and this at the cost of
hurrying 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 Govemi
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 L 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 dfrection
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 fafrly 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 nation showed a vigorous vitality, and achieved great
things, even while the Govemment either remained inactive
or acted un^wisely. In the growth of the Empfre the reign
of James is a capital epoch, when the seed so^wn 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 empfre, though no actual
settlements had been founded. The only durable creation
Had been the East India Company. In that last period
of Elizabeth when, as we have seen, her persistent effort
to live at peace vrith Spain appeared to have flnally failed,
and she seemed at last to have become really warlike, she
19—2

292 GROVSTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
had granted a charter to this Company. Quite recently
the Dutch had sho^wn the way to render war -with Spain
profitable by annexing Spanish colonies. They 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 1580 in the Spanish
Monarchy, and by the help 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
Govemment profited 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 afready occupied by Spain, and had dfrected 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 In(Ha Company
the English Govemment for the first time made a dfrect
attack upon the colonial empfre of Spain.
What mighty results followed at a much later date
from this step does not concern us here. The imme(Hate
result was not so much to damage Spain as to involve
England in disputes -with the Dutch, and so to create
a maritime rivalry 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 empfre.
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 tom 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 flrst 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
Govemment, 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 cfrcumstances they were
able to devote themselves to thefr trade, obtaining thefr
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 Vfrginia the conditions were different.
Perhaps at the outset the object of the settlers there
had been gold and silver, and thefr disappointment may
account for the retum 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 OP 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 soHd foundations of a new
state, and the natives, far from being thefr 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 ffrst 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 purpose
of revenue, like the Spanish colonies, nor a factory where
a few traders emiched themselves, but a new home for
Englishmen, hallowed by bfrth 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 entfrely 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 m 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 they
acqufred much greater power in New Spain. Such effect

EPOCHS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES L 295
however was produced in the English colonies, partly
because Govemment, 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 whichj
just 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 Empfre. 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 Church, they could not be
let alone, they could not. escape the law pf the land
Naturally therefore they began to look abroad, and to
inquire for some new . hoipe wherei they might live as
they desfred to live, separate. The same impulse was

296 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
upon them which drove the clul(fren of Israel into the
¦wilderness and thence into the promised land. They
'sought a country.'
It was a great coincidence which fumished 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 Vfrginia 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 yeara it
came to light how radically the English state had been
mocfrfied when English citizens made thefr 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 Europe.
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
chaaage. Equality, toleration, and republican liberty, were
brought out of the sphere of speculation into that of
practical poHtics 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
afready 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 affafrs which led to this catastrophe. And the
Thfrty 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 IIL
JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
We might perhaps afford to treat very briefly the
Continental occurrences of the age now befoi-e us, the
German War of Thfrty Years and the second war between
Spain and the Netherlands, if we considered only the (Hrect
share taken in them by England. But in these occurrences
He the roots of two great developments which in a later
age were of infinite importance to England. These de
velopments are the modem Great Power which we call
Austria, and the prominence which this new Great Power
begins almost immediately to assume in international
poHtics. There is something strangely featureless and obscure
in the history of the German branch of the House of
Habsburg in the period after the ab(Hcation 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 thefr successors, yet at l^ast
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 thefr dominion was a mere

JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 299
miscellaneous aggi-egate. 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 ruled
under various titles much scattered German territory.
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 period (being an
effect of the Thfrty 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 truth then is that after the abdication of Charles
V the, Empfre 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 Prag and puts Vienna under the govemment
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 (Hd 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 Fer(H-
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 Tfrol, 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 Prag.
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 II Austria (frd owe
much to the kin(fr'ed Power of Spain. But we are to
remember that the di^vision of the imperial family which
first created two (Hstinct 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 gU
mancasse altro a moversi contra (H lui che occasione e
facolta. (H 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 (Hd not
1 Gindely, Rudolf II und seine Zeit, 'Vol. i. p. 26. .,
* Tiepolo, year 1563, quoted by Gindely, Rudolf II und seine Zeity
Vol. I. p. 25.

JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 301
last very long, and another change took place which
enabled the Emperor Ferdinand II, after a violent and
for a time almost desperate straggle, to give, a sort of
moral unity to his scattered dominions, and so by the help
of Spain to establish, as we have before expressed it, the
modem great Power 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 Philip 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 family. 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 passing
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 Hke a national or
German religion, he lived to see a tum 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 pubHc 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 pafr were placed together
on the throne of the Low Countries, which was actually
made independent of Spain. That this anticipation of the
modem 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 (Hgnity.
It was for a time favoured by Spain, and was only aban
doned when it was perceived' to involve practically a
sui-render 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
great 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 affafr-s 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 vehemerice for Catholi
cism. And when in the sevefrties the Counter-Reformation
began effectively to take hold of Germany it had actually
to reconquer the southern part of the country from Pro-
testantisih 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 desfrable to keep constantly in view, in respect of the
mariner in which they dealt "with the religious question.
In neithei country was it found possible, as in England, to
maintairi 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 th^ terms
of the arrangement which might be concluded between
them. In Germany this arrangement was the Religious
Peacie, coiicluded iri 1555; in France after thfrty-five
terrible yeai-s of war a settlement was made by the Edict
of Nantes.

304 GRO^WTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
The main difference between these two settlements
was that the Rehgious Peace was practipally a ¦dcfjory 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 thp
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 arrested by tbe
advance of the Counter-Reforrnation. Accordingly in Ger
many all early anticipations were disappointed, and about
1625 Romanism seemed Hkely to obtain a final victory.
This, was averted, but the South of Germany was defini-
tivel}' lost to the Reformation, and on the whole when the
straggle 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 Em-ope
that Austria raised itself to the position of a great Power.
In an earlier chapter we examined the Countpr-Re-
formation sufficiently to discern the causes of its success in
Western Europe. These causes operated also in Germany,
but if we would fully understand the s^urprising reaction it
caused there we must take note of a cfrcumstance whiph
hitherto we have (frsregarde(i. In the middle of the six^
teenth century the Reformation bad taken possession of
Germany like a naighty national religion, and it might well,
seem that the Council of Trent, whatever influence it might
have elseMfhere, came too late for Germany. And yet ua
twenty years from the conclusion of the Council by some
means or other the Counter-Reformai/ion had invaded Ger
many too and there too it eventually took the upper hand.
We noted it as a characteristic of that peripd, 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 rehgion to civil govemment. 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
MaximiHan 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
govemment. If it led in the last years of Charles V to a
ci^vil 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 ap,d 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 Rehgious
^feace, it, left Germany tolerably free from (Hsunion, 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
npt last, S. 20

306 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
It was no doubt a precarious equilibrium. The ma
chinery of national govemment 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 Reformatioh,
so far as it was successful, involved a vast confiscatiori of
ecclesiastical property. Such a confiscation, accomplished
regularly by a strong Govei-nment, might be harmless,
but where govemment 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 openirig
of the Bible to the people ; but iri another aspect it was
the appropriation of a vast amount of property by a
number of German princes. It raised these pririces 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 Govemment. 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
independerice which they might acqufre 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, suoh 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 fedbli

JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' 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 in 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
bilt that painfully secular side. The anarchy appeared in
many (Hfferent degrees. In a Hungarian or Bohemian
lando^wner 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
rebellion. 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 calclron could not but embitter the
religious polities of the country. This prince's position
was necessarily revolutionary. As a Calvinist, he was not
prOtecJted by the Religious Peace. He was hemmed in by
Catholic principalities, the ecclesiastical electorates, the
kin(fred 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 OP 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 Cal^vinism. 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 pre(Hct 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 Empfre would linger on for two more cen
turies. What seemed certainly at hand was something
¦widely different. The Empfre seemed about to be (Hs-
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, (Hd 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 YEARS' WAR. 309
in the Empfre. Thefr conduct at the Diet held at Ratis-
bon in 1608, where they frankly denied the right of the
majority to bind 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 Palatine 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
EHzabethan 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

310 GROWTH OP 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 th^
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 Thfrty 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 Mountain outside Prag. A
blow was struck at the Reformation which might well
seem serious wherever, as in England, a strong national
feehng 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 OP 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 Monairchy with the
Dutch began again. Henceforth there was not merely a
Thfrty 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 thfrty 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 Mountain at Pragjthis
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 YEARS* 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. Ffrst, king Philip IH
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 reUgious 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 religipus 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-Mw of our .Stuart king,
and so long as he should remain the mpst 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 vin
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 Protestantisnl
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 thefr ¦vfrgin 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 Pverwhelmed 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 thefr 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
iri 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 intemational 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 tuming-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 srion 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 eccle
siastical Electorates (Koln, Trier, and Mainz); 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!
Wben 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 Empfre. 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 kin(fr-ed Power.
It was the more alarming because at this very time
that kin(fred 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 con(Htion 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 chilcfren when they urged him to support
thefr Bohemian claim. But when they were threatened
in thefr own Palatinate James held it a family duty to
interfere. Both James and Charles regard the Thfrty 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 thefr

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
cfrcumstances, had been able to rise to a higher' point
of view. And EngHsh 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 thefr
views. But what the English people saw in Germany was
an alarming series of (Hsasters befalling thefr religion.
They understood indeed little in detail. The merits of
the Bohemian question or of the electoral question were
beyond thefr 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-
Reformationy 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 thefr people, yet were in a
kind of vague general agreement with thefr 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 embaiTassed in the Elizabethan age. In that
age' the danger which threatened England, and therefore

320 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
the close interest of Erigland 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 dfrect 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-
ifavourable contingency it could scarcely be shown to en
danger England. The Protestantism of England (Hd not
depend on that of Germany, as it had really ^ seemed to
depend, in EHzabeth'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 responsibihty
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

JA&IES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 321
that already in Henry IV's time France had felt herself
most dangerously hemmed in by Habsburg power. The
Catholic Low Countries, Franche Comt^ 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 bestfr herself
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 (Hd 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 concemed. Nor was England able to meet this
um-easonable 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 (Hvision does not fall at the moment of the death of
James but a year earlier, at the retum of Prince Charles
from 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 ¦with France and
Spain in 1629-30 we may say that the second phase ends.
We have found the poHcy 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
secui-e position that if she chose to hold aloof from foreign
complications, or even to trifle with them and then (hs-
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 feeHng 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 (fragged
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 thefr 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
thefr 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 Thfrty 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 Govemment, 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 Macfrid instead of at Vienna. It adopts first a
peaceful, then a warlike method. At ffrst 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 dfrected to Spain, with whom the settle
ment of the question did not really lie, and not to the
Emperor, with whom it (Hd.
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 CathoHcs.
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 thefr 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 conciHatory 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 YBARS' 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 Ma(frid.
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 ihave obtained resti
tution, not so much from Spain as from the Emperor
himseff. But he had behaved ¦with such perverseness,
and had created such confusion in Germany by letting
loose military adventurers such as Mwsfeld 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 c^me to
this, that Spain should put force upon the Emperor,
should go to war with him in the cause of the Elector

326 GROWTH OP 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 Ma(frid, 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 poHcy of James
stood condemned. The only altemative, 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 pubHc opinion. The agreement (Hd not
indeed last long; as a leader of pubHc 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
entfrely 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 favourites of Queen

JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 327
Elizabeth, Leicester and Essex, who like him had dealt
¦with foreign affafrs 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 straggle to
have recommenced by a sort of necessity. England sees
again, for the first time under the Stuarts, a spfrited,
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 sHghtest 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 stea(Hly resisted the
urgency oi the war-party represented by Ralegh. The

328 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
program of Buckingham is wholly unlike this. His wai-
¦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 bad 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
h3,d ever, been ¦witnessed before. '
We see the powerful reaction of foreign poHcy upon
domestic govemment. It has been too common to explain
our ci^vil troubles solely by internal insular causes. The
long peace and security had no doubt allowed the constitu
tional question to come under (Hscussion, 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 ci^vil troubles, which
probably would not have taken place but for the war with
Spain which began in 1625 and the war -with France which
spee(Hly followed it.
These wars belong to the reign of Charles not to that of

JAMES I AND THE THIRTY YEARS* 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 fpebleness 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 in this peace policy.
But it seemed as if the tide was against him, and through
his last year he (frifted 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
con^viction 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, and he
acquiesced. He had always wanted the vigour to stamp his o^wn
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 L
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
(Hfference. 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, rained 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 thfrteen years between his accession
in 1625, and the rising in Scotland in 1638, falls into
two well-marked divisions. There is flrst the age of
Buckingham, in which the Minister impresses his energy
upon the procee(Hngs of Govemment, 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 I. 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
o^wn 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 Gusta-ras Adolphus, of the murder of Wallenstein, of
the battle of Nordlingen, and of the intervention of France
in the German 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, thefr 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 cfrcumstances, 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
empfre has mainly gro^wn 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 found
ourselves at war with Spain and France at the same time.
Again such energetic intervention in the affafrs of the
Continent, favoured as it was at the outset by Parhament,
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 with
Spain at Madrid early in the year 1630. Nothing was
gained for England in either war. Instead of national
union the energetic 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 Spaia 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 thefr o^wn harbours against
English attack, while Spanish Armadas are wholly unable
to inflict any damage upon England. Thus ended in 1604
the first 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 Sfr
Edward Cecil against Ca(Hz 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 (fream.
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 to^wns; 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 Govemment would have found themselves

334 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
powerless, when the crisis arrived, to resist tbe naval
power of Spain.
Buckingham had not the advantage of his predecessor
in the office of Admfral, 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 govemment, 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 (Hfficult to discover. There is Httle
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 instrument which would
probably have broken in a much more skilful hand.
This may be said of the expedition to Ca(Hz, which
otherwise was hopeful, being dfrected 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 (frsastrous 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. Accor(Hngly, 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 subjected. 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 Parhament 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 Govemment 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 Govemment 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 indfrect 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 afready
sanctioned in the last year of James and which therefore
Parhament 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 poHtics 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 Parhament found itself in danger
of being tempted to make immense and unheard-of
grants for a war which it only approved in part. Lea(Hng
members, for example Sfr Francis Seymour, protested that
in the debates of 1624 no such war was contemplated as
the Govemment was now undertaking.
And as the plan so the spfrit of the Govemment was
wholly cHfferent 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 CathoHc
Power, Charles as the Power that had insulted him. But
the (frfference of feeling appeared almost imme(Hately ; 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 Maifrid, 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
again 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
thfrd 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 EHots 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 fafrly have supported the Protestant cause with
diplomacy and vrith money.
Much has been written about the apostasy of Went
worth, who in the thfrd 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 requfres no explanation, least of all the explana
tion of apostasy. A politician might very fafrly 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 (Hplomacy 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 requfred 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 thefr crews. It was believed when this was done
that peace was already assured between the Huguenots
and the French Govemment, but the war broke out
again, so that Charles found himself aiding a Catholic
king against his Protestant subjects. In these cfrcum
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 Httle real reason to be anxious on this
point, for the govemment of Louis was dfrected 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 destraction. 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 pecuhar
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
thefr Govemment, 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 L 341
hand in European affafrs, 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 CathoHc 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 PhiHp 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 afready at war with Spain,

342 GROWTH OP 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 afready
made, might be seen the outline of a statesmanlike
system which would prove sufficient for the needs of the
day. Just at this moment to commence 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 OP 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 thfrd 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
(Hvision 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 thfrties,
while Germany was ruined and Holland and France were
disturbed by war. It was no (ipubt 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 Sfr 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 (Hsappears 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 (Hsmay to the
confusion reigning in foreign affafrs, the failure at Cadiz,
the failure at the Isle of Rhd, the infinite expense incur
red, the rain of Protestantism in Germany. .What EHot
thinks Wentworth thinks also. If we studied only this
particular phase of Charles, wp might be led to think
that if he could only adopt a different system of fco-eign
affafrs, if he could only reconcile himself to non-inter
vention, be 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
Hencefprth 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 ig now
that of his father, whereag before it had been suggested
by a strong reaction against the policy of his father.
Hencefprth 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 Ma(frid 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 affafrs of Europe she found
a new world which had formed itself during her trance of
insularity. What we call the Thfrty Years' War is a series of wars
which, though distinct, are not clearly di^vided by any inter
vals of peace. To call it a great final straggle 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 Govemment 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 Sa?ony 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 ¦with(frawing these
Powers again, so that out of thfrty years of war scarcely
seven saw the rival Confessions openly arrayed against
each other. This intense straggle 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 stea(frly 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 kno^wn 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 thefr 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 with(frew from
the war by making the Treaty of Liibeck ¦with the
Emperor. Charles now retires from the European contest, in

THE POLICY OF CHARLES L 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 retfred 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 ci^vil troubles.
We may go further and lay it do^wn 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. First 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

348 GROWTH OP 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 alHance ; 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 o^wn cousins the English princes.
We return to the second period of Charles, which,
when looked at from the EngHsh 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 RicheHeu and
Gustavus arrange the concert which forms the foundation
of a new international system. Hitherto in tbe 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 (frops out of the CoaH
tion and her place is taken by Sweden. This change is
not altogether unnatural, since the danger now comes n,pt
from Spain but from Austria, and is Icjss felt by mari
time England than by Sweden threatened on tbe Baltic.

THE POLICY OP 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 Gusta-vus, the anarchy which fol
lowed in the Empfre, 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 Prag; 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 affafrs 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 thefr war was waged, and many of thefr ¦victories
won, in our o^wn 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 Clausum, 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 careful 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 affafrs 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 (Hgnity 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 stfrred 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 undesfrable that the three kingdoms should (fraw
closer together. What seemed dangerous was that the
consolidation should be effected by a govemment 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-
government far more than was just upon Buckingham
himself But the consolidation of the three kingdoms
opened fundamental questions, questions of religion. And
in the thfrties 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 Popery.
We must not linger on the causes of the Great
Rebellion. But even in intemational history it is all-
important to remark that in the thfrties 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.
Ffrst, 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 convio-
ti(m 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 (frew nearer together it seemed likely that Angh-
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 Govemment 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
tbe Catholic cause in England was likely to be strength
ened, and in the same degree Catholicising tendencies
within the English Church 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 lea(Hng 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 eomes to us from Scotland and the woid
Tory from Ireland.
The thfrd great event which had taken place was the
colonisation of North America. This too had taken place
quietly and gradually. But from America too there now
came a reaction unfavourable to the stability of govern-

THE POLICY OF CHARLES L 35S
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 thefr
religious position that they depended upon toleration in
the Home Govemment. 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 un-written 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. EngHsh Calvinism groaned under
the yoke of Laud it looked wistfully towards America as a
land of refuge, in which men might worship God accord
ing to thefr 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 thfe idea of toleration. And there
sprang up gradually that: 'thfrd religious party which
complicates the history of the war of King and Parliament,
s. 23

854 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
Empfre 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 thfrties
are years of incubation, during which great events are
prepared, but do not take place; on the Continent the
thfrties 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 thei 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 RicheHeu,
moves irresistibly forward and becomes in a veiy few
years the first Power in the world. And her developement

THE POLICY OF CHARLES I. 355
is so strong and vital that, when Richelieu himself disap
pears and all the cfrcumstances are changed, it continues
through the whole period of Mazarin until under Louis
XIV'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 maintained 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 in good or evil fortune,
always the greatest of Christian Powers. It now declines
iso rapidly that Richelieu himself lives to see it on the
verge of total dissolution ; and this decline, though after-
'wards retarded, is never suspended, much less repafred.
Thus France, Spain, Austria and England are all alike
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 thfrd period, that of
our ci-vil troubles, he is indeed closely watched by Richelieu
and then by Mazarin. The internal convulsions of England
might well have led to an active foreign policy, whether
of intervention in continental affafrs or of resistance to
foreign intervention in English affafrs. 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 RicheHeu 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. Accor(Hngly in the Short Parhament
Charles produces evidence of the complicity of the French
Govemment 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 affafrs, for he
was me(Htating the schemes by which shortly afterwards
he almost (Hssolved 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 (Hplomacy 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 policy of
England in. the next age — we must leave England for a
while and study Continental affafrs dfrectly. For England
was then in one of her insular phases, when her affafrs
were so much dissociated from the affafrs of the Continent
that the latter cannot be understood by studying the
former. And therefore, as we introduced our re^view of
the reign of Elizabeth by a chapter on the gro^s^th 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. '

CHAPTER V.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE.
The events which took place in France fi-om 1630 to
1632 ought to be called a revolution, if by revolution we
mean a profound alteration in the spirit and machinery of
govemment accompanied by ¦violent disturbance, and yet,
perhaps because no king was deposed, the name of revo
lution is not usually given to them. At least let us
understand that no revolution ever produced a change
more momentous or more durable in the character of a
state than these disturbances.
What makes them specially important to us is that
they produced so profound an effect upon intemational
relations. This is recognised in the current conception of
them which represents Richelieu as establishing despotism
at home in order to enable France to become a conquering
state abroad! And yet when we examine the facts we
find this description' scarcely true, or at least crude. The
foreign conquests followed indeed very speedily upon the
domestic reforms and may very probably have been fore
seen by the reformer, but they were scarcely the object
which he had originally in view. Nor can we divide the
reforms from the conquests; as though the former distinctly

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 disintegra
ting forces which he had held in check had gained head
again. It was not a con(Htion in which the ruler would
naturally (fream of undertaking foreign conquest. It was
a feeble precarious condition in which safety and defence
must be the ffrst objects of the Government. Not only
was France feeble within, but she was always in danger
of 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 vrithin his own dominions, and
Philip II, supported by the Leag-ue, had almost conquered
the country. There had since been improvement, but
the causes of the e^vil had not been era(Hcated. The
unpatriotic spirit of the League remained among the
nobility. Nay, even twenty years later than 1630 Cond^.
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 comman(Hng 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 waa

THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 359
needed when he sent Bfron 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 Henry IV. But it is certainly not reason
able to suppose that he had foreign conquest dfrectly in
¦view, though foreign conquest so speedily followed. It
was quite as necessary for the purpose 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 inspfration 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-
burgi especially the Spanish branch of it, and these domestic
and foreign enemies acted still, as they had acted during
the reign of PhiHp, II, in the closest concert. He dealt
his blows at each in tum, now crushed some great
noble for conspfring with Spain, now attacked Spain for
supporting the rebellious nobles. As he met ¦with success,
in the end the French Govemment suddenly found itself
absolute; at home and superior to its enemies abroad.
AcCor(Hngly it (frifted into foreign conquest, but the cause
of this was not .precisely that it desired conquest. It
desired suck 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 enemy.
And for the same reason the French movement guided by
Richelieu is in intemational history far more important
than the contemporaneous English movement. The latter,
though all-important for ourselves, had but a gradual and
in(Hrect 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 (Hctator 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 govemment.
Thus a period of thfrty-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
Govemment 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. 361
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, Soissdns. 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 thefr o^wn 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 success 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 feudaHsna and the wildest ci-vil 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 ^pain, hitherto, the tyrant pf France
through its understanding with Frenph feudalism, passes
ati 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 Hotfi English, we must, regard the whole transformation
together, survey at , once thfrty years of French history,
andi content ourselves with;. noting large outlines. The
straggle 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 simultaneoufely and come to an end together.
But for a considerable ipairt of this (time France is also, at

362 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
war with the Emperor. The Thfrty 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
acqufres 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 great war in Germany. The latter came to
an end in 1648, but the former lasted on till 1659. The
latter gave Alsace to France and profoundly modified the
whole con(Htion 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 fafrly say, dissolved the
Spanish Empfre. The two wars were no doubt so closely
connected that it scarcely occurs to us 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 straggle of France ¦with the Spanish
Monarchy by itself, (Hsmissing for a time her simultaneous.
struggle with Austria.
For here is the last act of a (frama which has been
presented in this book. We have followed the complex
Spanish Monarchy from its foundation at the retfrement
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 tbe nature of civil wars, that it was able

THE TRANSFORMATION OF PRANCE. 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
Pyrenees. From the time when the House of Guise looked
up to the King of Spain to the time when the great Cond^
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 thfrty years created the
modem 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 PjTrenees, 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 GROWTH 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 H
had been founded on the annexation of Portugal and pf
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 acqufred the iiidependence
for which they had contended through eighty years. Such
mighty changes were caused in(Hrectly 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 1659 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 thfrty 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 TRANSB'ORMATION OF FRANCE. 365
revolution and the death of Charles, England acqufres
again an active policy. This is the age of Oliver. We
can see beforehand what question such a policy must take
up. OHver has to consider what side he will take in the
decisive and final straggle 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 OHver may therefore be taken for our purpose to include
the first part of the reign of Charles II.
Such in largest outline was the intemational change
initiated by Richelieu. 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 (Hstinctly expressed and began at the end of the
eighteenth century actually to inspfre 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 spfrit 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, dfrected 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 PRANCE. 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 hefr, aided by Spain, raised
rebellion and (frew to his side one of the greatest nobles
of France, Montmorency, son of Montmorency Danville,
and grandson of Constable Montmorency, he ci-ushed 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 Ma(frid 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 kincfred 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 frre-
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 OP BRITISH POLICY.
was the task of crushing and 'over^whelmingJ the Spanish
Monarchy. This task however the' Infanta of Spain reso
lutely and most effectually performed. We think'' of
Mazarin as the statesman who dfrected 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'jh6
sets in motion. He does not^ once for all abjure family
poHtics, nor does he go sofar 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 polyglott
aggregate held together' only by his person ; he is raler 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' thO' 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 Careiinalsand the
age, prpperly so caHed, of Louis XIV, 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 o^wn 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 requfred in all coun-

THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 869
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 govemment 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 thfrty 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,
ha^vingonce 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 o-wn Minister until
Mazarin was dead. Mazarin ruled France till his death,
although technically the minority wa,s 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 eielusive 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 OP 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 modem
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 straggled 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, ba^ving 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 acqufred 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 ValtelHn
opens the long period of French precedence in Europe.

THE TRANSFORMATION OP 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 amount
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.
Jt was the great religious scandal of the age of Riche
lieu that the Most Christian King, advised by a Car(Hnal
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
Kmperpr 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 rebelHon 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 Govemment ba^ving 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 with(fra^wn 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 ffrst 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 re-viving this
policy ?
When the Thfrty 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
incHcating 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 Govemment
of Louis XIII as intolerable. Spain had occupied the
Ralatinate, 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 do^wn the French frontier, and along the
frontier of thefr 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 ValtelHn, and in aU these
regions the power of Spain seemed to have been increased
by the growth of Austria and of German CathoHcism.
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 involved -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 cfrifts 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
(frifted gradually from a policy of self-defence into one of
conquest. i
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 tiU 1629.
It is also somewhat confused, and exhibits the new system
in the making.

THE TRANSFORMATION OP PRANCE. 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 subsi(fres
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 spfrit 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 thefr strongholds, they
had henceforth no security but the honour of the Govern-

376 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
ment,. and honour in the long ran can hardly maintain
itself against religion. After 1629 Richelieu could feel
that he had done enough for orthodoxy. As the cont}ueror
of the Huguenots, who were now disabled materially,.
and also morally discredited by thefr concert ¦vvith Spain;'
he could proceed to ally himself with Protestant Powers
without provoking the dagger of a Ravaillac. I '
Afready the war against the House of Austria had
begun, for it is characteristic of Richelieu to advance
against the foreign enemy without waiting to (Hsarm
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 itj'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 (Hes out, andi
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 disregar(frng 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 thfrty-one years later
by the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Immediately after his
retum 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 (Hfficulty. He
has henceforth but one enemy, viz., the concert between
the Spanish Monarchy and the French noblesse. For the
thfrteen 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 Empfre, 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 thefr patron and ally the King of
Spain as well as in themselves. War with Spain inust
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 Austria 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 (Hd not at Ifrst interfere dfrectly 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 TRANSFORMATION OF FRANCE. 379
moment the scene of it was Italy. If she called in
Gusta-vus 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 Germaine system that a
wholly new prospect for France opened on the side of
Germany. Gradually France herself was (fra-wn into the
Thfrty 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 inciderit 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 do-wn
from the age of- Philip II — so continued twelve years after
the German war had been brought to an end by the
Treaties of WestphaHa,
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, flnds 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 entfrely
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 Gtistavus himself meant to take for his share no

380 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
one knew; Wallenstein dreamed of becoming King of
Bohemia; Bemard 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 (Hsturbance to subside which had been raised
by Gusta-vus' 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 inqufre
later ; meanwhile we are to note what effect these revolu
tions had upon the policy 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 Gusta-vus 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 imme(Hately
very important for France. Gusta-vus 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 -with
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 (friven 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 but for a new danger which arose in the
fluctuations of that stormy time. Gustavus passed away
in 1632, lea-ving 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 Empfre and into which scale he would throw
this weight no one could tell. Then came his do-wnfall.
About the same time a new Habsburg prince, Ferdinand,
brother of Philip IV (called the Cardinal-Infant), took
the govemment 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 Nordlingen.
' Er sprengte die ganze -Verbindung der spanisch-kaiserlich-katho-
lischen Interessen, die den Prauzosen so widerwartig war, aus ein-
ander, EANKis.

382 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
It was a kind of new bfrth 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 straggle in which the Spanish Monarchy, in
the sense which we have explained, fell, and France
established her European ascendency. i..' '
Seven years of Richelieu's life were yet to run, and
within that time the Spanish Monarchy was brought to
the verge of rain. 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 killedj
and Richelieu faced dfrectly the problem not of resisting
at some one point but of overthro-wing 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 ffrst 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 thoi great Coalition of
Sweden and the Prptestant princes. This is the begriming
of the final phase, of the Thfrty 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 ,subsi(Hses him, and after his
death: in 1639 she takes over hisi army. This becomes a
kind of nucleus round which, chiefly under the dfrection of
Turenne, the great French army of the age of Louis XIV
fprms itself ¦ ,, ;, , i , ,
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, Maurice. In 1628 the Admfral
known; as Piet. Hein, achieved -what, Spain had long appre
hended,, yet fondly hoped the. God of Ca;t^olics wouW
never suffer, to .be done, he. captured the silver fleet.
From this' time the, Dutch, no longer as in the former war
a: icommunity of rebels in whona, despaif became heroism,
but a, igreat I Power and the richest nation in the world,
showed theinselves superior to thefr enemy. When Riche
lieu in 1635 brought them the, aid of France he traste(i
that the , two allies would be easily able to partition
between them the Spanish Lox Cpujitries.
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 GROWTH OF BRITISH 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 Spairi 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 Comt^ which must be brought to bear by way of
the valley of the Rhine. And now began to be felt the
corisequences of Gusta-vus' 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 Gusta-vus the princes and popu
lations of this region put themselves eagerly under the
protection of Ft-ance, 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 tbe 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
carious 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 trae 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 now 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 thefr vast colonial
possessions to the attack of Spain's enemy, the Nether
lands, that at thefr expense the Dutch colonial empfre
had been founded. At this very moment they had bitter
occasion to feel what price thej^ 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 OP 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 ci-vil war in England. A new English policy, which
we must soon examine, begins when the Parliament takes
the place of the King in the (frrection of affafrs. But
before we retum to English policy it is convenient to
mark the principal phases through which the transforma
tion of France passed after the death of Richelieu.
Ffrst 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 Cond^
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 thefr 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
straggle 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 (Hsturbances 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
Cro-wn 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 Condd, as
Concini had imprisoned Condd's father, and civil war
breaks out fomented by Spain. Finally Condd openly
joins the Spanish side and serves as a general of Philip
IV. In the hands of these turbulent nobles, the Parha
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 itseff. It
establishes the union and the greatness of France. It
crushes down all that makes for disintegration, incluiHng
those very Parliaments and those popular principles which
have (Hscredited 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 inqufre what England has been
doing during the years of the Transformation of France.

CHAPTER VI.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND.
England as well as France suffered tran,gformation
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 Govemment had success and in
Englarid opposition to the Govemment triumphed, the
actual transformation began in England later than in
France. The decisive event in England as much in
foreign as in domestic affafrs 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 Richelieu
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 acqufred at once the main control
of foreign affafrs. 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 affafrs, 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 rdgime 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 straggle 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 King of Spain and soon
after many a sister of the King of France. When we
remember how much in that age depended upon royal
marriage 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 Spamsh
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. Henrietta
Maria sympathised with her mother, the victim of Riche
lieu's persecution and the foun(fress 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 Government, but towards
the French Opposition, and in the struggle which had
commenced in 1635 it inclined England to favour Spaia
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 raore dfrect 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 dfrection of foreign affafrs
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 bom who

394 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
was to be Louis XIV. His bfrth was indeed in itself a
very substantial gfft of fortune, for it gave a future to the
conquering system of Richelieu, which hitherto had seemed
to depend absolutely upon the frail Hfe of Louis XIII.
As later in 1729, so now in 1638 the bfrth of a dauphin
changed the aspect of politics. But in the same year a
great military event occurred. We have seen how Gus
ta-vus had, as it were, raised the siege of France by breaking
through the Spanish lines in the Palatinate and on the
Rhine. In 1638 Bernhard of Saxe Weimar completed
the process which his master Gusta-vus 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 bas 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 affafrs 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 thefr 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 system. The
capture of Breisach had forced Spain to fall back upon her
fleet in conducting the war of the Low Countries. A
gi-eat 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
concHtions 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 spee(Hly
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.
Carddnas, the Spanish Ambassador, on one side, Bellievre,
the French Ambassador, on the other, were requfred to
state how much thefr respective Governments were pre-

396 GROWl-H 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 Admiral, Pennington, having no
orders, did not interfere. Oquendo himself with a con
siderable part of his armament made his escape into
Dunkfrk 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 desfre 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 Spaiush 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 Bellievre, 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 Bernhard, 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 thefr slight regard now became bitter
(Hslike. 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 memofr to Bellife-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 acqufring 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 Dunkfrk. 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 retum
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 Bellievre
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 affafrs, which was
derived from Queen Henrietta Maria, that to the English
Court it wore the appearance of a rebellion fomented by
Richelieu. ' The Car(frnal 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 requfred at the moment when he was pressing
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 trasted to do Richelieu's work
for him, and to provide those troubles in Great Britain
which bis 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 affafrs and particu
lariy 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 affafrs 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.
Plence he pursues the restoration of the Palatine Prince
at first through alliance with his Danish relative, and,
when thfit 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 Govemment
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 Govemment is for some years much hampered
by the opposition of the King and his party. But in 1651
it succeeds in crashing this opposition, and then for nearly
nine years the state is guided securely in foreign affafrs 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 thefr 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 gro-wn up during his exile.
Meanwhile in his own mind the dynastic system had
been strengthened and hardened by that very exile.
He had (freamed 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 OP BRITISH POLICY.
that is, by tbe armiep 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
straggle 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 tbe English, people and anything Hke a close alliance
with France scarcely less so. They placed themselves
therefore in a false position with respect to thefr 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 bom 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 ffrst
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 djmastic 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 Rebellion
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
poHcy of the eighteenth century. With the Restoration
26—2

404 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
begins a struggle between the two systems. At the
Revolution 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 mi»rriage,
the struggle might have recommenced. But her Danish
marriage created no- (Hfficulty, and after her death that old
connexion with tbe 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 retum to the period of Richelieu
and look again at Charles I just entering the civil war
Ave 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
EngHsh 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 WilHam 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 alHance of the Sea Powers upon which depended
the intemational relations of Europe through a great part
of the eighteenth century.
The second William and Mary and thefr marriage are
known to all of us ; the first William and Mary, who had
but a short married Hfe 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 thefr 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 WilHam 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
retum from Scotland, we may note the commencemejit
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 laying the foundation of a republican poHcy.
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
afready 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 afready 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 mecHtated
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. Afready the Queen, repulsed by Richelieu, begins

THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 407
to look for aid to the Stadtholder. Tbe royal family has
formed a new connexion, which, though less brilliant than
its connexion with France, has advantages of its o-wn.
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 th«3 rising
in Ireland, and tbe 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 policy. 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 mainly 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,
since the foreign department has been all along in his own

408 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
hands. The surprising effect with which the Parha
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 afready sought to obtain Spamsh
troops for his Scotch war. He now hopes to get a
Spanish loan, while Henrietta Maria applies for a eon-
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 embocfred. 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 thefr
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 dfrection
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 a,nd 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 tum the civil war
of King and Parhament into a national war of England
and France. But Richelieu desfred 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 (friven to apply to another family, ¦with which
it had so recently formed a connexion, the House of
Orange. A poHtical 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
inspfred 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 greatest 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 RebelHon of 1642 was followed
by no similar intervention, although it affected the French
royal House much more dfrectly, 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
Che^vreuse, 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 settHng her
government, in breaking her husband's will and es
tablishing her o^wn unrestricted regency. Meanwhile
the great victory of Rocroi was won by the hefr 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 great 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 RicheHeu. 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 Richelieu's work,
found thefr endeavours frustrated, and Mazarin, a(froit
and unassuming, presented himself as a sort of lady's
RicheHeu. 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 o^wn 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
fumished 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 Admfral,
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
thfr'd 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 House 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 (fra^wn, as it were,
into the eddy of the EngHsh 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
EngHsh 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
Parhament 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 resi(frng 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 tbe 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
EngHsh and Scotch nations. Now in a similar extremity
this foundation proved again firm and sufficient. The
rebellion in England joins hands with the rebelHon 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 straggle
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 Presbjrterianism 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 Revolution, 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. Thfrdly, when the Royal
Party is seen to have the advantage Scotland comes to
the help of the Pariiament and restores the balance.
Next, we find the King labouring to meet this move bj^ 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,
(friven 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 Astley 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
Condd 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 govem
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. Ffrst,
Condd 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 thefr armies, and together force
thefr 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 thefr
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 thefr 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 despafr were able to
force the Emperor to separate the interest of Germany
S. 27

418 GROWTH OF BRITISH 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 Pf France and Sweden.
The Treaties of Munster 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
remained 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 Pariiament could not for a
moment feel at ease, and in 1648 a new Ci-vil War broke
out. It is a fact of great importance that the French
Govemment 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
pro(Hgious magnitude. The English Monarchy had beeh
completely and hopelessly beaten in its struggle with the
Parliament. This event is historically perhaps greate-r
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 OP 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. Afready in 1646 he may have foreseen
the EngHsh 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 straggle in which it had put forth its
utiriost 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 corild 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 tbe
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 GoYemment 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
Bellievre, 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
Republic. 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 cro-wn.
The reasons of this difference are very easy to under
stand. Ffrst, the revenue of the King is so restricted that it
can barely suffice for bis ordinary expenditure, and con
sequently if he wanted to make war he would have to
make it without money, which is impossible, or else be
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 thefr 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 acqufre by alHance with that of
Holland ; which alliance for several reasons would assuredly

THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLAND. 421
become indissoluble, if only the empfre 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 afready in 1646 begins to
appear. It is the more striking because this very Mazarin
afterwards (frd 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 spee(Hly 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
(Hd unite ¦with Holland in that powerful alHance 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. Bellievre 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 (frama is
at an end, that which began in 1642, the Civil War
between King and Parliament, in which the Kmg has

422 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
had some help from the Stadtholder, but very Httle 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 Royalist
Party has fallen into an inferior position, the main dis
putants being at first 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 tum with the Presbyterians,
with the Scots, and with the Independents, and irritates
Cromwell now as he had frritated 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
rea(Hly 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 retaHating. 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 alHance
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 tbe 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 Dryvines 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 afready 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 affafrs, since -they have
taken of themselves a course highly agreeable to her.
But we see ber now gfrding 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 wag 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
Bellife^vre be speaks of 'the bad example which will be
o^ered by the insurrection of the English and Scots against
thefr 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 Govemment, where those
who have brought it about ¦will seek to justify it m
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 be 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 RepubHc 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 ffrst
impression. For the French Govemment returned to it
after Mazarin had passed away.
It is one of the grand differences between the later
and the earHer part of the Stuart period that the later

THE TRANSFORMATION OP ENGLAND. 425
Stuarts lean very much upon French aid in thefr 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 Ranke 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 Sheriffmufr,
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.
AU that remained to Charles was the power of selling a
27—5

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 caimot 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
Comet Joyce in the name of the army and his transference
to Hampton Court, of his negociation with Fafrfax and
Cromwell, of the Agitators and the di^vision 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 mih
tary party and thefr 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 thefr surrender of the King,
of the growth of a Royalist Presbyterianism, having its
headquarters in Scotland, but at the same time strongly
irifluential 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 (Hfferent
from the first. The event of 1648 resembles in some of
its larger features those of 1715 and 1745 ; 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
concems 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 (Hffe
rent from the fiu'st, 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 point of view at the same time presents a
new aspect of the events of 1648 by exhibiting the con
nexion of Continental with British affafrs.
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 thefr own
account but also by thefr influence upon English history.
I. On January 30th, 1648, peace was signed at
MUnster 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 (Hspute 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 empfre.
This (Hspute was now at length closed for ever, and the
Dutch question ceased henceforth to trouble intemational
politics. II. Since 1644, when a Pope of anti-French leanings.
Innocent X, had succeeded the Barberini, Mazarin had
stu(Hed 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
Cataloiua. 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
Condd to detach Naples from the Spanish Monarchy and
rewarding him with tbe crown for himself This scheme
had to be abandoned, but a Guise presented himself to
play the part which Condd declined. The French Go
vemment 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 with(frew 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 Empfre,
and at Osnabriick between Sweden and the Emperor and

THE TRANSFORMATION 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 Pariiament of Paris. It is the com
mencement of what is kno^wn 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 pre(Hcted 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 iWy 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 pf 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
follo^wed- In 1646 the Italian who shortened his name
to Mazarin had a position before Europe similar to that of
the pther Italian who when he came to rale France
shortened his name to Napoleon. His armies fought at
once in Spain, Italy, Bavaria, and Flanders, and they were
commanded by Condd, Tureime 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, stu(Hed in the library which
his munificence had thro^wn open to them.. And while
Vfrgil's line, Tu regere imperio populos, Bomane, 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 histoiy
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 ¦w;ith equal success. In both wars like-wise 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 cro^wn, and as guarantor of
the new settlement of the Empfre 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
(Hfficulties, in which Spain was closely concerned, were
gro^wing up for the French Govemment. 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 Govemment
seemed to have surmounted all ancient (Hfficulties and to
have overcome all enemies, the old e^vil broke out again,
the old concert between Spain and the turbulent noblesse.
The League itself seemed to revive in the Fronde.
It is necessary to attend to this sudden change in

432 GROWTH OP 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
course. 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 Bellidvre and Montreuil is very
active during the time of the King's stay at Newcastle.
. This is not the place for a (Hscussion 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 necessitd que ce pas-lck
se franchisse gaillardement et que Sa Majestd se ddclare
hautement pour le Presbitere Escossois ' (Memofr by the
Queen accompanying the Instructions to Bellie^vre). 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 concemed 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 con^vinced 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 haff of the seventeenth century
is mainly occupied in climbing laboriously back to the
eminence from which his govemment bad 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 Comtd 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 Englajid had afready produced its effect, as Mazarin
had foreseen.
At least in 1648 tbe moment was passed wben France

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 EngHsh movement of 1641. It
was a rising of Parliament against Royal Power, all the
more startling because the Parliament of Paris was an
assembly so (Hfferent from the English Parhament, 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 Condd might seem for a time
to answer to Cromwell. One resemblance at least it had
which concems us here. We have seen England paralysed
by her ci^vil troubles while France established her
ascendency in Europe. The ci-vil troubles which now
arose in France paralysed her in turn for several ' yearsj
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 tbe calculation of the
composite party of Presb)rterians, 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 dfrectly assailed. Its powers had
indeed been relentlessly curtailed, but the opponents of it
had kept in view everything rather than foreign poHcy.
Thefr grievances had been mainly rehgious; they had
scarcely since the age of Buckingham been seriously
(Hsquieted about any foreign interests or relations. Nor
had they yet been driven to have a foreign poHcy of thefr
o-wn 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 Coritinent, 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 Govemment.
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 Govemment of England and
foreign Governments was absolutely (frssolved. 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 Britarmia. 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 OP 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, alinost evane
scent under Elizabeth, had retumed upon us with the
arrival of the Stuart, and had grown strosnger and stronger
as thefr 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 straggle between dynastic and national policy,
until the great reconciler, William III, effects a satis
factory compromise in foreign as in domestic poHcy.

END OF VOL. I.

PART III.
CROMWELL ANB THE MILITARY STATE.

CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST DUTCH WAR.

The transition in foreign policy caused by the fall of
the Monarchy in 1649 is the most complete and abrupt
that will be dealt with in this book. Foreign policy
became of necessity a new thing from the moment that
the Monarchy was removed, and the change thus made
could not be undone by the Restoration of the Monarchy.
The period of the so-called Commonwealth was long enough
to allow the new conception of policy to take root.
At the transition-point we cannot avoid making a
general comparison between the two kinds of policy. We
have traversed a long period in which dynastic considera
tions of marriage and succession have determined every
thing; we now see before us a period when- such con
siderations are eliminated. It would be too much to say
that they simply gave place to considerations of national
well-being, for there were also interests of the ruling party
to be considered, there was a system bequeathed to the
new government from the Civil War. But theoreticaUy
S. II. 1

2 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
our policy now became national, and practically under the
Protectorate it was at least more national than it had been
under the Stuart Monarchy.
There can be no question that an advance was made
when the fantastic system which drew a whole nation
in the train of a single family was (frscarded. But, as
English history has always abhorred extremes, the im
provement was less manifest, because the old system had
been less abusive than it might have been in another
country. In particular our policy (frd not become more
peaceful, but decidedly more warlike, by becoming national.
Peace and non-intervention pushed to an extreme had
long been the established tradition of English policy. From
the first outbreak of rebellion in the Netherlands against
Philip II to the conclusion of the Treaties of Westphalia,
England had intervened only and barely as much (if we
except the age of Buckingham) as was necessary for her
own safety. ;
Dynastic govemment was now removed, and forthwith
this peaceful tra(Htion was set aside. England became
more warlike than she had been at any time since the
Hun(fred Years' War with France. Although she had
been tom by war within the British Islands for ten years
and might be supposed to need rest, she now makes war
¦with the Dutch RepubHc. Oliver succeeds to the power
of the Long Parliament, and it has sometimes been alleged
as a proof of Oliver's humanity that after attaining supreme
power be sheathed his sword. But after making peace
¦with the Dutch, Oliver went to war with the Spanish Mon
archy, and thus England, which for a century had been
a peaceful Power, now in twelve, years of the new systep
waged two deliberate wars with great European States.
We shall see moreover that the Dutch wars of Charles II

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 3
were undertaken in pursuance of a policy which the Re
storation Monarchy had inherited from the Protectorate.
Why a national policy in England should be more
warlike than a dynastic system we shall inqufre in the
proper place. We note in the meantime that there lies
before us, as might be expected from the personality of
Oliver Cromwell, and from the Imperialism which he re
presented, one of the most martial periods of English
history. It is true that the wars of the Commonwealth
were individually less burdensome than those of the
eighteenth century, but they follow in rapid, almost un
interrupted series. The country had but newly emerged
from a civil war of ten years (reckoning from the first
(frsturbances in Scotland), and there now followed a re
newal in 1649 of the war in Ireland, war with Scotland in
1650 and 1651, and concurrently with these maritime war
-with the Royalist party. Then followed in 1652 war -with
the Dutch, which was closed in 1654. In 1655 began war
with the Spanish Monarchy.
This enumeration brings to light the phases through
which the policy of the Commonwealth passed. It begins
in civil war and passes by gradations into foreign war.
Bearing in mind our general observation that the civil
troubles were largely the effect of the interaction of
England, Scotland, and Ireland, we remark that as the first
Civil War had been caused by the action first of Scotland
and then of Ireland upon England, and in like manner
the second Ci-vil War of 1648, and in(Hrectly the Military
Revolution itself at the close of 1648, had been caused by
the action of Scotland, so the Military Revolution led to a
great reaction of England upon Ireland and Scotland.
This Military Movement is in reality the only Revo
lution of England in the full sense of that word, the only
1—2

4 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
attempt which the English nation has made to shake off
tra(Htion. It is a purely English event in which the
Scotch have no more share than in the defeat of the Spanish
Armada and which took place also wholly outside Ireland.
For the moment therefore it created a wholly new relation
between the three kingdoms. Necessarily therefore it was
followed by new dealings between England and Ireland
and between England and Scotland. Oliver Cromwell,
who in the first Civil War had been a great cavalry officer
and party leader, the soul of the Military Party, and who
in the second Ci-vil War had won the decisive battle, now
stood forward as the national English hero. He creates a
new relation between the three kingdoms in which England
takes the ffr-st place, shaking off the kind of yoke which had
been imposed upon it through the Covenant by Scotland,
This work is mainly accomplished between 1649 and 1651.
It was but natural that English should be entangled
-with Scotch and Irish affafrs. But they were entangled
also with the affafrs of another country, viz. the Nether
lands. We have seen how close had been from old times,
and especially from the days of Elizabeth, the sympathy
and intercourse between the English and the Dutch. The
recent intermarriage between the Houses of Stuart and
Orange had (fra-wn the bond tighter. The struggle of
King and Parliament was, as it were, reflected in the
spectacle of Dutch politics, where the Stadtholder stood
for King and the States of Holland for Parliament. It
was therefore not merely on account of trade-(Hsputes that
war broke out in 1652 between England and the States-
General. That war grew up more naturally and, as it
were, instinctively, out of the EngHsh Revolution, which
could not but produce a perturbation in Holland, almost as
in Scotland.

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 5
Meanwhile it was also natural that the new con
stitution in England should need a certain amount of
reconstruction. Imperialism belongs naturally to the
governments which have a monarchical form. As an
army has a commander-in-chief, so govemment by the
army is naturally administered by the Commander-in-
chief In 1654 all this important business which necessarily
followed in the train of the Military Revolution had been
successfully dealt with. A settlement had been made with
Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands. The Lord General
Cromwell had dismissed the Parliament which, since its
mutilation by Pride's Purge, had only served to conceal
the supremacy of the army. The edifice was henceforth
complete. Accordingly the year 1653 marks a tuming-point, the
close of the Revolution, the opening of a definitive state of
things. Great Britain and Ireland, for intemational pur
poses more fully united than ever, now compose a powerful
military state, and their resources are in the hand of a
great statesman and soldier. This military state proceeds
to declare war -with the Spanish Monarchy.
Thus from about 1653 to Oliver's death in 1658 we
have a system of government in effective operation. As
after 1658 this system is in dissolution, so before 1653 it
is but in growth and preparation.
There is in the whole of English history nothing more
profoundly interesting than the attempt made between
1648 and 1654 to reconstruct the state from the founda
tion, and in particular to unite the three kingdoms into a
single commonwealth. But this Essay is not concerned
with constitutional changes, however interesting, nor can
we even dwell upon the internal disturbances and wars

6 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
which accompanied the reunion of the three kingdoms.
The fact of that reunion is indeed most important to us,
but on the whole we must be prepared to regard all such
insular events much as Blake did when in his fleet off
Aberdeen he received the news of the (Hssolution of the
Long Parliament. It is said that, being then exhorted by
his captains to declare against Cromwell, he replied No, it
is not for us to mind affafrs of state, but to keep foreigners
from fooling us. That is, he held a position outside the
British state, from which he kept watch on its relation
-with foreign states. In like manner this Essay deals -with
the foreign relations of the community inhabiting the
British islands, and so the mutual relations of the parts of
that community interest us only so far as they may in-
dfrectly affect our foreign relations.
We are also to bear in mind that, striking as this
chapter of our history is and important too by its indfrect
consequences, yet in a general view, including later as well
as earlier periods, the short duration of the Protectorate
and the speedy do-wnfall of the institutions then founded
disentitle it to be treated at any great length.
From this point of -view we see in the period between
1648 and 1654 principally the straggle of England and
the Netherlands.
On the wars of Scotland and Ireland we merely re
mark as follows : —
England and Scotland being distinct kingdoms, the
abolition of monarchy in England had of course no effect
in Scotland, while the trial and execution in England of
the King of Scotland necessarily strained in the most
violent manner the relations between the two peoples. It
is one of the striking analogies between the tragedy of
Charles I and that of Mary Stuart that a sovereign d

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 7
Scotland was in both cases put to death by the English.
Now the son of Charles I succeeded to bhe throne by
unquestionable right in Scotland at the moment of his
predecessor's death. After January 1649 Charles II was
King of Scots by the admission even of those who denied
his right to the title of King of England, and is so called
in the State Papers of the Commonwealth. Thus for the
moment the Military Revolution had the eSect of Undoing
all that had been done since the accession of Elizabeth
towards the union of the Southern and Northern parts of
Britain. The personal link was broken, and for the
moment -violent hostility between the two governments
took the place of sympathy.
In Irelarid ci-vil war had never ceased. There Ormond
still professed to hold his commission from the King.
Between the English Commonwealth and the population
of Ireland there was the same kind of discord which pre
vails in primitive society between alien races and alien
reHgions. The massacres of Drogheda and Wexford were
soon tp give proof of this.
Thus a rearrangement of the mutual relations of the
three kingdoms had to be effected by war. A third ci-vil
war of the most tremendous kind takes place, gro-wing
naturally out of the second Civil War, which is that of
1648. In the life of Oliver Cromwell the distinctness of this
great event is very strongly marked. Oliver was a -victo
rious commander, and also a great ruler and statesman.
But he (Hd not, like Napoleon, appear in all these characters
at once. He assumed them successively. From 1653 to
1658, for five years, he is the ruler of the country, bearing
for the greater part of that time the title of Protector of
the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

8 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
During this last period of his career he is a great Euro
pean statesman, he makes peace with the States-General,
alHance -with France and Sweden, war with the Spanish
Monarchy. But during this period he is no longer a
sol(frer, he commands no army, he fights no battle. He is
not the Wellington or Wolfe, but the Pitt, of the European
war. For when he became a ruler he had afready laid
do-wn his sword. His last battle was that of Worcester. ,
And as his victories were over before the Protectorate,
so in the grand Rebellion they have not begun. In the
first Civil War he is the most distinguished of officers, as
he is the most remarkable of party leaders, but he does
not yet -win battles in his own name. He is not nominally
the commander at Marston Moor or Naseby, but only the
officer to whom in each case the -victory is chiefly due.
But between 1648 and 1651 he is the great com
mander and winner of battles. From Preston to Worcester
he commands armies in his o^wn name, and not only mns
¦victories, but wins the only important -victories that are
won. Considered as a military commander, the special and
peculiar work of Cromwell is not the defeat of Charles I,
but that rearrangement of the relations of the three
kingdoms which we have just discussed. It was by the
sword of Cromwell that the so-called Commonwealth, that
is, the government of the army, which was first set up in
England, was triumphantly established in Ireland and
Scotland. That this alarming revolution was allowed by foreign
monarchies to complete itself in the British Islands was
due in the main to the causes which have been afready
explained. Bellidvre writes to Servien at the time of the
King's trial: 'As you know very well, they are so sus
picious here with regard to everything that proceeds from

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 9
France that that which would pass unnoticed from others
is declared criminal when it comes from us; and as, of
foreign Powers, they fear us alone, they pay such attention
to our actions and our words that the least expression of
the resentment which we must feel for that which they
have done might be enough to lead them to make alliance
with Spain.' These words furnish the key of the policy at
once of the French and of the Spanish Courts. Since the
secession of the Dutch from the French alliance and the
outbreak of civil troubles in France tbe European war had
sunk into a duel between France and Spain, and a duel in
which the combatants were very equally matched. Spain
had conceived new hopes from the movement of the
Fronde, and at the same time France had lost her ally.
It was a critical moment for both these Powers, and there
fore both were nervously careful not to offend England.
The govemment newly set up in England was assuredly
warlike ; it had a fleet and an army ; and neither France
nor Spain could face the thought of seeing British ships
and men placed at the service of her antagonist. But
there was another foreign Power which by its position was
forced to take a different view of British affafrs. This was
the United Netherlands, which, now at length relieved of
the Spanish incubus, enters upon a new period of its
history. With this new phase of the Netherlands, begins a new
period in the foreign relations of England. As the Eliza
bethan age might be said to begin with the first rebellion
of the Netherlands against Spain, so a second period of
greatness for England begins when the Netherlands take,
after the Treaty of Miinster, the place from which
the Spanish Monarchy is now retfring. Henceforth the
Netherlands will play a greater and more important part

10 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
in our story. We have before us three great wars between
England and Holland, and beyond this an alHajnce of the
two Sea Powers which is still more memorable, which
indeed is the great and dominating combination of the
opening of the eighteenth century.
The foundation of this new relation was laid by the
marriage of the first William and the first Mary in 1641.
By this the Stuart family, at the moment when its position
in England was shaken, acqufred a new support, and at
the same time the English and Dutch nations, which had
always had a strong sense of kin(fr-ed, were drawn closer
together. So much was visible at the moment, but other
consequences and results of the marriage came to light in
course of time.
It was perceived that if the House of Stuart in England
had gained help in its difficulties, not less had the House
of Orange in the Netherlands acquired a new support of
the utmost importance, by this alliance.
The year 1648 seemed to be fatal to all royal Houses
in Western Europe, so that an observer of political currents
might then have pre(Hcted that Monarchy was approaching
its last hour, and was about to give place, in all advanced
countries, to a republican system. It actually fell in Eng
land, and the lively French mind now took the infection
of the ideas that were in the afr. In Paris republicanism
was preached and barricades were set up in this same year.
And in the same year also that -vfrtual monarchy which
had grown up in the Netherlands and was attached to the
family of the Liberator, received a sudden blow; the
tendency which from the outset had always set in favour
of it, was suddenly arrested.
Not that the Monarch was wanting. That standing
(Hfficulty of the here(frtary system, that it depends. upon

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 11
an accident, that the man worthy to reign may fail in the
monarchical family, was not felt here. It is trae that the
Stadtholder Frederick Henry died in March 1647. The
fiction which identifies a son with his father and might
enable the Dutch up to that time to believe, or make
believe, that they had still their Liberator among them,
could no longer help them. Henceforth they had but a
grandson of William the Silent. But then he was named
William. He was William II. He was ' un tres gentill
cavalier,' as the Earl of Warwick writes to his mother.
He was ' the ablest man whom the House of Orange had
produced,' in the opinion of the enemy of the family, De
Witt. At the death of his father he was twenty-one years
of age. It was not the death of Frederick Henry but the Peace
of Miinster that shook just at this moment the monarchical
power of the House of Orange. The Princes of the House
. of Orange had been in request as Liberators and Protectors
of the Dutch people against Spain, and ever since the
people had aimed at independence, except during the
twelve years of truce, they had needed such liberation and
protection, for during all that time they had been at war
with Spain. Now that peace was made definitively, and
there was really little prospect that Spain at least would
ever trouble them again, the condition of the state was
fundamentally altered. The function of Liberator or Pro
tector lapsed. The unique House, which in a population
of traders, bankers and sailors held a court, bore hereditary
titles, and had a sort of hereditary right to the chief
public offices, seemed henceforth out of place.
For the new Prince this created a position which was
peculiarly intolerable because he had risen to a higher
rank than any former Prince of Orange. The tide which

12 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
now suddenly ebbed had just before risen higher than ever.
His predecessors had been great noblemen but not of royal
rank ; he had married the Princess Royal of England ; his
son, if he should have a son, might not impossibly succeed
by right to the British throne.
He is the one unhappy Prince of Orange in a century
and a half, the only one who missed his vocation. His
misfortune lay in this that his time fell in the interval
between the decline of Spanish and the rise of French
ascendency. His three predecessors had won honour in
resisting the former, his son was to rise still higher in
resisting the latter; he alone, not less gifted than they,
saw to his despair the republic make peace, and found his
occupation gone. Hence the -wildness of his conduct
during his short term. Perhaps it was happy for him
that after three years he died suddenly at the age of
twenty-four. With his death (hsappeared for a moment the rudi
ment of Monarchy in the Netherlands. His son was not
bom, and the effects of the peace were sho-wn in the Stadt-
holderless time, which now began and which lasted till
the thfrd William had arrived at manhood. Thus Dutch
history has a chapter which corresponds somewhat closely
to that which in English history is inscribed Common
wealth. The EngHsh Monarchy fell in 1649, the Dutch
in 1650 ; the English Monarchy was restored in 1660, the
Dutch in 1672.
The con(Htion of the two countries being so remarkably
similar, and the two nations and the two royal Houses
being so closely connected, it was inevitable that they
should exercise a strong mutual action. In the English
Revolution the Dutch were concerned scarcely less closely
than the Scotch.

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 13
It is frideed possible that William II, had he lived,
would have run a great career and have acquired as much
fame as his forefathers or as his son ; in that case however
the fame would perhaps have been of a sinister kind.
From the archives of the House of Orange we may leam
what he aimed at, and we may also perceive that he might
probably have succeeded, and that by succeeding he would
have dra-wn Europe into another course.
He regarded the Peace of Munster precisely as it was
regarded by the French govemment, by Mazarin himself
The retfrement of the Netherlands from the war with
Spain, which had confounded the policy of Mazarin at the
moment of its consummation, had at the same tirae
frustrated all his own hopes. But there was no reason
why he, as there was no reason why Mazarin, should
acquiesce in the disappointment. Both had separately
great resources, and it was open to them to put these
resources together.
Mazarin, who had hoped to settle with Spain as
triumphantly as he had settled -with Austria, and then to
interfere in England, desfred now to induce the States-
General to cancel the Peace. WilHam II, who had hoped
to follow in the steps of Maurice or Frederick Henry, and
to rival Condd and Turenne, also desfred to cancel the
Peace. And he too desfred not less than Mazarin to
interfere in England in favour of the family which had
introduced him into the royal caste. There was every
HkeHhood that by a combined effort William and Mazarin
would be able to reverse the peaceful policy which had
gained the upper hand for a moment in the States-General.
Parties in the Netherlands were pretty equally (Hvided.
The traduig party represented by the States of Holland
and the Burghers of Amsterdam had for a moment gained

14 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
the control of foreign policy. But the House of Orange
controlled the other six provinces and had the people, on
its side. What might not William hope to accomplish,
aided by his youth, his energy, bis here(Htary aptitude and
hereditary reputation, his royal rank, and lastly by the
powerful assistance of Mazarin and the deep purse of the
French govemment ? The two statesmen together would
certainly cancel the Peace, revive the alliance of 1635 and
probably also at last accomplish that partition of the
Catholic Low Countries which had been contemplated in
1635. In this change of Dutch policy would be involved no
doubt a change in the Dutch constitution. The awkward
and intricate system of government which had hitherto
prevailed would be simplified. The Dutch would at last
find what long before they hoped to find in Queen EHza
beth and in the Duke of Anjou, a Monarch. The grandson
of WUliam the Silent would become the fii-st King or
Sovereign Duke of the Dutch provinces. He would endow
the country with a most valuable French alliance, -with the
family alliance of the King of Scots and with the friendship
of the Royalist party in England.
Not that William was a plotter, or that he allowed his
mind to dwell on such ambitious schemes. To him it
seemed that the plotting and the ambition were on the
other side; he meditated only a measure of self-defence
against the trading party who threatened to deprive him
of his hereditary position, who were dangerous to the union
of the provinces, and who in making the Treaty of 1648
had actually broken the Treaty of 1635. But the defensive
measure would probably have involved such a revolution
as we have described, and so Mazarin -writes to Servien
(April 5th, 1647) : You may, if you think proper, let faU a

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 15
word to make him (i.e. the Prince) understand that a con
juncture may occur when, if he has secured the protection
and good will of their Majjesties, he may attain to a great
ness quite beyond that of his predecessors.
We speak of the father of a great English king. This
great English king and great master of European policy
was born within a week of his father's death on November
6th, 1650, and at that time the revolution in concert with
France was already beginning in the Netherlands. It is
important for the history of William III and of England
that we should conceive clearly the position of the House
of Orange at the time of his birth. I therefore make
room for a few sentences from one of the latest letters of
William II, dated August 27th, 1650. It is written to
an unknown friend.
" I have obliged the province of Friesland through the
president of the week, who is dependent on me, to repre
sent to the States-General that it is disgraceful to us
to see France embarrassed as she is without offering her
our aid, considering the debt we owe her. He will also
propose that a frank letter should be written to the Arch
duke (i.e. the Govemor of the Catholic Low Countries) to
show him that this state cannot see or allow him to meddle
further in the affairs of France, and offering me(Hation for
a fafr settlement. He will also propose that the Spaniards
should be asked to perform what has been promised by the
Treaty of Miinster for the advantage of my House, in
default of which the measures that may seem good shall
be adopted. I am assured that they are not in a condition
to satisfy this demand, and as they have tried to embarrass
me you can fancy I shall not lose the opportunity of
retaliating. I cannot say how desirous I am to entertain
you, and as I hope the King and Queen (i.e. of France) will

16 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
pay the Princess Royal the honour of a visit after her
confinement, I conjure you to exert yourself to the utmost
with bis Eminence that you may accompany them ; which
-will give us more opportunity to talk of many things. I do
not despair that we shall soon have war with the Spaniards,
but it is necessary for us to take ciur measures."
So stands the House of Orange just before the bfrth
of William III. It is in close alliance with France ; it is
bent on plunging the Netherlands into war -with Spain;
it is a House with royal pretensions, engaged in a mortal
straggle with Republicanism.
War with Spain, not war -with the English Common
wealth, for the restoration of his brother-in-law, is the
object William has most at heart. Nevertheless he enter
tains the Prince of Wales at vast expense, he sends money
in support of his cause to Scotland, and in his negocia
tions -with Mazarin the restoration of the Stuarts is occa
sionally mentioned.
But did not a war with Spain accompanied by a
domestic revolution constitute an undertaking sufficient
to absorb his attention ? Would he burden himself at the
same time with a war with England ? The answer is that
intervention in England did not strike him as' thus purely
optional, a mere family duty which it was open to him to
perform or neglect. The new govemment in England
already regarded him as thefr enemy ; they regarded
Mazarin as thefr enemy; and they were roused to im-
mecfrate hostile action by the mere menace of a concert
between him and Mazarin. William found that his
opponents in the State of Holland were receiving support
from England; Mazarin found that Spain was Hkely to
receive support from England. In short a great intema
tional combination was springing up. The newly-founded

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 17
Republic of England, the republican party in the Nether
lands, and the republican Fronde in France, were rallying
to the side of Spain; and opposed to this combination
stood the monarchical and family alliance of the three
Houses of Bourbon, Stuart, and Orange. It was therefore
scarcely possible for William to separate the British
question from the Spanish question, or to make the
revolution he contemplated on the Continent without at
the same time declaring against the English Common
wealth. We need scarcely therefore enter into the vexed i ques
tion of the draught treaty of October 20th, 1650. In this
document the Prince and the King of France undertake to
attack the Catholic Low Countries jointly on May 1st,
1651, also to break vrith England and to restore the
Stuarts, and not to make a separate peace with Spain.
Some writers have disputed the genuineness of the docu
ment. Among those who grant this there has been
disagreement as to the significance of it, some' regarding
it as implying an assumption by the Prince of full mon
archical power and therefore a fixed intention of subvert
ing the constitution of his country, others^ treating it as a
mere informal sketch of a policy to be pursued by legal
means. But William II does not pass across our scene ;
whatever were his plans, they were frustrated within a
month fi-om the date of this paper by his sudden death.
It is enough for us to remark that it corroborates (and
Mr Geddes points out that the weight of authority is on
the side of its genuineness) what the international situa
tion itself renders probable, viz. that the restoration of the
Stuarts was one of the articles of the secret compact
between William and Mazarin.
' Sirtema de Grovestins, * Groen van Prinsterer.
S.U. 2

18 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
But the death of the Prince was, a very great event,
for a whole policy, which might have changed the face of
Europe, died with him. His party was essentially mon
archical, and was therefore paralysed until his unborn son
should anive at manhood. The republican party of Hol
land passed at once by his death from despair and from
the prospect of (Hssolution to the control of affafrs.
Afready on July 30th, 1650, the Revolution had begun
which was to crash this party. The Prince had arrested six
of the delegates of the Province of Holland and imprisoned
them in the fortress of Loevesteyn. In this act he seems
to imitate Mazarin, who had lately arrested the great
Condd, Longue-ville and Conti, leaders of the Fronde, and
had been warmly applauded for so doing by the Prince
himself He had next proceeded to march troops upon
Amsterdam. At the moment of his sudden death he
was ' master of the republic \'
Almost immediately after his death the power passed
over to the party which he had so easily crushed. For all
the strength of the Orange party resided in its head, and
it lost its head on November 6th. In tbe first days of
January there met at the Hague a Great Convocation of
delegates from the Seven Provinces. By this time indeed
there was a new Prince of Orange, but he was a baby,
conceming whom his mother and grandmother were de
bating whether he should be christened Charles William
or William. And so the paralysis of the party continued,
and thefr antagonists were able, at the Convocation, to
destroy, so far as legislation could do it, the germ which
had been on the very point of developing into Monarchy.
Republicanism had won in the Netherlands even more
truly than in England two years earlier.
' The plirase is Mr Geddes'.

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 19
A great event not only for the Netherlands, but also
for France, and Spain, and for all Europe ! A great event
for England ! For the second time the new English
govemment was relieved from the danger of a foreign
intervention. The war of Scotland and England was
at this time proceeding. In the interval between the
Prince's successful stroke and his sudden death was
fought the battle of Dunbar. The decisive catastrophe
of Worcester followed in the next year. Now had William
II lived, the King of Scots might have been aided in the
first months of 1651 by a grand alliance of France and the
Netherlands in his favour, and the result might easily have
been different. But the Monarchical Coalition was broken
by his death and there was no prospect of repafring it.
Mazarin had suffered another great disaster ; republicanism
would now assuredly prevail for a time in the Netherlands
and therefore probably in England, and it was probable
that the cause of the Fronde would receive a new impetus
in France. The tide of republicanism seemed to be steadily rising.
Charles I had fallen, and now William II on the other
side of the sea. England was a Commonwealth, and now
for the first time the Netherlands too seemed to be really
a Commonwealth. Might it not be expected that these
two communities, so closely akin in blood and religion and
so similar in trading and maritime propensities, would
proceed in due course to unite in close alliance ? And
yet we are now to see them for the first time engaging in
war. Now breaks out a rivalry which hitherto had been
held in check. While the monarchy and the quasi-monarchy
lasted they had remained at peace ; no sooner does republi
canism prevail in both communities than we see them in
spite of a strong common interest become enemies.
2—2

20 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
What now occurred between England and the Nether
lands had been witnessed already between England and
Scotland. Those two countries had rebelled almost at the
same time against Charles I ; in both rebellion had been
successful, and the religious tendency of both communities
had been similar ; yet now, almost immediately after the
fall of Charles I, England and Scotland were at open war.
This was the effect of the close contact between the two
countries, and between England and the Netherlands there
was contact almost equally close. In the Elizabethan age,
at the time of the Armada, it may be said that the Nether
lands were even closer to England than Scotland as yet
was. If they had drifted away in the next generation,
a new and most important link now held them together,
the link of royal marriage. In commerce and colonisation
the two nations had developed together and Hved in
perpetual contact and collision.
This peculiar intimacy of the two communities was
indicated in a striking manner by the step which the
English Government took in 1651 after the death of the
Prince. We remember that after the death of William
the Silent the Dutch laid thefr country unreservedly
at the feet of Queen Elizabeth, desfr-ing no better lot
than to become her subjects. Now at the death of
the second William, while the Great Convocation was
sitting, two ambassadors from England, Oliver St John
and Walter Strickland, appeared -with a similar proposal,
tending not merely to an ordinary alHance, but to 'a
more strict and intimate alliance and union, whereby
there may be a more intrinsical and mutual interest
of each in other than hath hitherto been for the good
of both.' Thus on the eve of war England and the Netherlands

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 21
discussed a plan of exceptionally close union. This may
show us that we have to do with a quarrel of relatives !
The military revolution of 1648, a movement far more
radical and profound (though it proved ephemeral) than
that which had begun in 1640, could not but disturb the
relations of England and the Netherlands on the one side
as it disturbed those of England and Scotland on the other.
Over all the seas the English and Dutch were in contact ;
now it was a marked feature of this revolution that it was
felt beyond the sea and on the sea, wherever Englishmen
had settled or English ships went. In the first Civil War
Parhament had kept control of the fleet, but in the second
Civil War the fleet had been divided, and it had threatened
on the whole to incline the other way. From this time we
see a maritime royalism, at the head of which Rupert ap
pears, contending henceforth -with Blake on the sea, as
before with Cromwell on land.
An English civil war on the sea ! This was an occur
rence the more pregnant because for half a century the sea
had been growing more and more important to England.
The numerous English convulsions of the Tudor time had
been at least confined to the island. For the first time
in 1648 it began to appear that there was an England
on the Atlantic and far away beyond the Atlantic. The
maritime war of Royalist and Republican touched one of
the most sensitive nerves of the new England, its foreign
trade. Afready there existed, though still on a small scale, a
Colonial Empire of England. Our colonies were indeed
small compared with the vast territories which had so long,
nominally at least, belonged to the Spanish Monarchy.
They were not, as they are now, scattered over the
globe. But a modest overflow of EngHsh people had

22 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
taken place across the North Atlantic. To our one
Tudor colony of Newfoundland had been added, as we
have said above, a continental England on the eastern
coast of North America and a few West Indian islands.
This developement, not striking in mere magnitude, had
however not only contributed much to the Puritan Revolu
tion, but had also materially altered the character of our
state. The change which Ralegh had foreseen had taken
place. England's 'interest in foreign trade' bad grown
considerable, she had become a commercial state. She
became, as it were, conscious of this when the Civil
War became maritime, as it (Hd in 1648, when the
communication between England and EngHsh settlements
was interrupted by royalist privateers.
In this maritime Civil War the Dutch could not but
be entangled. Their ships, far more than our o-wn, crowded
the narrow seas and the North Atlantic. The larger pari
of our foreign trade made use of Dutch bottoms. Nor
indeed could the Dutch be regarded as wholly neutral
in the civil war of England. The English straggle of
King and Parliament was blended with the Dutch straggle
of the House of Orange and the States of Holland, and
royalists all over the EngHsh world looked scarcely more
to the Prince of Wales, who now speedily became King of
Scots, than to Prince William II of Orange, and afterwards
to the babe in the arms of the Princess Royal. Until the
death of William II in 1650 the Netherlands drifted under
the same influences as Scotland towards war with England.
They were opposed to the republican movement, they clung
to the dynasty, they were appalled by the execution of
Charles I. But when repubHcanism prevailed in the
Netheriands also after the death of the Prince, a more
peaceful prospect seemed to open. Hence the mission

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 23
of St John and Strickland in 1651, the object of which
was to unite the two states upon tbe basis of republi
canism. It is surprising at ffrst sight that this proposal should
have so completely faUed, and that the two republics,
threatened by the same enemies, viz. the Stuart interest,
the Catholic interest, and France, instead of uniting in
self-defence should now for the first time make war
upon each other.
But there was a fundamental difference between the
anti-monarchical government in England and the anti-
monarchical government of the Netherlands. The former
was concentrated, resolute and all-powerful. There might
be in Britain a vast amount of royalist feeling, but it had
no voice and no influence upon the policy of the govern
ment. It had been purged out of the Parliament and
defeated in tbe field. The ruling party was not a pre
carious majority, which cannot afford to lose votes and
is therefore (friven to a temporising course, but a minority
depending upon force, whose one principle of action is
audacity and whose one hope of safety is in success. It
is easy. for such a govemment to have a resolute and con
sistent policy, and by the help of a devoted army it may
succeed. For this is the nature of Imperialism.
On the other hand the republicanism of the Netherlands
in 1651 was in the highest degree precarious. It was
founded simply on the superiority in wealth of the Pro
vince of Holland over the other six provinces. In the
absence of a Prince of Orange who might embody and
impersonate the wishes of the nation, the Dutch nation
for a time lost its unity, and a national policy became
impossible. The Dutch were no longer one thing, but
seven things, and of these seven things the largest and

24 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
most powerful was the Pro-vince of Holland. Holland
therefore began forthwith to take the lead, and in 1653
John de Witt, son of one of the prisoners of Loevesteyn,
became Pensionary of Holland, and in that capacity guided
Dutch poHcy for the rest of his life. But the power he
represented was a mere preponderance, which would only
last so long as the six pro-vinces refrained from combining
against Holland, and to maintain which therefore required
infinite tact, and the most watchful caution. He could not
afford to forget that he ruled a country which was devoted
to the House of Orange, and therefore strongly inclined
to the House of Stuart. In the Netherlands in short
public opinion counted for much, whereas in England
the government was not in any way accountable to public
opinion. The negociations of 1651 on the proposal of union
brought this (Hfference strongly to light. From March
to June St John and Strickland resided at the Hague
and, though their main object was to secure both govern
ments by union against Stuart machinations, they were
made to feel during those three months that they were
H\-ing amidst a population almost hostile to them. ' Every
day the Princess Royal and her brother, the Duke of York,
who had retumed to the Hague, rode slowly past the
ambassadors' residence with ostentatious pomp and an
imposing suite, staring at the house, from top to bottom,
in a manner to encourage the rabble, which her procession
gathered up in its way, to commit an insult. A warning also
reached the ambassadors from Rotterdam that the royalists
there were conspfring to murder them; not improbable,
looking to the fate of Doreslaar (Dorislaus) at the Hague
and of Ascham at Madrid. They drew the attention of the
States of Holland to the insulting nature of the Princess's

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 25
processions. The sterner Republicans in the Holland States
wanted to instruct the Princess and her brother to leave the
Hague during the -visit of the ambassadors ; but the proposal
was modified into a request to the Princess Royal and the
Queen of Bohemia to keep thefr dependents in order'.'
It is also apparent from the grounds alleged by the Dutch
for rejecting the scheme of union, that even under republi
can guidance they retained their royalist predilections. A
principal object of the scheme was to deprive the Stuarts
of the shelter and basis of operations which the Dutch
territory afforded to thefr supporters. Rebels against the
English Govemment accordingly were to be banished from
Dutch territory. This proposal was expressly rejected by
the Dutch. ' We cannot,* they said, ' banish from our soil
aU persons who are banished out of England. Our country
is a refuge for the exiles of all nations I'
Thus the EngHsh demand for union, in itself a some
what exorbitant demand, (Hd not commend itself to Dutch
public opinion, and fell through. But what followed is
startling. The pendulum swung suddenly round from
importunate friendship to violent hostility. In this same
year 1651 Parliament passed the Na-vigation Act, and in
1652 Blake and Tromp were exchanging broadsides in the
Channel. The Na-vigation Act, which remained substantially in
force for nearly two hundred years, is the great legislative
monument of the Commonwealth. It was the first mani
festation of the newly-awakened consciousness of the
community, the act which laid the foundation of the
English commercial empfre. For this measure the great
1 Geddes, p. 173.
" Quoted by Geddes {Administration of John de Witt, i. p. 178) from a
MS. Narrative of the Ambassadors preserved at the Record Office.

26 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
adventurers of two generations had paved the way. It
consummated the work which had been commenced by
Drake, discussed and expounded by Ralegh, continued
by Roe, Smith, Winthrop and Calvert. It completed
the apparatus of our foreign trade by creating an EngHsh
commercial navy. Hitherto we had had indeed merchants
in England, colonies in America and on the Atlantic,
and factories in In(Ha. But the link between them, what
was then called the navigation, had been mainly supplied
by the Dutch. By exclu(Hng the Dutch from the carrying
trade of English commodities we now took into our own
hands the whole work of commerce, to which our nation
was henceforth mainly to devote itself But by the same
act we struck a deadly blow at the very state to which,
but a few months before, we had offered almost an in
corporating union. If that state in her long struggle -with
Spain had displayed such prodigious -vitality and energy,
this was because the Spaniard had never kno-wn how to
strike her in the -vital part. Her near neighbour, the
other Protestant state, the other trading state, found
out this vital part at once. The Netherlands lived by
the carrying trade of the world, and of this the carrying
trade of England formed a considerable, and was soon
to form a still greater, part. And thus though Dutch
greatness was yet to last another half century, its decline
commences here. The Navigation Act of 1651 is the first
nail in its coffin.
But might not England have rested content with the
Na-vigation Act ? It secured her o-wn commercial interests,
and, if she was offended at the rejection of her advances, it
was assuredly more than a sufficient revenge. Was the
war which followed necessary ? Was it unavoidable that
our Protestant Republic should begin its career by making

THE FIR.ST DUTCH WAR. 27
war upon the other Protestant Republic and thus exposing
both Protestantism and Republicanism to the most immi
nent risk ?
This question reminds us that the same English Govern
ment was already at war with Scotland and with that very
party in Scotland which had taken the leading share in
crushing Prelacy and reducing the power of Monarchy.
The truth is, it was a Sovereign Army; war was its
natural, its all-sufficient policy. It bad every encourage
ment to abide by this policy. Very shortly after the
return of St John and Strickland from their unsuccessful
mission the dispute with Scotland was triumphantly settled
at Worcester. Cromwell, who in spite of his victory at
Dunbar, found himself beset with difficulties in Scotland,
succeeded in luring his enemy into England, where he was
able to overwhelm him once for all by an immensely
superior force. The King of Scots became a fugitive,
and the kingdom of Scotland, having lost its army, fell
a helpless prey to the English invader. England's new
Govemment had evidently the favour of the Lord of Hosts.
Why should it seek any other aid ? The fate of Scotland
would assuredly be the fate of the Netherlands also. The
union which they had declined would speedily be forced
upon them by the sword.
It is indeed not easy, as Buckingham had found, to
create at short notice a navy capable of winning victories.
But we are to observe that between 1648 and 1652 the
Commonwealth had formed and trained a navy not less
successfully than in the first CivU War the Parliament
had formed an army. The maritime war with the Nether
lands grew up naturally and gradually out of the maritime
war with Royalism. Robert Blake, who in the first war is
a sol(Her appears after 1648 as a sailor and a sea-king, the

28 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
rival of Francis Drake. How closely united in those days
the two services were is seen not only by the example of
Blake but also by that of Monk, and, on the other side, of
Rupert. Since that covert, half-pfratical war with Spain
which had been the first school of the English navy no
impulse towards the developement of naval strength had
been so potent as that which was now given by the
Maritime Civil War. The royalists held Jersey, the
Scilly Isles, the Isle of Man, and some Irish ports, and
from these ports they preyed upon English trade. But
they had to leam that if there was one thing which
the new Govemment of England understood it was war.
No financial difficulties, no constitutional scruples, ham
pered them. The navy was speedily reorganised; Blake
expelled Rupert from the narrow seas, pursued him first
to the Tagus, then into the Me(Hterranean, asserting the
authority of England in a tone which had not been heard
since the days of Essex and Ralegh, and not only against
the struggling Government of Portugal but against Spain
itself On his return he forced John Grenville to surrender
in Scilly and Carteret in Jersey.
Taking land and sea together, the transformed England
could rival any European state in the organisation of mih
tary force. It was a military age. The lessons of Maurice,
Gustavus and Wallenstein had been taken to heart by the
European Governments. Standing armies were the order
of the day. Condd and Turenne were approaching thefr
zenith. Charles the Tenth was about to begin his career.
But at this moment the most thoroughly military state in
Europe was England, the country of Cromwell and Blake,
where the army had actually taken possession of the
govemment. Its triumphs were already what might
be expected from its organisation. It had conquered

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 29
Scotland, which since January 1649 was a foreign state;
it had subdued Ireland ; it had driven its enemies before
it over the seas. We need not therefore be surprised to
find it prepared in 1652 to deal with the Netherlands
as it had already dealt with Scotland. It was fully
prepared to challenge the great Sea Power and to pit
Blake against Tromp. It had also, like Napoleon, its
commercial system. The cannon of Blake would be aided
by the Navigation Act, and the Protestant Republic
naturally destined, like Scotland, to union with England
would be taught by such pressure to submit to its destiny.
In 1652 the English Commonwealth was afready be
ginning to feel itself secure from the hostility of the leading
states of Europe. It had indeed not yet adopted a defini
tive policy towards France and Spain, but still contented
itself with asserting its rights intrepidly, nay imperiously,
against all Powers alike. It still enjoyed that good fortune,
which is a fundamental fact in its history, that France and
Spain, being engaged in a struggle which just then was
more than usually equal, could not afford to break -with
it, but on the contrary were forced to compete for its
favour. It was bated by both alike — we have seen Mazarin
plotting with the Prince of Orange against it, and the
Spanish Minister, Don Louis de Haro, after the murder
of its Ambassador, Ascham, said to Hyde, 'I envy those
gentlemen for having done so noble an action,' — yet it was
openly acknowledged, after a certain delay, by both alike.
Spain naturally took the plunge first, for, at the moment
of the foundation of the Commonwealth, Spain saw the
House of Stuart and the House of Orange closely uiuted
with her enemy France. That monarchical alliance, which
was only frustrated by the death of the Prince of Orange,
was pointed both at Spain and the English Commonwealth,

30 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
which therefore were naturally tempted to combine, and
indeed Spain still remembered against the House of Stuart
the conduct of Charles I in the matter of Oquendo's fleet.
It was a great event when the Spanish Ambassador Don
Alonzo de Cardenas was received by Parliament in solemn
audience, delivering his letters of credence to the Speaker
and acknowledging the House as the supreme power of
the nation in the name of the greatest prince in Christen
dom. After a time the recognition by Spain led to that of
France. Those were years of great perplexity for Mazarin,
who was indeed sadly declined from the glorious position
he had occupied in 1646. He had now the Fronde upon
his hands, backed by the arms of Spain. He could not
afford to contend at the same time -with England, and
yet, while Henrietta Maria resided in France and received
a pension from the French Government, while the young
Charles II was believed to receive advice from Mazarin,
non-intercourse between the French and EngHsh Govern
ments was certain in no long time to ripen into war.
Mazarin at last saw the necessity of abandoning the
attitude of hostility to the English Revolution which
he had taken up so early. His change of policy was
to lead in time to memorable results. In this place
we only note that after a considerable interval passed
in tentatives and secret negociations the public acknow
ledgment of the Commonwealth by the Govemment of
Louis XIV took place on December 21st, 1652, when
M. de Bordeaux had his audience of the Parliament,
and said that 'the union which should exist between
neighbouring states is not regulated by the form of
their Government.'
Such triumphant success had English Republicanism

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 81
in its first form, before the power of England was gathered
up in the hand of Cromwell. Even before the Dutch war
began, the new State had taken up a secure position in
the world, recognised by Spain and soon to be recognised
by France. It must indeed have already seemed to poli
ticians the most powerful, and perhaps also the most
ambitious, state in Christendom. This successful ad
ministration of foreign affafrs ought scarcely to be
attributed to Cromwell. The maritime war in which
such -vigour and such imperious decision were displayed
was neither conducted nor inspired by Cromwell. It
was Henry Vane who reorganised tbe navy, and it was
chiefly Robert Blake who wielded it with so much effect.
In this chapter of our history these two names shine side
by side, much as Pitt and Wolfe a century later.
Apart from Cromwell, the Commonwealth was warlike
and ambitious. Such was the phase of affafrs when it
plunged into war with the Netherlands. Nor is any
personal influence of Cromwell to be traced in the
Na-vigation Act, though that marks the commencement
of a new commercial and imperial policy for England.
Altogether the policy that resulted in the Dutch war
and the Dutch war itself though they correspond in date
to the culmination of Cromwell's influence, are nevertheless
not in any way due to that influence. Though, when he
took the government into his hands, he inherited the
Dutch war, he was not responsible for it, and he put
an end to it as spee(Hly as possible.
That war was the natural result of the perturbation
which had been caused in foreign trade and everything
connected with it by what we have called the Maritime
Civil War. There had long been a trade rivalry between
the EngHsh and Dutch. In 1624, 1646, and 1650 there

32 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
had been agitation and even legislation against the Dutch
carrying trade. Now too, that is in March 1651, the Dutch
concluded a treaty with Denmark concerning the customs
of the Sound, which threatened, in the words of the Council
of State, a 'destroying mischief" to the Baltic trade of
England. In short there was an acute crisis in the com
mercial relations of England and the Netherlands. Had
the English mood been calm, had an Elizabeth, a Walpole
or a Peel presided over our policy, peace might perhaps
have been preserved. But we were in a martial temper,
and we were in a higher state of military preparation than
at any previous time. Moreover it is to be observed that
the Maritime Civil War developed, as it were, insensibly
and almost naturally into war with the Netherlands.
RoyaHsm in some of the colonies, e.g. in Barbados, formed
a sort of alHance with the Dutch carrying trade. Political
feeling was blended with the commercial rivafry of the two
states. In the list of English grievances we see along with
the old story of the Massacre of Amboyna the insults heaped
by the Dutch populace on St John and Strickland and the
impunity of the murder of Dorislaus. Almost more marked
was the strong political feeling of the Dutch themselves.
The Orange party was in a great majority, and it was
a Stuart party. It had not indeed immediate control
of the Government, which was peacefully disposed; De
Witt foreboded ruin to both states from the war- of
which he watched the approach. But the Govemment
could not resist public opinion, and that clamoured for
war, not merely out of a feeling of commercial rivafry,
but in the joint interest of the Houses of Orange and
Stuart, because war would bring, they hoped, first the
restoration of the Stadtholderate at home, and next the
restoration of the Stuarts in England.
1 Geddes, op. cit. p. 177.

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 33
Thus the first Dutch War is transitional. It is half
a civil war, and is to be classed, under one aspect, with
the war with Scotland which was decided at Worcester.
It grows out of the Maritime Civil War as the war with
Scotland had grown out of the Land Civil War. But
in another aspect it is the war by which England for
the first time assumed her modem position as the great
trading and Maritime Power of the world. By it for the
first time she shook herself free from her commercial de
pendence upon the Netherlands and showed herself capa
ble not only of standing alone but of surpassing the
Netherlands. The war may be said to have commenced in June,
1652, that is, about midway between the Battle of
Worcester and the dissolution of the Long Parhament.
It was closed at the end of April in the year 1654,
when not only the Parliament had fallen but a new
constitution had been devised for England and the Pro
tectorate was in full vigour. According to the plan of
this Essay we abstain from narrating military operations
and content ourselves with noting in general the character
of the war.
The Na-vigation Act was in force and EngHsh ships
were hampering Dutch commerce by exercising the right
of search. The Dutch fleet, which had been greatly
reduced at tbe Peace of Munster, was accordingly ordered
to be augmented by 150 ships. A considerable augmen
tation actually took place and in May 1652 Tromp put
to sea. It is to be noted that this famous Admfral was
a devoted adherent of the House of Orange. There was
as yet no war, but he met Blake off Dover. He was
instructed to protect Dutch merchantmen from search and
capture. On the other hand Blake was instructed to assert
s. II. 3

34 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
the old EngHsh claim to dominion in the narrow seas by
compelling foreign ships to lower thefr flag. A kind
of battle or half-battle, a collision almost inevitable in
the cfrcumstances, took place between the two fleets.
And thus the dispute, which a special embassy had
been despatched some months before to settle by nego
ciation in London, fell to be settled on the sea by war.
The excitement produced by the battle could not be
allayed in the frritable mood of both nations.
It was only too easy for the English Govemment
to strike a hea-vy blow at thefr enemy. There was a
Dutch fishing fleet off the coast of Scotland, carrying
perhaps 8000 persons. Blake fell upon it in July, dis
persed it, sank three of the ships of war that protected
it, and captured the remaining eight or rune. A Dutch
fleet of East In(Hamen was returning richly laden. It was
expected to take the route round the North of Scotland.
Blake sailed to meet it towards the Orkneys. Tromp
pursued him with a fleet of ninety-six ships. On August
5th they sighted each other, but a hurricane came on,
which deprived Tromp of more than half of his fleet,
while Blake's fleet escaped injury. In the same month
De Ruyter defeated Ayscue off Plymouth. Tromp, dis
graced for the moment in consequence of his misfortune,
gave way to Vice- Admiral Witte Cornells De With'. On
October 8th De With and De Ruyter met Blake and
Ayscue in the Channel, and a battle was fought not
very decisive, but in ¦which the Dutch found themselves
paralysed by the discord of the Republican and Orange
factions in the fleet. Tromp was now restored and de
feated the English completely on December 10th. From
' Not to be confounded with Cornelis De 'Witt, the well-known brother
of the statesman. See Geddes, p. 249.

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 35
this time till the end of Febraary he remained master
of the Channel, wheri be is said to have mounted a
broom at his mast-head and even meditated entering
the Thames. England's fortune was at the lowest ebb.
The tide turned in 1653. In a great battle of three
days, which raged between Portland and Beachy Head,
Blake, Deane, and Monk defeated Tromp, De Ruyter and
Evertsen. This took place at the beginning of March. Iri
June another eng£|,gement took place off the Dutch coast,
when Tromp had to retreat before Monk and Deane,
who were joined during the battle by Blake. In this
battle Deane was killed. Finally in the early days of
August Monk and Tromp met for the last time off the
Texel. Tromp was killed and the Dutch fleet suffered
terribly. But the English now retfred from the Dutch
coast, as after the battle of March the Dutch had retfred
from the English.
These are the principal occurrences of the war, from
which it might appear that the two states were pretty
equally matched in naval power. Nevertheless it came
to Hght that the English had certain substantial advan
tages. One was that the Dutch ships were inferior in
size to the English, bore lighter guns and carried fewer
men. In the course of the summer the great Dutch
a(frnfrals represented this to thefr Government in the
strongest terms. Commander De Ruyter declared openly
to the Committee that 'he would not again go to sea
unless the fleet was strengthened with better ships.' But
the principal weakness of the Dutch was in thefr military
administration, which had lost all its unity and efficiency
with the fall of the House of Orange. Indeed not merely
the administration, but the state itself, had lost its unity.
Each of the seven states had a will of its o^wn. Zealand
3—2

36 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
envied Holland, and Holland vexed Zealand. In the most
critical moments of battle these jealousies broke out. The
leading Dutch statesman, John De Witt, whose public life
precisely covers the period of the Dutch wars of England,
not only recognized, but approved and promoted, this fatal
disintegration of the state. In a letter of May 10th, 1652
(quoted by Mr Geddes), he writes : ' The English call the
United Netherlands by the name of a republic ; but these
provinces are not one republic ; each province apart is a
sovereign republic, and these United Provinces should not
be called a repubHc in the singular, but federated or united
republics, in the plural number.'
Another cfrcumstance made this war most ominous for
the Dutch. It might have been expected that a state
which had emerged wealthy and mighty from a desperate
war of eighty years would at least bear Hghtly the effort
of this short struggle -with England. In the war of Spain
and the Netherlands the mighty Spain had been ruined,
while its rebel had risen to wealth and fortune. But
a contrary result was -witnessed now. The Netherlands
now seemed quite unable to support the burden of war,
while England seemed to suffer little. Famine and
despafr afflicted the Dutch population, and thefr poH
ticians acknowledged that no remedy but peace could
save the life of the state. The explanation was that
Spain had made a land-war, whereas England made a
naval war, upon the Netherlands; at the same time
Spain, through her vast colonies, had been most vulnerable
by sea at a time when the Netherlands, having as yet no
colonies, were not so vulnerable. In the war of England
and the Netherlands these conditions were altered. Most
of the wealth bf the Dutch was now floating on the waves
or stored up in colonies beyond the sea. It lay therefore

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 37
exposed to the attack of England. England meanwhile
was by no means equally exposed, being still in the
main an agricultural country and in no way dependent
upon foreign trade. In the most summary account that
can be given of the war this difference in the position
of the two Powers comes to light. We see the Dutch
throughout on the defensive against damaging blows
which they cannot retaHate. Blake swoops do-wn upon
thefr fishing-fleet ; he lies in wait for the East Indian
commercial fleet. In the battle of March the Dutch
fleet is formed in four squa(frons in order to protect
150 merchantmen. And upon this vast foreign trade
depends almost the whole prosperity of the United Pro-
-vinces and the very HveHhood of the Dutch population.
Economically therefore they were at a terrible dis
advantage, for the very reason that they were com
mercially more developed than England. England was
not as yet hampered by its o-wn wealth or entangled
in the intricate machinery of its trade. We were in
feet better prepared for war than we have almost ever
been before or since. For we were just then a military
state with a military govemment. We had had four
years of the Maritime Civil War, in which our navy
had gained organization and discipline, and behind the
navy there was, what had been wanting under Elizabeth
and has been wanting for the most part since, a formidable
and disciplined standing army. The two services were
closely blended together. It is in this war particularly
that we are surprised by the appearance of distinguished
sol(Hers in command of fleets, because it is only at this
time that the army and the navy are equally active and
prominent. Blake himself did not tread the deck of
a ship of war tUl he had passed his fiftieth year. Monk,

88 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
one of Oliver's most trusted officers, commanded in the
action which was fatal to Tromp. It seems to be due
but to accident that OHver himself never cHrected a sea-
fight. On the Dutch side the Tromps and De Ruyters are
seamen by profession, and when Jacob van Wassenaer,
Baron of Obdam, was appointed by the State of Holland
to succeed Tromp, though he was at the time colonel of a
cavafry regiment, Mr Geddes conjectures that the example
of England was followed.
But states have another resource in war beside mihtary.
organisation and wealth. They may seek aid. from alHancesj
We naturally ask. Did not Mazarin see his opportunity
when the war of England and the Netherlands broke out
in 1652 ? Nay, we found Mazarin, who had been alarmed
as early as 1646 at the very thought of a republic in
England and who still in 1650 had meditated in con
junction with Prince William the restoration of the
Stuarts, formally acknowledging the English Common
wealth at the close of 1652, when it must have appeared
more dangerous than ever, and when it had afready been
for some months at war with the Dutch.
But in 1652 the troubles of the Fronde developed
themselves into actual civil war. In the autumn of
that year Conde, retfring from Paris, entered into treaty
with the King of Spain and raised the provinces against
the government of Mazarin. Once more the English^
Commonwealth was relieved from the danger of foreign-
intervention by the internal embarrassments of the great
Powers. Thus France is temporarily paralysed. Spain too is
preoccupied with her French war, not to mention that her
day of greatness is over. It is a new feature that at a
great maritime crisis these two Powers, hitherto the only

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 39
Powers, beside the Netherlands, -with which England has
had to reckon, should be without influence. The old
international system of Europe, such as we have known
it from the time of Charles V, seems, for the moment
at least, to have disappeared.
Accordingly that secondary system, the system of the
North, which hitherto has remained in the background,
now becomes prominent. At this point, when we see
the modem trade policy of England founded by the
passing of the Na-vigation Act, we also witness the com
mencement of a Baltic policy. It is caused, like the
Navigation Act itself, by the disturbance of trade which
arose out of the Maritime Ci-vil War.
Of the vast foreign trade of the Dutch, which was
endangered by their war with England, a principal branch
was thefr Baltic trade. During the war it was likely to
pass into neutral hands. On the other hand it was possible
for them to convert their influence in the Baltic into a
most effective weapon against England. Here first we
have occasion to make a remark which in a view of the
growth of British Policy is fundamental. England is
at this moment awakening to the consciousness of her
commercial and maritime vocation. What the Dutch
have done afready in colonisation and foreign trade she
begins to understand that she can do also. But for
this purpose she must manufacture, maintain in efficiency,
and continually renew, an instrument which is highly
expensive and requfres an unfailing supply of certain
materials, namely, a fleet. Now these materials, timber,
tar, hemp, &c., were only to be procured in those days
from the Baltic countries. Any occurrence therefore
which endangered the communications of England with
these countries struck at the root of her commercial

40 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
and maritime greatness. These countries were numerous
and of vast extent, but they were so situated that traffi(j
¦with them must pass through a narrow strait, and therefore
could be interrupted by any Power which could control
that strait. It follows that in those days, and after those
days for more than a century, it was matter of life and
death for England that no Power, whether Denmark or
Sweden or Russia, should acqufre the power of shutting
the Baltic. On this principle our Baltic policy almost
exclusively rested. It follows also that the Dutch, when
in the -winter of 1652 they found themselves for a
moment through the victory of Tromp masters of the sea,
would desfre to crush once for all thefr maritime rival
by closing the Baltic against him. This they hoped
to do by an alliance with Denmark, which, it is to be
observed, was naturally opposed to England on account
of the connexion of its royal house with the Stuarts.
They had entered upon this policy before the war began
by what was called thefr Redemption Treaty -with Den
mark, and the English Government had afready taken
alarm, as we may see from the following passage of
the instruction of the Council of State to St John and
Strickland': —
' Whereas the trade of this nation, through the Sound
into the Baltique Sea is of very great concernment, both
in respect of the usefulness of the commo(Hties brought
from thence, so necessary among other things for building
and rigging of ships, which it is not convenient we should
only receive or not at the pleasure of other nations ; but
more especially in regard of the great number of ships we
have employed in the transportation of those bulky goods,
1 Printed by Mr Geddes from the MS. Order Book of the Council of
State, May 9th, 1651 (p. 176).

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 41
whereby mariners are bred, and they and our shipping
maintained; and being also but short voyages, are often
at home, to be made use of in case of any public occasions
of the state requiring thefr service; and whereas this trade,
being very much weakened otherwise, is in danger to be
wholly lost by the agreement that hath been lately made
between the King of Denmark and the States General
of the United Pro-vinces,' &c. &c.
When the war had fafrly begun, the desfre to exclude
the English from the Baltic became blended in the minds
of the Dutch -with anxiety for thefr own Baltic trade. In
August 1652 they sent to Copenhagen an envoy named
Keyser with a small squadron of ships of war, with the
commission to suppress, as far as might be safe, all
neutral trade through the Sound, and at the same time
to prey upon English trade. A proclamation was issued
forbidding the transport dfrect or inclfrect to England
of 'any munitions of war or any materials serving for
the outfit of ships.' It will be understood from what
has just been said that this was a mortal blow at the
English navy.
Within the Baltic there raged rivalries similar, on
a smaller scale, to those of the Bourbon and the Habsburg,
of Spain and the Netherla,nds. Denmark and Sweden had
been enemies for a century since the rise of Gustav Wasa ;
Sweden and Poland had maintained a dispute of succession
for more than half a century. In these struggles Denmark
might hope to receive valuable aid from her great neighbour,
the Netherlands, and was disposed to purchase it by com
pliance. Accordingly in the winter of 1652 — 53 a treaty
was concluded between the Netherlands and Denmark, by
which the Sound was closed against English ships, Denmark
engaging to maintain this prohibition by a fleet, the Nether-

42 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
lands engaging to bear part of the expense of such fleet
and to defend Denmark against any hostiHties she might
incur in consequence of the treaty.
Thus the Dutch acquire an important alliance. Eng
land on the other hand stands alone. She has however
the advantage of having settled all her domestic (Hsputes.
It is indeed not against England that the Dutch contend,
but against Great Britain, which for the first time appears
as a thoroughly united power. It is moreover Great Bri
tain the Military State, possessing a powerful navy and
behind that a powerful and (Hsciplined army.
Such then is the Ffrst Dutch War, which is in some
respects the type to which all the later wars of England
have conformed, while it differs strikingly from earlier
wars. In other respects however it is peculiar to the
age of the Military State, and in some respects again
it resembles the Second Dutch War which followed the
Restoration. One striking characteristic of these, two
wars is that from both the great Continental Powers,
the Habsburg and the Bourbon alike, hold aloof
But in April, 1653, while the war was at its height,
a new revolution occurred in England. The republican
form was (fropped, and the imperialism, which had been
established substantially by Pride's Purge, now assumed
the monarchical form most natural to it. The Lord Gen
eral Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament, and after
another assembly, not properly a Parliament but com
monly called the Little Parliament or Barebones' Par
liament, had sat for a short time and dissolved itself,
a new form of Monarchy was estabHshed by the indepen
dent action of some mihtary officers. The Protectorate
begins.

CHAPTER II.

THE PEACE OF CROMWELL.

It is one of the correspondences between the career of
Cromwell and that of Napoleon that Cromwell's Brumafr-e
(the dissolution of the Long Parliament) occurred during
a war, and that Cromwell, like Napoleon, on rising to the
head of affafrs, made it his business to restore peace. In
fact, as Cromwell resembles Napoleon, so does the Govern
ment he superseded resemble the Dfrectory. We may go
further and say that both those Governments alike resemble
the Govemment which was superseded by Caesar, the so-
called First Triumvfrate.
All these Governments alike are examples of Imperial
ism, but of unmonarchical Imperialism. All alike display
a prodigious military energy. The Ffrst Triumvfrate con
quered Gaul and settled the East. The Directory con
quered Italy and practically annexed Switzerland. In
like manner the Purged Parliament conquered Scotland
and Ireland and suppressed royalism over all the seas.
At the same time all alike display a certain wildness,
or want of coherence, in thefr foreign policy. The generals
make war and peace almost at thefr o-wn pleasure, Caesar
in Gaul, Bonaparte in Italy ; and the self-will of individual
generals brings disaster on the state,^ — Crassus loses an

44 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
army at Carrhae — the French are driven out of Italy
by Suworoff. The remedy is in all cases the same. A
supreme general is created, whose function it is to direct
and control the military energy of the state. Imperialism
gives birth to an Emperor, and the world sees a Caesar, a
Napoleon, or a Cromwell.
Cromwell had been absent in Ireland and Scotland,
as Caesar in Gaul, or Bonaparte in Egypt. In his absence
English policy had certainly sho-wn itself somewhat wild
and spasmodic. The Govemment had offered to the States
General an exceptionally close union, and not being able to
obtain so much as this had swayed violently round in a con
trary dfrection. England was now at war with the United
Provinces. In this war she displayed energy and obtained
success, for she was in a martial mood and had a military
govemment. But could a lover of his country see -with
satisfaction the course she was taking ? Under the Stuart
kings she had enjoyed peace almost -without intermission.
But now in the tenth year since the Parliament had levied
war against the Stuart king, now after ten years of ruinous
civil conflict the new Govemment no sooner finds itself
securely established than it undertakes a new war against
a great continental Power.
Again, complaint had arisen against the Stuart king
that he had not been sufficiently zealous in the cause of
Protestantism. And yet in the main, though feebly, he
had supported the Protestant interest. He had negociated
persistently in behalf of the Elector Palatine. The only
wars he had waged had been against Catholic Powers,
Spain and France, and he had broken with. France in
the cause of the Huguenots. But no sooner had the
new Govemment been established than it undertook a
ruinous war, and aimed the most destructive blows, against

THE PEACE OF CROMWELL. 45
a Protestant Power, the very Power which had borne the
brunt of the Catholic attack for well nigh a century.
The more we recognize, as recent historians, notably
Mr S. R. Gardiner, teach us to do, that religion, rather
than politics, gave the impulse to the Great Rebellion, the
more startling does this result appear. A CathoHc Queen
and a Prelatic King were intolerable to us in that phase of
our religious history; nor was this surprising when we
consider how much the cause of the Reformation had
sunk. All the more surprising is it that when the
stumblingblock was removed, the Catholic Queen ex
pelled, the Prelatic dynasty dethroned, England, now
for the first time unreservedly Protestant, should introduce
a suicidal discord into the camp of the Reformation.
It is true that the confusion in foreign policy does not
seem to have been a principal ground of tbe revolution of
April 1653. Foreign policy indeed was a department to
which Cromwell had hitherto been comparatively a stranger.
Unlike in this respect to Bonaparte, who was strange to
the ideas and internal movement of the French Revolution
but made himself early master of its foreign relations,
Cromwell was passionately moved by the revolutionary
impulse, was a politician before he was a sol(frer, and
again a soldier before he was a general. 'He had risen
by slow degrees to the position of a kind of national
statesman, representing England as against Scotland
and Ireland. But before 1653 it would perhaps be (Hffi
cult to show that he had given his attention to European
policy, though in his famous conversation -with Whitelocke,
in which he broached so frankly the question, What if a
man should take upon him to be King? we find White
locke saying, ' As to foreign affafrs, though the ceremonial
application be made to the Parliament, yet the expectation

46 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
of good or bad success in it is from your Excellency, and
particular solicitations of foreign Ministers are made to
you only.' But even this conversation took place in the
autumn of 1652. .
But after April, 1653, the State, whatever we may
think of its internal government, has internationally the
character of a Great Power, that is, it has a Government
which, resting on a disciplined irresistible army, is strong
and secure, and its decisions are made for it by a resolute,
fearless and sagacious man. It will not indeed be more
energetic than it has lately been ; this is impossible ; but
it will know its own mind better, it will no longer oscillate
from one extreme to the other.
For five years, between April 1653 and September
1658, England, or rather Great Britain and Ireland, is
a European State similar to Sweden in the reign of
Gusta-vus Adolphus. It has a great and victorious fleet,
it has a great and victorious army, and its policy is
decided by one of whom Queen Christina said that he
had done greater things than any man Hving, though
the Prince de Condd might be ranked next. When we
compare this period as a whole with that which had
immediately preceded it we see that Cromwell's great
intemational Tvork consisted in this, that he put England
decidedly on the Protestant side in Europe. In one word,
he brought the war with the Protestant Netherlands to an
end, he concluded an alliance 'with the Protestant Sweden,
and, ha-ving done this, he did not rest content with a con
dition of peace, but entered into war -with the Spanish
Monarchy and, in order to carry on this war, formed an
alliance with that Power which, though Catholic, had all
along favoured internationally the Protestant interest,'
namely, France.

THE PEACE OF CROMWELL. 47
We are therefore to treat of the policy of the Protec
torate under two heads, first, as it composes the (Hfferences
bequeathed from the former Govemment and restores
peace, secondly, as it enters upon a new war. Cromwell
and De Witt rise to the head of affafrs at almost precisely
the same moment, Cromwell in April, De Witt in July of
1653. For on July 30th De Witt was swom in as Grand
Pensionary of Holland, and thus assumed the office which,
in the abeyance of the Stadtholderate, carried with it prac
tically the govemment of the United Provinces. In both
(jountries the new system founded on the fall of royal
Houses adopted at the same moment the monarchical
principle in another form, England by creating a Protector,
the Provinces by creating a vigorous Pensionary thfrty
years old
Negociations for peace began in the interval between
the (Hssolution of the Long Parliament in April and
the meeting of the Little Parliament in July. Cromwell
had the advantage that the Dutch felt the necessity of
peace much more than the English. Thefr Tromp might
be equal, or even superior, to our Blake, but the fabric of
their prosperity was not solid enough to bear the pressure
of war with such a Power as England.
As before the war began, so now it was felt that in the
intercourse of the two states there was scarcely an alterna
tive between hostile rivalry and close union. Either the
Na-vigation Act and destruction of Dutch commerce, or
such a union that Dutch commerce should become a part
of English commerce, in which case perhaps the Naviga
tion Act might be repealed.
We have remarked several times how readily the idea
of union between England and Holland suggested itself
Cromwell was even more likely than Elizabeth or than

48 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
the Long Parliament to be attracted by it. His mind
was possessed by religious conceptions; he more than
any man had founded a new union between England
and Scotland; probably more than any man he had
been revolted by the suicidal quarrel of two Protestant
Powers at the very moment when England had become
more Protestant than ever. He was accustomed to work
on a large scale and by means of great forces. Now that
for the first time he felt himself a European statesman
he would naturally desfre tp apply to intemational politics
the method which had become habitual to him. He who
had overcome the English Cavaliers by creatirig a Puritan
chivalry, who had overcome the Scotch Covenant by a
freer and grander English Covenant, was now to enter
the arena where Habsburgs and Bourbons and Wasas
had so long contended together. We need not say that
his policy was not likely to be that of the Stuarts, Bjit
neither would it, be that of Elizabeth, nor would it be that
of a statesman of the eighteenth or of the nineteenth
century. Cromwell would regard himself as bound
to be a champion of what he called the Gospel; the
model he would set before himself would be Gusta-vus
Adolphus. Elizabeth, as far as she is able, adopts the principle of
non-intervention, and this principle has re-vived in the
nineteenth century, especially since the severance of
England and Hanover. But neither the Long Parlia
ment nor Cromwell inclines at all to this pplicy. They
are not only warlike, but they go out of thefr way to form
connexions with the European Continent. In this respect
the Protectorate and the Long Parhament resemble each
other. For if Cromwell makes peace -with the Nether
lands, abandoning the idea of union, he only does so after

THE PEACE OF CROMWELL. 49
a struggle, and because he finds it impossible to realize
that idea. And yet had it been realized, had the United
Netherlands become to England as another Scotland, it is
evident that our insularity would have been sacrificed. A
Power would have been created which would have had an
overwhelming maritime ascendency and at the same time;
being assailable by land, would have needed a great stand
ing army. It would have been a military state as much
as Sweden. The design was indeed abandoned, but that
the ambition which suggested it remained appears from
the j)ains Cromwell took to get possession of Dunkfrk.
. The furidamental principle of the policy of the Pro
tectorate; as it appears in all the State Papers, is the
union bf all the Protestant Powers of Europe under the
leadership of England. A Cromwell coilld adopt no other
basis of policy. But he had another principle which lay
almost as near his heart as Protestantism itself, the
principle of toleration. This had an important effect
upon his foreign policy. It led him to (fraw a distinction
among Catholic Powers. Wherever the Inquisition reigned
he saw a State with which not only he could not ha^e
alliance but could scarcely remain at peace; sirice it was
not 'Only Catholic but also intolerant. But there were
other Catholic States, which admitted' the principle of
toleration. The' chief of these was France, which had
its Edict of Nantes. Cromwell had not at the outset
any special inclination to a French alliance. As we
have seen,' the Commonwealth had hitherto inclined
rather to Spain, and' on the other hand Spain had
anticipated France (the country of Henrietta Maria)
in ackriowledging the Commonwealth. But very early
in^ the negociations with the Dutch we find Cromwell
laying it do-wn that while there can be ¦ no alliance
S. II. 4

50 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
with states which maintain the Inquisition, alliance with
France is permissible on condition that French Protestants
are not molested in thefr religious fi-eedom. Thus at the
very commencement of the Protecitorate a germ is visible
in the mind of Cromwell, from which afterwards grew the
war with Spain and. the alHance with France.
We have here the outline of a policy which is large
and grand, but one main article of it, union with the
Netherlands, was impracticable. Or rather it was prac
ticable only, and that in a modified form, on a royalist
basis. That child at the Hague, who was regarded both
by Cromwell and De Witt with such jealous ill-will, who
was at once an Orange and a Stuartj would one day weld
the two nations into a mighty alliance, which should give
the law to Europe. But the Dutch govemment which, De
Witt represented was a mere loose federation of seven
governments, and De Witt was bent upon keeping it
such. An, energetic Protestant policy was repugnant
to him just because it was energetic, because it would
draw together the seven provinces, which it was his
object to hold apart. He did not feel as a citizen of
the United Provinces but purely as a Hollander, and
his object w^s simply by tact and adroitness to (fraw
the other six provinces into a course advantageous to
the, trade of Holland. Such a , system was too, delicate
to Iflend ¦with the energetic system of Cromwell. The
Protestant union proposed, had it been adopted in the
United Provinces, must have roused the old heroism
of the Dutch population, and the result of this would
have been startling to CromweU and more than starthng
to De Witt. The old feelings and thoughts would have
brought back in a moment the old beloved House. The
cry of Oranje hoven woiild have been raised , again ; De

THE PEACE OF CROMWELL. 51
Witt and his party and his policy would have disap
peared; and at the same time the revolution, since
the House of Orange and the House of Stuart were so
closely united, would have set the Dutch nation in
threatening opposition to the government of Cromwell
himself He learnt this gradually in the negociations
of 1653, while the Little Parliament was sitting and
the Protectorate taking shape. Just as in the Little
Parliament itself the high-flo^wn ideas of the victorious
party in domestic matters took momentary shape and
disappeared, so at the same time its foreign policy was
reduced to a more modest and practical form.
An account of the Treaty of 1654, to be at all exact or
complete, would require a volume, and moreover it belongs
to the history of the United Provinces rather than of
England, of the administration of De Witt rather than
of the Protectorate. De Witt's statesmanship is from
first to last a mfraculous performance on the tight-rope.
He succeeded for almost twenty years in working a con
stitutional machine which might have seemed too clumsy
and intricate for the most consummate dexterity. What
he did in 1654 could not be made intelligible, to the reader
without a long explanation, which would be quite out of
place here, of the Constitution of the United Provinces.
We are concemed with Cromwell, not with De Witt.
Cromwell then discovered that the Provinces would
not tolerate the idea of a complete union, though they
were prepared for a close alliance and only hoped that
it might be made close enough to involve the repeal
of the Navigation Act, though not the loss of thefr
own sovereignty. He had to content himself with an
ordinary treaty, though we may perhaps imagine him
calculating that when his grand Protestant Alliance was
4—2

52 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
once launched, the Provinces being included in it, they
would fall into a dependence on England which would
in the end cause them to desfre the union they now
rejected. Having once descended to this lower level,
the task of making peace was comparatively easy to
him, since to the Dutch peace was almost a necessity,
while he himself declared to the envoy of the Swiss
evangelical cantons, ' with tears in his eyes, and invoking
the name of God, that nothing had grieved him so much
as this war.'
But two difficulties remained to be dealt with.
1. The first brings to light the peculiar relation of
England ' to the United Pro^vinces by showing that that
state was not' regarded as simply foreign but rather as
another Scotland. Cromwell had already expelled the
King of Scots from Scotland; he now held it necessary
to exclude the Stuart family from the government of
the' Netherlands. But in his view the Stuart family
aind the Orange family were indistinguishable. William
of Oi-ange, who was to live in English history as a kind of
secorid Cromwell, who was in Hke manner to dethrone
a Stuart King and to occupy his place, is regarded in
his infancy by Cromwell as a kind of second Charles
Stuart, as a dangerous embodiment of the dynastic prin
ciple. Peace with the Netherlands was only possible for
Cromwell because for the time they were under a re-
pubHcan govemment. But this repubHcan govemment
was scarcely more than an accident ; it was opposed to
the popular feeling; it was a makeshift not likely to
outlast the minority of the Prince of Orange and likely
enough to pass away much sooner. Afready the proposal
had been made to invest the child with the offices which

THE PEACE OF CROMWELL. 53
his ancestors had held, entrusting the execution of them
to his relatives and adherents. In these cfrcumstances it
seemed essential to Cromwell that the exclusion from office
of the Prince of Orange should be made in some form a
condition of the peace. Yet if there was one feeling in
which the population of the United Provinces, excepting
HoUand, were unanimous it was devotion to the House
of Orange. On the other hand, what Cromwell desired so much
was precisely what the Province of Holland, the ruling
Province under the existing system, also desired. It
was therefore natural that he should try to attain his
object by an understanding with them.
We are to note that what he aimed at was in some
sort the conquest of the United Provinces, for to dictate
to a people what its government shall be is practically to
assume the government of it. If we study the methods
of the French Revolution and Napoleon in dealing with
foreign states we shall see that they held a state conquered
when they had set up in it a government dependent on
themselves. Cromwell's proceeding was less violent in
that he contented himself -with giving a new guarantee
to a govemment which already existed. Nevertheless
it was felt by the Dutch population to be the proceeding
of a conqueror. So long as Crorawell lived they felt
themselves to be living under his yoke, and when he died
the boys in the streets of Amsterdam sang that the devil
was dead. Had he lived longer or had his system taken
ioot and his conquest of Dunkirk borne its natural fruits,
the dependence of the Uriited Provinces upon the mighty
Military State which he had founded would have become
much more evident.
The spirit of the Dutch people was not sunk so low

54 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
that they should consciously and deliberately submit to
this humiliation. The States-General did not ratify
an undertaking to exclude the Prince of Orange from
the offices which had been hereditary in his family. They
only undertook that any one who in the future should hold
the office of Stadtholder and Captain-General should be
bound by oath to observe the treaty. But Cromwell took
advantage of the state of decomposition into which the
Dutch Commonwealth had fallen. As we have said, it
was not now one thing but seven things, and of the seven
the Province, of Holland was by far the greatest. The
Province of HoUand had also its States ; it was by the
States of Holland that John De Witt had been appointed
Pensionary. From this Assembly then Cromwell requfred
an Act of Exclusion, by which they engaged never to elect
the Prince of Orange nor any of his descendants as their
Stadtholder: or Captain-General or Admiral, nor to consenit
to the appointment of a Prince of Orange as Captain-
General of the forces of the RepubHc.
The incre(frble series of manoeuvres by which the
States of Holland were induced to pass this Act belongs,
we are happy to think, not to English but to Dutch
history. Cromwell had simply to insist, and to decline
to ratify the treaty until the Act should have been
formally delivered to him. De Witt had to do the
rest, The plan of dividing the Dutch Republic in order
to conquer it would be suggested to Cromwell by his
experience in Scotland. There too in the Second Civil
War he had found two distinct interests. By the side
of the Parliament, just then guided by the Duke of
Hamilton, there was the Church party represented by
Argyle. The former was royalist, the latter not.

THE PEACE OF CROMWELL. 55
Cromwell after defeating Hamilton in the field had
entered Scotland and had procured the exclusion of his
party from public office. What Hamilton, closely connected
with the royal family, had been in Scotland, that was the
Prince of Orange now in the United Provinces ; De Witt
on the other hand was the Dutch Argyle.
2. The other difficulty with which Cromwell had
to deal related to Denmark. The Baltic question was
not only all-important to England as a naval Power,
but to Crom-well, meditating a great Protestant union,
it had also another bearing. Several Protestant states
were . accessible to England through the Sound. Here
lay Sweden;, here Frederick William of Hohenzollem,
afterwards to be called the Great Elector, was rising
in influence; Denmark itself was a Protestant state.
Russia being still in the background, the Baltic might
almost be regarded as a Protestant Mediterranean. More
over Denmark had a royal House which, being closely
connected -with the Stuarts, inspfred the same sort of
misgiving as the Hpuse of Orange. Already before a
clear prospect of peace opened he had adopted an im
portant Baltic policy. To prevent Denmark from closing
the Sound against England, there was an ob-vious plan,
namely, to draw Sweden into the war, and on other
grounds an alliance with Sweden, the country of Gusta,vus
Adolphus; would be welcome to Cromwell.
In December :1 6 53 Bulstrode Whitelocke had his first
audience of Qusen Christina at Upsala. The idea of a
Protestant Union could have no charm for Christina,
who was already secretly a Catholic. But hostility to
Denmark was the very basis of policy to her House
and to the state which Gustav Wasa had founded. With
the help of thfe, mighty British Power it struck her at once

56 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
that the old Danish quarrel could speedily be settled.
She saw at once in vision what her successor Charles
Gustavus was so speedily to accomplish.' It seemed for a
moment likely that the Dutch war, in which hitherto only
three states had been concerned^ would expand into a
European struggle. The alliance of England and Sweden
was by itself not less momentous than had been Richelieu's
alHance of France and Sweden in the last generation. And
meanwhile the Dutch were looking -wistfully to France,
where Mazarin had not yet fully resigned himself to the
ascfendeilcy of the British Commonwealth. But if France
should come to the help of the Dutch, Spain almost of
necessity would combine with England. Would a war
grow up between France, the Netherlands and Denmark
on the one side, and England, Spain and Sweden on
the other? Queen Christina proposed to Whitelocke
what she called a 'trinity' of these latter Powers. It
was evident from his answer, in which he referred to
the murder of Ascham and the backwardhe^ of the
Spanish Govemment in avenging it, that alienation was
already beginning between England and Spain, and pro
bably Whitelocke's master was more adverse to such
a combination than Whitelocke himself knew. But the
possibility of it was at least a good diplomatic instru-
merit. If the United Pro-vinces already felt themselves over
matched by England, it was evident that S-weden, just
then at the height of her military effibiency, was far
more than a match for Denmark. And a glimpse of
Spain in the background was enough to cheek any
confidence that .might be placed in France, especially
as' France was now in the throes of a civil war; and
it was open to Cromwell to join hands with that

THE PEACE OP CROMWELL. 57
other general, whom alone Queen Christina would admit
to be comparable to himself, Conde. Thus Cromwell had
a commanding position in the negociations of 1654.
He was therefore able not only to impose humiliating
terms upon the United Provinces but also to enforce thd
claims of England upon Denmark. Denmark had complied
with' the Dutch in closing the Sound against England and
in seizing English ships, and the Dutch stood stoutly
by thefr ally in the negociations. She had now to pay
damages, which she was enabled to do by the help of
Dutch wealth and credit. The peace of Cromwell was
concluded in June 1654.
It marks a great epoch in British policy, when the
Military State of Great Britain triumphantly takes its
place among the states of the world. The struggles
of the English Revolution now subside, and a new system
is definitively established. The Cromwellian State was
now the greatest Power in Europe, somewhat similar
to S-weden in the days of Gustavus Adolphus but resting
on a much broader basis of population and wealth. By
the peace it emerges into a commanding intemational
position. It has reduced the Lo-w Countries to a sort
of dependency, it has intimidated Denmark, and formed
an alliance with the great Military State of the previous
generation, Sweden. It is already the, centre of a great
Protestant Union.
England has several times since the sixteenth century
made peace triumphantly, but never except in 1654 has
she done so as a Military State. At other times she
has laid do-wn her arms gladly, with a sense of reHef,
and with no desire to take them up again. We have
seen her peacefully disposed under Elizabeth, and so
the peace which James I concluded in 1604 lasted

58 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
through his whole reign. So too in the eighteenth cen
tury, though war was so frequent, it was usually entered
on with a feeHng bf despair, and it was more than once
brought to an end by an uncontrollable outbreak (jf popu
lar impatience. In 1654 it might certainly be thought
that England had had enough of war, for she had scarcely
known peace through a period of twelve years, during a
great part of which time her own fields and homesteads
had been devastated. But Cromwell has no more thought
of giving the country repose than Napoleon when he made
the Treaties of Lundville and Amiens. Having rectified
the confusion which had been introdueed by the Long
Parliament, having restored union to the Protestant
interest, he proceeds almost at once to make a new
war. He attacks the Spanish Monarchy. In the histoiy
of British Policy the Cromwellian period which extends
over five years (1653 — 1658) falls into two parts. During
the first part he is a Peace-maker, during the second he is
an Aggressor and Conqueror. Napoleon's reign divides
itself in the same way, but Napoleon arrived at supreme
power when he was thfrty years of age, and had there
fore a long career of conquest. Cromwell was older by
a quarter of a century when he reached the sa,me stage,
and accordingly death frustrated his designs. He had
only time to conquer Jamaica and Dunkirk.

CHAPTER III.

THE WAR OF CROMWELL.

Cromwell had proposed to Queen Christina an offen
sive alliance against Denmark. But the proposal by itself
was sufficient for the end he had immediately in -view.
While the Swedish negociation went on the treaty of peace
with the Dutch and with Denmark also made progress.
Accordingly the active military aid of Sweden was not
required, and the arrangement which was made at Upsala
in 1654 contemplated a state not of war but of peace.
At the very same time occurred the abdication of
Queen Christina. The Protector's envoy Whitelocke
received from her the first communication which she
gave of her intention, and ' was himself a witness, before
he retumed, of the ceremony of abdication. Her cousin,
a son of Catherine, sister of Gustavus Adolphus, by a
prince of the Palatine House, becomes King of Sweden
by the title of Charles the Tenth. The Queen had no
doubt more than one reason for retiring, but the reason
she alleged to Whitelocke, namely, that the throne of
Sweden could not properly be occupied by a woman,
certainly appears to have been not merely ostensible.
Sweden had long been, what England had recently be-

60 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
come, a Military State. The main function of its ruler
was to command armies, and to tread in the footsteps
of Gustavus. It was now at the height of its power,
ready for new campaigns and new conquests. No sooner
does the woman retire and the man fill her place than we
see Sweden stand out as a conquering Power, the terror of
the North. Charles Gustavus in Swedish history is der
dritte im Bunde with Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII,
and may be said to represent the culmination of the
Military State, as Gustavus Adolphus represents the
splendid rise, and Charles XII -the lurid setting, of it.
Thus in the short period -with which we now deal
Cromwell and Charles Gustavus shine side by side
They are the Dioscuri of Protestantism. They appear
almost together, and, as Charles Gustavus had but a
short career, they are not far di-vided in their deaths.
Protestantism, as an active Power, attains now its
highest point. The suicidal discord has been removed,
and the forces of Protestantism are now gathered up
in the hands of two great sol(Hers, who have both the
power and the will to use them aggressively. What
Sweden could do had been proved a quarter of a century
earlier. WHat the British Mihtary State could achieve
was destined never to be fully kno-wn. It was but in
the first stages of 'its great career when it was overset
by a new revolution. But a Power so formidable has
rarely been seen in the world. It had both a mighty
fleet and a mighty army, a position almost impregnable,
a gro-wing colonig.1 power, a trade capable of indefinite
expansion. And the ancient rival of England, Franpe,
was at this moment paralysed by civil war.
Cromwell, having settled the partial war whiph he
found raging, now fixes his attention upon the great

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 61
European war, and we too must now attend to this if
we would understand his next step. Thirty-six years
have gone by since the European war began, but it
has passed through many phases and the actual phase
of it is but six years old. In this phase it is a duel
between France and Spain, between the Bourbon and
the Spanish Habsburg. These two Powers had indeed
been at war for nineteen years, that is, since 1635, but
from 1635 to 1648 thefr war had been involved in the
great complex which we call the Thirty Years' War.
In 1648 the other belligerents had laid do-wn their arms,
the Emperor, Sweden, the Protestant Princes of Germany,
and the United Provinces. A great pacification had been
made, but it had not extended to France and Spain, which
still continued to wage war.
Besides this Spain still waged war with Portugal,
which since 1640, that is, for fourteen years, had been
in rebelHon against the Spanish Monarchy, and had set
up the House of Bragan9a against the House of Habs
burg. Since 1648 the war had taken a new aspect. France
seemed to be on the decline. Her first ascendency, the
great age of the Cardinals, reached its height in 1646.
Traly i alarming in that year was the power wielded by
Mazarin. But all this ascendency passed away when
the troubles of the Fronde began in 1648.
Spain was now relieved of her war with the Low
Countries, and by the Fronde she might seem to gain
as much at the expense of France as France had gained
at the expense of Spain by the rebellion of Portugal.
And not only was France cleft in twain, but the old
incurable wound was opened again, and all the work
of the Cardinals seemed to be undone. Once more,

62 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
as in the time of the Religious Wars, the Govemment
is resisted by the noblesse, headed by a prince of the
blood, and this party is in open concert with Spain.
The duel of France and Spain was pretty equal ; as we
have seen, it had been of great importance to England, for
by paralysing both Powers for the purpose of intervention
in England it had given free scope to the Military Revolu
tion and to the reconquest of Ireland and Scotland by the
military party. Nevertheless it had exhibited considerable
fluctuations of fortune. The settlement of WestphaHa
had diminished the resources of France, but it had also
diminished those of Spain. The former had lost the help of
the Dutch, but the latter had lost the help of Austria,
for the great alliance of the two branches of the Housd
of Habsburg had been broken up by the peace of 1648.
Then came the Fronde, and for a while the prospects of
France darkened very ominously. Should she lose her
strong Government, her strong national unity, the pre
cious gift of Richelieu, what would become of her ? First
she had four years of -violent internal dissension, not unlike
the troubles of the ffrst years of the Long Parliament, and
next in 1652 she entered upon formal civil war, as England
had done ten years earlier. Mazarin had been driven into
exile. The great soldier and prince of the blood Condd
overawed the regency. But now the regency came to
an end. Louis XIV attained his majority, arid now
Condd retiring from Paris deliberately called the pro
vinces to arms and concluded at Maubeuge a treaty
with the King of Spain. Condd was King at Bordeaux
as Louis XIV at Paris, but to Paris Mazarin now retumed.
Henceforth a large part of France, controlled by one of the
great commanders of the age, is pledged to procure for the
King of Spain a good, just, and secure peace. Nor could

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 63
the restored Mazarin by any means count on the fidelity of
that part of France which remained nominally loyal. Thus
about the time when the first Dutch war began, France
was indeed hard pressed and fortune seemed to incline in
favour of Spain. In the summer of 1652 Condd and
Turenne fought a battle in the Faubourg St Antoine
itself Mazarin had to retfre a second time.
This was the condition of France at the moment when
England for the first time stood before the world as a
mighty Military State. The relative position of the
two Powers, as it had been ten years before, was actually
reversed. About 1644, when Conde was at the opening of
his career, England was absorbed and paralysed by civU
war, while France 'went forth conquering and to conquer';
now in 1654 it is the tum of France to be enfeebled by
civil war, when England makes a triumphant peace which
puts her at the head of the Protestant states, and has
fleets that sweep the Ocean, an army that has conquered
Ireland and'S(;otland, and a military govemment directed
by Oliver Cromwell.
Itis at this moment that the immense greatness which
was reserved for Great Britain in a later age was, as it were,
foreshadowed. 'Cromwell's fabric was extremely ephemeral,
but it revealed for the first time the large possibilities of
our state. It is a first sketch of the British Empire.
. He looked at the duel of France and Spain from a
certain distance, from which he could perceive that if
France was much depressed — and there was nothing to
show that she would speedily recover herself— Spain was
still more deeply and irrecoverably sunk. For he looked
abroad over the Ocean, and here Spain was in full decline.
Fourteen years liad now passed since the outbreak of the
rebellion fri Portugal. The first Portuguese king of the

64 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
House of Bragan9a, Joao IV, was approaching, the end of
his reign — he died in 1656. In the peninsula he had
perhaps barely maintained himself; here in fact the
struggle was still to come, for the war languished and was
almost suspended from 1646 to 1656. But in .general
history the rebellion afready appeared as a mighty
and decisive event because of the change it had pro-,
duced in America and Africa., The ancient Portuguese
monarchy over a great part of the globe had revived.
Every one of the foreign possessions of old Portugal, ex
cept Ceuta, had declared for the House of Bragan9a. , This,
great revolution in the Oceanic world had one peculiarly
strange circumstance. In Europe the Portuguese were
naturally between 1640 and 1648 in sympathy -with the
Dutch through the common hostility of both countries tp
Spain, but outside Europe the Dutch had been for a long.
time the plunderers and conquerors of old Portugal so long
as Portugal was lost in Spain. In particular .they had
conquered Brazil under the leadership of John Moritz of
Nassau, and between 1640 and 1642 was seen the strange
spectacle of the Dutch assisting the Portuguese in Europe
and at the same time tearing from them thefr colonial'
possessions. In 1645 began a reaction. Thd Portuguese
in Brazil, headed by Joiio Fernandez Vieira, rose against;
thefr Dutch conquerors. By 1649 the vast possession was
substantially recovered to Portugal, and about the same
time they succeeded in expelling the Dutch from r their
old possessions on the -west coast of Africa. The modem
Portuguese Monarchy took its place in the world, at
the expense ' almost equally of the Spa.iush and the
Dutch. There had scarcely been witnessed so -violent and con
fused a revolution in the colonial world suice'that colonial

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 65
world came into existence at the beginning of the sixteenth
century. It was the fall of the world-state which had been
founded by Philip II ; it was also a sudden and consider
able decline of the Dutch colonial empire. And these
changes were followed by the war of England with the
Dutch, in which for the first time England displayed a
certain maritime superiority. Cromwell, when he came
to the head of affairs and began to consider foreign and
colonial questions, could scarcely fail to see that a sort of
interregnum had begun in the empfre of the sea. It was
also evident that the new Military State of Great Britain,
with its fleet commanded by Blake, was as well qualified as
any other state for maritime empfre.
England had already taken in(frrectly some share in
the oceanic revolution, since the success of Portugal
against the Dutch in Brazil had been partly caused
by the embarrassment which their war with England
created for the Dutch. The reviving Portuguese Em
pfre, opposed alike to Spain and the Netherlands, offered
a natural lever by which England might raise her o^wn
colonial importance, and this she perceives somewhat
later, but not in Cromwell's own time. He concludes
however a commercial treaty with Joao IV, as indeed
Charles I had done at the commencement of the Portu
guese rebellion.
In this critical con(Htion of the maritime world there
were some obvious considerations which would tempt
Cromwell to the policy he ultimately adopted of hostility
to Spain. As the most Catholic and also the most in
tolerant Power, as the patron of the Inquisition, Spain
was the natural enemy of Cromwell's party, which was
at once strongly Protestant and by religious principle
tolerant. Moreover hostility to Spain was the old Eliza-
S. IL 5

66 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
bethan policy, by which England had gro-wn great and
which all England could understand. Perhaps we should
add — it was a point very important for Cromwell, who was
as unable as Charles I to hit it off with Parliaments, and
therefore must always be in want of money — that war
-with Spain, as had been seen in Elizabeth's days, might
be made profitable. Could Blake but once bring home a
sUver fleet, the Protectorate would be reHeved for some
time of all its financial embarrassments.
Nevertheless Cromwell, who was always disinclined
to form long plans, does not at first look forward to war
with Spain, and throughout 1654 his policy seems on the
whole rather to threaten France. He appears to have
principally at heart a league of the Protestant Powers of
Europe. It was believed that he was about to summon a
great Protestant Council which would declare the Pope to
be Antichrist and open a grand religious war This rumour
was particularly alarming to the French Government, which
had to reckon with the Huguenot party, protected by the
Treaty of Nantes and accustomed from old time to look to
England for countenance. Mazarin had all along expected
this result from the success of the Puritan rebellion; he
considered too that Henrietta Maria and the Dukes of
York and Gloucester were actually living under his pro
tection ; he knew that since 1648 the inclination of England
had been rather towards Spain than towards France.
It is certain that a party in England at this time were
full of the idea of a great Protestant league. A Scotsman,
John Dury, was the apostle of it. Samuel Hartjib inter
ested himself in it. That it affected the Government is
proved by Milton's State Papers and by some allusions in
the speeches of Cromwell himself It was held not to be
merely desfrable, but even necessary, for a great religious

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 67
war was thought to be at hand, which the Catholic Powers,
reconciled by the Pope, would soon undertake for the de
struction of Protestantism. The remark was made that in
the Thfrty Years' War Protestantism had been well-nigh
ruined by the discord between Protestant Saxony and the
Protestant Palatinate, and more lately Protestant England
had gone to war with the Protestant Netheriands. This
last discord had created great alarm in tbe Protestant
Cantons of Switzerland. They had sent an envoy, Johann
Jakob Stockar, to London, for the purpose of mediation.
And now early in 1654 the Protector in his tum sent
envoys to the Evangelical Cantons, one of whom was
the apostle himself, John Dury, and the other was a
mathematician, John Pell. This diplomatic activity of
the Protector could not but alarm Mazarin. It was a new
thing for England to interfere in Swiss affairs, and the in
terference was pointed somewhat threateningly at France,
which at this very time was busy in renewing its old treaty
with the Cantons. Pell was actually instructed to oppose
this renewal.
The summer and autumn of 1654 were on the whole a
moment of singular alarm and suspense. On the one hand
the Protestant worid was looking for the outbreak of a new
religious war. On the other hand both Spain and France
were in an anxious mood. Thefr duel had reached a critical
point. In 1653 Mazarin had reestablished himself in power.
His second period of good fortune had begun. He was
once more all-powerful in the Govemment, as omnipotent,
says Guy Patin, as God the Father at the beginning of the
world. But the French Govemment itself -withstood with
difficulty the alHance of Spain and Condd. Its field of
battle was not on the frontier, much less beyond it, but in
Champagne and Guienne. Spain meanwhile, though pros-
5—2

68 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
porous on the Continent, was declining rapidly on the sea,
and financially was quite exhausted. The result was that
Cromwellian England held a most remarkable position, a
position extremely advantageous for a Military State such
as England then was, but quite unlike the usual position
of England. It was evident that with England lay the decision of
the great duel. And no doubt at many later times England
might have decided a European war by a sudden command
ing intervention, but it has not been usual for England to
speculate on such possibilities. Under Cromwell however
she did so, for she was then a Military State.
In 1654 Cromwell was observed to be preparing t-svo
great fleets, although it was certain that England was in
no danger of being attacked. That the Protector meditated
some grand stroke was well understood, and yet no reason
could be alleged that would have weighed with Elizabeth,
not to speak of the Stuarts, why England should not enjoy
for a long time the blessings of peace. Never has England
since, nor had she for centuries before, been so aggressively
(Hsposed. While Cromwell made his preparations the new king
of Sweden, Charles Gustavus, was maturing a similar de
sign. The two great captains of Protestantism occupied a
similar position and acted, though independently, yet in
harmony. For the moment thefr policy corresponded to
their religion. The correspondence, as it soon appeared,
was but accidental; for the moment however it realised
the idea of a great Protestant League. As Spain in the
West so Poland in the Northern system was entering at
this moment decisively on the path of decline. The re
bellion of the Cossacks had already broken out, and in this
very year 1654 they formally put themselves under the

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 69
protection of Russia. The faU of Poland begriis here.
Immediately afterwards Charles Gustavus, who felt, as
the aged Oxenstierna also felt, that the Swedish Govem
ment could not afford to be long at peace, plunged into war
with Poland. A Catholic state suffered an overwhelming
attack from a Protestant Power, and at the same time the
Emperor saw the approach of a great danger. He could
not be at ease while Sweden, which had already planted
herself so firmly in North Germany and had given her
guarantee to the Treaty of Westphalia, was moving her
armies round and between the scattered territories of the
Great Elector. To Cromwell therefore the war in Poland
gave an assurance that the Emperor had his hands full,
and would not be at leisure, whatever might happen in
the West, to come to the help of Spain.
In this period of suspense Cromwell seems to form no
definite plan. He meditates at the same time a league of
Protestant states, by which England was likely to be drawn
into a continental war, and an active maritime policy. Nor
does he even later renounce either of these plans for the
other, but continues to the end to push both forward at
once. If in our history he is remembered chiefly for the
impetus he gave to our maritime and colonial develope
ment, this is due not so much to his deliberate polfcy as to
the fact that what he did in this direction proved lasting,
while his continental schemes came to nought. The navy
grew and prospered, and Jamaica was a permanent acquisi
tion. The army was speedily disbanded and Dunkfrk was
given up.
, From the beginning of the year 1654, while the peace
with the States-General is in treaty, France and Spain are
competing with almost desperate eagerness for Cromwell's
alliance. Both kings offer him money. Fifty thousand

70 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
crowns a month is the subsidy which Spain is prepared
to offer; some members of the Spanish Council record
thefr opinion (AprU 12th) that, as the case is urgent and.
the whole fortune of Spain at stake, even a hundred thou
sand crowns would be no exorbitant subsidy. Mazarin
offers four, or at need five, hundred thousand crowns a
year, remarking that Spain always prefers to engage
herself by the month, intending to make at most but
one or two payments. But he also holds out the bait
of Dunkirk, and adds that he will allow the Protector
a free hand in the Indies, and aid him in seizing the two
trade-fleets which are expected to arrive in August. For
a long time however Spain seems Hkely to win the race
for the Protector's favour. Her urgency, arising from her
need, was greater; on the other hand war with France
suggested itself more naturally to Cromwell's Government.
France protected the Stuarts, and had Huguenots. One
of her representatives in England, the Baron de Baas, is
suspected of complicity in the plot of Gerard and Vowell,
and is expelled by the Protector in June. On June 20th
Mazarin writes, 'We shall perhaps be so unfortunate as
soon to have war with England.' Meanwhile Cromwell
prepares his fleets, and in October Blake sets sail for the
Mediterranean bearing a Latin letter, couched in friendly
terms, to the King of Spain.
There was in those days so little maritime police that the
mission of Blake with a fleet of twenty-five ships, followed
soon after by that of Penn with a still larger fleet, might
be reasonably justified by the plea that ' the safety and pro
tection of the trade and navigation of the people of this
Commonwealth requfred it.' At sea England might almost
be said to be already at war both with Spain and France,
and a similar relation with Portugal had only just been

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 7l
brought to an end. France was almost more alarmed than
Spain by the appearance of Blake in the Mediterranean.
He threatened to intervene at Naples against the French
expedition of Guise, and would have done so had he not
arrived too late. He then appeared at Leghorn, demanding
an indemnity from the Duke of Tuscany and the Pope for
injuries inflicted with their countenance on English mer
chants by Prince Rupert in 1650. He also demanded
liberty for the Protestants to open a church at Florence.
Here again the Protestant League shows itself An in
demnity was paid, the demand for religious liberty was
answered evasively. Blake then sailed for the coast of
Barbary, made similar demands, and on meeting with
resistance read a lesson to the piratical states by bom
barding Tunis. He then appeared successively at Malta,
Venice, Toulon and Marseilles. So far the Military State
of England merely displayed its power and asserted in
general the rights of the Protestant states. It had not
yet involved itself in any formal war.
So ended 1654, and the year began in which Crom
well was to make his momentous decision. But even in
1655 it scarcely appears that he consciously resolved to
prefer France to Spain. Perhaps his only fixed inten
tion was to vindicate the rights of England and of Pro
testantism wherever they might be questioned, and
the rest followed of itself through the force of cfrcum
stances. That Protestantism is about to suffer a great attack
from the united force of the Catholic Powers is the burden
of Protestant State Papers at this time, and seemed to
receive a striking confirmation in the early days of 1655.
In January the Waldenses of the valleys of Lusema, Perosa,
and San Martino received orders from Charles Emanuel,

72 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Duke of Savoy (he reigned from 1638 to 1675, and was
father of the first King of Sardinia), either to conform to
the Catholic faith or to quit their habitations. Through
Pell and Dury at Zurich the Protector's Govemment had
its attention immediately called to this. Piedmont was
not far from France, the Waldenses were not -widely
separated from the Huguenots. And thus though the
catastrophe in the Alpine valleys was still delayed for
some months, the apprehensions of Mazarin that he would
soon have to reckon with Cromwell received further con
firmation. But Cromwell's power threatened all non-Protestant
states at once. That he menaced France and Tuscany
and the Pope and the Barbary states did not prevent
him from menacing Spain at the same time, for Spain
and France alike, at that critical moment of their duel,
seemed incapable of offering resistance to him. As early
as November 9th, 1654, Bordeaux, who still remained in
England to represent France, -writes that he has leamt
from a brother-in-law of the man who seems likely to be
Cromwell's successor that 'the second fleet is to sail for
St Domingo after having made a demonstration off La
Rochelle in order to encourage the Huguenots.' He adds,
' When I asked what pretext the Protector would allege for
such an undertaking against Spain without declaration of
war, he laid do-wn the principle that any one was free to
establish himself in that country, adding that the said island
was not entirely occupied by Spain; as to our affairs he
thinks this Govemment has no design of breaking with
France, but intends to continue carrying into effect the
letters of reprisal, partly in order to further the main
tenance of the fleet by the capture of our merchantmen,
partly because he cannot believe that His Majesty means

THE WAR OF CROMWEf.L. 73
to make good the losses suffered by the English, which they
state at an enormous sum'.'
Thus all evidence concurs to show that Cromwell did
not form the plan of taking the side of France against Spain
in the European war. At the outset he threatens both
France and Spain alike, and seems almost to make it a
point of honour to threaten both equally. His plan is
to stand forth as the head of a Protestant League alike
in Europe and on the sea. His allies are Sweden and
Holland and the Protestant Cantons and the Waldenses
and the Huguenots. He makes no nice calculation of
forces. He seems in his own mind to have hoped to find
in the King of Sweden a new Gustavus Adolphus. We
read that ' Cromwell is exceedingly intimate with the Swe
dish Ambassador, a person of great estimation ; they dine,
sup, hunt, and play at bowls together. Cromwell never
caressed any man so much, nor sought the friendship of
any so much as the King of Sweden.' The writer, Charles
Stuart's Secretary, Nicholas, adds, ' Some say France will
join these two, but I doubt it, for they will make themselves
protectors of the Reformed Churches in Germany, France,
&c.' Here is Cromwell's plan, or more properly his idea,
for his was a mind which did not form plans, but was
inspired by ideas. He was soon to find that Charles
Gustavus was no Protestant Crusader, and was prepared
to aid him only so far as to hold Austria in check. As to
the West Indies also we discover no trace of any profound
calculation. Here too Cromwell intends only to assert his
rights and the rights of Protestantism. As Blake appeared
in the .Mediterranean so are Penn and Venables, command
ing the other fleet, to show themselves in the Atlantic.
But there is a difference. On the further side of the
1 Clieruel, La France sous Mazarin, ii. p. 386.

74 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Atlantic Protestantism has a special grievance, for here
the whole territory is claimed by Spain in vfrtue of a
Bull issued by an ancient Pope of Rome. This Bull must
be trampled under foot, Protestant Englishmen must assert
thefr right of settling and acqufring territory. We are to
observe that here too Cromwell regards his warfare as de
fensive. He is the leader of ' a company of poor men,' who
are surrounded by a hostile worid. In the instructions to
Penn it is stated that the Spaniards have cruelly destroyed
lawful possessions of the English in America and that it is
to be supposed that they mean to destroy. all the English
possessions in those parts.
As a matter of fact, the Spanish ascendency in the
New World was in rapid decHne, so that Cromwell's step
strikes us rather as the deeply planned aggression of a
conqueror. But he does not, as we might expect, concert
measures with France or with Portugal. Perhaps he as
sumes that Spain, preoccupied by her war with France,
-will have no leisure for resistance. Other-wise he seems to
waste no time in calculation, but rather to act as on the
field of Marston Moor or Dunbar. He trusts in Penn's
good fleet, and the good army of Venables, but chiefly, we
may believe, in the Protestant cause and in the Lord of
Hosts. His action ought not to be judged by modem rules;
The Spaniards had committed many violent acts against
the English in the West Indies, and it will not be questioned
that the Protestants had a right to disregard the famous
Bull on which they relied. But the modem mind (Hsregards
all this, and asks why Cromwell wantonly plunged his coun
try into a war with the Spanish Monarchy at a moment
when she had scarcely emerged from a long, dark period of
civil discord. The modern mind has forgotten, or scarcely

THE WAR ,0F r'ROlMWELL. 75
understands, that War of the Confessions in which Crom
well's life had been passed. It scarcely understands how
critical the position of Protestantism still seemed to be, or
how the example of Gustavus Adolphus influenced the
course of Protestant statesmen. Hence it is tempted to
put aside as hypocritical the religious considerations which
Cromwell alleged, and to regard him as a sagacious politician
who foresaw the future colonial greatness of England and
who seized the opportunity of the decline of the Spanish
empfre to enrich England with its spoils.
But notions of trade seem at most but secondary in his
mind, and deep plans foreign to his nature. He left the
future to Providence, not only as a statesman but even as
a general, so that in his campaigns there is little strategy.
Accordingly his attack upon St Domingo seems to have
had no remote object. It was simply a spirited assertion
of the rights of Protestantism and of England, made by one
who felt himself at the moment superior in force to his
enemy and who washed his hands of the future.
But though he was no far-sighted schemer, Cromwell
was astute, adroit, and, at need, double-minded in dealing
with the difficulties of the moment. We can easily believe
that he found it absolutely necessary to employ his fleet;
which made him uneasy by its royalism, in some great,
popular, and rather remote enterprise. An attack upon
the Spanish Indies was in conformity -with the old Eliza
bethan tradition. It also held out indefinite hopes of
plunder. A single silver fleet captured would enable
Cromwell to defy Parliament for a year or two. Such
thoughts as these perhaps were blended in his mind -with
the Puritan's hatred of Popery and the Independent's
hatred of intolerance.
The innovation however which he introduced did not

76 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
consist in inclining towards France but simply in breaking
with Spain. The Long Parliament had leaned towards
Spain, which indeed had been much more forward than
France in favouring and acknowledging the Common
wealth. Cromwell bears himself as threateningly as the
former Govemment towards France, but resolves at the
same time to attack Spain. The negociations with France
in 1654 lead to nothing, but the new feature was that the
treaty with Spain also unexpectedly fails, in spite of the
strongest assurances on the part of Spain of support against
the Stuart family, to which King Philip IV declares himself
irreconcUeably hostile. But, says Thurloe, ' Oliver always
expressed an aversion to any conjunction with Spain.'
The negociations turned on the Treaty of 1630, and
Cromwell urged (1) that in contravention of the first
article of it 'the English were treated by the Spaniards
as enemies, wherever they were met with in America,
though sailing to and from their own plantations: (2)
touching the Inquisition, the danger whereof all the
English merchants trading in Spain were exposed to;
in this it was desired that the English might have the
exercise of religion in Spain without trouble, and that
these words (modo ne dent scandalum) might be omitted
out of the article, and that liberty might be granted to the
said merchants to have and use in Spain English Bibles
and other religious books.' Other stipulations were pro
posed which, says Thurloe, would have been granted but
with respect to these two Don Alonso de Cardenas was
pleased to answer that to ask a liberty from the Inquisition
and free sailing in the West Indies was to ask his master's
two eyes and that nothing could be done in these points
but according to the practice of former times.
The Spanish Alliance was thus wilfully thrown away,

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 77
and Penn and Venables made their sudden descent on St
Domingo. And yet no concert with France was arranged,
though it was fully discussed and strongly recommended
in the Council of State. On the other hand Cromwell's
intention was to have war with Spain in the West Indies
alone. In Europe there was to be peace ' unless the Ameri
can fleet should be met with, which was looked upon as
lawful prize'.'
On the whole the memorable crisis of the early part of
1655 exhibits Cromwell in his characteristic attitude and
at the height of his power. It is at this moment that he
breaks with Parliament and suppresses royalism by means
of the Major-Generals. It is at this moment that, after
having united the Protestant world under his leader
ship, he deals a direct blow at the power of Spain without
taking the trouble to secure the aid of France. Let us not
think of him either as a friend of liberty or as a friend of
peace. But he attains in a startling manner the Protestant
ideal of his age. That conception of militant zeal which
one poet embodies in the seraph Abdiel and another in
Mr Greatheart, and which Cromwell himself saw emboiHed
in Gustavus Adolphus, is here exhibited on a still larger
scale than it could be exhibited even by Gustavus Adol
phus. We may see in the dedication which Morland prefixed
to his book on the Waldenses what enthusiastic adrairation
this attitude of Cromwell excited in the mind of the ardent
Protestant. But it is scarcely, as he thinks, similar to the
attitude of Elizabeth, who, if she attacked the Spanish West
Indies, did so only on extreme provocation, and who steadily
refused to put herself at the head of a Protestant League.
Cromwell follows not Elizabeth but Sir Walter Ralegh,
1 Thurloe, i. 7G1.

78 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
who said of Elizabeth that she 'did all by halves'.* The
expeditions of Blake and Penn at this time are strikingly
parallel to that last expedition of Ralegh in the middle
period of James I.^ Ralegh too before striking across the
Atlantic dallies -with the French Huguenots ; Ralegh too
professes to be at peace -with Spain, yet intends to occupy
territory which Spain claims as her own, and Ralegh too
hopes above all things that he may fall in -with a silver
fleet. The difference is that Ralegh has no distinct in
structions, and runs the risk of being repudiated by his
Govemraent. This time it is the Govemment itself which
is inspfred by Ralegh's spirit. As Gustavus Adolphus
furnishes the model to Cromwell in his European policy,
so, it would seem, does Ralegh in his maritime policy.
Cromwell was not able to maintain very long the
commanding position he occupied at the opening of 1655.
Militant Independency did not long stand before the world
' bright as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army
with banners.' It reached its highest point when the ques
tion of the Waldenses became acute. Then it was seen
that Cromwell, so far from seeking the help of France
against Spain, was prepared, if not eager, to make war
-with both Powers at once. It must indeed be understood
that already for some time past France and England had
been rather at war than at peace. As Dunkirk begins
now to become important to us, we may note that it had
been but recently conquered by Spain from France (Sep
tember 16th, 1652), and that at the critical moment Blake
had interfered against France and had actually captured
seven French ships sent to its relief In Mazarin's
correspondence of 1654 — 5 we find statements such as the
following: 'The EngHsh plunder everything they meet of
1 See above, p. 221. = ggg above, p. 285.

TEE WAR OF CROMWELL. 79
ours, because we began first;' or again, 'We hear from
Brittany they [the English] continue their depredations on
the king's subjects -with unexampled insolence. It is even
said that the people at St Malo have arrested all the Eng
lish they could meet. If this goes on, it can scarcely be
but that a rupture must take place.' Does not Cromwell,
after forming the grave resolution of attacking Spain in
the West Indies, at least see the necessity of restraining
hunself on the French side ? Does he not fear that the
Catholic Powers may forget their differences and combine
against the most powerful and threatening Military State
that had ever arisen in -the Protestant world ? Not at all.
The massacre in the Alpine valleys now occurs, and though
the principal culprit is the Duke of Savoy, the French
Govemment is also implicated. Some of the troops em
ployed against the Waldenses were French, and some
Waldensian communities inhabited French territory.
When therefore in May 1655 Cromwell put himself at the
head of the agitation against the atrocities of the Duke he
threatened France as well as Savoy. The rupture that had
been so long dreaded seemed to come nearer. The nego
ciation of a treaty between England and France was for a
time suspended, and Bordeaux was expressly informed that
'the great influence over the Duke of Savoy which the
King of France possessed obliged the Protector to render
this service to the Protestants and forbade him to sign a
treaty at this conjuncture' (Bordeaux to Brienne, June
3rd, 1655)'.
We see then that as late as the summer of 1655 Crom
well has not as yet adopted the compromise upon which he
ultimately fell back. He is still possessed with the idea of
the Protestant League, and thinks of all Catholic Powers
1 See also Milton's Despatch of July 29th, 1655.

80 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
alike as belonging to an opposite system. In Europe
however his policy is defensive. He does not think of
attacking Catholicism, but only of asserting the right of
bis o-wn religion to toleration. In the Indies he takes
indeed the offensive, but here too he conceives himself
only to assert an unquestionable right. He protests
against the Bull of Alexander VI, which would consign
for ever the whole Indies to the rule of the Inquisition.
Such is the second phase of Cromwell's policy. In the
first phase he made peace among the Protestant states ; in
the second he rallies them against Catholic intolerance all
over the globe. This phase too soon passes away, but it
remains especially memorable as the commencement of an
English policy which, whether wise or unwise, just or unjust,
is not in the least degree dynastic.
As he made no advances to France, so perhaps he did
not intend to begin a formal war with Spain. Rather he
calculated that neither Power could at the moment afford
to break with him. When Venables landed in St Domingo
with not less than ten thousand men, his proceeding after
all was not much more violent than that which the French
had long submitted to from England on the sea. Cromwell
seems to have contemplated war in the Indies but not war
in Europe. While the two great Catholic Powers held each
other in check England was to push boldly forward in all
directions at the expense of both alike. Affairs however
took a different tum, and by the end of 1655 Cromwell
found himself involved in formal war with the Spanish
Monarchy and entering into alliance -with France.
That expedition of Penn and Venables does not seem
from our present point of view to have been a failure. It
was intended to assert the right of Englishmen to settle in
the West Indies, and, as a matter of fact, it added Jamaica

THE WAR OP CROMWELL. 81
to the British Empire. But at the moment it gave a great
blow to Cromwell's military reputation. The force was at
first landed in St Domingo, and here it met with a disas
trous repulse and retired -with the loss of a thousand men.
Qn the retum of the expedition Penn and Venables were
committed to tbe Tower ; their defeat alone was remarked ;
that before returning they had occupied Jamaica, which
had then but five hundred Spanish inhabitants, scarcely
attracted attention.
It would have been wise in Philip IV of Spain to have
rested content -with his victory in St Domingo. He had
taught Cromwell a lesson. But Castilian pride has never
been -wise. He proceeded now to declare war in solemn
form with the Protector. By doing so he sealed the doom
of the monarchy of Philip II. But at the same time he
caused considerable embarrassment to Cromwell, and forced
him to take measures which perhaps he had not originally
contemplated. Mazarin allowed no such punctilio to disturb his policy.
He temporised, as he had done ever since the establishment
of the Commonwealth. During the summer Cromwell met
-with unexpected obstacles in dealing with the Piedmontese
question. He was disappointed in the Protestant Cantons
of Switzerland, which he had hoped to set in motion against
the persecutors, for he now leamt from Pell that they were
held in check by the Catholic Cantons. Switzerland was
indeed paralysed at this time by internal disturbances. It
had just emerged from a Peasants' War, and was about to
enter upon the Wilmerger War, so called in Swiss history.
On August 18th Mazarin arranged -with the Duke of Savoy
the Treaty of Pinerolo, by which the Waldenses received
forgiveness and toleration, without however being restored
to thefr homes. It seemed to the EngHsh Protestants ' a
s. n. 6

\ \ \

82 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
lame and impotent conclusion'; Morland calls it a leper in
splendid dress. But occurring about the same time as the
disappointment in Switzerland and the outbreak of formal
war with Spain, it had the effect of modifying the Protector's
policy. Instead of a Protestant League he begins to me(H-
tate a policy similar to that which had saved Protestantism
in the days of Henry IV and in the days of Richelieu, viz,
alliance with France^
The Treaty of Westminster, signed on November 3rd,
1655, established by no means an alliance between France
and England against Spain. But it brought to an end the
condition of lawless maritime war between the two states,
and it established by a secret article a satisfactory under
standing with respect to the rebels and refugees on both
sides. England ceased to protect the party of Condd,
Mazarin ceased to shelter the Stuarts and thefr leading
partisans. Cromwell however lost no time in proposing a
closer alliance.
We are apt to see Cromwell's policy foreshortened, as
it were, by distance. It was not his deliberate policy, we
have seen, to side with France against Spain, though he
ultimately did this. In like manner when he began to .lean
towards France he contemplated no such relation with
her as was ultimately formed. It is true that o-wing to
his interference the duel of Spain and France was decided
within a few years in favour of France, and an age began
of vast continental ascendency for this Power, while Spain
fell into irremediable decline and England became a great
maritrine Power but also for a long time a stranger to the
Continent. No such result was contemplated byjCromwell
to the last day of his Hfe, and indeed it was produced, if ui
part by his policy, in part also by his death and the faU of
his poHcy. To the end CromweU sees England as the

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 83
leader of the Protestant Powers of Europe; to the last
he labours as much and with as much success to establish
EngHsh power on the Continent as in the New World, and
the sudden progress of France is made not by his means
but through the opening left by the abrupt fall of his
system. As Cromwell had been slow to make advances to Maza
rin, so Mazarin was not at first eager for the imperious and
dangerous help of the great Protestant , and Republican
Power. The year 1656 was passed by the two statesmen
in learning to understand each other. Colonel Lockhart
arrives at Paris in May as the Protector's representative.
WUl he share the fate of Ascham and Dorislaus ? Mazarin
receives his proposals with little warmth, and hopes for a
moment that he may obtain peace with Spain without any
further help from England. Hugues de Lionne negociates
at Madrid in July with Don Louis de Haro, while a new
Don John of Austria, also a Bastard, assumes the govem
ment of the Low Countries. But at this moraent the
success of Condd against Tureime at Valenciennes gives
new encouragement to the Spaniards. The war revives,
and Mazarin is obliged after all to invoke the Protector.
The result is an offensive and defensive alliance signed
at Paris on March 23rd, 1657. Its object is the conquest
from Spain of the three maritime towns, Gravelines, Mar-
dike and Dunkirk; for this purpose France is to furnish
twenty thousand men, England six thousand men and a
fleet. ; Such is the definite shape which Cromwell's policy
ultimately assumes. It bears always the same marked
character. Among the many wars which England has
waged in the same region it would be (Hfficult to name
any which has been more purely aggressive. The avowed
6—2

84 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
object of this enterprise is that England may acqufre for
herself the town of Dunkfrk, a town which has not been
hers before, and which seems intended to be a startuig-
point for further designs.
This treaty consummated at the same time a very
violent change of English policy. In the abstract Spain
might be a more strongly Catholic Power than France,
but since the days of Charles I and his French queen
France had been the great Catholic enemy to the Pro
testant party of England and had been almost identffied
with the Stuarts. Spain on the other hand had sincerely
opposed the Stuart interest ever since the affair of Oquen
do's fleet, and had nursed the good will of the Common
wealth with the utmost care. In the course of 1655 — 6
these relations were gradually reversed. As Cromwell was
restoring monarchy at home, so he restored the intemational
relations of the Monarchy. The new war with Spain revived
Elizabethan times, and the new alliance -with France called
to mind the alliance of Elizabeth ¦with Henry and the
marriage of Charles with the daughter of Henry. It laid
a foundation upon which the later Stuarts built, though
they built a very different fabric, as in domestic policy also
we find them more than once improving the Protector's
hints. But at the outset great confusion was produced. Both
Cromwell in England and Mazarin in France raised new
difficulties against themselves. The former had to face a
convulsion ui the world of English trade, the consequence
of the reprisals he had provoked from the Spanish Govem
ment. Mazarin on the other hand created a ferment in
French public opinion, which he would wUlingly have
avoided, by giving his hand to the successful rebel, the
Protestant Protector, and at the same time by abandoning

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 85
the cause of a French princess and the honour of the French
royal family at a moment when royalism in France was
just winning its victory over the repubHcan movement.
The disturbance extended further than mere opinion. It
altered the position of the exiled English Court, and fur
nished it with a new opportunity. So long as it had been
sheltered by the French Government, which was bent upon
keeping the peace with the Protector, it had been unable
to take any public action against him. But now that it
was thrown into the arms of Spain, and Spain was at war
with Cromwell, it became free to act. Charles II, who had
long resided at Cologne, now transferred himself to Bruges,
to be near his friends in England. Spain, through the same
ambassador Cardenas who had so long courted the Protector,
now concluded a treaty with Charles Stuart by which it
promised to aid him with 6000 men in an invasion of
England. Some time before this revolution of policy the acquisi
tion by England of a continental seaport town had been
under discussion. It had been a question whether she
should acquire Dunkirk by joining France or Calais by
joining Spain. Now however that Crorawell found him
self at war with Spain he began to have an additional
reason for coveting Dunkfrk. Dunkirk began to wear a
threatening aspect, as the harbour from which Charles
Stuart's expedition favoured by Spain was likely to set
sail. Tbe alliance of March 1657 therefore, though so
strikingly aggressive, has a defensive aspect at the same
time. And thus in the course of 1656 the policy of the
Protectorate assumes a new and final shape. While we
contemplated it from a distance we were able to distin
guish two broad phases in it, a phase of peace with the

86 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Netherlands and then a phase of war with Spain. This
latter phase too, contemplated from a distance, might seem
Elizabethan. We see now more phases than two, and the
phases are less simple. Cromwell is a sort of chameleon';
his attitude and poHcy are ever on the change. This ver
satility is a feature of his domestic policy, so that what we
loosely call the Protectorate is in fact four or five different
governments, the govemment of a Lord-General with an
Assembly of Puritan Notables, the Protectorate under the
Instrument of govemment, ImperiaHsm by means of the
Major-Generals, Royalty under the Petition and Advice,
and something further which (Hed in the birth -with the
death of Cromwell himself In foreign policy too he is a
chameleon. Between the peace -with Holland and the war
with Spain we have now (Hscemed another phase, the
policy of the warlike Protestant League. This, we have
seen, threatened Spain and France alike, and was by no
means Elizabethan, but rather was compounded out of the
continental policy of Gustavus Adolphus and the maritime
policy of Sfr Walter Ralegh. But the chameleon took a
new colour in 1656, when the disaster in St Domingo had
taken place, when Cromwell found himself, contrary perhaps
to his calculation, at war with the Spanish Monarchy, and
this now enters into active relations -with Charles Stuart. ''
His policy now enters upon a new phase which may
more justly be called Elizabethan. It corresponds to the
phase of his domestic policy in which he tried to tum his
Protectorate into a Royalty. When he met Parliament in
September 1656 he evidently-hoped to find a new basis' for
his authority in the great national war, waged at the same
time against the Catholic enemy, upon whose defeat EHza
beth had founded the greatness of England, and against
the Stuart. It might indeed have seemed a hopeless task

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 87
to turn the pure military imperialism of 1655 into a royalty
purely civilian and pacific; but who shall say that the
transition could not be made under cover of a great
national war, in which the Lamberts and Fleetwoods
might be compensated by commands in the Netherlands
for the Major-Generalships they would be requfred to
resign ?
At least the tradition of hostility to Spain, Popery
and the Inquisition might be used for the purpose of
reconciling the people to commercial losses and inducing
them to found a new dynasty, which should be, like the
dynasty of Wasa, characteristically Protestant. And for
this purpose it was advantageous for Cromwell that the
rival House should have been (friven into the arms of
the national enemy.
These great designs were frustrated in two years by his
death. In the meanwhile English Policy had been launched
upon a new course, and the years 1655, 1656, witnessed a
transition in our international history.
The War of Cromwell has a maritime and also a con
tinental side. Our sea-king, Blake, immensi tremor Oceani,
rode the waves again, but, what was more novel, the re
nowned army which had raised Cromwell himself to power
now landed on tbe Continent, to measure itself against
the Spanish infantry, against Condd and his Frondeurs,
and against the English exiles. But for Cromwell's death
this new beginning might have proved a rudiment of some
thing great. The Military State was seen to advance
majestically both by sea and land, but it was secretly
undermined. It had but time to make one land conquest,
and then disappeared. England remained a great and
active maritime Power, but abdicated the position she
had newly acqufred in Europe.

88 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
For us at this distance of time to enter into plans
which were so imperfectly realised is not easy. We see a
great maritime war -with Spain; we see a second great
period in the history of the EngHsh navy. As Blake
succeeds to Drake, so Cromwell seems to revive the
policy of Elizabeth. But, not to repeat that Elizabeth's
policy was defensive, whereas Cromwell's was aggressive,
this view takes account only of one half of CroraweU's
policy. WhUe Elizabeth pointedly refused, under the
strongest temptations, to be dra-wn into continental
schemes, Cromwell went out of his way to form such
schemes, entered upon them -with energy, had conspicuous
success in them, and may be supposed to have intended
to pursue them much further. He acquired Dunkfrk;
what would he have done with Dunkfrk, had he lived
ten years longer ? This question may suffice to show us
the -wide difference between Cromwell and Elizabeth,.
between the Military State and the Insular State.
From the raeeting of Parliament in 1656 tUl Cromwell's
death just two years later we see the steady ripening, and
then the sudden decay, of a great national and Protestant
monarchy in England. It is founded on a grand war, at
once national and religious, against the Spanish Monarchy,
with which now, most happily for Cromwell, the Stuarts
are in alliance. He has reason to hope that in this war he
may rally the whole nation round hira, satisfy the army,
and, pending the settlement of his difficulties -with Parlia
ment, obtain money by seizing the treasure-fleets of Spain.
The design may be read in his speech of September l7th,
1656, ' You are at war -with Spain.... The Spaniard is your
enemy, naturally and providentially, by reason of that
enmity that is in him against whatever is of God.... If you
make any peace with any State that is Popish and subject

THE WAR OP CROMWELL. 89
to the rule of Rome, you are bound and they are loose. We
have not now to do [i.e., we are not now in alliance] with
any Popish state except France ; and it is certain they do
not think themselves under such a tie to the Pope. Spain
is the root of the matter ; that is the party that brings all
your enemies before you ; for Spain hath now espoused
that interest which you have all along hitherto been
conflicting -with — Charles Stuart's interest... with whom he
is fully in agreement... And truly Spain hath an interest
in your bowels; for the Papists in England have been
accounted, ever since I was born, Spaniolised. They
never regarded France ; Spain was their patron.'
The war itself has two phases. As it began in the
West Indies, so it continues for some time to be mainly
maritime, but in the latter part of 1657 it becomes also
continental. In 1658 a Puritan army stands in the Low
Countries, and the Military State of England interposes
between Bourbon and Habsburg as Sweden had done in
Cromwell's youth.
Of the former or maritime phase the principal events
are as follows : —
A fleet under Blake and Montague sailed for Cadiz.
Against Spain it accomplished nothing, but it proceeded
to Lisbon, and there compelled the founder of the new
Portuguese Monarchy, Joao IV, now at the very close of
his reign, to ratify his treaty with England. The under-
stan(Hng between England and Portugal, which was to last
so long because it enabled either Power to balance Spain
in the Oceanic world, begins here.
In October 1656 a squadron of this fleet, which had
been left behind at Cadiz, under Captain Richard Stayner,
fell in with a treasure-fleet of eight sail, and succeeded in
destroying part of it and in capturing two ships with a
considerable treasure.

90 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
In April 1657 Blake discovered the Spanish silver fleet
in the harbour of Santa Cruz in the island of Teneriffe.
He attacked and destroyed it, his greatest achievement and
perhaps the most surprising naval achievement of that age.
The Spaniards however succeeded in rescuing the silver.
Thus the fortune of the Protector did not desert him
and the reputation of his govemment continued to rise.
But Santa Cruz was Blake's last exploit. He died in
August as his ship entered the harbour of Plymouth.
As 1657 is the great naval year, so is 1658 the year of
victory by land, for the Military State.
How many times have English troops fought in the
Low Countries in order to defend or to rescue that terri
tory from the French ! We are now to see English troops
fighting in the Low Countries by the side of the French
in order to partition the territory between England and
France. Three thousand solcHers under Reynolds were landed
at Boulogne between May 18 and 24, were reviewed by
Louis XIV at Montreuil, and joined the army of Turenne
near St Quentin about June 11. On June 21 Turenne
¦writes to Mazarin, ' I have seen the English ; they are
the finest troops possible.'
A great transition of European affafrs was about to
take place — so much was evident — but the nature of it
was by no means clearly indicated by what next took
place. The alliance of England and France had a great
triumph in the summer of 1658, and of this triumph
the most significant feature appeared to be that the
British Military State, which already ruled the Ocean,
now took fast hold of the European Continent. Cromwell,
who went so far beyond Elizabeth, now drew our state out
of that insularity to which Elizabeth had condemned it

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 91
when she submitted to the loss of Calais. The Protestant
League still seemed to prosper, though it had been com
pelled to accept the aid of France. In concert with Sweden,
courted by De Witt's government in Holland, in close in
tercourse with the Protestant Cantons, victorious on the
Ocean, and now at last firmly planted in Flanders, Cromwell
seemed a much more powerful person than Mazarin, and
the triumph of 1658 seemed likely to prove the com
mencement of a universal ascendency of England. But
the appearance was delusive. The transition which now
took place established the. ascendency not of England, but
of France ; it opens the ' Siecle de Louis XIV.'
Now that we are led back to continental affairs we
must take note of certain great events which happened
at this juncture and which hastened on the universal
change. Almost immediately after the conclusion of the offen
sive treaty by Cromwell and Mazarin, on April 2nd, 1657,
the Emperor Ferdinand III died. This was the prince
who in his early days had turned the tide of the German
war against Sweden and in favour of Austria by his victory
of Nordlingen, and who had afterwards made the Treaty
of Westphalia. The first demise of an Emperor after the
Thfrty Years' War was a most momentous event, and we
are to observe that the vacancy continued for fifteen
months. How would Cromwell, as the head of the Pro
testant interest, regard this vacancy ? Would he not at
least wish that it should not be filled by a Habsburg, the
head of the Catholic interest in Germany, the cousin of his
own enemy, the King of Spain ? And so far the wish of
Cromwell would be in agreement with the wish of Mazarin.
But Mazarin would also have a positive wish. By the
Treaty of WestphaHa his own master Louis XIV had

92 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
taken, as guarantor, a place in the Germanic system
almost equal to that held by the Austrian prince. Why
should not the young king of France become a competitor
with the young king of Hungary and Bohemia for the
votes of the Electoral College ? Why should not the
Emperor Ferdinand be succeeded by the Emperor Louis ?
But at least it seemed that the moment had arrived
for bringing to an end the greatness of the House of Habs
burg. While England and France in alliance humbled the
Spanish branch in Flandeis the Austrian branch might
be deprived of the Imperial Cro^wn. For a moment this
latter result seemed certain to happen. Not only were
France, England and Sweden opposed to the Austrian
candidate, but the ecclesiastical princes of the Rhine,
upon whom Austria usually depended, were at this time
opposed to him. Tbe Elector John Philip of Mainz (known
later as a patron of Leibnitz) with his active minister
Boineburg headed a party which favoured a purely Ger
man and more insigiuficant candidate, some Bavarian
or Palatine prince.
It was therefore a surprising event that the Austrian
candidate, Leopold Ignatius, king of Hungary, was after all
elected in July, 1658, and so a new period of Austrian
ascendency in Germany began. The explanation of this
is to be found in that incurable discord among the Pro
testant Powers which all along had grieved the soul of
Cromwell. His young hero, Charles Gustavus of Sweden,
disappointed his hopes. Had Charles Gustavus proved
indeed a new Gustavus Adolphus, or rather had he an
swered to that idealised conception of Gustavus Adolphus
which dwelt in the mind of Cromwell, the year 1658 might
have witnessed the do-wnfall of the House of Habsburg and
the victory of the Reformation along the whole line. But

THE WAR OP CROMWELL. 93
the policy of Charles Gustavus was not religious, it was
purely national. Instead of resuming he deliberately
abandoned the German schemes of Gustavus Adolphus.
He does not concern himself about the Protestant interest
in Germany or in Europe at large, but sees before him
only the two ancient enemies of his House, the king of
Poland (with Russia in the background) and the king
of Denmark. He begins a War of the North which
from 1655 to 1660 rages by the side of the war of Crom
well and Mazarin just as later Charles XII's campaigns
ran parallel to those of Marlborough and Eugene. But
in this war he takes his own course, which by no means
corresponds to tbe course of Cromwell. For instead of
uniting he divides in a most serious manner the Pro
testant interest. He attacks Denmark, a Protestant state,
and -wins victories which alarm the Protestant Netherlands
and Cromwell himself lest Sweden should succeed in closing
the Baltic ; at the same time his victories over Poland are
most alarming and embarrassing to the other great Protes
tant prince of the North, the Great Elector. The latter
finds himself surrounded and hemmed in by Swedish
power. He seems about to exchange a nominal vassalage
to Poland for a most real vassalage to the Swedish con
queror who bas the Polish state, if not the whole Baltic
coast, at his mercy.
Cromwell's Panevangelical system, if we may call it so,
was frustrated by the fact that the Great Elector was
driven into the arms of Catholic Austria by this threat
ening inroad from Sweden. Cromwell just lived to see the
election of Leopold decided by the vote of a Protestant
Elector and the ascendency of the Austrian House in
Germany secured at a most critical moment for almost
another century.

94 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Mazarin's views were somewhat different from Crom
well's. It does not appear that he had very seriously
endeavoured to procure the election of the king of France,
but to exclude the Austrian had seemed to him essential,
because so long as the Empire was under Austrian in
fluence it would favour and aid the Spanish Power -with
which be ' was at war. Now therefore he resorted to
another measure intended to guard in another way against
this danger. He became a model to that other Italian
who was to guide the policy of France in a later age. He
created a Confederation of the Rhine. Out of the German
party by means of which he had hoped to exclude Leopold
he now composed a League, the nominal object of which
was to guard the Treaty of Westphalia and so to prevent
a reunion of the two branches of the House of Habsburg.
The election of Leopold occurred on July 18th. The
act of the Confederation of the Rhine was signed by the
three ecclesiastical Electors and some other German princes
on August 14th ; France adhered to it on the 15th.
In the summer months of 1658 great intemational
events were crowded together. For just before these
German occurrences, viz. on June 14th, a decisive event
had occurred in Flanders, and soon after them, on Septem
ber 3rd, another decisive event occurred at Whitehall.
The battle of the Dunes was won by Tureime near
Dunkfrk on June 14th. A few days later Dunkfrk sur
rendered. It was solemnly entered by Louis XIV, and
then in accordance -with the treaty handed over to the
English. Colonel Lockhart took possession of it for
Cromwell on June 25th. Mardyke had been in English
possession since October 1657.
These military occurrences were of inexpressible im
portance. At the battle of the Dunes the duel of France

THE WAR OP CROMWELL, 95
and Spain, which had begun twenty-three years earlier,
and had been the great war of Europe for the last ten
years, was decided. The Treaty of the Pyrenees was the
consequence of it, and by the Treaty of the Pyrenees it
may be said that the greatness of the Spanish Monarchy
was brought to an end.
It was a great triumph for France, and already the age
of Louis XIV begins to exhibit its splendid features. The
young king appeared in all his glory to take possession of
Dunkfrk. It had been difficult to restrain his martial
ardour while the military operations proceeded, and when
they were over it was quite impossible ! ' He wore a
splendid military (fress, and rode a noble white charger;
never in the opinion of the court had he borne himself so
proudly and grandly. M. de Bassecourt bowed the knee
to him and said with a respectful reverence that he had
but one consolation in his misfortune of having been
unable to hold out longer, and that was that he had the
honour of surrendering the place personally into the
hands of so great a prince'.'
Louis plays his part well, and the victory had been
won by a French army commanded by Turenne. But
at this moment the great man of the age was Cromwell,
and it might appear that he gained more by the victory
than Louis or than Mazarin.
Cromwell's arms had met with a reverse in St Domingo
three years before, and his position at home might often
seem extremely precarious. But now he was seen on the
morrow of Blake's great naval victory taking a share in the
decisive battle of the age and giving back to England by
the acquisition of Dunkfrk the continental position which
she had lost just a century before when she lost Calais.
' Gazette de France, quoted by Bourelly {Cromwell et Mazarin, p. 232).

96 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
At the battle of the Dunes the English battalions, under
the command of Lockhart and Morgan, had carried a
dune against the Spaniards with conspicuous gallantry.
A Spanish officer wrote that 'the English came on like
wild beasts and that there was no resisting them'.* This
was in itself a great triumph for Cromwell and his Military
State, but he had also the satisfaction of having driven
the royalist party into the arms of the enemies of England.
In the motley force which was defeated at the Dunes were
to be found, fighting by the side of Don Juan, not only
the great Condd, but also two Stuart princes, the Duke
of York and the Duke of Gloucester.
From the domestic point of view Cromwell's power
may seem in these last months of his life to have sunk to
a very low ebb. The royal Protectorate had broken down;
the Other House had proved a failure. He had dissolved
Parliament, apparently in the blind petulance of despafr.
What could he do next ? It may be, it has beeri held, that
nothing but an opportune death saved him from, igno
minious ruin.
But looked at from the European point of view Crom
well's power had never been so immensely great- as at this
very moment. A Military State can find resources in war
itself, as Sweden was showing in that very age. It is
possible that the Battle of the Dunes, used as Crom
well would know how to use it, "would have proved a
tuming-point in English history, a starting-point for the
Protestant and Military Monarchy of Great Britain in the
House of Cromwell. But this battle was fought in June
and in September occurred the death of Oliver Cromwell, i
Precisely a century had passed since the death of Queen
Mary. And now in 1658 the situation of foreign affafrs
' Bourelly, op. cit. p. 200.

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 97
was in some respects strikingly similar to the situation in
1558. England was again concemed in a war on the coast
of Flanders. The same local names were again in men's
mouths. At that time there bad been a battle of Grave
lines, and now again Gravelines was besieged and taken.
At that time a great decisive battle between France and
Spain had been fought at St Quentin in which the English
force had distinguished itself, and which had been speedily
followed by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. Precisely
parallel is the decisive battle of the Dunes, which led to
the Treaty of the Pyrenees.
These resemblances put in a striking light the great
difference, namely, that in 1558 England aided Spain, while
now she aids France. It is indeed true that as the Treaty
of Cateau-Cambresis founded that great complex Spanish
Monarchy of which we have traced the history in this book,
so the Treaty of the Pyrenees brought it to an end, and
that England, played a similar part then in establishing,
and now in. overthro-wing, it.
But we seem to see another grand difference, which
however proved transitory.
The policy of Queen Mary in assisting Philip was un-
English and, disastrous, and the iraraediate result of it was
the Ipss of Calais and humihation for England. The policy
of Cromwell in assisting Louis XIV greatly raised the
reputation of England, and the immediate result of it was
the acquisition of Dunkfrk. And indeed had Cromwell's
power at home rested on a firm basis, or had he lived to
tum his triumph to good account, an age might have
opened, for England if, not of happiness, yet of vast great
ness and ascendency.
But as the death of Cromwell, followed immediately,
and as his Military State speedily crumbled, away, his
s. II, 7

98 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
European policy had in the end a result not very unlike
that to which the policy of Mary had led. Dunkfrk was
lost again, and -with it went all the great possibilities that
depended on its possession. And as Mary had helped to
found the ascendency of Spain, so it was soon visible that'
Cromwell had merely founded an ascendency of France.
England retfres into her insularity, and becomes once more
comparatively a peaceful Power, while from this moment the
greatness of France, which had been under eclipse since
1648, shines forth again, and the Roi-Soleil enters upon
his long day of glory.

It is more natural to compare Cromwell to Queen
Elizabeth than to Queen Mary. Elizabeth and CromweU'
round off a complete century of policy ; they also stand out'
in strong contrast to the feeble politicians that came between
them. Both confronted foreign Powers with a high courage;
both gave England a high place among the Powers of
Europe. And yet in one capital point they are shaiply
contrasted. In Elizabeth, as we saw, action is at a minimvmi. She'
faces the world bravely, but she does as Httle as possible.
By good fortune she enjoys a reign of forty-four years, iu
which all old wounds are healed, a sense of contentment'
and rest grows upon the minds of the people, and a deep'
and broad foundation is laid upon which immense things
have since been buUt.
Crorawell is in this respect in the other extreme. He
is the most audacious and original statesman we have had,
but, as he began late and ended soon, too little time was
allowed him. By far the greater part of his work perished
with him, and yet it would not be fair to say that this fact
stamps- his work as unsound. Nor is it fair to charge upon

THE WAR OF CROMWELL. 99
him some bad results which flowed from his policy. He
laid a daring plan which he was not allowed to execute.
What he left was a mere fragment, which it is not
equitable to estimate as if it were a complete work.
Had five more years been granted to him, it seems
possible that his triumphs abroad might have relieved
him of his domestic difficulties. In this case he would
have founded, as we said, a great Protestant and Military
Monarchy which would have been as powerful as the Spanish
Monarchy had been at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. Dunkirk would have been a new starting-point
for his Protestant League. There would have been new
military enterprises which would have afforded occupation
for his puritan army, and new triumphs which would have
reconciled the people to a military domination, especially
as they would have been triuraphs on the one side for
Protestantism, on the other side for Toleration. As Queen
Christina said, he would have been the Gustavus Wasa of
Great Britain.
We may most reasonably doubt whether such a result
would have been in the long ran happy for the country.
English history would have been rolled into another course.
Monarchy would have been restored on a new, a mihtary
basis, which would have given us glory and ascendency
instead of liberty and wealth. These results, good or evil,
good and evil, would have been fairly chargeable upon
Cromwell. What actually happened was the result not of Crom
well's policy alone, but partly of that policy and partly of the
policy which was substituted for it after the sudden and
(Hsastrous do-wnfall of the Protectorate. Cromwell acted
on the presumption that England had a powerful standing
army, in (Hscipline and tone the best army in the world
7—2

100 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLI(3Y.
and also that England had a. strong and determined govem
ment, which was iri one way or another to be held inde
pendent of ParHamient. He had been accustomed through
life to leave much, to Providence, but Providence, which
had favoured his personal enterprises, suddenly -withdrew
its support. The strong Govemment disappeared, the
strong army vanished with it. The Military State fell,.

PART TV.
THE SECOND REACTION.

CHAPTER I,
THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II.
The expression ' Growth of British Policy ' is intended
to describe a series of changes, tentatives, or develope
ments, through which British PoHcy arrived at its maturity,
that is, at a fixed condition. This fixed condition may be
said to have been reached about the time of 'Queen Anne,
when by the union of England and Scotland our policy
became definitely British instead of merely English, when
it also assumed its predoininantly commercial character,
when its characteristic machinery, the Debt, the Bank,
the; Standing. Army were in full play, and public opinion,
expressed through Parliament, took the place of dynastic
interest in foreign relations. From this time our policy
has continued; through all variation of cfrcumstances to be
the same in object and in spirit. The agency which thus
brought our foreign policy to maturity was the same as

102 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
that which rendered the same service to our domestic
constitution — it was the agency of William of Orange.
At the point which we have now reached, when the
second of our three heroes, Oliver Cromwell, quits the
scene, William, the last of the trio, is a child of eight
years, and thirty years are to pass before he strikes the
great stroke which is to cut sp many knots at once. It
remains for us to review the period between 1658 and
1688 and to cast a glance upon the new state of things
which resulted gradually from the Revolution.
But as at the beginning of this Essay, when we 'dealt
¦with the period before the accession of Elizabeth, so now
when we come in sight of the end, we shall sketch some
what more slightly than while we dealt ¦with the century
which is opened by Elizabeth and closed by CromweU.
The general course of development has by this time been
clearly marked, and the reader ¦will half anticipate the
stages which remain to be traversed. It will be com
paratively easy to show how the old state of things passed
away, and as to the state of things which took its place
after the Revolution, that cannot be completely described
in this book. A complete description of it belongs less
properly to the last chapters of a work on the seventeenth,
than to the earlier chapters of a work on the eighteerith,
century. We haVe seen in general a dynastic policy giving way
to a national. Elizabeth by refraining from' marriage snaps
all the dynastic threads ¦^hich might have hindered the
free expansion of the national' interest. Then follows a
reaction uiider the earlier Stuarts, during which a new
dynastic web is 'woveri. This again is violently broken
by the establishment of the Commonwealth, and Cromwell
lays on a grand scale the foundation of a national poUcy,

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES IL 103
Under him the modern British Empfre appears for the
first time in a transient form.
Foreign ¦writers have been more struck than English
historians ¦with this particular achievement of Cromwell.
Ranke finds it to be his ' chief merit that he ruled the
British kingdoms for a succession of years on a uniform
principle and united thefr forces in coraraon efforts.' He
adds: 'it is true that this was not the final award of
history ; things were yet to arrange themselves in a very
(Hfferent fashion. But it was necessary perhaps that the
main outlines shouW be shaped by the absolute authority
of a single ¦will, in order that in the future a free life might
develope ¦within them.' This view of Cromwell, though
Httle familiar to English people, is so fully accepted in
Germany that Morarasen in estimating the work of the
Roman Sulla, which he remarks was indeed ephemeral
yet a great and necessary work of unification, pronounces
that ' the founder of Italian unity deserves a place below
indeed, yet not much below that of Cromwell.'
Under Cromwell the union of the three kingdoms was
for the moraent realised, and as the country chanced to
have not only a powerful fleet but also a disciplined army
and a habit of war, the new Britain took the lead of all
states, and seemed on the point of succeeding to the ascen
dency so recently forfeited by Spain. At this moraent
Cromwell died, and forthwith the prospects of Britain were
altered. Before entering into detail, we can perceive at once
some of the larger results of Cromwell's death, and we are
now prepared roughly to interpret the well-kno^wn events
of the next age so far as they bear upon British Policy.
There was after all to be no new dynasty of the Swe(Hsh
type, founded upon Protestantism, directing a Protestant

104 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
League in Europe, and carrying Protestantism over all
the seas and over all the American Continent. The old
dynasty ' would be recalled.
This implied by itself a certain restoration of the
dynastic system. True that the House of Cromwell also
would have acquired in time dynastic interests, that its
princes and princesses would have allied themselves with
foreign royal houses and -would have acqufred foreign claims,
as the House of Wasa had done, for example, in Poland.
But the process would have been slow, and so for many
years after 1658 England would have been as free from
foreign entanglements as in the days of Queen Elizabeth.
On the other hand the restored Stuarts were themselves
almost Frenchmen, -half Frenchmen by blood, and French
too by the habits acqufred in thefr long exile. Moreover
they were Hkely speedily to make themselves still more
foreign by marriage.
Accordingly, as we traced a dynastic reaction after the
death of Elizabeth, we may expect to find a second similar
reaction after the death of Oliver. And it is likely to be
intenser, since the restored Stuarts were much more in
tensely foreign and also more tainted from the beginning
¦with Catholicism than James I and Charles I had been.
We can also see beforehand the immense importance of
that child who is growing up at the Hague. The House
of Cromwell has failed to establish itself The House of
Stuart has become by this time too French and too much
disposed to Catholicism to adapt itself permanently to the
new national life which has been awakened in England by
the Commonwealth. But the child at the Hague is also a
Stuart on the mother's side, and on the father's side he is
at least not French ; he is the next thing to an English
man, he is a Dutchman. And as to religion, what name

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES IL 105
in aU Europe is more proudly identified with Protestantism
than that which he bears, the name of Orange ? Without
any supematural gift of prophecy it might have been fore-
-'tdld at the time of the Restoration that the perplexities of
the English question could only be solved by WiUiam of
! Orange. Illefaciet, might have been said of him, as it was
-said by King Charles of Sweden of the boy Gustavus
Adolphus. It would have been more natural to expect
too much than too little from William, for it might, have
seemed' probable that he would found an Orange dynasty
in England, to last through the eighteenth century, and to
unite permanently the Netherlands to- Great Britain.
: This preHminary survey of the age we are now to con
sider shows it falling into three periods. We ffrst see the
House of Stuart superseding the House of Crorawell, and,
as 'the restoration of Charles was effected in a peaceable
maimer and amid general enthusiasm, there could not but
follow a period of ¦ reconciliation between the djmasty and
the people. Then begins a new breach. The Stuarts
adopt a new system more congenial to thefr French ways
of thinking. Hence we have a new revolutionary period
which ends ¦with the expulsion of James II. But the
English Revolution is not the brief struggle it is often
irepresented to be. It is a long convulsion, and for ten
years, from 1678 to 1688, it had almost the character of a
-Reign of Terror. The commencement of it however is
earlier still. It may be placed in 1670, at the date of the
Treaty of Dover. Thus we have three periods, the ffrst
extending from 1658 to 1670, the second from 1670 to
1688,iand the thfrd extending from the arrival of William
to the consoHdation of his system.
These three periods we shall now consider in a some
what summary maimer. We shall treat of the reaction

106 GROWTH OP BJRITISH POLICY.
which followed the death of Cromwell, first the com
paratively mild reaction of the early years of the Restora
tion, then the intense reaction introduced by the Treaty of
Dover. We shall then consider in what way WilHam III
contrived to reconcile the ancient English Monarchy to
the national system of policy which had first been founded
by Cromwell upon the ruins of the ancient EngHsh Mon
archy. We know that Cromwell's system died with him, but
from this we ought scarcely to infer that it was racfrcally
unsound and only practicable for a moment through the
exceptional energy of a great man. The juster view seems
to be that it was a system which might have become per
manent, had the founder of it been allowed a few more years
of life. The House of Cromwell might have reigned in
Britain as long as the House of Wasa in Sweden had
Oliver reached his term of threescore years and ten and
been succeeded, let us say, by Henry instead of Richard.
In that case we should have seen a dynasty resembling
the Tudors rather than the Stuarts. We should have
seen a Protestant Monarchy of a highly military and
ambitious type, resting on three massive foundation-
stones, the standing army, the Protestant religion, and
the principle of toleration. As OHver died and Richard
could not support the burden of his succession, what
alternatives were open to the country? Two forms of
govemment had been found equally wanting. The old
Monarchy, as adraiiustered by Charles I, had been found
wanting, but those experiments, which had taken the name
of Republic, had failed still more completely. While the
Army, possessing, if not right, at least might, showed
itself able to create something, the mutilated Parhament,
possessing neither might nor right, afraid equally of the

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. 107
people on one side and of the army on the other, had
failed in '53, and now in *59 failed again.
There appeared to be only two paths by which the
country could make its way back to a stable condition of
things. One lay through a restoration of the ancient system,
under which the country had been glorious in the last years
of Elizabeth, prosperous and happy in the first years of
James. King and Parliament might now be reconciled,
each being ¦viiser and sadder than in the time of thefr
mortal struggle, each having learned that King could not
stand -without Parliament nor Parliament without King.
At the same time it could not but strike Charles Stuart
at least that another course was open, a course which to
bun personally would be preferable. Croraweirs new
system had in many respects succeeded not less well than
the old system of Elizabeth. It had been discovered that
the country might be govemed gloriously ¦without the help
of its ancient constitution. To learn the dead enchanter's
spell might be difficult, but if occasion should serve, or if
the other plan should fail, or threaten to fail, it was always
worth while to reraeraber how marvellous bad been its
operation, -and it could not be forgotten that the most
potent words in that spell had been ' Religious Toleration '
and ' Standing Army,* We grasp perhaps the clue to the
policy of the later Stuarts when we remark that they had
always before their minds the splen(Hd success of Crorawell,
The Monarch of the Restoration would naturally desfre to
succeed to the mighty power of the Protector rather than
to the feebleness of Charles I, or if he could not actually
take over the position of Cromwell he would desfre at least
to engraft the Protectorate on the ancient Monarchy. And
indeed it is the most obvious characteristic of the policy of

108 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Charles II and Jaraes II that they try to appropriate to
the Monarchy the advantages to be derived from religious
toleration and from a standing army.
But while they have two rival examples for imitation,
their father and the Protector, the influences and cfrcum
stances of thefr exile contribute more perhaps than any
imitation to shape thefr poHcy. They have lived for yeats
in dependence on foreign courts, especially the court pf
France. To the French court they are bound not merely
by obligation but by family connexion and by the power
ful influence of thefr mother. From the beginning she
had observed English politics with the eyes of a Catholic
and a daughter of Henry IV. She had seen her brother
and her nephew establish absolute monarchy in conffict
with turbulent factions and ¦with Parliaments. Of this
absolute monarchy the foundation had been laid by her
father when he made his great recantation. Her own
Catholic feeling was intensely strong. By her counsels
and by thefr o'wn observation of the fall of the Fronde
Charles and Jaraes would be led to think of establishing
rather an absolute and railitary than a parliamentary
monarchy in England. At tbe same time they formed
the habit of depending on the French court for money.
And lastly they received a strong bias towards Catholicism,
There was one point of resemblance between Henry IV
and Cromwell — religious toleration — for Henry IV was the
author of tbe Edict of Nantes, It was natural therefore
that the restored Stuarts, studying Cromwell on the one
side and the Bourbon Monarchy on the other, should form
a vague scheme of establishing in England a monarchy
similar to that of Louis XIV by means of rehgious
toleration. Such is the (fream which floats before the
mind both of Charles II and James II.

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. 109
In foreign, even raore than in domestic, policy the
Monarchy of the Restoration must have been attracted
by the example of Cromwell. He had put Great Britain
in the very front rank of states, whereas under Charles I
the English Govemment had been held in slight regard
aHke by Habsburg and the Bourbon. When on Cromwell's
death Charles began to look forward to restoration he ex
pected to take his seat not on his father's throne but on
the first throne in Europe, But the prospect was at the
moment as embarrassing as it was attractive, Cromwell's
foreign poHcy had been wholly novel, and it had forced
Charles Stuart into a position which was strange, false, and
most perplexing. His family connexions attached him to
France ;, a French alliance and a French marriage summed
up the foreign policy to which both his mother and himself
would have been naturally inclined. But Cromwell, re
versing the foreign relations of the Commonwealth, had, as
it were, taken violent possession of France. Accordingly at
the moraent of Cromwell's death Charles Stuart found him
self on the side of Spain, resi(Hng in Spanish territory and
sending his brothers and his followers into the field against
the armies of the French king, his cousin Louis XIV.
From such a position it would requfre some agiHty to
vault into the saddle which Cromwell now vacated, to take
up Cromwell's French alHance and his war of conquest
against Spain. Charles could indeed ¦without much (Hffi
culty (Hsentangle himself from that extremely close con
nexion with the Spanish cause into which he had latterly
been (friven; and so we see him in April, 1660, taking a
somewhat hurried flight from Brussels, that is from the
dominions of PhiHp IV, and establishing himself at Breda,
from which Dutch to^wn he issued the Declaration which
was preliminary to his restoration. But altogether to

110 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
change sides, to pass over to France and to become an
enemy to Spain — this was a doubtful and difficult policy.
It was indeed agreeable to his o^wn personal inclination so
far as he was a Frenchman, nor could he think of inaugu
rating his reign by giving back Jamaica and Dunkfrk to
the Spaniard. At the same time war with Spain was un
popular in the coraraercial world of England, and Cromwell's
policy as a whole was too essentially Protestant to suit a
prince who had such close relations with CathoHcism.
All these thoughts might have passed through the
mind of Charles at the moment of receiving the news of
Cromwell's death. In a year and a half froria that time his
position was defined by the particular manner in which his
Restoration was accomplished.' That he would be restored
in some way had appeared extremely probable from the:
moment of the fall of the rival djmasty in the person of
Richard. But between April, 1659, and May, 1660, it was
decided by what parties and in what way he should' be
restored, a question upon which depended the position he
would hold after his restoration.
Three modes of restoration, wholly distinct, were con
ceivable, besides various combinations of these three
modes. 1. He might step at once into the place of Richard
Cromwell, and so convert the Protectorate, which in OliveriS'
tirae had grown visibly more and more like a Monarchy,
once for all into a Monarchy,
2. As the fall of Richard and the confusion which
foUowed betrayed the failure of the whole revolutionary
moveraent, Charles raight retum as a conqueror at the
head of a foreign army, welcomed and supported by the
whole royahst party of England, which would now force its
way back to political power.

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. Ill
3. The Restoration raight be accomplished wholly
¦without the aid either of the party of the Protectorate
or of the royahst party and of foreign Powers. It might
be the work of that parliamentary party which had con
ducted the war with Charles I, intending only to reduce,
not at all to destroy, the power of the Monarchy, and which
at the moment when it seemed about to complete its work
had been overwhelmed by the military insurrection.
By the first of these modes of Restoration Charles II
¦would be a dfrect successor of Oliver, suppljdng the want
of Oliver's personal genius by the legitimacy and splendour
of the ancient Monarchy,
By the second he would take the place of his father, as
his father would have been if immediately after the arrival
of the Queen in 1644 he had won a great victory over the
armies of the Parliament and so had crushed the rebellion.
By the thfrd he would take the place of his father as
his father would have been if the Treaty of Ne-wport
had been carried to a successful conclusion, with this ex
ception that, while he would have made great concessions
to the ParHainent, he would at the same time have taken
his sdat on the throne not as a defeated but rather as
a victorious Monarch.
In personal character Charles resembles his grandfather
Henry IV, deducting the heroism and the inexhaustible
energy. He resembles him particularly in the easy cheer
ful indifference to principle which had enabled Henry to
be at one time leader of the Huguenots and at another to
put himself at the head of the CathoHc revival, while he
shamed both Churches equally by his unbounded profligacy.
In' like manner Charles, son of the martyr of Anglicanism,
had at one time taken the Covenant, and later on meditated
putting hiraself at the head of the Catholic party.

112 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
Itis not therefore impossible to conceive him succeeding
Crorawell as the head ¦ of the military party, as we know
that there had been at one time a serious negociation
between this party and Charles I. When in the summer
of 1659 the antagonisra between Parhament and Army.
once more showed itself, the question rose again; whether
the Military State raight not be saved at the last moment;
by the aid of the ancient Monarchy. In that case Charlesi
would have appeared as CroraweU's successor, master of a
great army, inheritor of the leadership of the Protestant
party in.Europe, and probably no rehgious or moral spruples.
would have caused him to hesitate. It seems possible that
Lambert brooded over this idea. But it was a chimera, as
Crorawell himself had found it to be a chimera in 1647.
Even if Charies and Lambert could have come to terms,
the party behind Lambert, the army, and the party behind
Charles, the royaHsts, the Catholics and; the followers of
the Queen, could never have consented to so unnatural ai
coalition. That it was impossible was a most momentous fapfj for
it caused the fall of the Military State. If '.the Army
could not make the Restoration in its own interest, nothing
remained but that the Army should be disbanded, and
England, deprived of her redoubted army, must resign
at once her position at the head of the states of Europe. , ;
While Lambert perhaps meditated the first mode, the ,
second mode of Restoration, that by a rising of the Royalists
aided by foreign troops, was rashly attempted in August,
1659. In Surrey and Sussex, in Sherwood Forestj in
Lancashire and Cheshfre, the royalists rose. It is. im
portant to remark how much at this moment they depended
upon French aid. Turenne was prepared to carry the Duke-
of York over to England and to furnish him ¦with trOops

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. 113
and artillery. We see here the first outHne of a policy to
which the House of Stuart was henceforth to accustom
itself more and more. This same Duke of York, how
often in later Hfe, when he was kno-wn as James II, would
he crave help from Louis XIV ! And, long after both
Charles II and James II and Louis XIV himself had
disappeared, Stuart Pretenders were to lean on France.
As Turenne me(Htates an invasion of England in 1659,
Saxe more than eighty years later designs to bring over
from the Low Countries Charles Edward, the grandson of
James II,
We, see from Mazarin's letters to Turenne how he
regarded EngHsh affafrs at this conjuncture. On Sep
tember 8th he writes, 'As to the affafrs of England I
am in some anxiety about the possible consequences of
the resolution you have thought it right to take for the
reasons you give, since... prudence compels us always
equaUy to distrast those who have ever been considered
irreconcileable enemies of France (he means here the Span
iards)... It is for this reason that I have used the utmost
ofreumspection in the answers I have been forced to give
both to the Queen of England and to Mr Germain (Jermyn),
Montague, and others who keep writing to beg me to induce
the King to aid the King of England at this crisis. It
seems to me that even if His Majesty should be convinced,
as I am convinced, that a king in England would be much
better than a republic, and that for other reasons we ought
to concern ourselves about the justice of the said king's
cause, stUl before committing ourselves we ought to take
good care and such precautions that at least we might be
assured that the King of England -will be obHged to us and
will be a friend to us, and especially we ought to allow
time, so that there may be nothing to arrange with respect
3. IL 8

114 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
to the conclusion of the peace between the two crowns'
(France and Spain) '.
Once more special reasons, we see, prevented France
from striking in at a most critical' moment of English
politics. All along Mazarin had favoured Monarchy in
England; nevertheless he had been forced to allow the
Commonwealth to come into existence, and latterly he had
been led to form a close alHance -with it. Now that it seems
about to fall, he is hampered by the fact that Charles Stuart
has become an enemy of France, and is (actually living in
Spanish territory as an ally of Spain. Before we can help
to restore the King, he says, 'we must be sure that he^wiU
be a friend to us.' Moreover, as it chances, his hands are
full. He is winding up the war of twenty-five years ¦with
Spain which he inherited from Richelieu. He is making
the Treaty of the Pyrenees. An age of peace is dawning ;
armies are to be (Hsbanded ; it is no time for new enter
prises. Least of all can any plan be entertained ¦which
might endanger or retard the pacification.
This pacification began just after -the fall of Richard
Cromwell by the armistice which was signed on May
8th, 1659. A preliminary treaty was signed on June 4th.
Lastly on November 7th the Peace of the Pyrenees was
signed in the Isle of Pheasants.
Thus the negociation occupied the very months when
the affafrs of England were in the utmost confusion. One
consequence of this was that England, which had had no
inconsiderable share in the decisive campaign of the warj
had no share in the treaty of peace, and was barely men
tioned in the armistice. But 1 another consequence was
that Mazarin abstained from intervention in England.
He spoke indeed warmly of the necessity of putting down
I Ch&uel op. cit. in, 280. ;

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. 115
the Republic (un exemplo tan escandaloso contra las monar-
quias); he received indeed most eager solicitations from
Charles Stuart, who appears to have offered to himself
personally, and to his heirs in perpetuity, the government
of Ireland'. At the moment when the treaty was about
to be signed, and when the French and Spanish Governs
ments had begun to regard each other as friends, Charles
Stuart himself arrived at Fuentarabia, had an interview
with Don Louis de Haro, and contrived that Ormond should
have an interview ¦with Mazarin. He asked only 4000 in
fantry and 1500 cavalry, ¦with which he hoped to suppress
a scandal equally distasteful to the King of Spain and
the King of France, viz. the EngHsh Republic. But both
Ministers turned a deaf ear, and Mazarin contented himself
with renouncing by a secret article of the treaty his treaties
of 1657 and 1658 with CromweU.
Thus no foreign aid could be obtained for the royalist
insurrection, and the insurrection itself, which had been
intended to be universal, and which had broken out in
Cheshfre under Sfr G. Booth, was put down by Lambert
after a short engagement at Winnington Bridge.
Restoration in the second mode was not to take place.
The thfrd mode still remained to be tried.
A deadlock was produced in the latter months of 1659
by the opposition of the Military Power and the Parliament.
The former had force but no legitimacy, the latter a certain
shadow — only a shadow — of legitimacy, but no force.
Cromwell had half succeeded in removing this opposition ;
butit had now retum.ed and become frreconcileable. A sort
bf equilibrium had set in which made government impos
sible. But by the failure of the royahst insurrection and
1 'Valfrey, Hugues de Lionne, p. 312.
8—2

116 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
the inaction of foreign Powers the Commonwealth still
retained one power, that of recalling Charies Stuart volun
tarily, and, as it were, in its own way. Charles did not
retum by any kind of force nor by the action of his o^wn
adherents. The royalist party remained spectators of the
Restoration. It was achieved by a combination between
two sections of the party hitherto opposed to the Kingj
the presbyterian section of the parliamentary party and the
section headed by Monk of the military party. Until the
last moment the King was not named, and, strangely
enough, the euphemistic term, adopted by those who
¦wished to avoid the word 'King,' was 'Parliament'; men
called for ' a fi-ee Parliament.*
On the other hand the enemy vanquished at the
Restoration was that political Army which had invaded
English politics at Pride*s Purge. The grand principle
asserted by Monk in the bosom of the army itself was this,
that the army must be subject to the civil power. This
can-ied with it the whole system of legitimacy, including
the Monarchy.
But tbe Army could not thus be vanquished ¦without
being also disbanded. If Military Govemment were to
cease the Military State itself must fall. '
Thus at the very moment when the military state was
acquiring an unrivalled organisation in France,— for 'Tu
renne was made Marshal-General about this time, and
about this time the whole programme of Louis XIV*s age
was arranged, — in England on the other hand the Military
State was dissolved. Charles II, when he compared him-^
self with, his cousin at Paris, must have bitterly regretted
that he was condemned to a Monarchy without an army;
all the more because the army had been there, and he had
himself seen it melt away.

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. 117
When we consider the Restored Monarchy ¦with respect
to foreign policy, we make this remark first,
That England ceases again to be a Military State. She
is indeed in the full tide of victory. She has received a
mighty impulse towards colonial expansion. And she ¦will
remain a great and enterprising naval Power. But in the
process of forming a great array, through which she might
have given the law to Europe, she has been suddenly
arrested. A dread and dislike of standing armies are
henceforth deeply implanted in the English, mind.
But we remark also.
That the Restored Monarchy is singularly free from
foreign entaiiglements. A King, who in his exile had been
dependent on the subsidies of foreign courts, is now un
expectedly restored without foreign aid. No foreign Power
had any share in the English Restoration. 'This,' says
Ranke, 'is one of the most important of all negative events,
if such an expres,3ion may be used.' For the momerit it
was open to Charles II, especially as he was still unmarried,
to take his own course in the European politics of the day.
As the domestic aspect of the Restoration concerns us
here but indirectly, we note as briefly as possible the further
developement, which took place necessarily as soon as the
Monarchy had been reestablished, and raodified even its
foreign policy. By the help of the King the Parliaraent,
as we have seen, had quelled and at last dissolved the
revolutionary array. But it could not recall the King
without, recalling the royalist party. Charles would not
this time be a Covenanting king. The Restoration, though
not made by the royalists, necessarily fell into thefr hands,
nor could the Presbyterians, who had made it, find in it
even an asylum. Intended as a reaction against the mili
tary movement of 1648, it developed into a reaction against -

118 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY,
the movement of 1642. The Act of Uniformity was
passed, the Anglican Church issued victoriously from its
long struggle, and the party of Falkland, led by ChanceUor
jDlarendon, obtained control of EngHsh policy. '
This change, succeeding the fall of the army, destroyed
the Protestant State along with the Military State. AU
sjnnpathy with foreign Protestant Churches vanished,
England retumed to that middle path in religion to which
she had first grown accustomed under Elizabeth. While
the instrument of Cromwell's European policy, the ai-my,
disappeared, his principle, his Panevangelicalism, (Hsap
peared too.
It was involved in all this that the expeiHency of re
taining Dunkirk was called in question.
Meanwhile, monarchy being restored, royal marriage
recovered the momentous iraportance that belonged to it
in the monarchic system, Charles Stuart entered London
on his thfrtieth bfrthday. His marriage was henceforth
one of the greatest political questions of the day.
The occurrences which mark the transition of British
Policy from the age of Crorawell to the second Stuart
period are these two, the marriage of Charles II to
Catharine of Bragan9a and the sale of Dunkirk to the
King of France,
Considered together they mark, first, the fall of the
Military State together with the maintenance of the
Naval and 'Colonial State (for Dunkirk represents Crom
well's continental plans, and this is abandoned, while the
retention of Jamaica and the alliance -with' Portugal
indicate the adoption of Cromwell's maritime policy) ;
-secondly, an ominous re^vival of the dynastic system. Once
more after long disuse the method is revived of attaching
the foreign interests of England, her commercial communi-

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES IL 119
cations in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, her
relations with, foreign Powers, to the marriages of the
royal family.
This reaction after Cromwell reminds us of the reaction,
which was considered above, after Elizabeth, the un
married, childless, kinless Elizabeth. We have recognised
however that the dynastic system, cautiously handled,
might do little harm, and that in a few cases it had been
known to produce splendid results ; for had it not brought
together Aragon and Castille, England and Scotland?
The Bragan9a marriage might seem to afford a favourable
speciraen of the system ; it remained for time to decide
whether the second reaction would on the whole be
harmless or even beneficial, or whether it would be
mischievous, as the first had been, or even far more
mischievous. We obtain a sort of general formula for the period
before us when we remark (1) that the later Stuarts were
exposed by their djmastic position to a peculiar danger,
thft of being absorbed and lost in a French alliance,
unnational and catholicising; (2) that at the outset the
danger was both manifest and easily avoidable, the Resto
ration having been accomplished without French aid.
Thus we distinguish two. phases in the period. At first
the Stuart policy is on the whole independent, at parti
cular moments energetically independent, of France, though
from the outset France dxerts a strong attractive power.
Then comes the phase of dependence on France, during
which again opposite tendencies occasionally prevail. This
phase however grows at last so decided that the Stuart
king, himself ends by retiring, to France, where he passes
his latter days as a pensionary of Louis XIV, The
tran^ition from one phase to the other is pretty clearly
marked by the Treaty of Dover,

120 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
In delineating these phases we may keep almost
exclusively in view the relations of England and France,
As the Stuarts ended in the dependent alHance upon
France against the nation, it is notable that they began
with hostility to France ¦with the nation, Cromwell's
French AlHance had not been openly brought to an
end, and Charles was fresh from fighting on the side of
Spain against France, when the Restoration took place.
And so the first steps of his policy after the Restoration
in(frcate hostility to France. He treats the French
ambassador Bordeaux rudely, and sends bim notice to
quit the country, which at last on July 7th, 1660, he is
forced to do. It raight have seemed at this moment that
Charles was about to reverse the foreign poHcy of Crom
weU, to carry England back from the side of France to
that of Spain.
Such a course was indeed open to him, and there
were not wanting considerations which might recommend
it. If it began to appear that Dunkfrk could not be
kept, and was indeed, now that the CromwelHan army
was disbanded, not worth keeping, ought it not to be
restored to the Power from which it had been taken,
that is, to Spain ? Did not English interests at the same
time requfre that in the Low Countries France should be
held in check, and was there not a danger, now that Spain
had been fafrly vanquished in the European war, that the
tide of French aggression would sweep over Flanders to
the Dutch frontier ? Moreover, Cromwell's war ¦with Spain
had never been popular in England, where it interfered
with trade. Upon the restoration of Dunkirk then might
be founded a reconciliation with Spain which the country
would welcome. It was trae that a restoration of Jamaica
was out of the question ; stiU England had at that moment

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. 121
much to offer which Spain at that moment could scarcely
afford to refuse. The Spanish Monarchy had just confessed
its decluie by the Peace of the Pyrenees, and that peace
itself was no peace. It might justly be caUed Pax infida,
for it was an arrangement under cover of which for
forty years Louis XIV preyed upon and despoiled the
Spanish Monarchy untU he made it a possession of his
family. Had England at this moment not only restored Dunkfrk
but thrown her weight into the Spanish scale, that is,
had Charles married into the Spanish House and guaran
teed the Low Criuntries against further French aggression,
the aggressive policy of Louis XIV would have been
checked in its coramencement, and a position would have
been given to England which in some respects would have
suited the feelings of the nation.
The surrender of Dunkirk, not to Spain but to France,
and the marriage of Charies, not into the Spanish but into
the Portuguese House, mark the deliberate rejection of
this policy. At the same time they mark a new under
standing between the French and English governments,
that is, in some respects an adoption by Charles, instead of
a reversal, of the policy of the Protector.
It seeras to have been by his o^wn fault that the King
of Spain lost this last chance of arresting the decline of
the Spanish Monarchy, Charles II might have healed
the wound that Cromwell had given, and the negociation
had fairly commenced, A Spanish match for Charles II
was discussed in the summer of 1660, as for his father in
1623 ; it was broken off in much the same way. As then
the Infanta Maria was refused to Charles I, and married
the Emperor Ferdinand III ; so now the Emperor Leopold
was preferred to Charies II for the Infanta Margaret,

122 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
But, if not into the Spanish House, Charles must marry
into some House hostile to Spain, and so England, instead
of protecting that monarchy against French aggressioM,
must assist France in spoiling it. For at the moment
when the Infanta was refused to Charles his hand was
eagerly courted by the Portuguese Courti* and French
raarriages were also proposed to him ; all these proposajls
alike raeant ruin to Spain.
Louis XIV had promised in the Treaty of the Pyrenees
to give no further assistance to the rebellion of Portugal,
and he tells us that he set 'his pledged word above th6
greatest interests,* but he adds frankly, that the ; case of
Spain constitutes an exception^ . Between France and
Spain there subsists a kind of permanent enmity, and so,
he icontinues, ' whatever specious clauses raay be. put in
treaties about union, friendship, about proGuringi for each
other all sorts of advantages, the true sense which either
party quite, well understands for his o'wn part, by the
experience of so many ages, is that there shall be absti
nence externally. from every kind of hostility, every public
display of ill will ; but as to secret infractions which do
not come to light, either expects thera from the other by
the natural principle I have mentioned, and only promises
the contrary in the same sense in which the other promises
it. And so. it may be Said that in excusing ourselves
equally from the observance of treaties, we do not strictly
speaking violate them, because the words of the treaties
are not taken literally, although no other words can be
employed, as with the language of compliment in society,
which is absolutely necessary for intercourse but has a
meaning which falls much short of the sound of it.* (Louis
XIV, Instructions to the Dauphin.) .
This passage, in which LoUis probably repeats a lesson

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. 123
given him by Mazarin, furnishes the clue to much which
now took place. The Treaty of the Pyrenees showed
Louis externally in a generous light. In Article 60 he
engaged ' upon his honour, on the faith and word of a king,
not to give, either directly or indirectly, to the kingdom of
Portugal any aid or assistance, public or secret, in men,
arms, ammunition, etc. etc.* It was this engagement
which raainly terapted Spain to accept the peace. Philip
IV signed the Treaty of the Pyrenees in order to recover
Portugal, But the engagement, we see, was not serious ;
it was the intention of Mazarin and Louis that Philip
should lose Portugal, And this intention produced a
great effect upon the policy of Charles II.
In our ancient system alliances, we have seen, depended
mainly on royal marriages. But again the marriages them
selves depended mainly upon the dowry that might be
expected with the bride. This was peculiarly the case at
the moment when Charles II reestablished this system
among us. He was in dfre v/ant of money, and till the
end of the year 1660, or so long as the Convention
Parhament lasted, he felt himself in the hands of Presby^
terians. He was afready accustomed to depend on foreigri
Cpurts for his livelihood, and now, as a King, he felt
that only foreign aid could save him the intolerable yoke
of a half hostile Parliament. But at least he was now no
longer a mendicant. His immediate predecessor, Richard
Cromwell, had begged money of Mazarin ; Charles needed
not to beg, for he could offer his hand, and with his hand
one of the greatest alliances in the world. The Spanish
King, with Spanish Quixotism, had refused all this. There
were others waiting to accept it.
In Portugal the second king of the House of Bragan9a,
Alfonso, a minor, had been reigning since 1656. But the

124 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
monarchy was almost at its last extremity. In April
1659, about the raoment of the fall of Richard Cromwell
and of the first steps towards a pacification between
France and Spain, a Portuguese envoy, Count de Soure,
came northward to seek the aid of France and England.
France could not help him, at least openly, for, as we have
seen, Mazarin found hiraself compelled to renounce the
cause of Portugal in the Treaty of the Pyrenees. At the
moment that this treaty was signed, Charles Stuart
began confidently to prepare for his restoration in England.
A few months later he was seated on the English throne
and considering how he might bestow his hand to most
advantage. We see then what was likely to be his course when
Spain refused hira her Infanta Margaret. A Httle earHer
the other great bridegroora of Europe, Louis XIV, had
engaged himself to the other Spanish Infanta, Maria
Theresa, There remained for Charles the Portuguese
Princess, Catharine, sister of King Alfonso. It was certain
that the Portuguese Monarchy and nation in thefr ex
tremity would purchase the hand of Charles Stuart with
the largest dowry thefr empfre could furnish. And they
possessed precisely the kind of wealth which would tempt
a king of England — colonies and maritime trade. In fact
the very acquisitions which a Spanish Infanta might have
brought, as presents from Spain, would come equally weU
¦with a Portuguese Infanta, as spoils of Spain. The Com
monwealth and Cromwell had fairly launched England on
the career of New World trade; to this fact Charles II
always showed himself keenly aUve, Nothing ' therefore
could be more interesting to him than his relations to the
New World Powers. If an advantageous alliance with
Spain was not to be had, the best altemative was such an

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. 126
alliance with Portugal. If the former might throw open
the whole New World to EngHsh trade, the latter might
at least open to it half the New World. And the latter
was so far preferable that it was an alliance ¦with a humble
and necessitous, whereas the former was an alliance with
an arrogant, Power.
Thus a marriage between Charles II and Catharine of
.Bragan9a would commend itself as a first-rate measure of
foreign policy, as foreign policy was understood in that
age. But the mea,sure had another aspect which looked
towards France. For there was no measure which would
give more satisfaction to Louis XIV, He tells us himself
that he was especially bent upon assisting Portugal in
spite of the engagement he had taken in the Treaty,
Nay he goes so far as to say, 'the very clauses by which
they forbade me to assist that monarchy, as yet so insecure,
proved by thefr unusual character, by thefr repetition, and
by the precautions with which they were accompanied,
that it had not been beHeved that I ought to abstain from
rendering aid.* The conclusion he cfraws is that 'all he
was bound to was only to intervene in case of necessity,
with moderation and self-restraint; and this could be
managed more conveniently by the interposition and
under the name of the King of England, if he were once
brother-in-law to the King of Portugal* He narrates that
he sent a special envoy (that is, La Bastide de la Croix.)
¦with instructions to win Clarendon by a large bribe, that
the bribe was refused, but that Clarendon declared himself
in favour of the Portuguese match, and that the envoy
had a secret inter^view with the King.
The Queen-Mother of Portugal, who held the regency,
hailed the proposal as life from the dead to her country,
and in tbe winter of 1660-61 the negociation advanced

126 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
considerably. But Spain now took alarm. Perhaps Philip
IV repented of his reckless arrogance. At ariy rate his
Govei-nment now made new proposals. They offered
Charies a Princess of Parma with the dowry of an Infanta.
At the same time they threatened to treat the
Portuguese match, if it were concluded, as an act of war,
A serious threat, for Charles had hitherto. been free from
foreign complications, and war ¦with Spain could not but
be most inconvenient to a tra(frng Power! At that
moment too Spain and France stood before the world
united by a recent family alliance. Might not war with
Spain involve war with France also ?
Louis XIV says, ' / caused the offer of the Princess of
Parma to be rejected,' and after stating a new offer which
Spain then substituted, he continues, 'I managed affafrs
in such a manner that the second proposition was rejected
as well as the first, and even hastened on the an-angement
I desired for Portugal and the Infanta.' And it appears
from other evidence that Charles received assurances that
his Portuguese raatch was regarded by Louis with approval,
and also very large promises of secret assistance in carry
ing it into effect. In May, 1661, Charles announced in
Parliament his intention of raarrying the Infanta of
Portugal, On the principles which have been developed in this
book the raarriage of Charles II is not to be regarded as a
raere personal or faraily occurrence, but as one of the great
events of EngHsh history. It belongs to a series of
events of the same kind which have had an incalculable
iraportance, frora the raarriage of Margaret Tudor with
Jaraes of Scotland, which led to the union of the king-
doras, and that of Henry VIII with Catharine of Aragon,
which led to the Reformation, to that of William and

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES II. 127
Mary, which paved the way for the Revolution. In this
series it is not indeed araong the most important, never
theless its importance is by no means slight. Like the
marriage of Philip and Mary and that of William and
Mary, it proved childless, accordingly it established no
permanent complication of English and Portuguese affairs,
created no .claims upon Portugal for the English, nor
claims upon England for the Portuguese, royal House. But
it had the following positive results.
In the first place, Catharine being a Catholic, it carried
forward into a new age the peculiar Stuart usage that
England, though a Protestant state, should have a. Catholic
Queen. After tbe period of the Comraonwealth, in which
the .Protestant feelings of the country had had free scope
even in foreign. affafrs, it marked a considerable reaction
that the restored dynasty should connect itself, not, as has
since become the custom, ¦with some Protestant House of
North Germany or Scandinavia^ but ¦with a Catholic House
of Southern Europe. It was a step deliberately taken in
the dfrection of Catholicism.
But secondly,! by this marriage England was committed
to a comprehensive European poHcy. She was pledged
to a new concert ¦with France against the Spanish
Monarchy. Mazarin had died on March 9th, 1661, The
age of the personal government of Louis XIV had begun
for France, and everything there was taking a new aspect,
as England had suffered transformation in the year before.
The .alliance of Cromwell and Mazarin against Spain had
receded into past history, when suddenly the same poHcy
revived, in a somewhat. new form. This was an event of
the first European importance. In 1661 the Spanish
Monarchy was not .so irrecoverably sunk but that a different
decision on the; .part of England might have saved it.

128 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Had Charles adopted the watchword ' Balance of Power '
and put his sword into the Spanish scale, perhaps Portugal
would have been reduced to submission; the progress of
Louis would have been arrested in the Low Countries,
Dunkfrk would have been handed over to Spain, not to
France, and the War of Devolution would never have
been waged. But the Portuguese marriage of Charles II
with its consequences gave the coup de grdee to the
Spanish Monarchy. Charles bound himself to assist tbe
Portuguese -with 2,000 infantry, 1,000 cavafry and 10 ships
of war. Meanwhile Louis, eva(Hng his engagements; 'al
lowed Marshal Schomberg with 600 French officers to pass
into the Portuguese service. The result was that- Spain
lost all that she had promised herself from the Ti-eaty of
the PjTenees. When in 1663 thefr army under Don Juan
took the town of Evora, and Lisbon itself was in despair;
the Portuguese monarchy was saved by the victory of
Almexial, won, according to one account, mainly by the
valour of the EngHsh auxiliaries. In 1665 the Portuguese
won the decisive battle of Villa Viciosa, and finally, in
1667, the efforts of Spain were rendered hopeless by the
outbreak of a new war -with France, which, now mistress
of Dunkirk, threatened the Low Countries. Thus was
Portugal finaUy lost, and ¦with Portugal half the New
World, to the Spanish Monarchy. What the alHance of
CromweU and Mazarin began was thus consummated by
the concert between Charles II and Louis XlVi
We shall find great results foUowing from this adop
tion, which was on the whole unexpected and accidental,
of the Cromwellian system by Charies II. MeanwhUe we
must hasten to remark how widely that system was altered]
while it was adopted, -by Charles II. In the aUiance of
Cromwell and Mazarin, Cromwell took, th-e lead, and he

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES IL 129
meditated great designs of European policy. He took the
lead because he controlled a military state, while, Mazarin
at that time was hard pressed by the Spaniards and
Condd. Moreover, Crorawell was possessed by his pan-
evangelical idea. Charles II had no such idea, and he
had (Hsbanded his array. If he adhered to the French
alliance, we have seen what his motives were. He was
tempted by the great dowry which the Infanta. Catharine
would bring, to take the course which, as it happened,
France wished him to take. Having been thus dra^wn
into the system of France he was led to take a further
step. He sold Dunkirk to the French king. Meanwhile
his sister Henrietta was married to the French king's
brother, Philip Duke of Orleans. Thus he formed a
relation to France which, though it was not as yet depen
dent,! was scarcely equal.
1 For at this moment France underwent a new and
startling transformation, which perhaps had hardly been
foreseen when the restoration of Charles II took place.
At that date the reign of Louis XIV, in the full sense of
the phrase, had not yet begun. France was then still
governed by Cardinal Mazarin. The king was almost a
roi faineant, and the system of govemment by a rainister
had after forty years taken such deep root that it was now
doubtful whether the king could, even if he would, take
the reins into his o^wn hand, while it seemed scarcely doubt
ful that he would not even if he' could. Louis XIV began,
properly speaking, to reign in France a year later than
Charles II began to reign in England, and his assumption
of the govemment was a kind of coup d'etat, involving the
sudden, violent, and carefully prepared overthrow of the
man who pretended to the succession of Mazarin, namely,
Fouquet. But what made this revolution especially me-
S. IL 9

130 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
morable was the fact that it followed so closely upon the
Treaty of the Pyrenees. For that treaty, taken together
with the violation of the article of it relating to Portugal,
raised France to an easy superiority over the other states
of Europe just when Louis XIV acquired his personal
supremacy in France,
The moment of the appearance of Schoraberg in
Portugal, of the announcement of the marriage of Charles
with Catharine of Bragan9a, and of the assumption of the
government in France by Louis himself, marks a tuming
point both for Fra.nce and for the Spanish monarchy,
and so for the whole of Europe. Here ends once for all
the ascendency of Spain, here begins the ascendency of
France. Here and not earlier, for the earlier disasters
of Spain might seera reparable. She had been brought
low enough in the lifetime of Richelieu, but from that
depression she had risen again at the outbreak of the
Fronde, and when the great Condd seceded from the
French cause and began to dfrect Spanish armies. Later
the hostility of Cromwell outweighed by far the adhesion
of Condd, and the defeat of the Dunes raight be thought
a final catastrophe for Spain. But Cromwell (Hed, and
the Treaty of the Pyrenees followed, which seemed at the
moraent rather a stroke of good than of evil fortune for
Philip IV. At least he would now have leisure to recover
Portugal, an easy task, apparently easy since there was at
last peace in the Low Countries and since the French
king, his son-in-law, had engaged not to put any hin(fr-ance
in the way. Thus Spain had still a prospect.
But the last hope disappeared when this promise was
seen to be hollow, when it became clear that France and
England did not intend that Philip should recover Portugal.
Then at last the feeling of irreparable decline, of incurable

THE RESTORATION AND CHARLES IL 131
exhaustion mastered the Spanish Govemment. From this
date it raay be said that the great Monarchy of Philip II,
which began to take the lead of Europe at the Treaty of
Cateau-Cambresis, has fallen, or has ceaised to be the
same Power.
The moment is not less decisive in French than in
Spanish history. We have remarked how closely en
tangled with the French the Spanish Monarchy, repre
senting the old Burgundy, bas been from the outset. We
have remarked that the internal constitutional struggles
of France have all along been the consequence of this
entanglement with Spain. The king of Spain has all
along been the head and leader of the party of the noblesse
in France. Henry IV had kno-wn this to his cost, and
what had been so plainly proved by the history of the
League, was equally visible in the regency of Marie de
Medicis. It is the characteristic of Richelieu's career
that he makes war at the same time on Spain abroad and
on the noblesse at home, and the explanation of it lies in
the fact that these two enemies of the French Government
were really one. Lastly, Mazarin had to learn the same
lesson ; the Fronde leant on Spain as the League had done,
and Condd follows in the steps of Guise.
In 1661 the double struggle comes to an end. Now
at last the Spanish Monarchy is paralysed and at the
same moraent all doraestic opposition to the French
Govemment comes to an end. Louis XIV is henceforth
absolute at home because he has decisively overthrown
Spain abroad.
As France so suddenly rises England in the department
of foreign affairs descends to a lower place. Charles II
as a European potentate can bear no comparison with
Cromwell, not raerely from personal inferiority, but from
9—2

132 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY,
his position and from the want of an army devoted to his
person. His restoration had been up to a certain point
triumphant, and he had another triumph in 1661 when
a new Parliament relieved hira of his presbyterian gaolers.
He was now able to surround himself with his own
royalist party and the reestablished Anglican Church.
But he had no army, and he was dependent on a House
of Commons which, though friendly to him, did not wish
to see him the head of a miHtary state. The result was
that he could adopt but half of Cromwell's poHcy, the
maritime half — he could maintain a great fleet — but
Cromwell's continental schemes must be abandoned for
want of an army,
Jamaica might be held; but what would now be the
use of Dunkfrk ?
Money was his principal object; how to find ways
and means independent of parliamentary votes. From
this point of view his marriage had been a master-piece.
It had brought him two million crusados, and to the
realm acquisitions which might compare "with the con
quests of Cromwell, the station of Tangier on the African
coast and the island of Bombay in India. Had he any
thing else besides his hand by which he could make
money? Cromwell had laboured under a similar difficulty;
towards its close the Protectorate had seemed to be on the
verge of bankruptcy. But Cromwell having an army,
had possessed a resource which Charles wanted; he was
impelled in the direction of conquest and spoliation. He
might thrive, as the Netherlands had thriven, upon the
plunder of the Spanish Monarchy, In such a system
Dunkfrk appeared as an iraportant possession. It might
lead to further acquisitions in the Low Countries,

THE llESTOUATION AND CHARLES II. 133
All such schemes were (frssipated when the Cromwellian
army was dissolved. Dunkn-k now appeared in an opposite
light. It was a useless possession, by the sale of which
a great sum might be realised. No longer valuable to
the English Government, it was of the greatest value to
Spain or, if not to Spain, to France. Either Power would
give a great price for it, but by a sale England would
realise more than this price, for she would at the same
time be relieved from a great expense. When Charles
by his marriage had chosen his side against Spain, France
presented herself as the purchaser of Dunkfrk.
By acqufring Dunkirk Louis XIV, powerful enough
afready, would become more dangerously powerful stUl
England had already aided France materially to become
the first European Power; by yielding to her this new
position would she not destroy the Balance of Power in
favour of France and in a manner most dangerous to
herself? But as in the case of the Portuguese marriage
so here, the indfrect consequences, however momentous,
were far less considered than the immediate profit. The
measure seemed to belong rather to finance than to
foreign policy. We are also to consider that the danger
of a French ascendency was new, and had not yet become
familiar to English politicians. To favour France, to
procure advantages for her; had been the system of the
Protectorate, when England advanced by the side of
France and at an even greater rate. As it were auto
matically, the same system continued to work, though
England meanwhile had ceased to be a military state.
The sale of Dunkirk was completed near the end
of 1662. The French king bought it for 5,000,000 livres,
and by the abandonment of it an annual expense of
£120,000 was saved to the English treasury.

134 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
The new relation between the French and English
Courts which gi-ew up through this affafr and the common
intervention in Portugal may be considered later. At
present we remark only that the dangerous ascendency of
France was thus promoted, and that from this time
Charles II begins to tend towards a position of dependent
alliance with respect to Louis XIV.
Bolingbroke has accused CromweU of having unwisely
nursed the French ascendency which was soon to cause
England so much anxiety and so much war. But the
outline that has now been given enables us to see clearly
that the aUiance of Cromwell and Mazarin (Hd not of
itself lead at all necessarily to that ascendency. It was
caused by a series of occurrences of which that alliance
was perhaps the first. For the first occurrence he is
indeed responsible. But he is not responsible for the
second, which nevertheless was equally necessary to the
result, namely, his o-wn death and the do-wnfall of his
system. Even when this had taken place, when the king
had been restored, the unbounded ascendency of France
might still have been prevented. Tbe balance might
have been redressed if Charles had come to the rescue of
Spain and parted with Dunkfr-k to Spain and not to
France. The immediate cause of the French ascendency
is to be found in the position which Charles in the second
year of his reign found himself compelled, chiefly by the
want of money, to take up.

CHAPTER II,
THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY,
France was at length relieved frora the pressure of
the feudal party at horae ui concert with the Spanish
Moriarchy abroad. She had eraerged frora a straggle
which had occupied almost a century. But she gave
herself no rest. The period upon which she now entered
was also a period of struggle. The transition she makes
is not from war to peace but rather fr-om defensive to
aggressive war.
In the age of the Cardinals, which now lies behind
us, France does indeed often appear as a conquering
Power ; she acqufres territory both at the Treaty of West
phalia and at the Treaty of the Pyrenees. But her wars
in that age had been in then- origin defensive ; they had
been undertaken in order to shake off an oppression;
they had seemed almost necessary. They had also been
fuU of vicissitude. In Richelieu's time Paris had been
threatened by the Spamard; in Mazarin's tirae and long
after the triumphant Treaty of Westphalia there had been
battles in the heart of France and at the gates of Paris,
battles in which Spain had been at least indfrectly con
cemed.

136 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
The wars which now begin, over which Louis XIV
in person presides for half a century, are of a wholly
different character. They are aggressive in the fuUest
sense of the word on the part of France. It might
perhaps be alleged that some of them had, at least in
part, a national object, but it could not be alleged that
they were in any degree necessary. For now at last the
old standing cause of war, which Mazarin had inherited
from Richelieu, and Richelieu frora Henry IV, that is the
oppressive ascendency of the House of Habsburg, was
removed. France was henceforth perfectly secure, or at
least had nothing to apprehend frora the Spanish Mon
archy. It raight no doubt be argued that a satisfactory
settlement had not yet been reached. Spain was indeed
henceforth disabled, but she remained in possession of
much of the territory which had been her basis of opera
tions against France. She had still the bulk of the
Catholic Low Countries and Franche Comtd, and in the
neighbourhood of this territory Lorraine still remained
outside the French Monarchy and was govemed by its
sovereign duke. So far back as 1646 Mazarin had urged
that all this territory ought to be annexed to France,
since 'by this means' — so he wrote — 'criminals, (Hscon^
tented and factious persons would lose an easy means of
escape ; they would also lose a convenient means of creating
disturbance and forming cabals with the help of the
enemy, for it is obvious to remark that all rebellious
parties and all conspfracies have been usually organised
in the Low Countries, Lorraine or Sedan'.'
It certainly was a position of unstable equilibrium
' Mignet, Negociations relatives a la Succession d'Espagne soU)
Louis XIV, I. 178,

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 137
when these detached territories were seen to lie in the
immediate neighbourhood of France, while the Power that
had hitherto defended them, Spain, was in manifest
decline, France herself being at the height of success and
military efficiency.
But the dynastic system still prevailed. As it had
been restored in England, so it was triumphant in France,
where the fall not only of the Fronde but also of the
Ministerial system constituted a revolution very similar
to the Restoration in England. Louis XIV after the
death of Mazarin and the fall of Fouquet was a restored
monarch almost as much as Charles II. Accordingly
French policy may be expected, like English, to tum on
royal raarriages rather than on national interests, or at
least to cover national interests with a drapery of royal
marriages. This is strikingly the case. No royal marriage,
except perhaps that from which Charles V sprang, is
more memorable than that which formed the principal
article of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, the marriage
between Louis XIV and the Spanish Infanta Maria
Theresa. Not only did it give rise dfrectly to two wars,
that of 1667 between France and Spain and the mighty
European war which opened the eighteenth century, but
it may almost be said to dominate the whole diplomacy of
Western Europe for half a century.
This marriage raised again in a new form the question
which, as we have just seen, considerations of policy and
ambition had already raised. If it was natural for Louis XIV
to desire to annex the Low Countries and Franche Comtd,
this raarriage gave him a dynastic interest in those very
territories; It is in the early sixties that the new dynastic web is
mainly woven.

138 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
Louis XIV and the Infanta were married in the
summer of 1660.
Tbe Dauphin was bom in 1661.
Charles II and Catharine of Bragan9a were married
in 1661. The Emperor Leopold and the Infanta Margarita;
contract of marriage signed in December 1663.
Finally, Philip IV of Spain died on September I7th,
1665. The great controversy of the Spanish Succession,
which was the principal consequence of the raarriage of
Louis XIV though it was distinctly foreseen, nay, delibe
rately prepared by Mazarin hiraself, did not come into
the foreground of European politics till a much later
time. The immediate hefr of the Spanish Monarchy,
the child whose frail life alone held it from breaking out,
lived on, contrary to all expectation, till within a month of
the end of the seventeenth century. During forty years
Louis XIV nursed the expectation of acquiring for his
family the whole Spanish Monarchy, while at the same
tirae he continued to regard the Spanish Monarchy as
the traditional eneray of his House. Iz was to be at
tacked and dismembered province by province until the
tirae should come when his dearest interest should lie in
keeping it whole and saving it from dismemberraent !
Accordingly, pending that claim upon the whole Mon
archy which would not arise untU the heir of Philip IV,
the prince Charles, should die, he urged a claim upon
certain parts of it, arising imraediately on the death of
Philip IV himself As this eyent took place in 1665, we
find that the aggressive schemes of Louis XIV and the
new series of French wars take thefr origin frora this
year. The war of France and Spain, which had occupied

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 139
a quarter of a century when it was brought to a close by
the Treaty of the Pyrenees, breaks out again after a short
interval, during which the decline of Spain has advanced
another stage through her failure in Portugal. It is now
an aggressive war on the part of France, the object of
which is to annex territory in the Spanish Low Countries.
The policy of this war requfres no explanation, but a
dynastic pretext for it was considered to be also necessary.
This was found in the doctrine of devolution. It was
maintained that on the death of Philip IV while the
bulk of the Spanish Monarchy descended to his only son,
who became Charles II of Spain, some districts in the
Low Countries were subject to a peculiar rule of succes
sion and ought to descend by local custom not to Charles,
who was the child of a second marriage, but to the Queen
of France as the eldest child of the first marriage of
Philip IV,
The legal pretext need not delay us for a moment.
What concerns us is that here begins that absorption of
the Spanish Monarchy, which was the great work of
Louis XIV. It begins at the death of Philip IV, whose
reign of forty-four years. (1621 — 1665) witnessed the fall
of the great Power which had been founded by Philip II.
Hitherto its decline had neither been uninterrupted nor
irretrievable; but after 1665 the Spanish Monarchy is a
passive prey, supported only by the policy of the Sea
Powers, and experiencing no revival until it passes into
the hands of the House of Bourbon.
We are now at the crowning moment of the Bourbon
Monarchy, French genius had perhaps been more original
a little earlier, in the days of Descartes and the youth of
Comeille and the youth of Condd, It was more uni
versally recognised a little later, about the date of the

140 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
Treaty of Nimeguen (1678). But in the sixties, in the age
of Colbert, Lionne, Molidre, the youth of Racine and the
maturity of Turenne, when it had not yet lost its fresh
ness and when France had a golden raoment of triumphal
peace, the zenith was perhaps reached. At this moment
jealousy or dread of French power was not yet awakened.
She enjoyed as yet the friendship of the United Nether
lands, which owed to her in a great measure thefr freedom,
and also of England, where Charles II had revived the
cordial understanding established by Crorawell.
These two Powers are now seen to advance to the
foreground of poHtics, the Spanish Monarchy having
becorae passive. From henceforth to the end of the
century the international game lies in the West between
these two and France. They are the two Sea Powers, for
the total result of all her revolutions has been to leave
England much greater as a Sea Power than she had been
before the days of the Commonwealth. She is now equal
or superior as a Sea Power to the Netherlands, The . two
Sea Powers, as they are not yet jealous of France, are not
yet friendly to each other. Before long they -wUl become
both, and thefr union against France will be embocHed in
a person, no other than that boy who is gro-wing up at the
Hague, What now lies immediately before us is to trace
summarily how these two Powers gradually become ahve
to thefr common danger from the growth of France, and
how in consequence thefr old discords give place to a
comraon understanding. This is the brief formula of
intemational history from 1665 to 1688.
We must remind ourselves that the relations of Eng
land and the Netherlands are not determined purely by
national sympathies and jealousies, affinity of race, agree-

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 141
ment in religion, or rivafry in trade, but that here too the
dynastic system is in operation. For the Netherlands too
have a dynasty. The House of Orange has become at the
same time of royal rank and closely connected -with Eng
land by the marriage of which the young William is the
fruit. The continual interaction of English and Dutch
affafrs was remarked above. It was remarked that the
fall of the House of Stuart in England was spee(Hly
followed by the fall of the House of Orange in the
Netherlands. The Act of Exclusion of 1654 was the
crowning measure by which Cromwell put do-wn the party
adverse to him in the Netherlands after he had crushed it
ia England, Scotland and Ireland. From that date De
Witt presided over a Dutch Commonwealth and the young
William became, like his uncle, a Pretender.
But from this it follows that the Restoration in Eng
land would tend to produce a Restoration in the Nether
lands, and would be incomplete -without it, that the House
of Stuart, reestablished itself, would seek to reestabHsh
the House of Orange.
Within twelve years after the English Restoration
England and the Netherlands waged two wars. These wars
are caused in part by commercial rivalry, but in part also
by djToastic influences. As the first Dutch war had arisen
partly from the fact that the Stuart-Orange interest had
at that time been predominant in the Netherlands while
the opposite party was supreme in England, so the second
and thfrd wars now arise from a reversal of this contrast,
from the restoration of the Stuarts in England following
upon the fall of the Stuart-Orange interest in the Nether
lands. As Crorawell in the former case had desfred the
establishment of a republican Govemment, so Charles II
now desfres the fall of that Govemment and the restoration
of his nephew.

142 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY,
Accordingly at the moment when France establishes
an ascendency, which Spain can no longer hold in check,
and which it is the trae interest of the two Sea Powers to
restrain, hostility breaks out between those very Sea
Powers, who thus become less capable of resisting the
encroachments of France. Such is the scene presented at
the critical moment of the death of Philip IV, on the one
side Louis making ready for a war of conquest, on the
other side England and the Netheriands at war -with each
other. We saw the Netherlands reduced to a sort of depend
ence on the English Protectorate. At the same time we
saw a Govemment established there which was out of
sympathy with the people and might therefore seem
incapable of supporting itself except by foreign aid. When
therefore in the autumn of 1658 the boys in Amsterdam
sang that 'the devil was dead' they might seem to
prophesy the fall of the Govemment of De Witt; and
when -within two years the Stuart returned to England it
might seem that the restoration of the House of Orange
also was close at hand. But De Witt was still to hold his
o-wn for twelve years, and, what was yet raore surprising,
he was to obtain for the Dutch state a comraanding
position, and to win for it railitary triumphs over England
and diplomatic triumphs over France before the inevitable
catastrophe, fatal both to hiraself and to his system,
arrived. The explanation is that the Orange party, though in
comparably raore popular in the country than the party
of De Witt, were yet necessarily disabled so long as the
Prince of Orange was a child. De Witt therefore might
count upon a respite. The sixties belonged to him, as
the seventies, it might already be foreseen, would belong
to William. Alreacly when the English Restoration took

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 143
place his position had been strengthened, at first by the
aid of Cromwell, and between the death of Cromwell and
the Restoration by a great triumph, won indeed in con
junction with England, yet so that the principal share of
honour fell to the Netherlands.
We have already had some glimpses of the Northern
policy both of the Netherlands and of England. Free
access to the Baltic was matter of life and death to both
states alike. In the first Dutch war the Dutch in
alliance with Denmark had hoped to crush England by
closing the Baltic to her. England after escaping this
danger had guarded against a recurrence of it by forming
an alliance -with Sweden. From the young king of Sweden
who ascended the throne at that very time Cromwell had
expected much aid in his Panevangelical schemes. Charles
Gustavus had indeed done great things, but not precisely
the things which Cromwell wished. In the interval
between Cromwell's death and the Restoration he con
vulsed the Baltic with military achievements which alarmed
the Dutch and the Etiglish Governments equally.
It was one thing for a modest State like Denmark in
concert -with one 6f the Sea Powers to close the Baltic
against the other, and quite another thing for the Baltic
to become a raere lake in the dorainions of a great king
who might defy' both Sea Powers together. Charles
Gustavus now appeared as a tyrant of the whole North.
He had well-nigh dissolved the Polish State, reduced the
Elector Frederick William to the position almost of a
vassal, and he now turned his frresistible force upon
Denmark. In these circumstances the Netherlands and England
were driven to act together against hira. The concert was
very similar to the coalition we shall see them forming

144 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
later against Louis XIV. The object of it was to keep
the Baltic open to that trade which was absolutely essential
to every naval Power. In the summer of 1659 peace was
imposed by force upon the king of Sweden. It was a
proceeding of a new kind, which, as we shall see, speedily
became a precedent. It was arranged in three acts, signed
at the Hague and commonly called the Ffrst, Second, and
Thfrd Concert of the Hague. France, England, and the
United Netherlands were the parties to this arrangement.
But though an EngHsh fleet under Admfral. Montagu
appeared in tbe Baltic, it had retired again in consequence
of the disturbed condition of England, before the decisive
blow was struck in November. De Ruyter's fleet and an
army composed of Dutch, Danes and Brandenburgers took
Nyborg -with a garrison of eleven Swe(Hsh regiments. The
event closed the stormy career of Charles Gustavus, who
died within three months of it, and it led soon after to the
paciflcation of the North by the Treaties of Copenhagen,
Oliva and Kardis. . I
This energetic intervention raised the reputation of
De Witt's Govemment just at the tirae when England was
forfeiting the military superiority which Cromwell had
given her. Thus the Dutch state was restored ;to the
position it had held before its first war with England,, and
its republican Govemment began to take root, .restihg
henceforth on its own success rather than on English aid.
The Orange party lost as much as the republican party
gained. But now followed the Restoration in England,
which necessarily altered again the relation between the
two countries. De Witt, who had regarded the Enghsh
Government at first as a patron, and then as a friend,
henceforth could not but regard it as se(jretly; hostile.
Whereas Crorawell had been the leader and patron of

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 145
De Witt's party, Charles II was henceforth the leader and
patron of the Orange opposition to De Witt. A second
war between the two states carae into prospect, now that
there was added to thefr old commercial rivalry a new
antipathy between thefr governments. Henceforth the
position of De Witt was e-vidently undermined, England
having changed sides, whUe De Witt's adversary the Prince
of Orange wanted nothing but manhood. It was however
for the moment a commanding position. His fall could be
predicted, but he might achieve great things before his
faU, The change produced in Dutch politics by the EngHsh
Restoration is perhaps most strikingly sho-wn by the terms
. of the resolution of the Estates of Holland, by which on
Sept, 29th, 1660, they revoked the Act of Exclusion, on
which De Witt's government had hitherto rested. On
what ground do they now replace the young Prince of
Orange in the position of his ancestors ? They state that
the exclusion of the prince had been exacted by Cromwell,
but they add, 'considering that God and the English
people have recalled Charles II to his kingdom, and that
by this event the authority which had imposed that act is
extinguished, we revoke it and regard it as cancelled,*
Such expressions show how peculiarly intimate was
the connexion between the Netherlands and England, and
how much closer it had been dra-wn by the intermarriage
of the Houses of Stuart and Orange, The three Dutch
wars of 1651, 1664 and 1672 mark a limited period of our
history, and they are followed by a close alliance between
the two states, which lasted almost a century. When we
consider these wars together, we see that they are in
separable from our domestic revolutions, in which the
Netherlands were concerned almost as necessarily as
s. II. 10

146 GROWTH OF BEITISH POLICY.
Scotland. Commercial rivalry is indeed a powerftil contri
buting cause, but in each case we can distinctly perceive;
a revolution in England extending to the Netherlands.
The ffrst Dutch war is an extension of the Revolu
tion of 1648, which established a republic in England,;
and accordingly it establishes in the Netherlands the
republican government of De Witt, The second and
third Dutch wars are to be regarded as constituting
one struggle, and it is an extension of the Restoration.
Accordingly it ends in the downfall of the republican
govemment of De Witt, and in the restoration in the
Netherlands of the quasi-monarchical government of the
House of Orange.
Altogether we see a singular revival of the monarchical
principle. About 1651 monarchy seemed disappearing m.
all the three great states of the West, in England, in the
Netherlands, and even in France, where the Fronde was
then successful. Now the Stuart is restored in England,
Louis XIV takes all power into his own hand in France,
a little later the Prince of Orange, royal on the mother's
side, is brought to the head of affafrs in the Netherlands, ,
But in this process a dramatic entanglement is pro
duced by the coincidence in time of the second struggle of
England and the Netherlands with the first ambitious
encroachment of Louis XIV in the Low Countries, If at
the moment of the death of PhiHp IV of Spain there had
been a cordial understanding between the English and
Dutch governments, it would have been possible, even
easy, to check the ambition of Louis XIV in its first;
tentative stirrings. No such understanding was possible,
(except for a passing moment) while Charles II reigned, in
England and De Witt marshalled the republican party in
the Netherlands. Accordingly the ambition of Louis had

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 147
scope, and a Bourbon ascendency began to take the place
of an ascendency of the House of Habsburg,
The War of Devolution was the ffrst essay in aggression
of Louis XIV, It could be undertaken and could succeed
because of the bitter discord which just then prevailed
between England and the Netherlands, The sarae discord
stUl prevailuig in 1672 made it possible for him to strike
his second and still more alarming stroke.
But in the middle of this period (1665 — 1672) a new
policy suddenly emerges -with Temple's Triple Alliance,
It appears only to vanish again, but is a sort of prelude to
the system which was later to be embo(fred and represented
by WilHam of Orange,
The new prospect of European affairs which opened
from the moment when the fall of Spain left the Nether
lands and England face to face -with France, and when all
eyes began to tum towards the Catholic Low Countries as
the probable scene of war, is best sho-wn from a meraoir by
De Witt dated March, 1664. Here is a passage frora it',
' We must assume that in any case the king of France
-will try to make himself master of the Low Countries,
which are still subject to the king of Spain, and by that
means will become a neighbour to this state, no Power in
Europe being able to hinder this result. For Spain,
distant and enfeebled as she is, will not be able to hinder
it, since it is certain that, had France not been pleased to
grant the Peace, all that remains to the king of Spain in
the Low Countries would have been conquered in two
campaigns, although France, exhausted of men and money
after a war of twenty-four years, was at that tirae full of
malcontents who disapproved the conduct of the Ffrst
Minister, whereas now there is no one but loves and
1 Mignet, op. cit. 1. p. 268.
10—2

148 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
reveres the king, while His Majesty has more money than
Henry IV had when he formed a ranch greater design than
that of conquering what reraained of the Low Countries ;
and on the other hand Spain has neither men nor money
to maintain the war against France, and scarcely a man fit
to command an army. The Low Countries themselves,
fatigued and afflicted after so long a war, entfrely CathoHc,
and speaking French almost everywhere, as they formerly
made part of France, desire only to be reunited to her, and
want nothing but rest and a prince able to maintain thefr
religion and to defend them against all the foreign Powers
that may -wish to attack thera.'
This was the situation which gave rise to the next
chapter of intemational history. De Witt hoped for some
time to deal with the question of the Low Countries by
negociation and to enter into peaceful arrangements both
-with France and England. In 1662 he concluded a treaty
-with the Govemment of Charles II, and another -with that
of Louis XIV. Philip IV's reign was e-vidently (fra-wing
to a close ; what should be done with the Low Countries
on his death was now debated between De Witt and the
French ambassador at the Hague, d'Estrades. That knotty
question of the Low Countries, which after fifty years of
uncertainty and struggle was solved by giving the territory
to Austria and assigning a barrier of fortresses in it to the
Dutch, now for the first time comes into the foreground of
diplomacy. Shall the territory be partitioned? shall an
independent Catholic state be set up there? shall it
pass entfre to France? But in the course of 1664 a
maritime war of England and the Netherlands came in
prospect, and under cover of this Louis XIV raight hope
to settle the question of the Low Countries -with a high
hand in his o-wn favour.

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 149
The second Dutch war broke out actually in 1664,
though the declaration was not issued till March, 1665,
It was brought to an end by the Treaty of Breda in July,
1667, Meanwhile the death of Philip IV took place in 1665.
The pretext of devolution and of the rights of tbe Queen
was put forward, and in May, 1667, that is before the
Dutch war was ended, and about the tirae when the Dutch
ships appeared in the Medway, Louis XIV invaded the
Low Countries. At the beginning of 1668 he occupied
Franche Comtd. In May, 1668, this war was brought to a
close by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Such is the bare outline, which in a history of the
period would be filled in by a minute narrative of the
maritime carapaigns of the Dutch war and of the invasion
of the Low Countries and of Franche Coratd. An essay
like the present allows roora only for certain general
observations on the two wars.
Ffrst let us reraark how dangerous is at this time
the position of the Netherlands, and how well-nigh
desperate is De Witt's o-wn position in spite of any
momentary successes he may win. In considering the
first Dutch war we remarked what immense damage
was caused to a state which depended exclusively on
maritime trade by war waged, successfully or unsuccess-
ffiUy, with a maritirae Power such as England, We
remarked that as England grew in commercial wealth the
Netherlands could not but decline. By the time of the
outbreak of the second war thefr coraraercial prospect had
been darkened by another cloud. In France Colbert was
now developing his system. That is to say, France was
now doing what England had done by the Act of Naviga
tion. She was attacking the Dutch monopoly, she was

150 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
aspiring to be a maritime Power. She too had now her
Navigation Act and her great commercial companies ; she
was rapidly forming a great fleet. Against such approach
ing dangers what measures could be taken that would have
an efficacy more than temporary ?
And, still more, what could De Witt do to save himself?
The day of ruin for the country was evidently approach
ing ; it would arrive about the same time as the manhood
of his rival, the Prince of Orange. He himself would faU
in the catastrophe of his country. The event of 1672
could already be pre(Hcted.
But, placed as the state was, its only chance lay in
alliance -with one of the two Powers which threatened it.
With the help of France it might resist England ; -with the
help of England it might resist France, Should England
and France combine against it, what could save it from
destruction ?
We shall see that De Witt took a course which indeed
procured him a great mUitary triumph in 1667 and a great
diplomatic triumph in 1668, but which at the sarae time
inspfred first England and then France with the bitterest
animosity against his Govemment. He had the satisfaction
of sending his fleet into the Medway and also of arresting
Louis XIV in his career of encroachment, but for all this
a day of reckoning could not but speedily come. It came
in 1672, -the transitional year of the United Pro-vinces,
when thefr greatness had a sudden end, when De Witt
perished miserably, and the state itself, if it was saved
from destraction by a third WUliam of Orange, sank for
ever to a lower level of importance among the Powers of
Europe. Looked at from the English point of view the second
quarrel with the Dutch is sirailar to the first. It has the

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 151
sarae character of a quarrel between relatives. As then
the English Coramonwealth first offered incorporating
union and then went to war, so now Charles II begins as
a Dutch party-leader, demanding the appointment of his
nephew to the offices forraerly held by his family, and
proceeds in time -with reckless -violence to force on a war.
In both cases the war is truly national, and not a mere war
of governments. England has by this time assumed the
character of a Commercial State, and therefore by the side-
of the political dispute between Charles and De Witt there
is a fierce commercial rivalry between the two peoples.
The restored Stuarts have not yet set themselves in
opposition to thefr people. The second Charles, unlike
the first and unlike his grandfather, has some real grasp of
the conditions of political action ; he does not expect ends
without means, effects without causes. In this part of his
reign his policy is not wanting in vigour and is for a tirae
enthusiastically supported. The Restoration needed to be
confirmed by victory ; the restored Monarchy had now
drawn the nation, if we should not rather say been drawn
by the nation, into a promising war; success in this
would most effectually repress the disaffection which
had been rising since the Act of Uniformity, when Angli
canism had so unexpectedly reaped what Presbyterianism
had so-wn.
The war itself, though short, falls into two parts. It
commences in 1664 and through the greater part of 1665
it is simply a war between England and the Netheriands.
But Louis XIV was bound by his treaty of 1662 to
come to the aid of the Netherlands, if attacked. Charles
had hoped that this obligation would be evaded. In the
course of 1665 however Louis attempted to mediate, and
when his proposals were not accepted, at lasb declared war.

152 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Thus in 1666 England is at war not only -with the
Netherlands but also with France. The Dutch also pro
cure in this year the help of Denmark. England on the
other hand is isolated.
The sudden surprise by which in 1667 the Dutch
entered the Thames has left an impression upon later
generations as if the debauched Govemment of Charles II
had reduced England to a miserable condition of ineffici-
• ency, as if we were forced to make peace because we had
no longer the vfrtue or the valour to make war. This
seems quite groundless. Under Charles II the English
people (hsplayed great energy, and in this particular war
naval historians find much to admfre in the behaviour of
the English fleets and admirals. Of three great naval
battles, that in Southwold Bay (1665), the Four Days'
Battle, and that off the North Foreland (1666) two were
won by tbe English, and if the Four Days' Battle was lost,
it 'increased,' in the judgraent of a French critic', 'the
glory of the English seamen, owing to the intelhgent
bol(friess of Monk and Rupert, the talents of some of the
admfrals and captains and the skill of the searaen and
soldiers under them.'
The -victory off the North Foreland, followed up by an
attack upon the Dutch coast itself, reduced De Witt's
Govemraent almost to extremity. Orange plots were rife ;
a revolution seemed at hand. 'To provoke internal dis
sensions,' writes De Witt, 'is a great feature of EngHsh
policy, and one which it requires dexterity to parry.' So
far Charles II had success in his war. But the Plague
and the Fire of London at home and the hostility of France
and Denmark abroad reduced England in turn to extremity.
' M. Ohabaud-Arnanlt, quoted in Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon
History, p. 126.

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 153
Other momentous events were evidently approaching.
Philip IV was dead ; Louis was preparing an invasion of
the Low Countries. In these circumstances the negociations
for peace began at Breda. England certainly stood in
great need of peace, but she was in no sense beaten, on
the contrary she had had the advantage in the war, and
the situation of the United Provinces was far more critical
and dangerous than her own. But when the negociations
had begun, the English Govemment, in order to dirainish
the overwhelraing expense of the war, began to lay up
ships. De Witt took advantage of this, and finding the
English coast undefended sent a fleet of sixty-six ships to
the mouth of the Thames. The blow was as crushing as
it was sudden. The English negociators at Breda were
instructed to yield the points still at issue -with tbe
Republic, and peace was signed on July 31st.
In the narrow seas England had long played the tyrant,
and the time was still recent when Blake had made her
the greatest naval Power in the world. It was therefore
indeed a most startling humiliation to her pride that a
foreign fleet should dictate peace to her almost at London
itself And it might almost seem that this disgrace ruined
the reign of Charles II and drove the restored Stuarts
into that perverse course upon which we shall shortly see
them entering.
Nevertheless the cause of it was not any national
decline in valour or patriotism, but simply an unfortunate
mistake of which a watchful eneray took advantage. And
the causes which had led England even earlier to seek
peace -were principally calamities which could not have
been foreseen and which might as well have happened under
Cromwell as imder Charles II — the Plague and the Fire.
In the peculiar circumstances of the time however

154 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
these occurrences could not but appear in a different light.
The Stuart Govemment was judged by a public strongly
influenced by Puritanic ideas, and almost as much disposed
to condemn it for the Plague and the Ffre, as marks of
Di-vine anger, as for the defenceless condition of the
Thames. The rehgious party had recently been (friven
from power, a king had beg-un to reign who embodied
rather strikingly all the vices that Puritanism had pro
tested against. Forthwith there come pestilence and fire,
and the king ' flees three months before his eneraies.' As
Cromwell had so often pointed to his successes as evidence
that his Govemment was ' o-wned of God,' these calamities,
so closely crowded together, seemed a sort of visible
damnation, branding the Govemraent as reprobate and
profane. There is indeed evidence that the deraoralisation
of the Court was diminishing the efficiency of the services ;
but this is not the explanation of the failure of 1667 ; in
the second Dutch war Englishmen still fought well, and
still overcarae their enemies.
And accordingly though the Dutch Adrairal De Rujrter
won the laurel of the war, though England lost one great
naval battle out of three, and though at the last moment
she exposed herself to such a humiliating surprise, yet she
made at Breda by no means a disadvantageous peace. On
the contrary this treaty marks an important stage in the
advance of her colonial dominion. New York was acqufred
at this time, and received its name from the prince who
had comraanded in the first great battle of the war. It
was the greatest acquisition which had been made since
the conquest of Jamaica, opening quite a new prospect to
our North American colonies. Henceforth New England
would be no longer separated from Vfrginia, and our
possessions in North America acqufred quite a new

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 155
character of solidity, remaining closely connected -with the
mother-country. Our rival at the same time ceased to be a North
American Power. Nor could De Witt derive much conso
lation from his achievement at the mouth of the Thames.
For England could not be expected to forgive the humilia
tion, and yet the United Provinces could not afford at that
juncture to make a mortal enemy of England.
Meanwhile a new war had begun, overlapping the war
of England and the Netherlands. Louis XIV's army had
already invaded the Spanish Low Countries before the
Treaty of Breda was signed.
In other words the long struggle, which specially marks
the middle of the seventeenth century, the struggle
between France and the Spanish Monarchy, had begun
again after an interval of seven years. But this time it
had a new character. Spain is now almost helpless, a
passive prey. In former stages of the struggle France,
even when she assumed the offensive, had had an object
more or less defensive; this time she raakes war as an
ambitious conquering state. Louis has little apprehension
that Spain can -withstand him, his only fear is that he may
meet -with opposition from other Powers jealous of French
ascendency, especially the Netherlands and England.
An extremely favourable opportunity presents itself to
him just now. Philip IV dies in 1665 and thus a raoment
arrives which in the dynastic system of policy is proper
for war. It is to be remarked that his o-wn mother, Anne
of Austria, who had favoured friendship between France
and Spain, died shortly afterwards, in January 1666. And
now the two Sea Powers, who might have had both the
will and the power to check any advance of French power
in the Low Coimtries, were disabled for interference by

156 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
their war. In this war France played a certain part, and
was therefore able without exciting suspicion to make
railitary preparations and to asserable forces in the
neighbourhood of the Low Countries.
Spain herself had little power of resistance, and it was
easy to paralyse her by lending aid to Portugal, which
now after the victories of Alraexial (1663) and VUla
Viciosa (1665) requfred but little further support tp
estabhsh her independence. And frora England, now that
she began to be in distress and applied to Louis for his
raediation, it was easy to exact as the price of raediation
neutrality in the war of France with Spain, Charles II
declared in a letter to his mother which was read to
Lyonne ' que je n'ai pris jusqu'ici et ne prendrai d'une
annde entiere aucune nouvelle liaison avec aucun roi,
prince, ou potentat, qui soit ou puisse etre contrafre k la
France ou par laquelle je puisse etre engagd contre ses
intdrdts,' The invasion began in May, 1667, Several fortresses
fell into the hands of the French. Charleroi was taken on
June 2nd ; then Tournai, Douai and Courtrai ; then Lille,
Turenne (Hrected the occupation of the Low Countries.
In Febraary 1668 Condd occupied Franche Comtd, taking
Besan9on and Dole.
It was by this alarming, aggression, undertaken under
cover of the war of England and the Netherlands on the
one hand and of Spain and Portugal on the other, that the
French ascendency was first revealed to Europe. Long
before, as we have seen, for example about 1646, the power
of France had been alarming enough, but at that time
Spain had speedily rallied and France had fallen a prey
to doraestic disturbances. It was now no longer possible
to imagine Spain recovering herself, and the Government

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY, 157
of France was now settled and secure, as it had scarcely
been before since the days of Francis I and Henry II.
A transition had manifestly taken place in Europe, of
which it behoved politicians everywhere to take note.
Ever since Charles V's time the power of the House of
Habsburg, especially of the Spanish branch of it, had been
the central fact of international history. This power had
indeed gradually dwindled, but scarcely before the Treaty
of the Pyrenees could it entfrely cease to inspire anxiety.
Now seven years after that chapter was closed a new
chapter visibly began, the ascendency of the House of
Bourbon, This ascendency was to advance steadily for more than
twenty years ; it did not meet with a decisive check until
the Sea Powers were firmly united against it by the link
of a truly personal union, the Prince of Orange being at
the sarae time Stadtholder in Holland, general and admiral
to the United Provinces, and King of England, Scotland
and Ireland. This firm alliance made a nucleus of opposi
tion, to which other Continental Powers attached them
selves, and so the ascendency of France was checked by
the Treaty of Rys-wick in 1697, and again still raore
decisively in the war of the Spanish Succession, in which
Williara's systera was raaintained after WilHara himself
was gone. Such was the solution which time was to bring.
In 1667-8 the problem was still new and obscure even to
those who recognised that there was a problem, while to
do as much as this was a proof of exceptional intelligence.
It is therefore a striking fact that early in the year 1668,
that is, in the very freshness of the new situation the
question was grasped and the solution discovered, nay for
a moraent adopted, by Dutch and English diplomacy.
Temple and De Witt now apply to Louis XIV the

158 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
pressure which a few years before had been applied in the
same place, that is, the Hague, to Charles Gustavus of
Sweden. Between France and Sweden we remark for about a
century a singular parallelism. They occupy corresponding
positions, as opponents of the House of Habsburg, in the
West and North. They rise together on the rains of
Habsburg greatness to ascendency in the West and North.
Usually they act in concert. Gustavus Adolphus and
Richelieu, Turenne and Wrangel, Mazarin and Charles
Gustavus, represent at successive periods this concert.
The Treaty of Munster answers to the Treaty of Osnabriick,
and in some degree also the Treaty of the Pyrenees to the
Treaty of Oliva. At a much later time we still observe the
same correspondence, when tbe Western Powers coalesce
against Louis XIV in the War of the Spanish Succession,
and at the very same time the Northern Powers combine
against Charles XII in the War of the North. The
correspondence therefore between the concerts of the
Hague which in 1659 restrained Charles Gusta-vus and the
Convention of the Hague, followed by the Triple Alliance,
which in 1668 restrained Louis XIV is only one of a
series of correspondences.
The achievement of Sfr William Temple, for so we are
apt to conceive this affafr, has been somewhat idealised;
Temple is an interesting literary person, and when he
appears in the midst of the unsatisfactory reign of Charles
II, nay at the very raoraent when that reign was darken
ing in a most ominous manner, and guides our policy in
the very dfrection which it was afterwards to take with so
much success, it is not unnatural that we should give him
credit for an insight and an influence almost prophetic.
The affafr is an isolated episode. It shows England and

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 159
the Netherlands acting in intelligent concert to restrain
Frarice immediately after thefr disastrous discord and
immediately before another war between them, in which
England was allied with France against the Netherlands.
It is therefore in startling contrast to what preceded and
what followed it, and it also stands in relief upon a dark
background, for Temple was employed by the so-called
Cabal. All this requfres explanation, and the most obvious
hypothesis is a rare personal merit in Temple, which
hypothesis is confirmed by the noble style of his des-

It was by no means clear at that moraent that the
interest of England lay in checking the progress of France
and in supporting the Dutch. Even Cromwell had sup
ported the French in a campaign which might well have
ended in the complete conquest of the Spanish Low
Countries ; and Cromwell was at least desirous of defending
the Netherlands so far as it was a Protestant state.
Charles II might, like Cromwell, consent to see France
aggrandised in this region, on the same condition, viz., that
England should have a share in the conquests made. And
then Charies II cared little for the interests of Protestant
ism. At this very raoment we begin to see Catholicism
re-viving at the English Court, and the very Minister with
whom Temple is in correspondence, Arlington, is himself a
Catholic. And naturally at that moraent the strongest
feeling of the English nation in general was a -vindictive
animosity against the Dutch. They had an insult to
avenge, a disgrace to -wipe out. Moreover thefr rivals,
their enemies, in trade and on the sea, were the Dutch,
not the French.
It is startling that a few months after England had
received from the Dutch the most mortifying blow she

160 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
ever experienced, she should be found with, to all appear
ance, the most serene statesman-like forethought concerting
with these very Dutch a plan for checking the encroach
ments of France in the Low Countries. But Temple was
certainly an unusual man. His letters rise most strikingly
above the average of (Hplomatic correspondence. He
stands out among diplomatists almost as Bacon does
among politicians. Are we then to credit his genius with
the startling result ?
Three courses were open to the Government of Charles
II, It might offer aid to France. As we have just
remarked, this was the Cromwellian system. It was a
system by which England raight acquire great gains,
either a share in the spoils of the Low Countries which
-with her help would probably be tom entire from the
Spanish Monarchy, or some advance at the expense of
Spain on the sea and in the New World. It was a system
which had in addition what at that moment was the very
strong recommendation that it would also inflict a deadly
blow on the Dutch, It would bring France and England
close to the Dutch frontier, and would make De Witt feel
as Charles II had felt when foreign ships entered the
Medway. How naturally this course would suggest itself
we shall soon see when we find it actually adopted by the
EngHsh Govemment only four years later.
Another course was to join Spain against France. The
old feeling of hatred for France and preference for Spain
was by no means dead in England'; the Comraonwealth
had favoured Spain until Cromwell reversed its policy,
and Charles II had been on the side of Spain in the
campaign of 1658. English trade felt the need of friendly
relations with Spain, and the extremity of Spain was at
» Pepys, s, a, 1668.

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY, 161
that moment such that the help of England might be offered
at a high price. For saving the Spanish Monarchy England
might exact special trade privileges in the New World.
The thfrd plan was that which was actually adopted,
of forming a concert -with the Dutch to restrain the
ambition of Louis XIV, This was a new and strange
system, for which there was no precedent except those
concerts of the Hague of 1659, It seemed the more
unnatural because in that age the Dutch were regarded as
the special enemies of England, whereas the relations of
England and France had been on tbe whole friendly, and
Louis and Charles had a close family relationship. Of all
the three courses this raust at the time have seemed from
the purely English point of view tbe least recommendable ;
if , it strikes the modem reader quite otherwise this is
because he looks back upon it through the vista of later
history, through a century of alliance between the Sea
Powers against the ambition of France, Time and ex
perience approved the policy, so that the first adoption of
it ui 1668 looks now like a stroke of original genius.
If we shake off this prepossession and try to look at
the situation through the eyes of Charles II himself or of
his minister Arlington, we remark two things :
Ffrst, to check the advance of Louis XIV, though
perhaps not necessary to the interest of England, was
absolutely necessary to the Dutch. The Dutch were
convinced that if the Low Countries became French, their
own greatness and independence would be at an end,
especially as the mouth of the Scheldt would be thro-wn
open and Antwerp would enter speedily into competition
with Amsterdam.
Secondly, a concert between England and the United
Provinces to prevent this result might be regarded in two
S. IL 11

162 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLKTY.
different ways by the English Government. It might of
course be regarded as a grand application of the old
principle of a Balance of Power, with which the Eriglish
mind was deeply imbued. And so Arlington vvrites to
Teraple, 'Generosity and the keeping the balance even
between the two cro-wns would-be points that might' by
-witty men be talked out of doors.' And Ruvigny, who
arrived in England as French Ambassador after the Peace
of Breda, -writes, ' Minds are so imbued with the old idea
that the more feeble of the two Powers must always be
supported, by maintaining the balance between France
and Spain, that it is to be feared there is a general
disposition to assist thfe Spaniards.* But we are also to
bear in mind how bitter the feeling against the Dutch
necessarily was at that moment in England, and that
France and the United Provinces had been alhed
against England in the war just brought to an end. The
concert proposed would have the effect of breaking this
alliance. It would create hostility between Louis and thfe
Dutch Govemraent, so that when England should think
the time come to avenge the bombardment of Sheerness
her enemy would not again be aided by France, nay, might
perhaps have to meet the attack of France at the same
tirae as that of England.
This actually took place in 1672. It may seem
capricious that England should in 1668 combine with the
Dutch to check the ambition of Louis XIV, and four
years later combine with Louis XIV to overwhelm the
Dutch state. But in a scheme of vengeance upon the
Dutch for tbe affront suffered by England in the Thames
inr 1667 the forraer of these two measures has its necessary
place as much as the latter. It was necessary to isolate
the Dutch before overwhelming them. Not that we are

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 163
to attribute to the English Government in general any
deeply-laid Macchiavellian design. Teraple at least had
no ulterior objects, the English Parliaraent had no ulterior
objects. Charles II after wavering between the three
courses above described, after raaking proposals to LouiSj at
last yielded to the popular wish. Only in doing so he was
probably at least as keenly sensible of the injury he in
flicted on the Dutch as of the service he rendered to
Europe by maintaining the Balance of Power.
In December 1667 Charles was negociating -with
France and Spain at once. Through Ruvigny the new
Ministers who had supplanted Clarendon offered an alliance
to France, and at the same time Lord Sandwich (the
Admfral, the 'My Lord* of Pepys, now transformed into
an Ambassador) made proposals at Madrid for an alliance
with Spain.
To France he offered assistance, or at least neutrality,
in the war -with Spain ; in return he asked for a share in
the spoils, Ostend and Nieuport, besides advantages in the
New World; he asked also for French aid against the
Dutch in the case of a new Dutch war.
To Spain he offered assistance against France at the
price of a large money payment and a great share in the
American trade.
Frora the latter offer much less was expected than from
the forraer. But an alliance -with France, such as would
bring maritime acquisitions and could at the same time
be easily turned against the Dutch, a combination in fact
similar to that which was actually formed in 1672, was
perhaps more agreeable to Charles hiraself than any other
solution. He could not however obtain it frora Louis,
who considered that for mere neutrality — positive aid
was not distinctly promised — too high a price was asked,
11—2

164 GROWTH OF BRITISH. POLICY.
and who had at this time no ground for abandoning his
friendly relation to the. Dutch. Meanwhile English pubhc
opinion took its ordinary traditional course. It was jealous
and distrustful of France ; it was un-willing to see Antwerp
fall into French hands. Public opinion therefore wished
to see the progress of France arrested in some way. And
yet a dfrect interference in favour of Spain was more than
could be attempted, and the Spanish Govemment did not
warmly welcome the proposals made through Lord Sand-
-wich. Thus even at the moraent when the hatred between
the English and the Dutch was at the highest point a
concert between thera for the purpose of arresting France
began to be favourably considered. It would gratify
public opinion. Arlington, the Secretary, had a Dutch
¦wife, and behind Arlington carae Temple. And to Charles
the Macchiavellian reflexion might occur that such a
concert would indfrectly rain Holland, for it would expose
her to the wrath of her great friend, Louis XIV.
. The story of Temple's share in the achievement, of his
first unofficial discussions with De Witt in September
1667, of his mission to the Hague in December, of his
retum to England, of the instructions given to him on
January 1st, 1668, of his return to the Hague in a royal
yacht, and the storm that delayed him, of his momentous
conversations -with De Witt, of his unceremonious visit
late at night to the Swedish Ambassador, Count Dohna,
of the contrivance by which the cumbrous constitutional
forms of the United Pro-vinces were eluded, of the concert
arranged in fpur days, all this need not be narrated
again. What is essential is that we should form a
distinct conception of the concert itself and of the im
portance of it.
As we have seen that for the Dutch at this moment to

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 165
cross the path of Louis would be most dangerous to them,
so we remark that in this treaty they carefully avoid
seeming to do an3rthing of the kind. Hence some modern
-writers have absolutely refused to admit that the Triple
AlHance had in any degree the character or the iraportance
which was attributed to it at the tirae. They reraark,
what is perfectly trae, first, that it iraposes no terras upon
Louis which be had not already declared himself ready to
accept, and that these terms were extremely favourable
to Louis; secondly, that the Powers actually guarantee these
terms to Louis and undertake to induce Spain to grant
them ' by reasons and other effectual means.' In another
place the treaty uses the expression ' more effectual means,*
(media majoris efficacise) with reference, be it observed, to
Spain, not to France. It is true that the ostensible treaty
wears the appearance of favouring France and of securing
to France the principal acquisitions made by her in the
war. It imposes no restraint upon her except so far as it
forbids her to make new claims, and takes out of her hands
the function of enforcing any further by arms the claims
advanced by her afready.
So far the treaty is only remarkable as being one of
the earliest examples of that systera which has attained
such a height in the nineteenth century, the interference
of neutral Powers for the purpose of bringing a war between
two European states to an end. Even so to affirra that it
accomplished nothing which would not have been accom
plished without it is extravagant. We have already seen
that Louis held a treaty with Spain to be a mere polite
formality. Had he punctually performed the engagements
he had taken in the Treaty of the Pyrenees ? If not, it
was a most important thing that the conditions of the new
treaty soon to be concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle should not

166 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
be left to his own sense of right but should be watched
over and guaranteed by three neutral Powers,
But further : besides the ostensible treaty, four secret
articles were signed at the Hague on the same day, that
is, on January 23rd, 1668. It is the thfrd of these secret
articles that raakes the Triple Alliance so remarkable, as
furnishing, as it were, a programme of the age of inter
national history then opening.
The thfrd article runs as follows: 'But if beyond all
expectation the Most Christian King should entertain
such thoughts as shall induce him to refuse the promise
that he will sign the treaty of peace as soon as the Spaniard
shall consent to give up all those places which have been
acqufred by him in his last expedition, or such an equi
valent as shall be agreed by mutual consent; or in case
he shall not accomplish his promise, or shall disallow or
reject the cautions and provisions that are expressed in
the said treaty, which are so necessary to obviate the
fears and jealousies that are most justly conceived of the
Most Christian King's intentions to make a further pro
gress with his victorious arms into the said Low Countries,
so often already mentioned : In all these cases, and also if
he should endeavour by any subterfuges or oblique prac
tices to hinder or elude the conclusion of the peace ; then
England and the United Netherlands' shall be bound and
obliged to join themselves to the king of Spain and with
all their united force and power to make war against
France ; not only to compel him to make peace upon the
conditions aforesaid ; but, if God should bless the arms
taken up to this end, and favour them with success, and if
it should be thought expedient to the parties concemed,
to continue the war till things shall be restored to that
1 Sweden acceded to the treaty somewhat later.

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 167
condition in which they were at the time when the peace
was raade upon the borders of both kingdoms in the
Pyrenean mountains,'
In these last words a systera is sketched out similar
to that which it was the work of William's life to con
solidate and which he banded on to Marlborough. In this
place it will suffice to note its general character; other
opportunities will occur for examining it more in detail.
The result intended by this concert was attained.
Louis had offered to Spain the choice of yielding the
towns in the Low Countries which he had conquered or,
as an equivalent, Franche Comtd with some other to-wns.
He now in February overran Franche Comtd, the delay of
three months which he bad allowed to Spain having
expfred. But in May the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was
concluded between France and Spain under the mediation
first of Pope Cleraent IX, but also ' of the Ministers of
several other Kings, Potentates, Electors and Princes of
the Holy Empire, who have kindly offered thefr endeavours
and good offices to accomplish this grand affafr.' By this
treaty Spain yielded the places taken in the Low Coun
tries, and Louis undertook to 'withdraw his troops from
the County of Burgundy, commonly called the Franche
Comtd.' And thus tranquillity was restored.
But a new age of international history had opened in
a most conspicuous maimer. A French ascendency stood
revealed to the world, not this tirae a predominance of
France momentarily acquired by the fortune of war, but
an ambitious purpose avowed by Louis of asserting his
superiority among the European states, and sustained by
an evident superiority in fact. As early as 1663 we find
Temple speaking of ' this great comet that is risen of late,
the French king, who expects not only to be gazed at but

168 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
adrafred by the whole world.' Now in 1667 and 1668 the
helplessness of his neighbour, the Spanish Monarchy, the
rival of France for so long a tirae, had been made evident.
And it had now become generally understood that Louis
intended to claim the succession of the whole Spanish
Monarchy for his House as soon as the feeble Charles II
of Spain should die -without hefrs. Thus a startling
prospect suddenly opened before the eyes of Europe.
Louis XIV, who had afready been king of France for
fifteen years, now assumed a position which no king of
France had ever held before.
We may judge frora the Consilium Aegyptiacum of
Leibnitz what an impression this new phenomenon pro
duced. The philosopher foresees clearly the course which
Louis is likely to take, and what devastating wars threaten
Europe; the only remedy in his view is to divert the
king's ambition to Egypt, which he represents as easily
invaded and easily conquered. He sends to Louis an
exhortation which was lost upon him, but was taken to
heart more than a century later by Napoleon Bonaparte.
But this first war of Louis was striking chiefly by the
prospect it opened. Turenne's campaign in the Low
Countries was not much adrafred : thus Temple -writes in
October, 1667, 'Upon the whole never any campaign was'
perhaps worse managed on both sides, through default of
order here and of resolution among the French.' In the
same way the Triple Alliance was far raore significant by
what it indicated than by what it was. Much may be
urged in disparagement of its importance, and, if the result
which it aimed at was attained at Aix-la-Chapelle, perhaps
Louis was influenced by other considerations than the
dread of its threats. In English history it is damaged by
the context in which it appears. Not only was it soon

THE FRENCH ASCENDENCY. 169
abandoned for an opposite policy. It may be said indeed
of Temple himself and of the English Parliament and
people that they had ah honest meaning in it. Temple
contemplates a hearty union of the English and the Dutch,
a union which is to endure and to oppose an effectual
barrier to the ambition of Louis. But Charles himself
sees it throughout in a different light. He has recourse
to it suddenly because his offers to France have been
rejected, and ha-ving thus, as it were, taught Louis a lesson,
he returns to the French alliance as soon as he conveni
ently can. In this course we may discern that kind of
indolent Macchiavellism so characteristic of hira. He was
aware, as we raay see that De Witt was aware, that this
alliance, if it were abandoned again, would almost cause
the rain of the United Provinces by making France thefr
enemy. To Temple when he first proposed it De Witt
said, ' he doubted the States would think it like to prove
too sudden a change of all thefr interests, and that which
would absolutely break them off from so old and constant
a friend as France to rely wholly upon so new and
uncertain a friend as England had proved.' At another
time he said, what Continental statesmen have often
repeated in later tiraes, that unsteadiness of counsels in
England seemed a thuig fatally inherent in our constitu
tion ; he could not judge from what ground, ' mais depuis
le temps de la reine Elizabeth, il n'y avait eu qu'une fluc
tuation perpetuelle dans la conduite de 1' Angleterre, avec
laquelle on ne pouvait jamais prendre des mesures pour
deux annees de temps.'
In this particular instance these remarks proved only
too true, and De Witt himself experienced it too fatally.
While all the world was haiHng the Triple Alliance as a
masterpiece, Charles himself may have regarded it as a

170 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
masterpiece in quite a different, and a less honest sense.
By means of it he succeeded in 1672 in avenging the
(Hsgrace he had suffered from the Dutch in 1667, in
destroying De Witt, and almost in destroying the Dutch
state.

CHAPTER III,
REVIVAL OF THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM,
Even before the conclusion of the Triple Alliance in
January 1668 it raay be said that England had entered
upon a new revolution.
We are in the habit of conceiving the Revolution of
1688 too simply as a moveraent of constitutional resistance
to the perverse bigotry of king James II. As James II
only began to reign in 1685, this view of the Revolution
requires us to think of it as comraencing not earlier than
1685, Yet it cannot but occasionally strike us that at
least the later years of Charles II are marked with all the
violence and terror of revolution. The period from 1678
to 1685 makes one of the most terrible and thrilling
chapters of English history. The Popish Plot, the Exclu
sion Bill, and the Rye-House Plot, are successive spasms
in a convulsion which is almost as violent and more
shocking than the Great Ptebellion. And the panic which
procured credence for the wild stories of Oates and Bedloe
was itself the result of other occurrences that carry us
several years further back, of the war with Holland and
the stop of the Exchequer in 1672 and of the Treaty of
Dover in 1670. Is it satisfactory to say that as there was

172 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
a revolution under Jaraes II, so there raight have been
and alraost was another revolution under Charles II, he
being, like bis brother, perverse and only a degree less
wrong-headed ? Was it not rather one and the same
convulsion which, beginning in the middle of Charles II's
reign, passed on into the reign of James and ended in the
change of Govemment of 1688 ?
The proof that the Revolution which was consummated
in 1688 really began far back in tbe reign of Charles II,
lies in tbe fact that the definite design which was
announced and undertaken so frankly by James is identical
with that which was undertaken without being announced
by Charles, It was not a mere design to estabhsh absolute
govemraent, but something much more defitriite, viz,, a
design to found a strong monarchy upon the reestablish-
ment of Catholicism by the aid of a standing army and of
a French alliance. This design was expressed as clearly
in the Treaty of Dover of 1670, though that was kept
secret, as in the public acts of James II. As the design
was the same throughout, the opposition to it ought to be
regarded as one movement, which is as much as to say that
the Revolution of 1688 ought to be held to have com
menced at least not later than the year 1672, when the first
overt steps towards executing the design were taken, and
also that the Revolution cannot be clearly treated without
going still further back to the Treaty of Dover and to the
occurrences which led Charles to conclude the Treaty of
Dover. The Treaty of Dover has a character as wild and
startling as any act of James II. We perceive that as
early as 1670 the English Monarchy bas begun to desert
all precedent, and is entering upon a course far more
strange and portentous than had ever been dehberately

REVIVAL OF THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. l73
chosen by Charles I. And as soon as the country became
dimly aware of this fact, that is, in 1672, English politics
are -visibly troubled, so that we may fafrly say, 'the
Revolution has begun.'
But then the question arises, What led the Monarchy
m 1670 to form so -wild and desperate a design ? And
thus we are led to take a further step backward. We
must ask ourselves, what had happened between the
Restoration and 1670 to (frive the Monarchy into new
courses. And to this question the answer presents itself
reacHly. Evidently the fall of Clarendon in the last
months of 1667 marks the fall of the original system of
the Restored Monarchy. And the fall of Clarendon was
evidently caused by the great disasters of 1666 and 1667,
by the Dutch invasion inflicting such disgrace on the
administration, and folio-wing so closely upon the Plague
and the Ffre of London.
These disasters make the next great epoch in our
history after the Restoration. They close the prosperous
period of the Restored Monarchy, and they introduce a
new revolutionary period, the second English Revolution
of the seventeenth century,
¦ Thus regarded, this second revolution seems as long
and (Hfficult a labour as that which filled the reign of
Charles I, It is found to occupy about twenty years,
' But when compared as a whole ¦with the first revolu
tion it exhibits a striking difference, which is peculiarly
important in this book.
The first revolution was on the whole a remarkably
insular movement. Though it was watched with much
interest. by Continental statesmen, yet for various reasons,
which have been noted above, they seldom found them
selves in a condition to influence it or take a part in it.

174 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
The second revolution is in this respect in the opposite
extreme. It is swayed throughout by the most potent
continental influences. In trath it may be said that the
leaders in it were two foreign princes. For Charles and
James on the one side were alike subordinate to Louis XIV,
who from the outset financed the project of his royal
cousins, and who in the end interfered with fleets and
armies and with the whole force of his kingdom. On the
other side William Prince of Orange still more conspicu
ously takes the lead of the revolutionary party. And thus
while the first revolution in all its crises alike, both at the
fall of the Monarchy and at the Restoration of the
Monarchy, left England free from foreign complications,
the second revolution involved England necessarily and
imraediately in a great European war which lasted not less
than nine years.
The disasters which raarked the failure of the Clarendon
systera would naturally suggest the question whether the
Restored Monarchy could not be put upon a wholly
different basis. We reraarked above that Charles II was
restored by no raeans in the only possible way, nor yet in
the way he liked best. But he was restored triumphantly,
and had enjoyed some prosperous years. Now when this
prosperity came to an end and the Monarchy was once
more in imminent danger, those other possible systems,
and especially the system which Charles himself had
always secretly preferred, naturally came up for recon
sideration. What were those otiier systems ?
There was the system which raay be called Cromwell-
ism. Cromwell had shown how the country might be
governed strongly and gloriously by means of a standmg
army, and how on this system money might be raised

REVIVAL OF THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 175
without consent of Parliament. It was a lesson which
could not be thro^wn away on one whose metier it was to
be a king, and Charies would remark that this form of
imperialism was inseparably connected with a grand prin
ciple, which was attractive to many minds, the principle
of religious toleration.
There was another system of which his mother, Henrietta
Maria, was the chief representative. He might govern
England by the help of France, by French subsidies and,
if necessary, by French troops. This system had been
inculcated upon him by the necessities of his long exile.
He had grown used to the practice of it. It was indeed a
humiliating system for an English king to adopt, but
Charles was half a Frenchman by birth, and besides, as he
saw it represented in its mother, it had a religious justifi
cation. It favoured Catholicism, and, if CathoHcism was
after all the true faith, duty might requfre an English king
in spite of patriotic feelings to adopt the system.
These two systems were in themselves extremely
dissimilar, but yet they might be blended together, and
Charles had another example before his eyes to teach hira
how this raight be done. His cousin Louis XIV., the
great example of kingship in that age, ruled at this time
on the principle of religious toleration. He had an Edict
of Nantes, and the great sol(Her who with the title of
Marshal- General was then organising the army which was
to establish the European ascendency of France, Henri de
la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, was himself a
Protestant. The Edict of Nantes had been issued by
another great soldier, the grandfather of Charles himself
Henry IV, CroraweU's toleration had not extended to
Catholics, but logically it ought to do so, and now that a
king reigned in England, whose raother and wife were alike

176 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Catholic, and now that the principle of toleration had been
long preached and had met with sorae acceptance, it might
seera possible to iraagine an Edict of Nantes for England
which should grant toleration to Catholics as well as
Dissenters. This Edict would be issued by ithe king
personally in vfrtue of his ecclesiastieal supremacy. It
would be a Declaration of Indulgence, and would place all
the Dissenters of England in a dfrect relation to the king.
They would becorae the king's vassals, and if then an
army could gradually be formed in which they should
form the preponderating element, a Monarchy would be
estabHshed which would have all the force, independence
and military power of that of Cromwell and would be ori
equal terms ¦with that of Louis XIV across the Channel
All this would take tirae. In the raean while; for a
scherae which promised so much advantage to Catholicism
he might ask support frora France. He had afready fallen
into alliance ¦with France against Spain — here again
Cromwell had been his model — the alHance suited him
personally, for it was a family alliance. Louis in his
schemes of ascendency needed the countenance or at least
the neutrality of England. For this, and for the interest
of Catholicism, Louis must be content to pay subsidies,
And thus we have a complete scheme for the regeneration
of the Monarchy, enfeebled and endangered by the (Hsasters
of 1666 and 1667.
This; is the programme which, adopted covertly for a
moraent and then partly ¦withdra^wn by Charles, caused the
terrible convulsions of the latter part of his reign, adopted
more openly and persistently by James, led to the Revolu
tion of 1688. The scherae involves an abandonment of
that national systera of policy which the Commonwealth
had introduced and which had on the whole been accepted

REVIVAL OF THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 177
by Clarendon; it involves a revival of the dynastic system,
being founded on the family connexion of the sons of
Henrietta Maria with Louis XIV. It is this famUy
alHance of the two royal Houses which makes the second
English revolution so much raore iraportant in inter
national or European history than the first. From the
English point of view it was this which caused the change
of 1688 to be achieved by a foreign prince landing in
England at the head of a foreign army and to be followed
by a great war between England and France. And from
the European point of ¦view it is not difficult to see that
the whole ascendency of Louis XIV was based upon the
family concert between the Bourbon and the Stuarts.
We have brought Louis upon the stage in his new
character, and we have seen him receive his first check
fix)m the Triple Alliance. Even this first aggression of
his, the War of Devolution, was preceded, we saw, by an
engagement on the part of Charles not to interfere for a
year. The Triple Alliance, we saw, though devised with
so much ofreumspection, yet produced an imrae(frate and
profound effect, so that the nascent ascendency might
weU have come to a premature end had England's policy
moved steadily upon the lines laid down by Temple. But
just at this moment the new family alliance was arranged,
and the result was that the ambition of Louis XIV had
full play in Europe for twenty years.
And what ultimately set a limit to that ambition ?
We are ui the habit of thinking of the Revolution of 1688
as the event which saved our liberties and settled our
constitution. But that event, unlike the chief occurrences
of our Grand Rebellion, is not less, perhaps more, important
in European than in English history. It defeated the
plans of Louis XIV in Europe not less really though less
S. IL 12

178 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
manifestly than the plans of James II in England. From
that moment the tide of French encroachment began to
recede, and in the course of the thfrd war of Louis
(1688 — 1697) it became clear to French politicians that
England's change of sides had vitiated the calculations
upon which thefr scheme of ascendency had been based,
We may say, ' Momentum fuit mutata Britannia rerum.'
Such then in general is the second English Revolution,
We have seen that it begins with a step in foreign policy,
the Treaty of Dover. Shortly before this event comes the
fall of Clarendon, which is to Charles II what the death
of Mazarin had been to Louis XIV. It gives the king
freedom to adopt a policy of his o-wn. Hitherto he has
been in the hands of the experienced statesmen who have re
established and consolidated the monarchy — Southampton,
Clarendon, Monk and Ormond, statesmen who have
throughout taken a national and a Protestant view of the
Restoration. Southampton now (Hes, Monk (Hes a little
later in 1670, Ormond is deprived of his Irish office in the
spring of 1669, But Clarendon had risen to an eminence
far above any of these, an eminence which can only be
compared to that of Mazarin, He was father-in-law of the
heir to the throne, father of the future queen, grandfather
of the royal children, and besides all this leading Minister,
restorer and nursing-father to the Anglican Church, and
Chancellor, \
In this very year 1667 the brother-in-law of Charles,
Alfonso, King of Portugal, who had been brought intp
public contempt by his -vices, was deposed by. his brother,
who reigned successfully under the. title of Pedro II, It
almost seems as if Charles for a moment apprehended a
similar fate. He too had shocked pubHc opinion by his
vices, and (Hsasters had now happened which might be

REVIVAL OP THE DYNA.STIC SYSTEM. 179
interpreted as marks of Divine displeasure. He had a
Catholic -wife, who brought him no children. Meanwhile
his brother, the Duke of York, was a man of business, and
recently in coraraand of the fleet had defeated the Dutch ;
moreover he had chil(fren and an English wife; nor had
he or his -wife as yet broken -with public opinion by publicly
adopting Catholicisra. The position was dangerous for
Charles, the more so as the greatest statesman of the day,
the master of the poHcy of the Restoration, was father-in-
law and Mentor to this formidable brother.
i Charles steered himself safely through these dangers
with his usual indolent adroitness. He took advantage of
the popular outcry which made Clarendon responsible for
the mismanagement in which he had no share, and also of
the offence he had given to large classes by his exclusive
Anglicanism. The attack upon Clarendon was made in
Parliament ; Charles seeraed only to give way, slowly and
gradually, before it. But he reaped the benefit of it ; his
brother becarae less formidable when Clarendon had been
(friven from the country. And soon after James ceased to
be forraidable to hira at all by adopting Catholicisra, so
that this particular danger passed away and was forgotten.
. Relieved from Clarendon's control the king begins to
display those personal preferences which hitherto had been
held in abeyance. Hitherto he had been always in leading
strings, like Louis XIV in the lifetime of Mazarin. He
had been a Covenanting King in Scotland in 1651 ; in
1660 he had been restored in England mainly by Presby
terians ; in 1662 Anglicanism had gained the upper hand.
But it had been -visible all along that this thfrd phase of
the Restored Monarchy was little more to the monarch's
mind than the second had been. He (frd not want an
intolerant Anglicanism; he wanted toleration in a form
12—2

180 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
which should confer lustre on the Crown and at the same
time should include Catholics. Nor did he want Parlia
mentarism,; whether the majority in Parliament were
Anglican as since 1661 or Presbyterian as in 1660; he
wanted Cromwellism, a Govemment founded upon military
force. Lastly he did not want a national system, but a
dynastic policy ; he hankered after a family alliance -with
France. On January 25th, 1669, Charles held a meeting
of leading Catholics, Lord Arundel of Wardour, Lord
Arlington, Bellasys and Sir Thomas Clifford, in the room
of the Duke of York, and there announced himself a
Catholic and desfred thefr advice on the best raeans of re
establishing the Catholic religion in the country. We are
told that he reraarked that there was no tiirie to lose, that
he expected to meet -with great difficulties in the execu
tion of his plan, and that on that account he chose to take
it in hand while he, as well as his brother, were in the
vigour of their age. We are told that he spoke with
ranch spfrit and with tears in his eyes.
Frora this time began the -violent course which led to
the thfrd war with Holland and the Stop of the Ex
chequer. Charles had conceived and entered upon an
undertaking precisely similar to that which his brother
afterwards took up at the cost of his crown. But he
dropped it again in 1674 -without ha-ving betrayed to the
public the grand secret. Suspicions had been aroused,
and his brother, the heir to the throne, had declaired
himself a Catholic. But the design which had been
formed, and which in 1670 had taken shape in the Treaty
of Dover, reraained unknown. It was unkno-wn not only
to that generation but to many succeeding generations,
so that the unity of the whole movement, which, beginning

REVIVAL OP THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 181
in 1669, resulted in the change of Government of 1688, has
never been quite firmly apprehended araong us.
Perhaps in all English history there is to be found
nothing so wild as this design, nothing so portentous
as this plot. That Charles or Jaraes or both should adopt
Catholicism and feel bound to announce thefr conversion
to the world was not in itself wonderful. Queen Christina
had done so. But then Queen Christina had abdicated.
The enigma is that Charies, who often gave proof of a
keen intelligence, should have supposed it possible, sixty
years after the Gunpowder Plot, thirty years after the Irish
massacre, when aversion to Popery had become in the
English mind a sort of mania, to reverse the whole drift of
things and make the stream, which had long since swelled
into a great river, flow backward to its source. Nor is the
enigma even partially solved by remarking that he contem
plated reserving certain liberties, even after the restoration
of Catholicism, to the Anglican Church.
A certain blind obstinacy may explain the conduct
of James, but Charles was a politician, and often showed
himself an adroit politician. Even if we suppose that in
his nature the Stuart alternated -with the Bourbon, and
that his Macchiavelliaij insight was interrupted at times by
fits of helpless bewil(ierraent, the hypothesis besides being
difficult does not appear sufficient.
But let us remark how closely connected in his mind
are these religious ideas with his family relationships.
His Catholicism is not a speculative con-viction, but a
family bias, an inclination to the religion of his mother
and of that other Henrietta, his favourite sister, and of
that kindred court across the Channel which then gave
the model to aU courts. This observation leads us once
more to think of the prodigious importance in our ancient

182 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
political system of royal marriage. Something similar
had been seen in the sixteenth century when Mary Tudor,
Spanish by her mother and afterwards Spanish by her
husband, showed herself quite out of harmony with the
people she govemed. It appears that the foreigri marriages
of a royal family might produce, besides the direct effects
we have so often had to notice, strange indfrect effects
upon the raind and way of thinking of royal persons.
The Stuart Kings of England had hitherto been Pro
testant but thefr Queens were always Catholic. In con
sequence the royal family differed from most other English
families by its exceptional coimexion and familiarity -with
Catholicism. This gave a peculiarity to its way of think
ing, a peculiarity all the more dangerous because for some
reasons they might be tempted to be proud of it. And in
that period the peculiarity was greatly heightened by the
fact that the foreign and Catholic element in the royal
family greatly outshone the insular and Protestant element.
While Charles I suffered captivity and death Henrietta
Maria retired to France and lived as a daughter of France
upon a pension granted to her by the Govemraent. During
the long exile of the sons thefr mother had assisted them
with money, while they had gro-wn accustomed to the
habits and ways of thinking of her country. Her family
on the French throne had enjoyed splendid success, and it
was natural for Charles II, when he thought of his
ancestors, to dwell -with more complacency upon Henry IV
than upon Jaraes I and to prefer the splendour and
power of his cousin Louis XIV to his o^wn position ui
England. France now took the lead in Europe, and
Charles might be proud to feel that he was a Frenchman.
In the particular matter of religion he might easily
feel himself exceptionally enlightened. While the atmo-

REVIVAL OF THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 183
sphere of CathoHcism in which he had always lived even
in England prevented him from understanding how deeply
Protestant the country was, he knew sorae things which
most English people did not know, so that he might easily
regard his subjects as insular in feeling. He knew that
the current of thought in Europe was setting in the
direction of Catholicism, that the Huguenot party was
declining in France — the great Ttirenne himself recanted,
as Henry IV had recanted^he may have been aware
that even the severe strenuous earnestness which was the
boast of Puritanism had now sho'wn itself at Port Royal
in the bosom of CathoHcism. There had been a time in
France too when Protestantism was powerful, a time of
confusion. That confusion had passed away, and Pro
testantism was passing away with it. A splendid and
secure Govemment had been founded, and how? The
ultimate cause seemed to lie in this that a French king,
his o^wn grandfather, had solemnly abandoned Protestantism
and made his peace with the Church.
¦If this chain of reasoning led Charles to a conclusion
which seeras to us alraost insane, and which probably
he himself in the course of 1673 perceived to be wholly
mistaken, it become^ at least intelligible when we take
account of the atmosphere of Catholicism which he had
always breathed. His raother was a bigoted Catholic,
his ¦wife was a Catholic; they were surrounded by CathoHcs;
the younger Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, was a centre
of the brilliant Catholic society of France, And all this
was the natural result of the system of royal marriage,
which after the long interval of Elizabeth*s tirae had been
revived by James I. It bad introduced a fatal misunder
standing between the royal House and the English nation.
But it introduced also the family aUiance which issued

184 : GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
in thfe war of 1672 and all that flowed from it, Hence
this system of royal raarriage . is the root not only of the
second EngHsh Revolution, but also of the ascendency of
Louis XIV in Europe, which always depended upon the
countenance or neutraHty of England, We know how the
War of the Spanish Succession resulted from the marriage
of Louis XIV and the Infanta Maria Theresa, It is not
less trae that the War of 1672 and the whole disturbance
of Europe which was not composed tUl 1697 resulted in
dfrectly frora; the marriage of Henrietta Maria to Charles I,
The suddenness, and abruptness ¦with which the new re
volution commenced in 1670 has been concealed from ¦view
partly by the secrecy in which the king's proceedings. were
so long veiled, but partly also by other circumstances; ; ,
The first of these is the fact that the formation of the
Triple Alliance, the most famous act of foreign policy of
Charles II's reign and the most hostile to France, actually
took place after the fall of Clarendon, and after the
king had begun to enter upon his revolutionary course.
Throughout the year 1668 Charles enjoyed the honour
of the Triple Alliance; Temple represented England at
the Hague ; and even as late as August 1669-7vthat is, long
after Charles had expressed to Louis his passionate desfre
for a French alHance, and even some tirae after he had
broached to Louis his grand project^the Triple Alliance is
not only active but seeras to grow raore and more imperious.
In that raonth a deputation, of which De Witt was a
raember, presented itself at the Hague before Pompoane;
the French Ambassador, to complain in the name of tbe
States-General, England, and Sweden, of certain infractions
of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. ' This is the first time,'
writes Pomponne, ' that the Triple Alliance has spoken all
together,'

REVIVAL OF THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 185
But we know bow Charles himself regarded the Triple
Alliance. To him it recommended itself as a raeans, and
it proved a very effectual means, of making Louis, who
had been a friend of the Dutch, thefr mortal eneray.
The other cfrcumstance is this, that to the modern
reader it appears as if Charles had at least gone to work
very cautiously. We compare his secrecy with the bluff
and blundering frankness of Jaraes, and (fraw almost
imconsciously the conclusion that he only played with
his grand project, or at least that he regarded it only as a
distant ideal, and that he was well aware, as an intelligent
man, that such a proposal as the restoration of Catholicism
must be approached very cfrcumspectly and, as it were,
broken gradually to the English people, Trae it is that
he was prudent enough, when he saw in 1673 how pro
found an alarm his first steps had caused, to draw back,
and that from this time to the end of his reign the grand
project fell into abeyance. But it is important to notice
that his original plan as he announced it in 1669 was not
less insane, almost raore insane, than any plan of Jaraes II.
He actually intended to announce himself a Catholic and
to introduce Catholicism by royal authority supported by
military force. There can be little doubt that such a plan
was even more infatuated in 1669 than it was in 1685
when James tried to carry it into effect. In 1685 the
people had had time to grow familiar with the idea, and
they were also exhausted and cHscouraged by the reign
of terror that had prevailed since the panic of the Popish
Plot. How the plan would have been received in 1669 it
may be difficult precisely to say, but surely the downfall
of Charles hiraself must have followed almost instan
taneously. On November 9th, 1669 Charles said to the French

186 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
Ambassador, Colbert Croissy, to whom the secret had
recently been confided — 'that he thought that after reading
the papers I must have judged that he himself and those
to whom I had entrusted the Conduct of the affafr were
mad to think of reestablishing the Catholic religion in
England ; that indeed every persPn informed about the
affafrs of his kingdom and the temper of his peoples must
have such a thought, but that nevertheless he hoped that
with the support of Your Majesty the great undertaking
would succeed; that the presb3d;erians and all the other
sects hated the Anglican Church even more than the
Catholics ; that all these ' sectaries aspfred only to the
freedom of exercising thefr religion, and will not oppose
his change of religion if they obtain that, which he intends
to grant them; that moreover he had good troops, weU
disposed to him, that if his father had had as many
he would have stifled in the bfrth the troubles which
caused his ruin ; that he meant to augment as much as
possible his regiments and companies under the 'iriost
plausible pretexts he could find ; that all the arsenals
were at his disposal and well supplied; and that he was
assured of the principal places in England and Scotland^
that the Governor of Hull was a Catholic, that those of
Portsmouth, Plymouth and many other places which he
named to rae, araong others Windsor, would never fail in
the obe(Hence they owed to him ; that as to the Irish
troops he hoped the Duke of Ormond, who had retained
a great reputation there, would always be faithful, and if
the Duke should fail in his drity, disappro^ving his change
of religion. Lord Orrery, a Catholic at heart, and still more
influential in that army, would lead it wherever he had
orders ; that the friendship of Your Majesty, of which he
had the most obHging proofs in the world in the answers

REVIVAL OP THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 187
you have made to his proposals, with which he professed
himself perfectly satisfied, would also be a great support
to him; lastly he said that he was forced both by his
conscience and by the confusion he saw daily increasing
in his kingdom, which tended to the (Hminution of his
authority, to declare himself a Catholic, and that beside
the spiritual advantage he should gain from doing so, he
also considered that it was the only way of reestablishing
the monarchy.'
If this is infatuation, the last clauses show that it is
pavtly the infatuation of despafr. But such was Charles*
plan, and the caution which afterwards withheld him
from taking this desperate course was suggested to him
not by his o^wn reflexions, but by this very Colbert
Croissy and by Louis XIV, who urged that tbe declara
tion of war with the Dutch must precede the public
adoption of Catholicism.
We may say then that at this moraent a struggle
began which was not decided till 1688, and even then
was by no raeans ended. The period from 1669 to 1688
makes one chapter in English history. It is one in respect
of the subject-matter, which is a design on the part of
the Monarchy to reestablish Catholicism, one too because
in the main the persons who took part in the struggle
were the same under Charles II and James II. No doubt
when the last act of the (frama began at the accession of
James, some of these had been removed. Shaftesbury and
Lord WilHara Russell, as well as Charles II, had dis
appeared in England; Condd, Turenne, and Colbert had
disappeared in France. But Louis XIV and the Prince
of Orange, Monraouth, Danby, Halifax and James hiraself,
took a prominent part in the struggle of both reigns alike,
and their conduct in the second reign cannot be under-

188 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
stood but in connexion with thefr conduct in the first.
Through the whole period prevails the same violent and
overstrained complexion of politics, but certain large
phases may be distinguished.
As, contrary to the original intention of Charles,
secrecy was maintained on the principal point, the English
people did not at once become alive to thefr situation.
The war with Holland, in spite of the strange violence
¦with which it was commenced, gratified sorae interests
and feelings, and seeraed a national war. But suspicion
was excited ; the Declaration of Indulgence raised gerieral
(Hstrust; every one was aware of a mysterious appari
tion of Catholicism on the pubHc stage. Hence a violent
ferment, partially allayed in 1673 by the king's con
cessions and the passing of the Test Act. In King
Charles the politician now awakes, and the frantic scheme
is practically laid aside. But the public disquiet cannot
be fully allayed so long as the family alliance ¦with France
continues, and the disgraceful terms of it cannot quite be
concealed, nor can the fear of Popery subside since the
hefr to the throne has avowed himself a Catholic. Affafrs
look so wild that a terrible con-vulsion cannot long.be avoid
ed. It breaks out in 1678 in the form of an uncontrol
lable popular panic. A reign of terror, unique in English
history, begins. From this time till the death of Charles,
or for seven years, the condition of affafrs is revolutionary,
though no actual change of Government takes place.
In the short reign of James II the original scheme of
1669 is revived. A struggle begins which, as it is frank
and open, is on the whole less shocking than the terror of
the latter years of Charles, and a satisfactory solution is
found in 1688.
The whole movement has many aspects. The religious

REVIVAL OP THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 189
aspect attracts perhaps most attention, and after this the
constitutional aspect. We have to deal here ¦with a third
aspect, that which it wears towards foreign policy. This
is equally startling, since the scheme now launched by
Charles led England into wholly new intemational re
lations and profoundly mo(Hfied the whole systera of
Europe, If we take account of the despafr he betrays in the
passage quoted above, and then recollect his habits formed
in exile and the vague ideas suggested to hira by CroraweU's
example, the scheme, startling as it is, explains itself to
us. How to get money had been frora the outset his
perplexity. It had led to his marriage and to the sale of
Dunkfrk, even in the time when he had been able to count
on the help of Parliaraent, But the disasters of 1666-7
had undermined the whole system which Clarendon had
constructed for him, and Clarendon himself was gone. He
thought he saw his monarchy crumbling away, and he was
forced, he the indolent and debauched, but at the sarae
time a(froit and audacious man, to devise something new,
to find a new foundation for his power. He must make
himself independent of Parliament ; this was possible, for
Cromwell had shown it to be so. A military force was
needful, and for this purpose a war must be undertaken,
and it must be such a war as would be acceptable to public
opinion. Two courses were open to him. He might pursue the
course into which he had been led by Temple. He would
thus anticipate the part afterwards played by William pf
Orange. In alliance with the Dutch he would oppose a
bar to the encroachments of Louis XIV and defend what
remained of the Spanish Monarchy in Northern Europe.
This poHcy would gratify the EngHsh people, who had by

190 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
no means forgotten thefr inherited enmity to France, and
"who had always held it a main object to prevent France
frora obtaining possession of the cities of Flanders and the
port of Antwerp.
But if he wanted a war in order to obtain a railitary
force it was perhaps not clear that he would gain his end
by this course. It raight lead to peace, for even the young
Louis XIV at the head of his brilliant army and com
manding the services of Turenne and Condd, rnight shrink
from defying a coalition of England, the United Provinces,
Sweden and the Spanish Monarchy. In any case it was
opposed to all the inclinations, all the family notions of
Charles. One of his strongest feelings was hatred to the
Govemraent of De Witt, by which his nephew was ex
cluded from power, and which seemed to him like a relid
of the Comraonwealth. He had also a strong sense of
kindred with the French royal House. If his father had
been able to see nothing in the Thfrty Years' War but the
interest of his nephew the Elector Palatine, it was stUl
more natural that he himself should lean in continental
affafrs to the side of his mother and of his favourite sister
and of his splendid cousin, the great monarch of the age.
And he might do so without running counter to public
opinion and without startling it.
England had grown accustomed in Cromwell's time to
a French alliance, and had learned to understand that' by
conniving at French encroachments she might purchase
advantages for herself both in the Low Countries and rii
the New World. And if there was an inherited enmity to
France there was a much keener, fresher and more intense
enmity to the Dutch, our rivals in trade, and lately the
invaders of the Thames and the Medway,
If Charles should now throw himself suddenly and

REVIVAL OF THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 191
energetically on the side of France he might achieve not
merely a success but a great and overwhelming result.
For the Triple Alliance had fulfilled his sinister design, it
had established a bitter aniraosity between Louis and tbe
Dutch Govemraent. All that reraained for Charles was
now suddenly to join France in an overwhelraing attack
upon the Dutch Republic. In this way he might bury
their trophies of 1667 in the ruins of thefr state, and raise
England once for all to the position of the great and sole
maritime and commercial Power of the world.
So far the plan is daring and unscrapulous enough.
But it would have gratified the passions and the interests
of the English people; whetheri-tbus limited, it might not
have proved successful, is a curious speculation.
But this is but the lesser half of the scheme which
Charles de'vised. The other half consists in a plan i of
restoring Catholicism in England. By adding this he
gave a kind of revolutionary wildness to his whole policy.
The name of religion however served as a decent cloak for
its Macchiavellism, and gave him a pretext for demanding
of Louis great sums of money. At the same time this
unnecessary addition ruined in the end the whole project,
ruined the Stuart family, and plunged England into Revo
lution and Europe into war.
But when we regard the scheme as a whole, its
audacity, comprehensiveness, and ingenuity astonish us no
less than the enormous miscalculation it involved. Charles
II certainly does not show the feebleness of conception
that had marked his father. It is trae that he was
indolent and effeminate. In the end he failed and sank
into a position so humiliating; that we hardly give him
credit for any higher gifts than a certain ¦vivacity and
a(froitness. In truth he; had not vital force enough to

192 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
be, like Henry IV, a great statesman and a great sensualist
at the same time. He was also capable, as we see, of
comraitting alraost incre(Hble blunders. Nevertheless he
was not a mere Stuart. He was in some respects one of
the great Macchiavellians of history.. Statesmanship, of
this type, so diabolically ingenious and remorseless, baa
never been at home in England. It belongs rather to the
country of Catharine de Me(Hcis, Richelieu, Mfrabeau and
Napoleon. But even where, as in Charles II, it was
marred by defects so as to prove unsuccessful, it implies
certain extraordinary mental qualities. In tbe whole period
under review, from Tudor times to William and Anne,
we find no other example of this kind of statesmanship.
We have reraarked that these ideas first entered Eng
Hsh politics ¦with Henrietta Maria. She died about this
time, but her place was taken by her daughter Henrietta
Anne, Duchess of Orleans. This person, the child of the
reunion of Charles I and Henrietta Maria after thefr long
separation at the beginning of the Civil War, represents
most completely the preponderance of the French and
Bourbon element in ithe royal family. Not only by her
marriage but by her education and religion she belongs to
France. Like Mary Queen of Scots, she was at home in
French court life. Now in May, 1670, she met her brother
at Dover, and the compact was arranged which remained
so long unknown to the world, and even at the moment
was concealed frora some of the principal Ministers.
One scheme was ¦wrapped up in another, the latter
being such as could be published, such as might have
succeeded and at amy rate contained no germ of revolution,
This consisted in an alHance with France against the
Dutch, The Triple AlHance was nominally maintained,
but for the future England and France were to march

REVIVAL OF THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 193
together and to take vengeance on the Dutch. For this
purpose Louis was to grant Charles a subsidy. Such a
policy was not very unlike that of the Commonwealth and
of Cromwell. The Comraonwealth had made war with the
Dutch, Cromwell had allied himself ¦with France. If the
subsidy would make Charles independent of , Parliament
and if a Declaration of Indulgence was also contemplated
Cromwell too had been independent of Parliaraent and he
too had been tolerant!
It was in this way that Ashley Cooper and Buckingham
regarded the new treaty and the new policy. The
Clarendonian systera being at an end, some such policy
seemed the only altemative. It might arouse some oppo
sition, but it was likely to be in the main popular
promising an advance on the one hand in trade and
maritime power, on the other hand in religious toleration.
But glimpses were soon obtained of the other policy
that was wrapped up in this. The Treasury, which had
been in Commission since the fall of Clarendon, was now
given to a strong Catholic, Sfr Thomas Clifford, and in
conversation the King and the Duke began to betray thefr
Catholic i opinion, . The English public was as keenly
sensitive on religious questions as it was indifferent about
foreign policy. In these suspicions lay the germ of revo
lution,
i Charles II may be said to have been a man of one
deed. The Treaty of Dover followed by the war of 1672
was this one deed. Earlier he had been in leading-strings,
and later, when he became alive to the error he had
committed, he fell back into a defensive attitude, which he
maintained on the whole till the end of his reign. He
exhausted himself in this one grandiose and Macchiavellian
s. n 13

194 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
cPmbination, which he had courage enough to take in
hand but not force enough to persevere in. It is easy to
condemn him from the moral point of view, and also; to
pronounce that in the long run he failed, but we raust not
overlook that irarae(Hately and as far as the ostensible part
of the scheme is concemed he achieved a great success.
Did he want satisfaction for the affront done him by
the Dutch ships in the Medway ? Did he want to over
throw the republican Govemraent in' the United Provinces
and to restore bis nephew to the position held by his
ancestors ? Let us pass in review what took place ia
1672. It was the raost startling event that had happened in
Europe for a long tirae. Louis took the field with an
array of more than a buncfred thousand men, Condd
commanding one division and Turenne ba^ving practically
the command of the other. He avoided as much as
possible the Spanish Low Countries and advanced to the
Rhine chiefly through the territory of the Bishop of Liege,
who was also Elector of Cologne and his ally. He then,
whUe the Dutch expected him on the Yssel, after capturing
four fortresses garrisoned by the Dutch upon the Rhine,
crossed that river into Dutch territory. ¦ The Dutch taken
by surprise di^vided thefr army, which united was greatly
inferior to the French. The result was that they were
able 'to make little resistance. Nimeguen and Utrecht
fell into the hands of Louis, while the fortresses of the
Yssel were occupied by his allies, the Bishops of Munster
and Cologne.
But the United Provinces were a maritime state, the
life of which lay in its seaports and its foreign trade. It
seemed then to seal their doom that the other Sea-Power,

REVIVAL OP THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 195
England, declared war against them at the same time, or
rather without declaration of war fell suddenly upon their
commercial fleets. Except in the Napoleonic age no such
crashing attack has been made with such suddenness
upon a great state as this combined attack upon the
Dutch state by France and England. How it was resisted.,
we shall inqufre later. Suffice it here to say that a new
Prince of Orange now appears upon the scene.
The immediate result of this attack was the downfall
of the system of Government which had prevailed in the
state for twenty years. As early as June 21st an attempt
was made to assassinate John De Witt, and four days
later his brother CorneHus was also threatened ¦with as
sassination. Then began an agitation for the revival of
the Stadtholderate,
Orange op, Wit onder was an inscription which ap
peared at Dordrecht, De Witt's own town, under two
flags, the higher orange-coloured, the loWer white, which
were exhibited on the top of a tower. In July the Prince
found himself restored to the position of his ancestors.
The reaction does not stop here. Cornelius De Witt
is arrested on the charge of being implicated in a plot
against the Prince of Orange. In August John De Witt
resigns the post of Grand Pensionary of Holland. Now
takes place the trial of Cornelius. He is put to the
torture. He is condemned to the loss of all his offices and
dignities and to perpetual banishment from the pro^vinces
of HoUand and West Friesland. The sentence is dated
August 20th. John De Witt ¦visits him in the prison and
is detained there. The populace rise against the brothers,
(frag them out of the prison, intending to put them to
death upon the scaffold. But in the street Cornelius is
13—2

196 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
murdered -with daggers, hatchets and the butt ends of
muskets, John with guns. He. falls amid cries of ' Behold
the do-wnfall of the Perpetual Edict ! You pray to God !
You do not believe there is one. You have long since
denied Him by your treason; and your villanies.' The
bodies are stripped of their clothes, hung on a gibbet,
then . mutilated. One man boasts, 'I bought one of
John De Witt's fingers for two sous and a pot of beer.'
Wben we think of the share which England took in
all this our minds are influenced by later events. We see
a Protestant Power overwhelmed by a Catholic king, and
England taking the -wrong side. It is to be added that
even on the wrong side she does not much distinguish
herself De Ruyter is the hero of the naval war, and at
the battle of Southwold Bay he probably saved his country.
The French appear to watch -with pleasure the losses
suffered. by the English na-vy. At the time however the
English nation thought of earlier events, which we have
forgotten, and had no knowledge of that later history
which influences our minds. The Dutch wfere then our
greatest enemies and our most dangerous rivals, and we
had a recent (Hsgrace to avenge upon them. We had
fought in alliance -with France under Cromwell; we had
not yet fully learned to regard her as an ascendant and
dangerous Power, and up to that time she had usually
aided the Protestant cause in Europe. Not tiU the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes did the religious
question come into the foreground and France identify
herself -with Catholicism.' In these cfrcumstances the
disaster of the Dutch would seem a great triumph for
English policy. And indeed though they were to have
another age of greatness and glory yet thefr decline begins

REVIVAL OF THE DYNASTIC SYSTEM. 197
from this time, and in particular their naval power declines.
As early as 1688 it is remarked that 'the Dutch navy was
incalculably decreased in strength.'
To the whole English nation, it is to be feared, this
decline would give unfeigned satisfaction. But to the
Macchiavellian on the English throne the occurrences of
1672 must have caused unbounded exultation. He had
obtained a personal victory. He had overthro-svn the
republican Govemment of the United Provinces and had
raised his nephew to the head of affairs. He had done
this by means of that very Triple Alliance which had
procured so much empty glory for the unfortunate John
De Witt.
By this revolution in the United Provinces the revival
of the dynastic systera was consuraraated. Charles must
have felt that now for the first time he was completely
restored. What a change since 1651 ! In that year
there had been a Republic in England, a RepubHc in the
United Provinces, and a republican movement which
seemed not unlikely to succeed in France. Now Monarchy
had risen higher than ever in France, had been definitively
restored in England, and entered the United Provinces
in a more threatening form than ever. That quasi-
monarchy which was composed of the union in one person,
whose claim was grounded on his bfrth, of the command
of the army and the fleet -with the Stadtholderate was
now restored. The new Stadtholder already displayed all
the imperiousness and genius for Govemment of his an
cestors. But, unlike any of his ancestors, he was a person
of royal rank. The power which in them might be called
a quasi-monarchy, was in his hands almost monarchy
itself And this new monarch was nephew to Charies II
of England,

198 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY,
Thus the last remnant of tbe Commonwealth and the
Protectorate was swept away, and the House of Stuart
extended its power henceforth, in some sense, not only
over the three kingdoms but over the United Provinces
also. The dynastic system was completely revived.

CHAPTER IV,
THE RISE OF A NEW OPPOSITION.
Hitherto we have contemplated the new policy as
much as possible frora the point of view of the Govem
ment which adopted it. As it appeared to those who,
like Ashley Copper and Buckingham, were pri-vy to but
half the Treaty of Dover, as it appeared to the eyes of the
world in 1672, this policy raight seem a retum to the
system of Cromwell from the system of Clarendon. A
Declaration of Indulgence was issued at the same time
that an aggressive alliance with France was announced.
Toleration and concert with France had been characteristics
of Cromwell's system.
The ulterior plans of Charles were at this time almost
entfrely concealed, for though the Catholics were men
tioned in the Declaration, they were not put on the same
footing with the Dissenters. To the latter public worship
was to be aUowed, to the forraer only private.
There was indeed one vast difference between this
system and that of Cromwell. Cromwell's alliance with
France had been (Hrected against the Spanish Monarchy,

200 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
the new alliance was pointed at a Protestant Power, with
which Cromwell had made peace, the United Provinces.
It is to be observed however that, if not Cromwell, the
Comraonwealth had raade war with the Dutch, and that
at this raoment England had a defeat and disgrace to wipe
out. Thus it might seem that by means of a successful
national war, in the course of which an army would be
formed, and subsidies would come in from France, the
English Monarchy might acqufre the principal character
istic of the Crorawellian Govemment, that of resting on
an army and becoming independent of the Parliament.
The war was commericed in 1672 during the prorogation
of Parliaraent, and to obtain money the violent measure
-was adopted which is known as the Stop of the Ex
chequer. Had the king launched this policy frankly iri the
spfrit of Ashley Cooper, being hiraself a staunch Protestant
and at the same time a sincere friend of toleration, we can
imagine that it might have made way gradually in spite
of the stubborn Anglicanism of the Parliaraent. But the
ulterior scheme, though so carefully concealed, and though
after a time it was practically abandoned, was from the
first shrewdly suspected. Clifford was kno-wri to be a
Catholic, the Duke of York, nay Charles himself, had at
least not the bearing of convinced Protestants. As for
Charles, even when his marriage was first discussed, it had
been remarked that be was quite impatient of the thought
of marrying a Protestant'. The time had lately been
when Protestants might hope to see some day a Protestant
queen, for the wife of the hefr to the throne was daughter
to the model Anglican, Lord Clarendon. But Anne Hyde
» Halifax, The Character of King Charles n.

THE RISE OF A NEW OPPOSITION. 201
became a Catholic before her husband, and then died.
The Duke was now to marry again; he selected a Catholic
princess, who had French connexions — for her mother
was one of Mazarin's nieces — Mary of Modena. In spite
of opposition in Parliament this marriage was concluded
in 1673, and it could not but add greatly to the alarm
which began to prevail. By this time it had become
known that the Duke himself was a Roman Catholic;
it now appeared that in the next reign the Court would
be far more intensely Romanist than in any period since
PhUip and Mary ; and what could be expected of the next
reign after that, when probably a king would be on the
throne, whose mother had been Romanist by breeding
and his father Romanist by conversion ?
Thus in the two years of the Dutch war (1672-1674)
the ostensible scheme of a national war against the great
commercial rival and of a French alliance in the style of
Cromwell could not hide the real scheme, which was so
different. It flashed upon the English mind that the
war was really against Protestantism, and that England,
deserting all her traditions, was 'now on the -wrong side,
that the Lord High Admfral, the Lord Treasurer and the
Secretary of State, perhaps even the king himself, certainly
the' queen and the future queen, were all alike Roraan
Catholics, and that the Declaration of Indulgence raust
therefore be intended not so much to relieve the Dis
senters as to introduce Popery.
Accordingly opposition began, Charles II found
himself, Hke bis father, confronted by Parliament, His
Declaration of Indulgence was treated as an infringement
of the Constitution, and in order to prevent the power of
Govemraent from passing into the hands of Roraan
Catholics a Test Aov vr-as introduced.

202 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
And it soon became clear that Charles II had no
intention of treading in the footsteps of Charles I, however
he might desfre to follow the example of Cromwell. He
did not mean to set up a tyranny on the legal ground of
the ancient rights of the Crown. When the legality of
his Declaration was questioned, he first appealed from thp
House of Commons to the House of Lords, and when the
Lords declined to countenance his claim be frankly can
celled the Declaration, It also becarae clear that he had
not inherited the blin(friess, the incapacity of grasping
realities, which bad been so fatal to his father. . The
hallucinafaon that the English people raight- be induced
to consent to the reestablishment of Popery seems to have
left him. He accepted the Test Act, and in consequence
the Roman Catholic Clifford resigned the Treasurership,
and the Duke of York resigned the office of Admfral
Since 1669, when he had actually thought of declaring
himself a CathoHc, Charles had arrived in 1673 at a very.
different state of mind. Arlington, himself a Catholic
and privy to tbe king's original scheme, had become afive
to the great feebleness of the Catholic party in England,
and there is every reason to think that from this time
the scheme of changing religion, was entirely laid, aside.
Perhaps the only occasion on which, after ParHament. hq,d
declared itself, Charles betrayed his inclination to Popery
was that of his brother's second marriage in 1673.
The Revolution, as we have said, had been planned
in 1669 and had begun in 1670. Had it : been* like
the movement in Charies I's time, purely insular, it
might have subsided and come to a quiet end in J673,
It was however essentially a continental movement, which
had only reached England at all because the English royal
faraily was so strongly binged -with French ideas and

THE RISE OF A NEW OPPOSITION. 203
feelings. That Parliament had stood firm and had passed
the Test Act was therefore not sufficient to put the public
mind at ease. The future king, and now the future queen,
were avowed Catholics, and the strength of the Catholic
cause was to be measured not by the iraportance of the
party in England but by the power and wealth and
ambition of Louis XIV hiraself For Louis was not
merely a foreign ally but actually entered into English
politics as PhiHp of Spain had done in the reign of Mary.
He fumished the Govemment -with money; he began to
marshal his votes in the House of Commons,
In the year 1668 Louvois effected his reorganisation of
the French army, and from this tirae France assumed a
position among European Powers wholly different from
that which she had held wben she had been in alliance
with Cromwell. In those days England had had a dis
ciplined army, while the French army was only in the
making. But henceforward, as was revealed to all the
world in the campaign of 1672, France was the greatest
military Power that had appeared in modem Europd,
whereas England had ceased to be a military Power.
Richelieu and even Mazarin had achieved thefr triumphs
in a great degree by diplomacy, by alHances, while they
had had to contend with a strong internal opposition.
Now under the personal Govemment of Louis XIV
France entfrely changed her character and became tenfold
more formidable, when she attained to complete internal
unity and -when this tremendous military instrument was
put into the hand of her Government.
But what object had France in view ?
Not merely the conquest of the Spanish Low Countries,
and Franche Comte, and Lorraine ; not merely the estab
Hshment of her eventual claim to the Spanish succession.

204 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
It began to be perceived that she meditated another
conquest. She had acquired internal unity, and with unity
ascendency in Europe. But; there remained one trace of
her old disunion, all the more unsightly and incongraous
because it was left alone. Now that there was no more
Fronde, now that the Parliaments had been tamed, the
nobles turned into courtiers, Condd himself reduced to
a raere distinguished general, it seemed intolerable, that
there should still be Huguenots in France. The Edict of
Nantes was still in force, though the circumstances that
had suggested it had wholly passed away. It had, been
granted when the Govemraent was weak and the HugucT
nets were strong, as the only means of ; bringing civil war
to an end. But since Richelieu's time the Huguenots had
quite ceased to be formidable, and now the Government
was omnipotent. And public opinion in France was as
decided as ever against Protestantism.
The Revocation of the E(Hct of Nantes took place in
1685, only three years before the English Revolution.
But we may say of it, as of the Revolution, that it was the
result of a movement which had begun many years before.
It was no more the result of a caprice of omnipotence on
the part of Louis XIV than the Revolution was the result
of a fit of bljnd obstinacy in James II. The Revocation
was vehemently demanded by the clergy and welcomed
enthusiastically by public opinion. The tide had been
visibly setting towards it for many years. It was but the
last of a series of measures directed against the Huguenots;
the Great Emigration of 1685 had been preceded by
smaller emigrations, and as early as 1665 it can be shown
that the catastrophe had been foreseen.
This movement in France becoming observable at the

THE RISE OF A NEW OPPOSITION. 205
time of the enormous growth of her military power was
a fact of the most serious importance when the family
alliance between Charles and Louis came to light and at
the same time the English Government suddenly took a
Catholic complexion. The movement towards Catholicism
in the English royal family, so strongly French in its
connexions, seemed like a ripple in the general CathoHc
movement of French society. A few years earlier Crom
well had said that France, if Catholic, was tolerant, and
was to be favourably distinguished from Spain. It begins
now to be perceived that this is no longer true. When
Parliament met in the autumn of 1673, just after the
marriage of James with Mary of Modena, Sfr W, Coventry
made a speech in which he said, 'In former days Spain
was more rigorous in religion, but now France, The papal
nuncio has received the order not to oppose the progress
of the French arms.'
This was the France which in 1672 made an over
whelraing attack upon a great Protestant Power, and did
so in conjunction with England ! This was the France
from which Charles II received subsi(Hes at the moment
when his Treasurer was a Catholic and when the hefr to
his throne went over to the Catholic Church !
Taking all facts together, we see that the events of
1672 showed that a great religious crisis was at hand, in
which the king of France would play the part which in
former times bad been played by the House of Austria,
that Protestantism was threatened by the greatest Power
in the world, alike in France, in the United Pro-vinces and
in England. It could be perceived that the straggle in
which Charles had been baffled by the Test Act was but a
preliminary affafr, that the main body of the army which
had to be resisted was on the Continent under the orders

206 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
of Louis XIV, that troubles were approaching for England
which would not be, like her former troubles, insular, but
would affect her and other Protestant states at once.
The old biographer of Shaftesbury tells us that he, who
had actually supported the Dutch war and had applied to
our commercial rival the words Delenda est Garthago,
becoming aware in the course of 1672 that Charles was a
Roman Catholic, ' expressed his trouble at the black cloud
which, he said, was gathering over England,'
The phrase fitly described the vastness and vagueness
of the danger. How to avert it ? We were indeed well
practised in resisting the illegal encroachments of a king.
But precedents (fra-wn from tbe Great Rebellion were at
that raoment most unacceptable, and they, were also
scarcely applicable. The king might be resisted in
Parliament, and resistance might be pushed to civil war
and the destruction of the Monarchy. But that generation
had learned by experience that a ci-vil war creates a
military power and that in such circumstances a revolution
leads ine-vitably to imperialism. They were not prepared
to abolish Monarchy a second time only twelve years aftei
they had found themselves forced penitently to reinstate
it. Moreover if Parliament could withstand Charles II,
could it resist Louis XIV ? For it was the army of
France and the treasury of France, possibly aided by the
force and wealth of the other Catholic Powers, which,
when the Dutch had been subdued and the Huguenot
party crushed, would be placed at the service of a Catholic
Govemment in England.
Such was the danger. On the other j hand it seemed
likely that tirae would be allowed for a system of opposition
to form itself, since the indolent Charles had apparently
exhausted his courage and his will in one effort. It was

THE RISE OF A NEW OPPOSITION. 207
now perhaps rather James than Charles that was to be
feared, and as Charles in 1672 was but forty-two years old
the day of James would not speedUy come.
Certain outlines of the necessary plan of opposition
were afready ¦visible. In the first place foreign affafrs
must now come into the foreground of politics. It was a
first interest of England that the encroachments of France
should be arrested, and that the Dutch should be saved
from destruction. Tbe rivalry of English and Dutch must
cease ; the two Sea Powers must combine in opposition to
France. And some plan must be devised for purging the
Monarchy of Catholicism ¦without abolishing it. The Test
Act must in some form be extended to the Cro^wn.
And now as men began to tum thefr attention to
foreign affairs they saw a great rift in the cloud which had
seemed at first to cover the whole heaven. There would
have been little hope for Protestantism had France with
her immense power been aided in her attack on it by the
other Catholic Powers. AU along it had been saved by
disunion among the Catholic Powers, by the singular fact
that France, so steadfastly Catholic at home, had aided the
'Reformation in her intemational policy. What could save
it henceforth, as this was ceasing to be the case ? Nothing
but an opposite change — and this actually took place at
the same raoment in tbe policy of the other Catholic
Powers, The tyrannic Powers of a former age, which had
been (Hscro^wned by France, the Spanish Monarchy and
the Austrian Monarchy, began to favour the Protestant
stated just when France ceased to do so.
In August, 1673, occurred a great international event,
the formation of a new coalition against France. The
first coalition, the Triple Alliance, had fallen practically
into abeyance by the defection of England ; it was replaced

208 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
by anew one, in which the two branches of the House of
Habsburg allied themselves with the Dutch.
That the House of Spain should take this step requfres
no explanation. Though a Protestant Power, the ' old
enemy of Spain, had been attacked by Louis in 1672, and
though France began to assume the part of an enemy of
Protestantism in general, yet Spain had still more to fear
from France than any other Power. The first object of
France was stUl as in her recent war, the acquisition of
Franche Comtd and the Spanish Low Countries, and her
chief reason for attacking tbe Dutch had been that
they had hindered her from making these acquisitions.
Spain began to feel herself isolated and helpless in her
Low Countries when in 1672 the French array swept over
the Dutch territory behind her, and in 1673 she was still
more dfrectly threatened when Maestricht was taken by
the French. How great her danger was may be seen by
noting the final result of this war, which is somewhat
inislea(Hngly called the War of Holland. At the peace of
1678 the Dutch lost nothing, and yet France acqufred
more than in any other of the treaties made by Louis XIV.
Her conquests were made at the expense of Spain,. which
ceded Franche Comtd.
But the Austrian branch, which since the Peace of
Westphalia had fallen into the background, now came
forward again, and joined the coalition of August, 1673,
against France. The Emperor Leopold acted. thus after
much hesitation. He, as well as Charles II, had been
assailed by the active French diplomacy. He afready felt
hiraself the rival claimant, to Louis for the ;Spanish. suc
cession, being the husband of the Infanta Margaret as
Louis of the Infanta Maria Theresa, Louis had proposed to
him an amicable arrangement of thefr claims. In January,

THE RISE OF A NEW OPPOSITION. 209
1668, just when Temple was so busy at the Hague, a secret
Partition Treaty had been signed at Vienna — the first of
many attempts to solve that portentous question of the
Spanish Succession — according to which the Emperor
should have Spain, the West Indies and Milan, and the
French king the Netherlands, Naples and Sicily.
This treaty had been an important part of the great
web of diplomacy which preceded the war of 1672, and in
which ffrst the Dutch and next Spain seemed to have been
entangled. As the cooperation of England on the one
side, so the neutrality of Austria on the other seemed
to be secured. Nevertheless after witnessing the events
of 1672 and the siege of Maestricht m 1673, after much
negociation with the Great Electoiy interested for Cleve,
the Emperor at last presented an ultimatum to France,
and in August concluded his treaty ¦with the Dutch
Republic at the Hague on the same day on which Spain
also concluded a similar treaty. The object was the
restoration of the former state of things. In the Spanish
treaty mention was made in a secret article of a mediation
between the Republic and England.
It was the second step in the resistance of Europe to
Louis XIV, A maritime combination had first been
formed by Temple, and now a continental coalition was
formed. The former had fallen into abeyance. The latter,
as we shall see, had Httle success. It did not prevent
Louis from attaining one of his main objects, the conquest
of Franche Coratd, nor from rising to an ascendancy which
for a time seemed irresistible. But two modes of coalition
had now been sho^wn to be possible, and there was no
reason ; why these two modes should not be combined,
•After 1688 Louis found himself confronted by a system
which had been formed by compoun(Hng the Triple Alliance
s. IL 14

210 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
with the Coalition of 1673. The founder of this mighty
and ui^vincible union, which regulated the intemational
system of Europe for the eighteenth century, was that
first royal Stadtholder who had risen to the head of
affafrs in 1672, William III of Holland and afterwards
of England. It is rather ¦with the alliances of 1673 than ¦with the
Triple Alliance that the more ¦ modem arrangement of
Europe begins. From this time France is the aggressive
Power, which it is the common interest of Protestant and
Catholic Powers to hold in check, and ever since, except
for about thfrty years before the French Revolution,
France has been thus (freaded and watched.
But there still remained at the close of 1673 one trace
of the old state of things which we are about to leave
behind us, England was still in active alHance ¦with France,
as she had often been before in Elizabeth's time, in
Cromwell's time. The period is soon to comraence when
France and England will belong to opposite systems,
when concert between them will begin to be extremely
rare and the old rivalry of the two neighbour nations
will break out again and lead to a new Hundred Years
War, Early in 1674 the first step towards this new arrange*
ment was taken. The Treaty of Westminster was concluded
between Charles II and the States-General, and England
retfred from a war in which she had cooperated with
France against a Protestant Power and against the Hberties
of Europe. In this treaty, as in the treaties of August,
1673, it may perhaps be said that the most potent influence
at work was that of Spain. It was indeed Spain which
was most interested in opposing a barrier to French
aggression and in sa-ving that very Dutch repubHc against

THE RISE OF A NEW OPPOSITION, 211
which she had made war for eighty years. She had been
able to influence the kindred Power of Austria, and now
she was able to influence England. As it was a maxim in
Spain that there ought always to be peace with England,
so in England in those times we always remark a great
reluctance to have war ¦with Spain. For war ¦with Spain
involved the greatest possible hindrance to trade. The
Dutch war had been at the outset in 1672 to a certain
extent popular, though the suspicious behaviour of the
Govemment had damped even then the public enthusiasm.
The misfortunes of the Dutch, what Temple calls ' the fall
of the Republic,' in that year altered the situation. E^ven
the king raight feel that one object at least was gained
when he saw his nephew rise to the head of affafrs and
De Witt fall. And the situation was still more seriously
altered when Holland gained great allies, and particularly
when Spain, the great New World Power, appeared among
the belligerents.
The treaty was concluded with much ease, but it makes
a land-mark in the history of English policy. It is the
first step towards that alliance of the two Sea Powers
which became the keystone of the system of Europe in
the age of William and Marlborough, which lasted on into
the middle of the eighteenth century and was revived after
the French Revolution. Here too begins the separation
of England and France which was to have such raemorable
results. With the Treaty of Westminster a certain comparative
quiet is restored to English politics. The Revolution
has indeed begun, and does not cease to make progress,
but for four years from this date, that is, from the Treaty
of Westminster to the Panic of the Popish Plot, the storm
is somewhat less violent.
14—2

212 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
We have already raarked some periods in Charles II's
reign. There was the constitutional period, in which
Clarendon is the prominent figure, and the first revo
lutionary period, which is coramonly labelled with the
unsatisfactory narae of the Cabal. We have now before
us a thfrd period, which has also a prominent figure. The
Cabal is now dispersed, for Clifford is dead and Shaftesbury
has gone into opposition. But Thomas Osborne, made
Earl of Danby, has become Lord Treasurer, and gives a
character to the period, which may be called the age of
Danby. It is a new period, since the wUd scheme formed in
1669 has now been laid aside, frustrated at home by the
Test Act, abroad by the Treaty of Westminster. It lasts
however but four years, for in 1678 the aspect of affairs
changes again, when at the same time the European War
is brought to an end by the Treaty of Nimeguen and at
home the revolutionary storm breaks out again with the
Panic, Immediately afterwards a new change is intro
duced by the dissolution of the Parliament, the Long
Parliament of the Restoration.
Accordingly these four years have a character of their
o^wn. The king, if be had failed in much, had gained one
important point, namely, the establishment of his nephew
in supreme power over the Dutch. Parliament too had
successfully asserted its right. The country had peace
again, and might have thrown off its anxieties if it could
have forgotten that the hefr to the throne had now
avowed hiraself a Catholic and had married a Catholic
wife. Nevertheless a Revolution was visibly proceeding.
The Monarchy had lost the respectability which, at least
as a public institution, it had mauitained in the days of

THE RISE OP A NEW OPPOSITION, 213
Clarendon. Just as in 1659 the Commonwealth had
appeared to be a failure, so now the Restoration Monarchy.
New constitutional changes would after all be necessary;
The country had had to acknowledge that it could not do
without a king; it now began to confess that this king,
or a king altogether of this kind, would not suit it
either. Charles II's o^wn preference for CathoHcism was now
veiled again, and he soon began to derive a certain
personal advantage from the fact that his brother was
known to be a Catholic while he himself still passed for
an Anglican. The Panic, which in the long run was the
inevitable result of the sinister practices of 1669 and 1670,
had not yet broken out. But even in this compara
tively quiet interval the course of Charles II's Government
was so unprincipled and treacherous that it afforded the
presage of new convulsions. He had all along balanced
between two opposite systems, the constitutional system
of Clarendon, and a Cromwellian systera which would
make hira independent of Parliament. He had launched
a singularly audacious scheme with this latter object in
1672, but he had now abandoned it again. We find him
next occupying a sort of middle position. The question is,
how to obtain money. There are two paymasters to whom
he may apply. Tbe one is Parliaraent, the other is
Louis XIV. In these years he sets hiraself up to auction.
As the feeling against France is constantly growing in
Parliament, it becomes a principle with Charles that by
opposing Louis he can obtain money from Parliament, and
on the other hand that on condition of restraining,
thwarting or proroguing Pariiament, he can obtain money
from Louis. During this period Louis is contending against
a great Coalition. It lies with Charles to decide the

214 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
issue of the European war, which is particularly dependent
on hira. He has ceased to aid France ; what if he should
strike in on the other side? If Louis does not wish to
see this happen, Louis raust pay ! And so in retum for
the prorogation of Parliaraent for fifteen months which
took place in November 1675, Louis pays £100,000,
Again, in 1677 when Parliament presents an ad(fress
' representing the - danger from French aggression and
imploring the king to strengthen himself by such alliances
as may secure Flanders and quiet the fears of the English
people,' Parliament is prorogued again, but this time
Louis has to pay £180,000, On the other hand at the
beginning of 1678 when Charles demands £600,000 from
Louis for a similar service and meets with a refusal,
Charles begins to decide upon war and obtains a grant of
£600,000 from Parliament 'for enabling his majesty to
enter into actual war against the French king.'
This perhaps is the most characteristic part of the
reign of Charles II. In the audacious scheme of 1669
his Macchiavellism has almost a sort of greatness, but he
was unable to maintain himself at such a high point. In
the last dark period of his reign he is under the pressure
of danger, as in the first period he had been in leading-
strings. Between 1674 and 1678 he is about at his
average, unprincipled and a(froit but without greatness,
without indeed any definite object but to obtain money
without yielding his whole prerogative to Parliament.
The Monarchy was deraoralised. It had no sympathy
with the nation, even on the subjects on which the nation
felt raost strongly, ¦viz. the advance of Popery and the
advance of French ascendancy, It had also neither honour
nor honesty.
In these years the nation began to feel its way to the

THE RISE OF A NEW OPPOSITION. 215
solution of that dangerous problem, how to reform the
Monarchy ¦without destroying it.
The mischief lay not precisely in the individuality
of Charles, in his want of principle and of morality, nor
yet in any hankering after absolute power, for he did not
so much want to usurp an absolute power as to prevent
the power he had from being lost in the encroachments
of Parliament. It lay rather in his family connexions, in
the fact that he was by birth and breeding half a French
man and that therefore his ideas both of religion and of
foreign policy were French. In one respect this made the
mischief more serious. Not being personal to Charles, it
would not pass away with him ; on the contrary his suc
cessor would be more frankly Catholic and therefore of
necessity more attached to the French connexion than
himself And by the hereditary nature of monarchy the
mischief was likely to become perpetual. But in another
respect there was hope in the thought that it lay in
family connexion. For the royal family bad other connex
ions that were not French and not Catholic. Even in
England the family was not yet entfrely CathoHc. True,
Charles was but nominally Anglican and the Queen was
avowedly Catholic, the Duke was avowedly Catholic and
his first, ¦wife had died a Catholic, while his second wife,
the future Queen, was avowedly Catholic, and foreign,
partly French, in her connexions. The evil had spread
very far, and it was not unlikely that there would soon be
a second heir to the throne who would be a Catholic from
the cradle. But in the meantime the persons nearest after
the Duke of York to the throne were two princesses who
were Protestant and grandchildren of the great Anglican,
Lord Clarendon. It was little to depend on, but such as
it was the Protestant faith of these two children might

216 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
still be guarded from the influence of thefr father and
step-mother, so long as Charles hiraself, iritiraidated by
the growing agitation, desfred to pass with his people for
a faithful Anglican.
And among the connexions of the royal family were
there no Protestants ? The Houses of Bragan9a, Modena,
Orleans were all alike Catholic, and all alike in the Bourbon
interest. But there was another House, the House of
Orange. The thfrd William in the line of Stadtholders is in
this respect chiefly to be reckoned among hereditary kings
that from the very marriage of his parents his whole
existence was consciously planned and arranged for great
public purposes. He is unlike sorae other great European
statesmen who have passed over our scene, such as
Richelieu, Cromwell and Mazarin, in this that he did
not rise to greatness or make a place for himself, but
found a place assigned to him from his birth so great
that he proved hiraself a great man merely by filling it.
He was not only the lineal successor of four men in whose
lives alraost the whole history of the Dutch state was
bound up, the Liberator William, the great commander
Moritz, Frederick Henry, in whose tirae the state had risen
to its zenith of prosperity, and the second William, in
De Witt's opinion the ablest of the House, who had been
cut off in early raanhood. He rose above all these in this
that he was also of royal rank and a member of the royal
family of England. If Charles was half a Frenchman,
William was half an Englishman, and whereas the diffe
rence, in those days the antipathy, of the English and
French races was marked, the EngHsh and Dutch felt
themselves to be closely akin. We have seen how the
Dutch had throughout concerned themselves as relatives

THE RISE OF A NEW OPPOSITION. 217
in our civil troubles, how William's father had been a
kind of head of the English royalist party, how Cromwell
had treated William himself in his infancy as one of the
most dangerous of his antagonists. Thus as he grew up
the eyes not only of the popular party in his own country
but also of the royalist party in England were flexed upon
him. In both countries he represented Monarchy; in
Holland his rise in 1672 had been the fall of republican
ism, and in England his name had been identified from
the first with opposition to the Comraonwealth and to
Cromwell. But like all bis House he was a Protestanb.
He stood forth at this time as the great representative of
the Protestant cause in Europe.
In him therefore the royalist party in England had,
as it were, a second string to its bow. If the reigning
branch of the House of Stuart disappointed it through
French and Catholicising notions, there was another scion
of the House at the Hague, v/ho was firmly Protestant
and who was the champion of his country against French
aggression. Beside the two Protestant princesses at home,
Mary and Anne, they could place thefr hopes upon
WilHara beyond the sea.
Thus William was the hope of two nations at once.
They were nations which for some time past had been
divided by commercial rivalry, which had waged war three
times in twenty years. But affairs now wore another aspect.
These, two commercial nations had begun to feel that they
had a common interest in resisting the encroachments of
France. They had concluded the Treaty of Westminster.
Thefr sense of common interest drew thera together raore
and more. And thus a still greater place was made for
William. Not only did he now appear bom to save the
independence of Holland and to save the Monarchy in

218 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
England, but at the same tirae to weld the two nations
together in an indissoluble alliance against France.
More than a century earlier, when Edward VI was on
the English throne and the child Mary was Queen of
Scotland, there had sprang up an eager desire to unite
the two kingdoras for ever by a marriage between the two
young sovereigns. For in those tiraes it was by royal
raarriage that states were most naturally welded together.
A similar process of thought would lead now to the idea
of marriage between WUliam and Mary. The Princess
Mary (for the present at least) embodied the hereditary
principle, and she represented Anglicanism in religion.
William represented the Protestant cause in Europe and
the European opposition to French ascendancy. He
came of a line of Protestant heroes, and was personally
the most eminent by far of the rising princes of Europe
by his achievements and by the commanding firmness
of his character. Could he be brought nearer to the
English royal family and receive an important position in
English political life he would assuredly do much to
counteract that demoralisation of the Monarchy which was
beginning to be so dangerous.
And such a plan would be welcome to the royal
family itself It would be positively welcome to Charles,
who after the failure of his grand plot saw the necessity
of giving new pledges to Protestantism. The Test
Act had deprived him of his Catholic counsellors; he
had now in Danby a Lord Treasurer who depended
upon Anglican support; a Protestant marriage would
greatly strengthen his new position. Nor would the
marriage be positively unwelcome to James, who might
well be alarmed at the storm of unpopularity that was
rising against him. And both the brothers would re-

THE RISE OP A NEW OPPOSITION. 219
member that WilHam was their nephew, that his raother
had been their sister and his father a principal supporter
of thefr cause.
The marriage, which took place in the auturan of
1677, falls in Danby's administration. That powerful, but
unscrupulous and, as it were, thick-skinned statesman
(Queen Mary afterwards described him as 'one to whom
I must ever o^wn great obligations, yet of a temper I can
never like')' had a large share in deciding one of the
greatest events in English history. But perhaps Charles
himself had the largest share. For we see hira in these
last years of the war meditating once raore a compre
hensive policy. He gives forth another flash of Henry IV.
He substitutes now for the wild designs of 1669 a new
plan, which is also large and striking and which stands
midway between the Triple Alliance and tbe great Euro
pean policy of William in 1689. For the Family Alliance
of Stuart and Bourbon he substitutes a Family Alliance
of Stuart and Orange, the object of which will be to bring
about by mediation a European Peace. As in the Triple
Alliance, a certain gentle pressure is now to be applied to
Louis, but at the same time he is to be generously treated.
Elngland is to appear as arbitrator of the European dispute,
and the cause of Monarchy is to reap the benefit. An
army is to be raised for a purpose which Parliament will
enthusiastically approve, and this army will perhaps make
Charles independent of Parliament; in the Dutch state
William, who is already almost a king, will perhaps by
means of his new royal connexions succeed in openly
establishing a Monarchy.
And thus we arrive at one of the greatest of the royal
marriages which have determined the course of inter-
1 Doebner, Memoirs of Mary, Queen of England, p. 29.

220 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
national history. The vast results of the marriage of
William and Mary were developed later. What was
visible at the moment was that it afforded a solid nucleus
for the gathering opposition of Europe to the ascendancy
of France.

CHAPTER V.
THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION.
The Danby period closes with the restoration of peace
to Europe by the Treaty of Niraeguen, which was concluded
in the suramer of 1678. At the end of that year occurred
the exposure, which led to the fall of Danby ; the dissolu
tion of Parliament speedily followed, and this together
with the Panic gave quite a new aspect to English politics.
Both in the reign of Charles II and in the reign of Louis
XIV, both in English and in European history a period
comes to an end.
Another stage is corapleted in the progress of the Second
Revolution, and we remark once raore the peculiarity of
this movement that, unlike the Great Rebellion, it is at no
stage purely insular, but at every stage alike is also the
English part of a European raovement. As it began in
1670 with a treaty between the English and French kings,
and proceeded by a joint war of those two kings upon the
Dutch Republic, a war which convulsed the whole European
system, so between 1674 and 1678, though England had
retired from the war, the agitation which still prevails in

222 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
English politics is both caused by continental events
and in great part fomented by foreign politicians. A
special feature of the Danby period is the prominence of
foreign affairs in the deliberations of Parliament. Sinoe
the days of the Coramonwealth Parliament had acqufred
a new kind of permanence. There is now always a
Parliament, which may be adjourned or prorogued, but
which is still there and is the sarae Parliament. Accord
ingly foreign Governments begin to take account of it, to
enter into dealings with it The art of managing Parlia
ment has been introduced by Clifford and is practised by
Danby, but it is a novelty that the foreign Ambassadors
now practise it also. As the grand topic is now the
European war, as the standing matter of deliberation is
whether England shall remain neutral or shall strike in,
and if so, on which side she shall strike in, and since for
the belligerent Powers everything depends on the course
which England may take, these Powers make eager efforts
to influence Parliament. It is not enough for Louis to
bribe Charles, he must also bribe the Parliament, and on
the other side Spain, which is now fighting for life, must
not neglect the same means of obtaining the aid of
England. Hence there arises a wild confusion. To understand
the parliaraentary debates of this tirae you must ascertain
not only the opinions nor only the party connexions of the
members, you must also know what gentlemen have
received gratifications and from what quarter, since there
are now several paymasters, and money may be had from
the French Embassy or from the Spanish Embassy as
easily as from the Treasury. The confusion reaches its
height in 1678 as the negociations at Nimeguen approach
their end. The chapter of our history which closes with

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-RRFORMATION. 223
the Treaty of Nimeguen offers a labyrinth of mystery and
secrecy simUar to that which leads to the Treaty of
Utrecht, and the Danby period has a certain reserablance
to the faraous last four years of Queen Anne. We
abstain here frora telling a story which could not be told
shortly, and content ourselves with reraarking first how
exceptionally strong at this crisis are foreign influences in
English politics, next how abruptly in tbe course of 1678
this phase of affairs gives place to another and a very
dissirailar phase.
Ever since 1672 English politics have been violent and
rancorous. We see the Whig and Tory parties taking
shape under the leadership of Shaftesbury and Danby
respectively and under the pressure of unusual alarms and
disquietudes. The thoughts of men are growing revolu
tionary. Nevertheless as yet there has been no open
(Hsturbance. Shaftesbury indeed has had to sit in the
Tower, but no party has taken arms, nor has the scaffold
been set up. The Danby period, compared with the period
which followed, may be reckoned to the prosperous part
of Charies II's reign.
But now begins a wilder time, which, compared to the
average of English history, may be called a Reign of
Terror, and which ended after ten years in a change of
Government, a civil war in each of the three kingdoms,
and a war -with France. Convulsion follows convulsion,
from the Panic of the Popish Plot, through the wild
agitation of the Exclusion Bill and the Rye House Plot,
to the accession of a Popish King and Queen, and
thence through the Rebellions of Monmouth and Argyle,
and the Bloody Assize, to the expedition of William of
Orange and that consuramation of the Revolution, which
is commonly spoken of as the Revolution.

224 GROWTH OF BRITISH -POLICY.
The cause of the sudden change in 1678 is manifest
enough. The religious question breaks out again. In
1672 there had been but suspicions and apprehensions,
which the Test Act had been sufficient to allay. Had
Charles stood alone they need never have revived. They
could not be put to rest, while his brother remained hefr
to the throne and avowed himself a Catholic. Hence,
the new period opens with a wild outcry of Popery, and
through the whole of it Popery is the enemy, first as
giving birth to plots, next as threatening the country in
the successor, then as actually forced upon the country by
the king. , ,
But in this period more than ever we are to remark
that the movement is not insular. It is neither purely
insular nor merely connected with the Continent by the
subsidies from France which the English king receives, ,
The religious question bad indeed first emerged in
England, when Charles II raade the grand proposal which
led to the Treaty of Dover, At that tirae, that is in 1669,
the settlement of religion in France had not been shaken.
But now nine years later, when the Panic brought religion
once more into the foreground in England, a change was
taking place upon the Continent. At the raoraent when
the Treaty of Nimeguen had established French ascen
dancy in the most alarming manner, the religious question
began to break out in France too, and in such a manner
as to make the danger in England tenfold more alarming.
And then as affairs darkened here they went on darkening
there. Accordingly we form no just conception of th^
so-called English Revolution if we confine our -view to
England. If we do so; we become aware merely of,,, a
perverse king whose designs are rather embarrassing than
really dangerous,, and who has no means of realising them,

THE LAST PHASE OP THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 225
but the money which Louis may judge it poHtic to grant
him. On the other hand if we take a large European
view we see a universal advance of the Counter-reformation
lihreatening the final extinction of Protestantism. We are
strack by the coincidence that the very year 1685, which
saw a Catholic king and queen begin to reign in England,
witnessed the final and appalling catastrophe of Protestant
ism in France. We see that if a religious war threatens
England, it threatens also all Westem Europe. And as Louis
XIV is at the very height of his ascendancy when he thus
proclaims his crilsade, there is every reason to fear that the
ruin of the Protestant party in France will be followed by
that of the Protestant Republic. And we remark that as
1685 so 1688 marks a great event on the Continent as well
as in England. As here it is the date of the Revolution, so
there it is the year of the outbreak of another great
European war.
On the Continent we are to note not only the
Revocation of the E(frct of Nantes, but another great
occurrence, the advance of the Turks upon Vienna two
years earHer. These things, the last Turkish invasion and
its repulse, the downfall of Protestantism in France, the
culmination of French ascendancy in the seizure of Stras-
burg and Luxemburg, finally the outbreak of a European
war, all these things crowded into the years of the struggle
-with Popery in England make up a continental convulsion
which is more violent than most revolutions. This con
vulsion 'is not merely simultaneous but closely connected
with the raovement in England. The English Revolution
is but a part; of a great European convulsion, as is
sufficiently sho-wn by the simple fact that it is achieved
not by any Englishman but by the Dutch Stadtholder
himself bringing a Dutch army to England on board a
s, IL 15

226 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Dutch fleet, and that it is opposed by Louis XIV with
French fleets in the Channel and with French troops in
Ireland. If we enter at this late stage upon so crowded a period,
our design cannot be to narrate even slightly such occur
rences as the rescue of Vienna from the Turk, the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the aggressions of
Louis XIV and bis thfrd war, or the Revolution in the
Three Kingdoms. If we review these stupendous things,
it -will only be to show how closely they belong together,
and especially how inextricably involved is the English
Revolution -with the continental convulsion, how peculiarly
and exceptionally at this crisis the history of England is
lost in the general history of Europe.
We have before us a (frama of which the scene extends
from the Turkish frontier to the further limits of Scotland
and Ireland. The chief actor in it is Louis XIV, whose
influence is felt everywhere at once, who (Hrects the course
at one time of the king of England, at another time of the
opposition in Parliament. He provokes an opposition
which also is found in all countries, inclu(frng England, but
which is most concentrated nearest the scene of the last
war. Of this opposition the most conspicuous leader is
throughout William of Orange, who however is leader
purely in the character which he has inherited from former
Dutch Stadtholders and not in virtue of his connexion
with the English royal house. But when this struggle
after ten years breaks out into open war on the Rhine, it
is suddenly transferred by a stratagem of William to
English ground, and our islands and seas become the
theatre of a decisive European conflict. William now
assumes a double character, and taking advantage of his
connexion by bfrth and marriage with the House of Stuart

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 227
unites in his o-wn person the two Sea Powers and raakes
them the nucleus of a European opposition to France
which proves irresistible. In this struggle the English
Revolution, so memorable in constitutional history, appears
but as an incident. In the eyes of the two men who
dfrected the straggle and necessarily best understood it,
William and Louis, the change in the English Govemment
appeared but a means to an end; it was a decisive
military measure, which indeed proved decisive not of one
war only but of a long series of wars.
It must be our object then to draw an outline of the
period as it appeared from the point of view of Louis
XIV, We have marked with some care the successive stages
in the advance of French power; a new stage was com
pleted at the Treaty of Nimeguen. An ascendancy was
now manifest similar to that of Philip II about 1588 or
that of the Allied House of Austria about 1628. Let us
consider the elements of which it consisted.
By the Peace of Nimeguen another province, Franche
Comtd, that is, the Free County of Burgundy, had been
taken from the Spanish Monarchy, The grandson of
Louis, bom at' this time, afterwards Fdnelon's pupil,
received the title of Duke of Burgundy to mark the
complete recovery of the Burgundian territory by the
Crown of France. Henceforward only the Catholic Low
Countries remained to the Spanish King from the in
heritance of Charles the Bold. Once more fortune has
declared for France in the duel of France and Spain,
and the opinion begins to gain ground among Spanish
politicians, which was ultimately acted upon in the
matter of the Spanish Succession, that the only chance
for the residue of the Monarchy would lie in the fiiendship
1.5—2

228 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY, ,
and protection of France, In reserve Louis holds the
great pretension, and the reigning king of Spain was a
languishing life, so that in 1678, at the opening of the
period before us, it might be expected that, the Dauphin
would soon succeed to the whole Spanish Monarchy .and
bring it into a position of tutelage to France, '
Next, in the Empire Louis bas the position which was
made for him by the Treaty of Westphalia. With Sweden
he is joint-guarantor of the Treaty. This means that he
has about as much influence within the Germanic Body
as the Habsburg Emperor himself For the purpose of
consolidating this influence a Confederation of the Rhiae
has been formed. Louis has also during the late war
improved his relations with Sweden, which, no longer
thwarting France as in the Triple Alliance, has received
subsidies from her and has dra-wn the sword in her quarrel,
In Germany too there are prospects of succession. If the
Emperor Leopold should die, who would have a better
chance than Louis of being (;hosen as his successor ?
Thirdly, if Louis raay look forward to sitting on the
throne of the Caesars and to seating his son on that of the
Sparush Monarchy, he has afready a cousin on the throne
of England. He has been able once to raake use pf the
aid of the English King against. the Protestant RepubHc,
but the turbulent Parliaraent marred this plan. The
neutrality of England however he finds it usually possible
to secure by fomenting discord between King and Parha
ment. The hefr to the English throne has now become a
bigoted Papist ; as such, he -will perhaps feel compelled, once
seated on the throne, to depend on French aid against the
disaffection of his subjects.
Thus the constellation of 1672 is not unlikely to be
seen again. The next time Louis sets his raighty power

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 229
in motion, whether to absorb the Low Countries or to
consolidate his ascendancy in Germany or to crush the
Protestant Republic, he may be able to obtain not merely
the neutraHty but the active cooperation of the king of
England. And that he has such ulterior plans is not
doubtful. Never, not even in the interval between the
Peace of Lund-ville and the Campaign of Austerlitz, has the
afr of Europe seemed more thunderous than in the ten years
between the Treaty of Nimeguen and September 1688.
The menaces and encroachments of Louis fill the whole
period ; but when the leaders of the European opposition,
WUliam himself or the Great Elector, forecast the cata
strophe which is e-vidently approaching, all is seen to tum
on England. Should England stand aloof thefr task -will
be extremely difficult, and that England should come to
thefr rescue could nPt for a long time seem reasonably
probabloi But the fatal contingency, which would alraost
exclude hope, would be that England should strike in
against.. them.
Thus ; all who on the Continent resisted the advance of
Louis XIV from the Peace of Nimeguen onward felt the
most anxious interest in the English party struggle which
frt the very year of the Peace entered upon so wild a phase.
It is not in James but in Louis XIV that the danger
centres which provoked the Revolution of 1688.
i • Louis had a position of overwhelming advantage. His
claim upon Spain and the conquest he had just made
from her of Franche Comtd, the control of German affairs
which the Treaty of Westphalia gave him, the dependence
upon bun of Charles II of England, and, we may add,
since 1675 of the young Vidtor Araedeus of Savoy, and his
alHance with Sweden^all this, supported by the consum
mate organisation which Turenne and Louvois had given

230 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
to the French army and the naval, commercial, and
financial reforms of Colbert, constituted his positive force,
while his negative advantage lay in the want of union
araong bis antagonists which had come to light at
Nimeguen. Ad-vised by a Richelieu or a Mazarin, he must
have proved irresistible.
The statement that he was now his own Minister is
not to be taken too literally. After all, the department
which he reserved to himself was perhaps, as M. Rousset
says, only the department of signature. If errors of policy
were now committed, they were not the personal errors of
a sovereign intoxicated with power and flattery, they were
the errors of a minister, of Louvois, who stamps his
sharacter on this part of the reign alraost as distinctly as
Mazarin on the rainority. They are the errors of a
statesman who dfrects poHcy fix)m the war-office, who cuts
every knot with the sword. Under Richelieu, even under
Mazarin, the army had been secondary. It is now at the
height of its organisation, and the Minister who has
elaborated the instrument naturally loses no opportunity
of using it. The Dragonnade comes into fashion.
The diplomatic school of Mazarin seems to disappear
after the Peace of Nimeguen, and French policy is hence
forth, not perhaps more unscrupulous than before, but
obtusely, blindly violent. The wars of 1668 and 1672 had
been prepared by a masterly labour of diplomacy, which
had enabled France to isolate her enemy, in the first case
Spain, in the second Holland, After Nimeguen this method
is abandoned ; diploraacy is thro-wn to the winds ; all
Powers at once are recklessly insulted.
There is a pause at this time in the development of
the Spanish question. The young Spanish king has been
married. His wife indeed is of the House of Orleans, so

THE LAST PHASE OP THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 231
that the marriage may be regarded as the first step taken
by Spain in her new policy of dependence on France, But
the succession question is hung up until it can be kno-wn
whether hefrs will yet be bom to the Spanish House of
Habsburg. Meanwhile France turns her eyes in another
(Hrection, Since the Treaty of Westphalia, that is, now
for thirty years, the French Govemment has concemed
itself little with Germany or with A-dstria, It is a great
tuming-point in the career of Louis when after Nimeguen
he begins to threaten the Germanic Powers, and to
threaten thom raore dfrectly even than Spain or than
Holland. He had lately conquered Franche Comtd and bis troops
still occupied Lorraine. It was natural for him therefore
in these cfrcumstances to take in hand the whole question
of the frontier of France towards Germany and of the
consolidation of her three great conquests, that is, the
Three Bishoprics (conquered by the Valois Henry II),
Alsace (conquered in his own minority), and Franche
Comtd newly conquered, and Lorraine at least occupied.
But beyond this definite and necessary question of the
frontier lay the vast indefinite question of the position
he was to take up -within the Empfre. Was he ultimately
to be Emperor ? Was he to take immediate steps to becorae
Roman king ?
Four of the eight Electors lay close to that frontier
which now engaged his attention so much, namely, the
three Elector-Bishops of Cologne, Treves and Mayence,
and the Elector Palatine, who resided in the palace above
Heidelberg. These four votes were probably to be won by
a judicious mixture of force and conciliation. Further the
protection of the Protestant interest in Germany had been
placed by the Treaty of Westphalia in his hands, and by a

232 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
judicious use of this he might hope to secure the vote of
the Protestant Elector of Brandenburg. Saxony also was
Lutheran. There were means too, as a later age showed,
of conciliating Bavaria. And thus the only electoral vote
which he could not hope to obtain was that of Bohemia.
Partly in order to overawe the : Rhine Electorates
Louis resolved to get possession of Strasburg, which was
then a free Iraperial City, and Luxeraburg, a fortress
included in the Spanish Low Countries. Strasburg and
Luxeraburg, first to be acqufred, then to be retained, are a
principal object of the later wars of Louis XIV. i Mean
while the arrangement of the frontier, and the establish
ment of the absolute power of Louis in regions where by
tbe Treaties of Munster and Nimeguen he had acquired
only limited rights, proceeded steadily.
It was a task for a Richelieu or a Mazarin ; it fell into
the hands of Louvois. What might have been successfully
achieved by negociation and conciliation backed by over
whelming power was undertaken in quite another spirit
and by wholly different means. Litigation and chicane
were substituted for negociation, and reckless violence
for conciliation. At Metz for the Three Bishoprics, at
Besan9on for Franche Comtd, at Breisach for Alsace,
territorial clairas were laid before the local Parliaments or
before Chambers of Reunion constituted for the purpose,
and the decisions so obtained were enforcdd at once by
railitary occupation. Thus the whole frontier region
from the Low Countries to Switzerland became indeed, a
Land Debateable. What was new in this policy is not
so much its unscrupulousness as its obtuseness. Statesr
manlike considerations are entfrely. neglected. Friends
and enemies are trarapled on alike ¦with uncereraonious
violence.

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 233
For example:.. - ' ;
The German policy of France had long been based on
the alliance of Sweden. In the late war Sweden had aided
Louis -with an important though unsuccessful diversion
against the Great- Elector, and at Nimeguen the French
Government had seemed deeply sensible of its obligation.
But in 1681, when Charles XI of Sweden claimed the
succession to the vacant duchy of. Zweibriicken (Deux
Fonts) and disputed it with another relative of the deceased
duke, the Chamber at Metz suddenly interfered, and the
duchy was ddclared united to the crown of France, Thus
a great alHance was senselessly thro^wn away, and a military
king, son of Charles Gustavus and father of Charles XII,
alienated and embittered,
. Again :
There was no person in Europe whora it was more
important to conciliate than William of Orange, and
Louvois himself in 1679 made extravagant offers in order
to obtain the friendship of the Dutch, yet in 1680
WiUiam's principality of Orange was occupied by order of
the French Govemment and the town dismantled.
As both Charles XI and William were Protestant
leaders, these examples show how entfrely the French
Govemraent had abandoned its old position of patron and
protector of the Protestant interest in Europe.
A thfrd e^cample is found in its treatment of Stras
burg., ' ' In the treaty of Westphalia the French King appears
as a champion of Germanic liberties against the Emperor.
And indeed the Emperor, — King of Hungary and Bohemia
and cousin of the King, of Spain — was scarcely more a
German than Louis XIV himself If Louis were to
supplant him, the way,' so a statesman might think, would

234 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
be by winning from hira the hearts of the Gerraan nation,
Louvois is blind to all such considerations. He simply
seizes a great Imperial City, and annexes it to the
dominions of the King of France. On Sept, 30, 1681,
when the French troops entered Strasburg, no German
could possibly receive them as friends. It was felt everyi
where that Alsace was finally lost, and that Germany was
thrown open to the armies that had so lately overrun the
Low Countries and Holland. '
France henceforth, the France of Louvois, has a position
in Europe wholly different from that of France under
Richelieu, Instead of being the head of a great system
of alHances, the representative of great universal interests,
she begins now to be isolated, and to take a pride in
overawing all Powers together by sheer superiority of
military force and organisation. Considerable fragments
of the old diplomatic fabric however still remain ; it is still
by policy that she obtains at one time the aid, at another
the neutrality, of England, and the Great Elector, who in
the late war had been active against her, has been dis
posed since the Peace of Nimeguen to seek his interest m
adhesion to her.
But the French Government now takes another, and a
most ill-omened step in this new course. Louis gives his
authority, and Louvois the impress of his ruthless system,
to a religious revolution within France itself
About the time when the Panic of the Popish Plot
oroke out in England, it began tL appear that an event
was approaching on the Continent which would take rank
in the history of Christianity with the great religious
changes of the sixteenth century. What was called hi
France the Religion (R.P.R. — Religion PrdtendueReformde)
seemed about to come to an end. The sect which, holding

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 235
its ground through thirty terrible years of civil war, had
wrung from the Government an Act of Toleration under
which it had since lived in security for raore than half a
century was (frifting towards a new catastrophe.
We must distinguish the catastrophe itself, which may
be said to commence in 1681 and which proved so
monstrously -violent, from the long and slow decline which
paved the way to it. The Religion had lost its political
importance in Richelieu's time. From 1629 to the death
of Mazarin in 1661 it had played no important part in
French politics ; it had had no share in the Fronde. ' I have
no complaint to make of the little flock' (Je n'ai point k
me plaui(fre du petit troupeau), says Mazarin. Louis XIV,
in his re^view of the difficulties with which he had to
contend on assuming power, makes no reference to the
Religion. During this period it gave to France some
most distinguished names, — Tureime himself, Duquesne,
Schoraberg. It contributed its share to the Acaddraie
Fran9aise, In sorae parts of France at least its members
enjoyed easy and equal intercourse with the Catholics,
Nor are we to suppose that all this was suddenly changed
by a stroke of omnipotence proceeding from Louis XIV,
Between 1661 and 1678 the decline of Calvinism was such
and so ¦visible, and seeraed so necessary a part of the great
process which was making France one, that the Edict of
Nantes began to seem an obsolete instrument.
Tureime himself conformed, and in an age when royal
favour seeraed the highest good, nobleraen who were
Protestant would be tempted to sacrifice thefr religion for
it as well as thefr feudal independence. Meanwhile the
humbler Protestants were assailed with bribes, the king
establishing in 1676 a fund for the conversion of heretics
(caisse des conversions).

236 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Meanwhile the Catholic Church in France showed
vitality enough to satisfy religious-minded men, and it
even offered rehgion of a type similar to that of Calvin.
In Richelieu's time St Cyran had introduced at Port Royal
a kind of Catholic Puritanisra, and in Mazarin's time the
Catholic Pascal had roused a flame of moral indignation
against the Jesuits. The ¦written eloquence of Pascal had
been succeeded by the pulpit oratory of Bossuet. In 1668
had been established what was called the Peace of the
Church, by which the school of Port Royal was reconciled
to the reigning orthodoxy, and after this Arnauld and
Bossuet were seen dfrecting at once thefr different styles
of eloquence and (frfferent tj^pes of zeal against Calvinism.
The result of all this was to convey the impression to the
public that Calvinisra was finally defeated, and that it
must go the way of all the disintegrating influences which
under the name of Fronde had now given place to the
perfect unity of France under Louis XIV,
The affafr was brought to a head by the war of 1672
—1678. This was in the first instance a war against a
Protestant state, in which Louis could not but feel that he
had not the sjmipatby of his Protestant subjects. More
over he wanted money, and in France the clergy had the
right of voting subsi(Hes to the Crown in thefr Assembly.
Like all money-granting assembHes, the Assembly of the
French Clergy expected something in return for thefr
grants; and what should they ask but the suppression
of heresy ? This was the cause always at work, which
tempted Louis, instead of allowing Cal^vinism to perish
by gradual decay, to interfere actively for the destruction
of it. But in explaining the English Panic of 1678 ought we
not to take account of this portentous drift of things in

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 237
France? Those glimpses of Charles II's design of re
establishing Popery in England were infinitely more*
alarming when it was perceived that it corresponded to a
design, which every day became more pubHc, of destroying
Protestantism in France, and also to an overwhelming war
of France against the Protestant Republic. The attack
upon Protestantism in England, which by itself might
seem scarcely formidable, could not be regarded by itself
Any one who took a comprehensive view must perceive, as
Bumet perceived, that for all the world at once a new
chapter of the Counter-reforraation was about to open.
The agitation in favour of Popery that had appeared in
England in 1672 was not isolated ; it was the faint exterior
ripple of a great disturbance which had its centre in
France. Protestantism might still be strong in England,
but it would certainly have to meet a most dangerous
attack in Holland, and it was on the point of perishing in
France. Charles Stuart or his brother the Duke of York
might be somewhat insignificant persecutors, but as Mary
Tudor had been backed by Philip of Spain and the whole
power of the House of Habsburg, so now the Catholicising
Stuarts were but generals of division in the host of the
Counter-reformation, of which the Commander-in-chief
was Louis XIV, the greatest potentate that had been
seen since Philip II.
There was here abundant material for a great panic,
and panic reigned through most of the Protestant world.
As early as the sixties there had been a considerable
emigration of Calvinists frora France, and in Holland there
had been a fiery trial in 1672. England took the infection
somewhat later and in a soraewhat different form. Here,
where the danger was considerably less, there was much
more mystery. Glimpses had been obtained of the Treaty

238 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
of Dover, and of strange money dealings between the
French and English courts. An open attack was not to
be feared, but there was considerable reason to suspect a
secret plot. And the time for raising the cry of a Popish
plot arrived with the Peace of Nimeguen, for that event
brought home to all the world the alarming power of
Louis at the very time when the do^wnfall of Protestantism
in France began visibly to approach.
The year 1678 is an epoch for all Europe on account of
the Treaty of Nimeguen, and an epoch for England by the
outbreak of the Panic. The alarm of French ascendancy
increases along with that of Popery. On the Continent
the former is the more intense, in England the latter^
For a short time English affafrs now attract our attention
raost, since the age of Danby is succeeded by a straggle of
three years which is raost intense and strange, and which
has left an indelible raark on EngHsh history. It is more
terrible than many revolutions, though it did not actually
amount to a revolution. It gave rise to a party (Hvision,
which may fafrly be said to have lasted half a century, and
which nominally and in common belief has never since
ceased to exist in England. In the whole revolutionary
period between 1670 and 1688 the most intense phase
except the three years of Jaraes II's reign is that between
1678 and 1681, in which the Long Parliament of the
Restoration fell and two short Parliaments sat, whUe the
great parliamentary question was the Exclusion Bill and
the great popular question the Popish Plot. It left the
nation divided into Whigs and Tories, and was followed by
a sullen repose of five years, during which no Parliament
sat. In 1681 the centre of interest is transferred again to
the Continent.
We touch this memorable struggle only to remark how

THE LAST PHASE OP THE COUNTER- REFORM ATION. 239
closely English affairs continue to be entangled -with the
affafrs of the Continent. The Panic itself looks to the
Continent. The narrative of Oates tells of deliberation of
the Jesuits at St Omer and Valladolid, of dealings with
Pdre la Chaise and with the Pope. Coleman's corre
spondence also looks to the Continent. The ground
alleged in the Exclusion Bill for the exclusion of James
is that ' tbe emissaries, priests and agents of the Pope had
seduced him to the communion of the Church of Rome
and prevailed on hira to enter into negociations ¦with the
Pope and his nuncios, and to advance the power and
greatness of the French king, to the end that by the descent
of the cro^wn upon a papist and hy foreign alliances they
might be able to succeed in thefr ¦wicked designs.' But
the prevalent belief that foreign influences were at work
in English politics was a sraall raatter in coraparison with
the undoubted fact.
Charles II's relation to foreign Powers bad altered
very ranch since the Treaty of Dover and the War of 1672.
At that time he had been more active than his cousin
Louis in promoting tbe Family Alliance. He changed his
mind towards the close of the European war. About 1677
he developed a policy wholly different. He had now
another Family Alliance. The Dutch state had ceased to
be a hostUe Republic and had become almost a Monarchy
under the rule of his nephew William. This nephew was
now married to the niece who might some day become
Queen of England. Charles had been awakened by the
Test Act to the impossibility of reestablishing Catholicisra.
With the help of Danby he had framed a new policy. He
now aspired to come to the aid of his nephew. He
would impose peace upon France. In this plan he would
be supported by Parliament, and might hope to obtain

^40 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
first the one thing needful which with him was always
money, secondly the great thing desfrable, that is, a
pretext for keeping an army on foot.
As his former grand stroke had created a wild
excitement in England in 1672, this equally reckless new
system excited the Continent. Everywhere it excited the
Catholic party, whose hopes Charles had so recently roused
and now disappointed. Thus is explained; the peculiar
form which the Panic of 1678 assumed. Charles, who had
deserved to be personally the object of the ¦wild suspicions
of his Protestant subjects, finds himself considdred to be
in danger of assassination from the Papists. He finds
himself a sOrt of representative of Protestantism, standing
between the people and his Catholic brother. He who a
dozen years earlier had perhaps been somewhat afraid of
that brother, henceforth enjoys a new consciousness of
popularity grounded on the con^viction that at least no
Protestant would kill him to make James -king. He, the
audacious contriver of the restoration of Catholicism, now
falls with easy tact into the position; which his bewildered
people almost force upon him, of the bulwark of his people
against CathoHcism, This is the result of the fact that
the Panic did not break out in 1672, when he was in
alliance ¦with France against the Dutch, but in 1678,
wben fre had been acting in concert with William against
France, ' , .
But this sarae change in his attitude produces another
most important result. He is now oppdsed by -Louis. In
the last months of the war it is the chief object of Louis
to break up Charles' concert ¦with Williain and to frustrate
bis design of intervening to dictate a peace to France;
And Louis bas leamt to use against Charles the weapon
of parliamentary; influence. Accordingly we have to note

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 241
another foreign influence which is at work in our politics.
Beside those Jesuitic machinations which excited such alarm
there is another machination much more real yet which
attracted much less attention. And it remained actively at
work long after the conclusion of the Treaty of Nimeguen,
indeed until Charles dissolved his last Parliament early in
1681. The three years we now consider contribute one of
the most crowded and memorable periods to our parlia
mentary history. But who was the leader of Opposition in
the last session of the Long Parliament, or in the two
short Parliaments which followed, before the final Parlia
ment at Oxford ? Perhaps we ought to say, The leader was
Louis XIV.
On the surface the object of the Opposition appears to
be at first the overthrow of the Anglican Minister Danby,
and the disbanding of an army which Charles was suspected
of intending to use for unconstitutional purposes ; then the
dissolution of a Parliament which was strongly Anglican
and which had been so long subjected to royal corruption
that it was called the Pensioned Parliament ; next, after
the Panic had broken out, the Exclusion BUI Such is
the programme of Shaftesbury and his followers, and there
is no doubt that in the case, for example, of Lord WilHara
RusseU it had been adopted on honest conscientious con
viction. But it was also the prograrame of Louis XIV,
intended to promote his ambitious policy, and supported
by his ambassador, as was long ago brought to light, with
a lavish expenditure of French money. In the first
place it was of great importance to Louis to overthrow
Danby, the author of the Family Alliance of Charles and
WiUiam, and to procure the dissolution of the Parliament
which he controlled. Later, when the Peace of Nimeguen
had been concluded, and Louvois' system of encroachment
S. IL 16

242 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
had been brought into play, it was essential for French
policy that the English should have thefr hands full. So
long as the Exclusion Bill occupied the turbulent islanders,
and those profound half-mystical questions conceming the
Monarchy and divine right which had occupied thefr
fathers perplexed thefr minds, so long the armies of Louis
would have free play on the Germanic frontier, arid might
enter Strasburg and blockade Luxeraburg and enforce
the decisions of the Chambers of Reunion. For all along
the condition of French ascendancy was the. neutraHty of
England. We have memorials frora the Spanish Ambas
sador and from the States-General in which this is pointed
out, and complaint is raade that the King of England is
debarred by the internal dissensions of his realm 'from
attending either to his own interest or to that of his
allies,' that he has ' tied up his hands by dissension with
bis Parliament and thought proper to sacrifice the welfare
of Europe for so uncertain a matter as a future succes
sion.' So long as Charies was disposed to act in concert ¦with
William, it was the policy of Louis to paralyse him by
parliamentary attacks ; but Louis raight aira at a result
which would suit him even better, namely, to force Charles
to change sides again. For it was always open to Charles, if
the Opposition pressed bim too heavily, to fall back upon
his earlier system, and to sell his neutrality, or even his
support, to Louis at the price of a subsidy. In that case,
provided only the subsidy were large enough, he might be
able in an extreme case to dispense with Parliaments
altogether. The brief history of these three years is this : Charles
engages in a desperate parliamentary struggle with the
party headed by Shaftesbury. That party is successful m

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 243
overthrowing Danby; but it becoraes divided on the
question of the Exclusion Bill, and partly owing to this
schism, partly owing to the king's adroitness, it suffers a
disastrous defeat by the dissolution of the Oxford Parlia
ment in March, 1681. But who emerges victor from the
strife? Scarcely Charles II, for he must abandon the
foreign policy which alone made him respectable in
Europe. He is henceforth a humble dependent upon
Louis XIV.
The victor is Louis XIV himself, who obtains all that
he desfred. He has broken up the Family Alliance of
Charles and William. He can henceforth pursue his
ambitious course without any fear of raeeting England in
his path. For three years he had held her at bay, but
henceforth he need not give hiraself that trouble. Charles
is dependent on his subsi(fres, and after Charles, it now
appears, will come James, who, as a Catholic, will be still
more absolutely dependent on him. And so for some
years to come we need scarcely inqufre after English
policy. No such thing exists. It is tirae for us to ask
again how Louis XIV himself is occupied on the Conti
nent. " The year 1681 sees Louis reduce in this manner the
English Govemment to dependence, it sees him also, as we
find, adopt the system of Dragonnades in dealing with the
Calvinists ; it sees him on the same day occupy Strasburg
in Alsace and Casale in Italy. Thus the catastrophe of
Europe and ,of Protestantism approaches ¦visibly nearer.
, Up to this point the designs and career of Louis XIV
have been comparatively easy to follow. The growth of
his power has been steady and on a vast scale. He now
seems to have almost ¦within his grasp both the Empire
and the Spanish Monarchy. Henceforth it is otherwise.
16—2

244 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Soraething impedes him, but what the obstacle may be it
is not so easy to discover. All that appears on the surface
is that seven years later, in 1688, he kindles another
European conflagration, which after raging for nine years
leaves the relations of the Powers not much altered. The
Gerraanic schemes of Louis faU, and what in 1681 looked
Hke an overwhelming inundation appears to have been
only a high tide, which at the date of the Peace > of
Ryswick (1697) is visibly on the ebb. And yet in 1681 he
seemed to have everything in his favour. He had para
lysed England, and the system of the Triple Alliance
appeared to be dead. It is also to be remarked that since
the Peace of Nimeguen he had reduced to a sort of
dependence another powerful prince. The Great Elector in
despafr had attached himself to the French interest. What
then can henceforth withstand Louis ? The seizure of
Strasburg and Casale, the blockade of Luxemburg,
seemed but the commencement of a boundless conquest.
What actually happened in the next ten years fell very
far short of what might have been expected in 1681.
It is indeed evident that great events occurred in those
ten years. In 1683 the Turks advanced to Vienna, and
the deliverance of Christendom was wrought by the united
force of Charles of Lorraine and John Sobieski, king of
Poland ; in 1685 occurred the Revocation of the E(Hct of
Nantes ; in 1688 a new European War began, and imme
diately afterward occurred the Revolution in England and
the entrance of England into the European War. These
occurrences are indeed on a scale such as might have been
expected from the situation of 1681, but they seem
disconnected. It is not immediately obvious how an
frruption of barbarians into Germany, an alteration in the
religious settlement of France, and the fall of a king in

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 245
England can belong together or can belong to the same
series of events as the successive encroachments, which we
have hitherto traced, of Louis XIV.
Ever since 1673 he had had occasion to consider the
best means of making war on the Austrian Habsburg, who
had come to the aid of his Spanish cousin and of the
Dutch. Now he could attack Austria not only dfrectly in
Alsace but also in(frrectly by setting in motion against
him the Transylvanian Prince and the Turk. This
observation at once suggests to us that it is hardly a mere
coincidence if in 1683, just at the moment when he
brought his force to bear more than at any previous tirae
upon the Germanic Powers, a Turkish army of more than
200,000 men advanced upon Vienna. Nineteen years
earlier when Montecuculi defeated the Turks in the great
battle of St Gothard, the French auxiliaries under Coligny
and La Feuillade had played a conspicuous part in the
defence of Christendom. But in the war of 1672 — 1678
France had fomented the Hungarian rebellion against the
Emperor, and that rebellion depended at the sarae time
upon Turkish aid. Thus France and the Porte played
iato each other's hands. Emerich Tokoly, the Transyl
vanian Prince, took part in the Turkish invasion of 1683
(as Zapolya had taken part in the invasion of Solyman)
and Tokoly had been long in the habit of recei-ving aid
from France. Louis in his attack on the Germanic Powers
calculated upon the embarrassment which they would
suffer from the simultaneous attack of the Turks in thefr
rear; and in like manner Kara Mustafa took account of
the French advance upon the Rhine in planning his
invasion of Austria. So much is plain even if we leave
open the question of a positive understanding between
Louis and the Turk.

246 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
The steady growth of French power up to 1681 has
been afready traced. We now see that it was favoured
even after this by an event of the first magnitude.
Germany (Hd not show any great power of resistance at
the time of the Peace of Nimegue, when the Great
Elector was afready in despafr. But in the course of the
year 1681 it began to be perceived that Germany was
about to suffer a great invasion from the infidel. When
this should happen what power of resistance to Louis
would she have ? The invasion took place in 1683, and
proved no less formidable than could have been expected.
It is trae that Vienna was saved, the tide of invasion was
rolled back, and a war in which the Turk had been the
assailant ended in destroying for ever his ascendancy in
the east of Europe. But the war lasted fourteen years,
and was none the less exhausting for Germany because it
proved so glorious. If Louis had been almost irresistible
before it began, how could the Gerraanic Powers -withstand
him when thefr forces were thus year after year draughted
off to thefr eastern frontier and into the plains of Hungary ?
The situation strikingly resembles that in which the
Powers of Germany found themselves in thefr war against
the French Revolution. They were paralysed on the
Rhine by the fact that they had to wage war at the same
time in Poland,
The result was that after 1681 Louis had still about
three years of uniaterrupted success. He reaches his
zenith in the sumraer of 1684.
Gerraany and Austria had entered upon a new age of
vigour and glory -with the deliverance of Vienna. Never
theless they were not in a condition at the moment to
wage war with France while the straggle in Hungary
occupied them. In such circumstances the solution

THE LAST PHASE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 247
adopted was a truce, Strasburg and the territory taken
from the Empfre by reunion before August 1st, 1681,
were to remain in the hands of Louis for twenty years.
The truce was concluded at Regensburg, But at the
same time Louis entered into possession of Luxemburg.
In 1682 Louis had raised the siege of this important
fortress on the nominal ground that he did not choose to
press his claim at the moment when a Turkish invasion
of Christendom was impending. In September 1683 how
ever, that is at the moment when Vienna was besieged by
the Turks, he marched his armies into the Spanish Low
Countries. Spain, in order to obtain the aid of her allies,
declared formal war with France in November, But it
was found irapossible to revive the coalition that had been
(Hssolved at Nimeguen. William could not induce the
Dutch to take up arms ; the city of Amsterdam declared
that sooner than consent to war it would desert the Union,
And, as we know, the Great Elector had thrown in his lot
with France. The Emperor, needless to say, had his hands
full. On June 4th, 1684, Luxeraburg fell, and at Regens
burg along with the Truce a Treaty was signed in which
Louis, whUe he resigned some of the conquests he had made
from Spain, retained Luxemburg.
Charles II in these last years of his reign remains
dependent upon France. Since the (Hssolution of the
Oxford Parliament he has not the courage to summon
a new one, and his only altemative is to purchase sub
sidies from Louis by subservience. He evades aU demands
for his interference in behalf of Luxemburg ; he promises
his guarantee for the Truce of Regensburg, and then again
refuses it. This is the last scene of all in the foreign
policy of Charles II ; it is ' second childishness and mere
oblivion,' He had opened his reign with ostentatious

248 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
independence of France, had then glided into an under
standing -with her ; next, in 1672 he had joined her in a
deadly attack upon republican Holland; then again he
had separated himself and for a time had stood stoutly by
his nephew's side against France. But in 1678 had begun
the Panic and the Reign of Terror; from this desperate
struggle he had emerged in 1681, victorious indeed but
at the price of complete dependence on France. He saw
Louis XIV reach his zenith ; he saw Europe in cHsmay ;
but he found himself helpless.
In 1683 however he married the Princess Anne to
Prince George of Denmark. It was something that this
was at least a Protestant raarriage. So much -wisdom, we
may suppose, he had learned from the Panic. He (Hd not
now, as in his o-wn marriage or in the second marriage of
his brother, prefer, as a raatter of course, a Catholic House.
Insignificant as Prince George personally was, considerable
results followed from his marriage to one who was in due
time to reign over England. They were results of a
negative kind. The marriage carried -with it no dangerous
entanglements, either religious or political and this was
of the utmost importance in a reign which was to see
Great Britain take the lead in Europe as never before;
At the moraent, and in the eyes of Charies, the match was
ehgible because the King of Denmark adhered at this
tirae together with the Great Elector to the French party
in Europe. Charles II died at the age of 55, in February, 1685, a
few months after the Truce of .Regensburg, and European
affafrs entered almost immecHately upon a new stage.
Thefr aspect was already sufficiently portentous, and so
indeed was the aspect of English affafrs. Though Charles
had defeated his domestic eneraies, yet the Revolution

THE LAST PHASE OP THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. 249
visibly raged on, and there still prevailed soraething like
a Reign of Terror, The Popish Plot was indeed by this
time (Hscredited, but at the sarae time the party of
Shaftesbury had been driven to the verge of rebelHon.
Its leader fled the country and died in exile; its most
prominent members, Russell and Essex, as well as the
Republican Algernon Sidney, died -violent deaths. In
Scotland the Terror was still more intense and uninter-
mitted. But in England there was a lull in the religious storm.
The Panic had subsided, the Duke's daughters were safely
married to Protestant princes, the King had proved bis
sincere intention of protecting the AngHcan Church. He
was not old, and the day when a Catholic would reign in
England did not yet seem to be at hand.
On the Continent the ascendancy of France was indeed
alarming, but here too the religious question had not yet
become so prorainent as to absorb all attention. The year
1685 brought in England the accession of a Catholic King,
and in France the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
It seemed as if the final and decisive straggle between
the Reformation and the Counter-reformation was now to
begin.

CHAPTER VI,
THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION.
At the accession of James II England bad long been
in a revolutionary state; France on the other hand had
long enjoyed a profound internal tranquillity. But now
while the revolution in England and Scotland grows
suddenly more intense, there commence in France too
disturbances of the most terrible kind. And it is the
same convulsion which spreads over both countries at
once. It is a straggle of the confessions, a re-vival of the
great religious con"vulsion of the sixteenth century. The
Dragonnades may be said to have comraenced as early as
1681, but it was in 1685 that they were practised on a
grand scale. While such horrors were seen in France
there was civil war on this side of the Channel, Mon
mouth's rebelHon in England, Argyle's rebellion in Scot
land. In the autumn the Bloody Assize was proceecfrng
here, and on October 22nd the Edict revoking the E(Hct
of Nantes was registered by a Coraraission of the Parlia
ment of Paris.
It is needless to say that the catastrophe of Protes
tantism in France must have immeasurably enhanced the
anxiety with which we saw at the same time a Catholic

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION, 251
Kmg triumphantly establish himself on the throne of
England. But there was also a reaction of the English
event upon France. Perhaps Louis would have hesitated
formally to revoke the Edict, of Nantes had not England
at that moment passed under the sceptre of a CathoHc
King. The Huguenots of France had leaned upon England
fri Elizabeth's time, in Charles I's time, and in the tirae of
the Protector. Even Charles II in his last helplessness
would perhaps scarcely have thought it safe to witness in
sUence or without some kind of intervention the cancelling
of an e(Hct so iraportant to the whole Protestant world.
But a unique crisis had arrived in England by the acces
sion of James II, which gave Louis a free hand against
his Protestant subjects.
The Revocation was not the commencement but rather
the consummation of the downfall of Protestantism in
France. The decline of the Religion had been proceeding
for twenty years; since the Peace of Nimeguen Govem
ment had turned its attention to the subject; the number
of conversions in the first half of 1685 was prodigious.
An appalling proof was thus offered to the English
people of the power which might be exerted by a
Govemment controlling a military force, and this at the
moment when they themselves passed under the rule of a
king who, like Louis, was Catholic, whose ideas were
military, and who struggled to get possession of a military
force. That a religious community which was supposed
to number almost two millions, which had subsisted more
than a century and had lived almost a century under the
protection of a special law, should be thus easily dissolved
by the French Government, must have given the English
people a wholly new conception of what was in the power
of Govemment.

252 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
It might strike an English observer that the crisis of
1588 had reappeared, and that Louis was about to effect
what Philip II had almost succeeded in effecting. He
wielded a much greater military power than Philip, he
had already in 1672 reduced the Dutch state to extremity,
and since that year his power had greatly increased. The
King of England was now a Papist and his cousin Louis
had destroyed Protestantism -within his o-wn dominions.
When next he took the field, would he not destroy it in
the United Provinces, and at least enable his cousin to
establish Catholicism on a solid basis in Britain ? In
this enterprise would he not have the enthusiastic
support of all the Catholic Powers of Europe, and be
hailed as Eraperor by thefr united voice on the next
vacancy ?
So it might well seem from the English point of -view
It might well seem that the world was passing under the
dominion of Popery and arbitrary power. But we have
overlooked a distinction which proved to be all-important.
The religion of which Louis made hiraself the champion
was indeed Catholic in dogma, raortally opposed to the
Reformation, and as ruthless in its methods as Rome could
¦wish. But it was not strictly Popish. Louis was at this
moraent the most dangerous enemy to the Roman See
that had arisen in Europe for a long time. While with
one hand he struck do^wn Protestantism, with the other he
dealt blows which seemed equally crushing at the Papacy,
And in consequence his grand enterprise was not sup
ported by the Pope nor by the lea(Hng CathoHc Powers,
Here we come upon the great impe(Hment which began at
this time to retard the progress of his ascendancy. It was
a raatter of course that the Revocation should unite the
whole Protestant interest of Europe against him. For this

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION. 253
he must have been prepared. But when the moment came
for him to strike the decisive blow he found himself firmly
opposed by the Catholic as well as the Protestant Powers.
The enterprise which was to make the world Catholic was
opposed not only by William of Orange and by the Great
Elector, lately a supporter of France, but also by both
branches of the House of Habsburg and by the Pope
himself The cruelties of the Dragonnades naturally remind
us of many other cruelties instigated by what we call
Popery. Instigated they were by a clerical power devoted
to CathoHc dogma, but the clergy of France at the raoraent
when they demanded the destruction of the Religion were
so strongly (Hsaffected towards the Papacy that they
seemed on the point of plunging into a new schism. The
event of 1685, the Revocation, ought to be considered in
conjunction ¦with the event of 1682, which was the assertion
of GalHcan liberties in the Four Articles dra^wn by Bossuet.
Opposition to the Papacy is indeed a uniform characteristic
of Louis XIV, and at this conjuncture, the zenith of his
reign, it is pushed so far that he seems on the point of
playing the part of our Henry VIII. We may almost say
that the schism was fairly begun. Louis occupied A^vig-
non, Pope Innocent XI (Odescalchi) refused institution
to a number of bishops who adhered to the GalHcan
principles. Had not Louis been soon after warned by his
first taste of ill success we may suppose that in no long
time an independent GalHcan Church would have stood
forth by the side of the Anglican, and that Louis XIV
would have claimed an ecclesiastical supremacy similar to
that which had been asserted in England by Henry VIII
and EHzabeth.
It was this nascent GalHcan Church, and not Popery,

254 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
which brought about the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. In general an overwhelming tendency to na
tional unity characterises France in this age. The re
action against the Fronde was sweeping away everything
indi^vidual or peculiar whether in life or in thought. In
this whirlpool the independence of the rights of the
noblesse, the Parliaments, and Port Royal disappeared
one after another. How should the Huguenots escape?
But the eddy which carried them away was not a CathoHc
movement embracing all Christendom but a purely French
movem'ent which was adverse to the Papacy for the very
same reason as to the Huguenots, that is, because it was
not purely French. Not the Pope but the King profited
by the Revocation, and the demand for it, which was a
sincere and traly popular demand, declared that all French
men ought to be of one religion, and asked whether it
could be endured that there should be Frenchmen who
did not approve the King's religion or whose religion the
King did not approve.
But in the universal dismay that began to pervade the
Protestant world in 1685 this distinction was not at first
perceived. The objects of Louis and of James seeraed to
be identical, though indeed their language was as (Hfferent
as possible. They were allies in the cause of the Counter-
reforraation, which by us was called Popery and associated
with memories of the Marian persecution. That Louis was
strongly opposed to Popery in the strict sense of the word,
and that James anticipated modem Liberalism in pro
claiming the inalienable rights of conscience and in
amnounciag the abandonment of all penal laws, did not
prevent them from seeming allies, as indeed it did not
prevent Jaraes frora betraying his approval of the Revo
cation and frora expressing to Barillon the hope that he

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION. 255
might be able in concert with Barillon's master to do great
things for religion.
The accession of James produced in English politics a
change similar to that which the ascendancy of Louvois
had produced in the govemment of Louis. Tact and
adroitness (Hsappear -with Charles II. James commences
-with the suppression and ruthless punishment of armed
rebellion. The scaffold is set up. The Bloody Assize is
contemporaneous -with the Dragonnades, and the rebelHons
of Monraouth and Argyle are made a pretext for keeping
on foot a railitary force. Behind the army of Hounslow
Heath, which begins to be partially officered by CathoHcs,
appears the army of Ireland, remodelled by Richard
Talbot. Louvois, who had at the outset regarded the Huguenot
question with in(frfference, took it up in its later stages
and handled it in his characteristic military fashion. The
highly organised army which had given Louis his ascen
dancy abroad, enabled him now under Louvois' guidance to
settle the religious question at home with a peremptoriness
which had been quite beyond the reach of RicheHeu and
Mazarin. In the proud fortresses of Cal-vinism, La Rochelle
and Montauban, where the Religion had maintained itself
so firmly in former times against the govemment, it was
now almost stamped out in a few hours. And at the very
moment when this short military mode of dealing -with
reUgious questions proved so effective in France, a Catholic
King in England was seen struggling to obtain possession
of a standing army.
A revolution had long been in progress in England, and
after the accession of James it soon began to hurry towards
its consummation. But another revolution, infinitely more
portentous, hung over all westem and central Europe, and

256 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
with this the EngHsh Revolution was inextricably con
nected, from this it derived most of its greatness and
its moraentous importance. This connexion is the one
point which we have space to deal -with.
The European Revolution does not appear in history,
because it was averted at the last moment ; it was averted
by the very fact that the English Revolution was consum
mated in 1688.
What was tbe precise danger which Europe escaped ?
France had possession of Strasburg and Luxemburg
and all the vast territory which it had acqufred by reunion.
The Truce of Regensburg had secured these acquisitions
to her for a time. Meanwhile the Germanic Powers,
principally the Emperor, were occupied -with a war against
the Porte, a war none the less burdensome because it was
so glorious. The interest of Louis requfred that before
the war should come to an end he should obtain complete
and definitive possession of all this territory, that the
trace should be converted into a peace. This point once
gained and the conquered territory once put in fuU
military preparation, his ascendancy would be complete
He would become master of the Spanish Low Countries
even before the demise of the Spanish Crown should give
him the occasion of claiming the whole Spanish Monarchy
for his House. He would also acqufre an influence in
Germany greatly superior to that of the Eraperor. But
behind this territorial revolution there could be discemdd
also a religious revolution. He would establish hiraself as
the head of an independent GalHcan Church the limits of
which would extend with the limits of his dominion. And
as he had already perceived that he could only carry the
GalHcan clergy with bim in this schism by undertaking to
destroy heresy, it was likely that he would attack Cal-j

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION. 257
vinism in the Dutch Republic as he had attacked it in
France. The Dutch therefore might look forward to a
renewal of the French invasion of 1672. These designs of
Louis were the more alarming because his power was so
vast and because his success had hitherto been uninter
rupted. James in England assumed a position equally
alarming as far as his o-wn subjects were concerned. It
was evident at least that he meant in some respects to set
aside the constitution of the country. But his design was
perhaps much less far-reaching, and it was also doubtful
whether he had the means of carrying any such design into
effect. If we could separate in our minds what Jaraes at
tempted in England frora that which Louis was atterapt-
ing at the sarae time in Europe, it would appear perhaps
not so very forraidable. It does not seera that James had
, formed any coherent scheme, or that the obstinacy which
marked his character ought to be taken for serious re
solution. He intended no doubt to procure toleration for
the King's religion. It seemed to hira both reasonable
and possible to procure the repeal of the Test Act, as it
had been found possible to defeat the Exclusion Bill. But,
though his subjects had every reason to resent his con
tempt for law, and there was much to alarm thera in the
mihtary force they saw him preparing, particularly when
it was considered in connexion ¦with what was in prepara
tion on the Continent, yet James does not seem to have
contemplated gi^ving an ascendancy to Catholicism in
England, but only making room for it as a church among
other churches. If his perverseness had such vast con
sequences, this was o^wing to the connexion which happened
to exist between these English events and much greater
events beyond the Channel. It was not so much because
s. n. 17

258 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
he claimed a (frspensing Power or because he interfered
with the appointments of Magdalen College, Oxford, that
he fell. It was rather because in the desperate resistance
of Europe against Louis XIV the aid of England could not
be spared, and yet so long as James was on the throne
England would certainly not give aid, and might possiblyj
as formerly in 1672, intervene on the side of Louis.
Hence it was that James was overthro^wn, not like his
father by a rebellion organised by Parliament, but by the
appearance of a Dutch fleet commanded by William of
Orange. In order therefore to understand the fall of James it is
above all things necessary to study his foreign policy. If
he could only have brought himself to take the side of
Europe against Louis XIV he would not have fallen, not
at least when and as he did fall. WilHam was not king
in the United Provinces. However therefore in his
manifesto he might profess that he carae to England in
order to protect the rights of . his ¦wife endangered by the
arbitrary proceedings of Jaraes, yet he could not have,
brought ¦with him a Dutch fleet and army, of which he
was only admiral and general, unless he had been able
to con^vince the States that the interests of the Dutch
people were concerned as well as the interests of the
Princess Mary. He was able to do this because the Dutch
people were threatened by Louis, and Jaraes appeared to
be in concert ¦with Louis.
Why was James, if not really in concert ¦with Louis,
yet wholly neutral and indifferent in the great crisis of
Europe ? It was not in the traciitions of English Monarchy
to regard with indifference the afrnexation of the Low
Countries by France. Is the answer to be found in the fact
that Jaraes, unHke other EngHsh kings, was a Cathohc ?

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION. 259
Precisely this consideration brings home to our minds the
singularity of the course he took. It may be our first
impression that, as a zealot, he would be impelled by
religious enthusiasm to take the part of the destroyer
of Protestantism in France, the possible destroyer of Pro
testantism in Holland. On closer examination however
we find that a convert to the religion of the Pope was not
tempted at that crisis to side ¦with Louis. The religious
policy of Louis was du-ected against the Pope. It was
regarded ¦with horror by the other CathoHc Powers, and the
Pope himself, Innocent XI, had to suffer almost as much
from the French ascendancy of Louis XIV as Pius VI from
the French Revolution or Pius VII in the latter days of
Napoleon. Louis represented that very principle of royal
supremacy in ecclesiastical affafrs which James, as a con
vert, rejected. Another royal convert to CathoHcism was
hving at that time, Queen Christina. How was she im
pressed by the Dragonnades and by the Revocation ? She
¦writes thus from Rorae on February 2nd, 1686 : " Nothing
assuredly is more laudable than the endeavours to convert
heretics and unbelievers. But the method they adopt
there is very new, and since our Lord (Hd not take this
way to convert the world, it cannot be the best ! I regard
this zeal and this policy with astonishment and adrairation,
it transcends my comprehension ! Indeed I am glad to
think that I don't understand it. You think then that it
is opportune to convert Huguenots and turn them into
good Catholics at a time when there is such open rebellion
in France against the respect and obe(frence we owe to the
Roman CathoHc Church. Ajid yet I suppose that is the
one foundation of our religion ; only to that church has
our Saviour given the glorious promise that the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it. Meanwhile never has the
17—2

260 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
scandalous liberty of the GalHcan Church come so close
to the verge of rebellion as now. Those late Four Articles,
adopted and promulgated by an assembly of French
clergy, are of such a nature that they have afforded to
heresy an only too manifest occasion for a song of
triumph." In these cfrcumstances what would have been more
natural for James, as a Catholic King of England, than
to range himself in European politics on the same side
as the House of Habsburg, the side which had the sym
pathy of the Pope himself ? By doing so he would have
given the best proof that a Catholic could be a true
Englishman and that the interest of England might be
safe in the hands of a Catholic king. By doing so he
would have placed England in the position — which she
would have Hked to take and which all Europe expected
her to take — of guardian of the Balance of Power. Had
James stood forth to guarantee the Trace of Regensburg
and to protect the Low Countries by reviving the Triple
Alliance, he would assuredly not have seen his dominions
invaded by a Dutch fleet. Yet it is not very easy
to understand what prevented him from taking this
course. Still more perplexing is the course he took in respect
to the Revocation, Why did he shock the feelings of his
people by openly betraying his sympathy ¦with the perse
cutor and his antipathy to the persecuted Huguenots ?
As we have seen, the persecution was not the act of a
Popish Power, nor was it approved by the Pope; it was
the act of a new Henry VIII, who desired to give proof
of his dogmatic orthodoxy at the moraent that he took the
lead in a new national schisra. As a Papist therefore
James was under no obhgation to countenance the Dragon-

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION, 261
nades and the Revocation. But further he had taken up a
position in ecclesiastical policy which absolutely required
him to (Hscountenance thera in the most emphatic manner ;
nay, he might almost have felt indebted to his cousin of
France for giving bim the opportunity of sho^wing once for all
how much he detested persecution. For religious toleration
was the principle to which his whole reign was devoted.
He was soon to stand before his people hand-in-glove with
the Quaker William Penn, and his assertions of the
barbarous and unchristian wickedness of all penal laws and
exclusions on the ground of religion are so sweeping that
they remind us of Cromwell and Milton, and might for a
moment tempt us to regard him as a sincere and admirable,
if too unpractical, enthusiast. Never had a royal apostle
of religious toleration a better opportunity than in the
year of the Dragonnades and of the Revocation, which was
also the year of his o^wn accession. And he did begin
by favouring the charitable collections that were made
in England for the Huguenots. But soon after (in May,
1686) he caused the book of the Huguenot Claude, in
which the story of tbe wrongs of his community was
told, to be burnt by the hangman, alleging in Council
that kings were bound to stand by one another. He
also contrived to defraud the Huguenot exiles of the
relief which English charity had provided for them by
requiring them to qualify themselves by taking the
sacrament according to the forms of the Church of
England. In the flrst year of his reign Jaraes II stood before
the world as a prince who had shown such steadfast
resolution and had corae triumphantly through such severe
trials that it was possible to regard hira as a great man
destuied to do great things. He seemed to represent the

262 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
principle of toleration, which since Cromwell's time had
taken deep root in England and was beginning to be the
watchword of all intellectual men everywhere, revolted
by the horrors of the Dragonnades. The Huguenot re
fugees could not plead their own cause without acknow
ledging at the same time that James had a right to claim
toleration for the Catholics in England. Bayle from
Rotterdam blessed the new reign in these words : " This
new king's -wise behaviour moderates aHke the fear
and the hope of the different parties. He adheres
openly for his o^wn part to the Roman Catholic Church,
but at the same time promises to leave to the Anglican
Church its property and rights. This is the (Hgnified
attitude of a king who follows the (Hctates aHke of his own
conscience and of justice and equity to others. Here we
see courage blended ¦with a sagacious policy," These re
flexions were suggested by the event of the second Sunday
after tbe death of Charles II, when James caused mass to
be celebrated with open doors in the chapel of WhitehaU,
We may see that to the philosopher James seems to
exhibit a striking and admfrable contrast to Louis, The
latter is at once intolerant and schismatic, and both in an
extreme degree ; the other claims for himself personally
the right of belonging to the church which had the title of
Catholic; but allows Anglicans to be Anglicans, as later
he proposed to allow Dissenters to be Dissenters and even
Quakers to be Quakers.
This was indeed the right course for James. In
the strength of here(Htary right he had already defeated
the Exclusion Bill. He possessed another taUsman in
the principle of toleration, and by means of this he
might have hoped in due time to repeal the Test Act.
It was perhaps not impossible for him to achieve the

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION, 263
establishment of the Roman Catholic Church as a tolerated
and influential sect in England under sorae general system
of toleration. But the in(Hspensable con(frtion of success
was that he should (Hstinguish his policy sharply from that
of Louis XIV and place himself at the head of the op
position to Louis in Europe, What tbe English people
vaguely called Popery contained in reality two systems not
only (Hfferent but at that crisis openly hostile to each
other. The one was not properly Popery at all but Gal-
hcanism, and the head of it was Louis XIV ; the head of
the other might be said to be Pope Innocent XI, and the
principal members of it were the Emperor and the King of
Spain. This latter system was just at that moment raore
incHned to toleration than Popery has usually been. Let
us imagine James attachuig himself resolutely to the party
of the Pope and the House of Habsburg. In that case he
¦would have made it the main object of his foreign policy
to maintain the cause of Christendom against the Turk,
whom the Germanic Powers were at that moment engaged
in driving out of Hungary. It was open to him to render
a most important service to the cause of Christendom
by bid(Hng Louis desist from pushing his encroachments
in the season of common danger upon tbe Rhine and in
the Low Countries. This course would have been at
the same time most agreeable to English and also to
Roman Catholic feeling. It would have saved the Roman
Church from a new schism and at the same tirae it would
have saved the Protestant Republic frora destraction. It
Would have led to a close and cordial faraily alliance
between James and William and Mary, It would have
made James necessary to the Dutch, In these cfrcum
stances even the EngHsh people would have forgiven a
good many minor encroachments upon thefr liberties

264 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
to a sovereign who would have been the champion of
the Balance of Power and the protector at the same time
of the Reformation and of the Pope, the raore so as, being
the charapion of toleration, he would have gratified thefr
feelings by eagerly relieving and protecting the Huguenots.
The do-wnfall of Jaraes was due not simply to his being a
Papist or to his openly maintaining the cause of Popery,
It was due to his adopting the French systera of Catho
licism, which ought not to be called Popery, and to his
leaning on the whole to the French side in the European
struggle. If we take the insular view of the reign of James, it
falls evidently into two periods. For there is the period
when he endeavours to introduce Catholicism by means of
the Anglican Church, and this is followed by a period in
which he breaks with the Anglican Church and tries to
introduce Catholicism by means of the Dissenters and
under cover of a general toleration.
In like manner if we take the European view of the
reign we find it falling into two periods. There is first
tbe period in which it seems possible that James may see
his true interest and take the side of Europe and the Pope
and WilHam against Louis. This is followed by the period
in which this hope is abandoned, when Jaraes is seen to
favour France on the whole, and when suspicion, as was
natural, goes beyond the reality and represents him as
engaged in an actual conspfracy -with Louis against the
Hberties of Europe.
It soon appeared that the obstinacy of James was not
accompanied by any distinctness of views. He was not
clever enough to (frsentangle his religious policy from the
family policy to which he had gro-wn accustomed. We are
to remember that he was by bfrth half a Bourbon, that he

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION, 265
had imbibed his religious ideas in a great degree from
French people, from his mother and his sister, that his
brother had set him the example of endeavouring to in
troduce Catholicism into England by means of a French
alliance, and that his brother had shown him that the way
to defy public opinion was to lean on the French king.
That he should abide by this system, to which he was
accustoraed, after his accession to the throne, shows only
that he was not observant or intelligent enough to perceive
that the world was altered since the days of the Treaty of
Dover. Charles had been quick to perceive such things,
and we can imagine that, had he lived to see the decisive
struggle of Louis against Europe, he would have been
found on the side of William and the House of Habsburg.
James no doubt differed from Charles in being an avowed
Catholic, and probably reasoned that, being committed to
a struggle with his people and Parliament, he could not
do -without the aid of Louis. That the Roman Catholic
world, headed by the Pope, was opposed to Louis, that the
author of the Revocation was in reality not a good Roman
Catholic but a schismatic, and that therefore, by a rare
good fortune, it was open to the King of England to appear
as a good Englishman and as a good Catholic at the sarae
trine, such refinements seera to have been beyond the
comprehension of James. He was surrounded by Jesuits
of the sarae school as those who were leading Louis into
schism, for it is a remarkable fact that the Jesuit order
in this period is found working against the Pope — and
accordingly he does not succeed in making hiraself really
a Papist, but only a sort of GalHcan. It is a singular
spectacle. The Pope looks on coldly and quarrels -with
James' representative, Lord Castlemaine, though James
offers to bring England back to the fold of the Church,

266 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
just as at the same time Louis, offering French Cal-vinism
as a sacrifice to Catholic unity, is regarded by the Pope as
a most dangerous and cruel enemy of the Church.
The crisis in Europe was rapidly approaching. It
might almost seem that nothing remained for Louis but
to pluck the ripe fruit that hung within his reach. He
had but to choose his opportunity and decide upon his
pretext. He was far stronger now than in the days of
Niraeguen, when he had already seemed irresistible. For
now he had possession of Strasburg and Luxemburg and
of the reunited territory. Now too all the military force
of Germany was (fra-wn off eastward to fight the Turks in
the plains of Hungary. What shape the final crisis would
take was evident enough. A new European war would
begin. The armies of Louis would take the field again,
and a war would commence which would leave Louis
supreme in Germany, perhaps also in the Low Countries,
and would reduce the Dutch to dependence.
The danger was extreme, and yet there were some
signs that Louis had already allowed the favourable
moment to pass by. Already he was not quite the su
preme figure in Europe that he had been before 1683.
Why had he allowed King John of Poland to relieve
Vienna ? Why had not the armies of France marched in
1683 against the infidel, as twenty years earlier they had
taken a conspicuous share in Montecuculi's great victory
at St Gothard ? The title of Roman Emperor had been
associated from of old with the defence of Christendom
against the barbarian. It would have been well earned
by a victory of Louis XIV over Kara Mustafa under the
walls of Vienna. But now Christendom had been saved,
and Louis was not there ! Nor only so. Ever since 1683
the war against the Turk had proceeded, and it had pro-

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION. 267
duced for the first time in three centuries a series of
triumphs of the Cross over the Crescent. This series,
which began in 1683, was to extend over fourteen years,
until by the Treaty of Carlowitz a wholly new relation was
introduced between Christendom and Islam, and the de
cline of the Porte began. Tbe Germanic Powers with
Austria at their head achieved this great triumph. Louis
XIV had no share in it, but took advantage of tbe war to
push his encroachments on the German frontier. Prac
tically he acted as an ally of the Turk against Christendom.
At the moment before us he was entering upon this course.
His power was certainly at its height, but his glory was
afready tarnished. An age had begun in which the great
victories were not those of the king of France, but those
of the Germanic Powers in Hungary.
Now came the Dragonnades and the Revocation, giving
quite a new aspect to tbe French ascendancy. Coupled with
the attack of Louis upon the Pope, which was simultaneous,
they made him seem a public enemy, a scourge at once
to the Protestant and to the Catholic worM. One very
definite effect was speedily produced. After the Peace of
Nrineguen the Great Elector had been won to France.
This was not very surprising at a tirae when Louis was
stUl looked to by Protestant Powers as a patron. From
Louis the Hohenzollem hoped for aid against Sweden, his
closest enemy. But his -views were changed by the Re
vocation. He made his country an asylum for French
refugees whose influence has perhaps ever since been more
perceptible at Berlin than in any other capital. He re
conciled himself speedily with the Emperor, and Louis
XIV lost the only great ally he still possessed — except
the King of England.
The European crisis actually arrived in 1688, It is

268 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
always difficult to discern in history the events which
(Hd not happen, though they were intended to happen and
seemed at the moraent almost certain to happen ! What
the reader sees is only that Louis, so incorrigibly ambitious,
made in 1688 sorae new clairas which led to a general
war, but that at this tirae he was soraewhat less successful
than formerly, and that after nine years he made peace on
terras which left the system of Europe much where it had
been. This was indeed what happened, but it was far
(frfferent from what was intended by Louis to happen. It
is our business here to point out the chief cause of his
failure. The crisis arrived precisely in the maimer that might
have been expected. We have been accustomed hitherto
to think of the French and Spanish Monarchies as the two
great rivals in Europe. It is otherwise now. Since the
Reunions France stands face to face -with the Empfre.
The encroachments of France have been so successful that
they are not likely to come to an end -with the Trace of
Regensburg. Louis assuredly will advance new claims,
and it may be anticipated that he will advance them soon,
for Austria is rising every year in power and pride, as
she wins new victories over the Porte, A process begins
which has often been -witnessed, which has been witnessed
in our o-wn age. France and the Empire drift ¦with a fatal
rapidity towards war, and everything which either party
does to prevent war has only the effect of bringing war
nearer. A demise takes place in the Palatinate, which
gives Louis a pretext for advancing territorial claims in
behalf of his brother, the Duke of Orleans, married since
the death of Henrietta Stuart to the Palatine Princess
Elizabeth Charlotte. The new Elector Palatine, of a
collateral branch, exerts hiraself to rally the Germanic

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION. 269
Powers in resistance to this claira. The Emperor is his
son-in-law, A League of Augsburg is formed, in which
some Germanic princes unite with the Eraperor for this
purpose. Even within the Empire it is but a partial
union, for the Great Elector himself is not a meraber, nor
does it extend beyond the Empire, since the King of
Sweden, though a meraber, adheres to it only in respect
of his Germanic possessions. But this union provokes
Louis to make new aggressions, to build new fortifications,
and to demand the conversion of the Truce into a de
finitive peace. The Empire however is no longer in fear
of the Turk, and the great Hohenzollem has retumed to a
national policy. The Germanic Powers begin to feel that
they have made concessions enough. Tbe French demand
is rejected, and war approaches visibly nearer.
Everything now depends on England, and as we have
seen, James II ought, not only as King of England but
even as a CathoHc prince, to have stepped forward eagerly
ia defence of Europe against France. He (Hd not do this,
but neither does he appear to have decided upon the op
posite course. He seems to have no policy adapted to the
special emergency, but to abide by the policy which his
brother had originally devised in 1669, when all the cfr
cumstances were different, and had fallen back upon again
in 1681 simply because he could not help it. We see hira
still forming an array, which he officers with CathoHcs, in
other words defying public opinion. But to defy public
opinion, that is Parliaraent, with success he needed the
support of France. And so the great continental poli
ticians, who were anxiously preparing for the European
crisis, could not but come to the conclusion that in that
crisis James would not oppose France and therefore might
probably assist France. An opinion grew up that Louis

270 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
and James had a close secret understan(Hng. They judged
of the coming event by the event of 1672, and believed
that when the armies of France took the field the English
fleet would cooperate ¦with them.
The maxim ' He that is not ¦with me is against me ' is
necessarily adopted in extreme crises. James however
does not seem really to have formed any resolution or to
have had any distinct intention. He continued from
habit to favour France in the main, but as to the coming
European crisis his raind seems to have been, if we may
judge from his occasional utterances, to abstain from
interference. Preoccupied ¦with the domestic straggle
upon which he had entered, he (frd not feel able to inter
fere with effect. And though he by no means regarded
himself as a vassal of France, yet opposition to France
seemed pecuharly impossible to him. Accordingly his
action, where he is forced to action, leans to the French
side, and this seemed so unnatural in an EngHsh king in
the then cfrcumstances of Europe, that the general
suspicion of a secret alliance was strengthened. Thus in
May, 1687, the Emperor in^vites him to guarantee the
Trace of Regensburg. At the moraent that trace was on
the point of being set aside by the strained interpretations
of Louis and by his new encroachments, James consults
Louis on the proposal, and is told that the guarantee will
be welcome provided it is given in such form as to confirm
all the strained interpretations contained in the French
declaration of March, He frames his answer to the
Emperor accordingly; it is rejected as derisory, and
conveys the impression that in the great European
question of the day the King of England goes with
France. In any case it was clear that he would not oppose

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION. 271
France. Now the active opposition of England to French
encroachment was wanted, and might fairly be counted on
if only the king's influence were removed. The Great
Elector had been gained already ; he had been decided by
the persecution of the Huguenots, and the sarae event had
roused the English people to indignation. It was certain
that any Parliament that could be summoned in England,
whether it were Anglican or a Parliament of Dissenters
convoked to repeal the Test Act, would call with equal
ardour for resistance to France. Could but the English
nation have its way, and the times of Cromwell or of
EHzabeth retum, it might be hoped that the danger
which hung over Europe would be averted. For these
aggressions of France since 1668 had been made possible
only by the connivance of England ; they would probably
be checked as soon as that connivance should cease.
It thus became the interest of half Europe that a
change of government should take place in England. For
many years the condition of that country had been revolu
tionary, but the revolution which had begun in 1670 had
from the outset received its impulse from abroad. There
came now from abroad an overwhelming impulse to decide
it in a particular way. The leaders of this second English
revolution were not, as of the first, members of Parliaraent
and popular agitators, but foreign statesmen. The plan of
it was devised in consultations between the Dutch Stadt
holder and the politicians of the States-General or the
States of Holland or the town of Arasterdam, or between
the Dutch Stadtholder and the Great Elector and the
Duke of Brunswick- Liineburg, and the representatives of
the House of Habsburg and of the Pope.
To this predicament has the English Monarchy been
brought — by what cause ? Not purely by the CathoHcising

272 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
disposition of Charles II and James II, This (Hsposition
by itself, when it became so headstrong as it appeared in
Jaraes II, would certainly have created a vast disturbance,
perhaps a rebellion. But it would not by itself have
brought about precisely the Revolution of 1688. For it
would not by itself or necessarily have (friven Jaraes to
lean to the side of France in the European crisis. It
might just as easily have inclined him to take the opposite
side, in which case WilHam could scarcely have made his
raeraorable expe(Htion.
In truth the CathoHcising (frsposition itself was only
one effect of the faraily atraosphere in which both Charles
and James had gro^wn up, and tbe same atmosphere
inclined thera to a family alHance -with France. Thus
the ultimate cause of the Second English Revolution is to
be found in the marriage of Charles I to Henrietta Maria,
which gave to the next generation of our kings a tinge not
merely of Catholicism but of French CathoHcism. From
this marriage came the reaction, which, after a national pohcy
had been sketched by Elizabeth, and established for a time
under the Coraraonwealth and the Protectorate, restored
that older form of policy which we call dynastic. England
sees herself approaching a European crisis, and knows
perfectly well what part she ought to play and would like
to play in it. But she bas a govemment which has
wholly different ideas. And these ideas, when we examine
them, are found to be traceable to family influences. . The
royal family is intimately connected with the House of
Bourbon, has imbibed its religious -views, is accustomed to
look to it for aid and advice. Unfortunately the time has
arrived when the House of Bourbon is no longer regarded
by Englishmen as in the time of Mazarin or of Henry IV,
Its position in Europe has been wholly altered. Almost

THE STUART DYNASTY AND THE NATION. 273
all English parties, the Catholics included, now regard it
-with animosity. Almost all desire to see England arrayed
against it in the approaching straggle.
The time has therefore arrived when the national
policy and the dynastic policy are violently opposed to
each other.

s. n. ^^

PART V.
WILLIAM III AND THE COMMERCIAL
STATE.

CHAPTER I.
THE REVOLUTION.

For about half a century we have found the condition
of England for the most part revolutionary. Between
1638 and 1688 there had been very few years, only perhaps
a year or two in the age of Clarendon, when the people
could enjoy a feeling of security. A second Revolu
tion had -visibly commenced only ten years after the
Restoration of the Monarchy, and between 1670 and
1688 there had been but occasional pauses in the danger
ous and portentous struggle. The fickleness and turbulence
of the English nation had become proverbial in Europe,
and contrasted remarkably -with the profound internal
repose, the unity gro-wing ever more complete, of the
French. The English, says Torci, are a nation dont la
le'gerete est connue; ils changent souvent d'iddes.
This peculiarity was now to disappear. A state of
things was to emerge which would be definitive. The
lightness, the disposition to change, was henceforth to be

THE REVOLUTION. 275
confined -within strict limits, and a framework both of
institutions and policy was to be devised which would
remain for a very long time exempt from -violent or sudden
change. It was as if the period of growth came to an end and
the fixed and mature stage of national Hfe began. In
constitutional history the Revolution of 1688 is recognised
as the all-important epoch. It is scarcely less so in the
history of policy. The gro-wth of policy is completed at
the same time as the growth of the constitution.
It reraains to us then only to mark the change
produced by the Revolution upon policy, and to point out
how decisive the change was, and how definitive the new
state of things introduced by it.
Our thread of narrative has long been growing thinner
and thinner almost in proportion as occurrences have
gro-wn raore multitudinous and intricate. In the confused
revolutionary history of the period between 1670 and 1688
we have fixed our eyes upon one point only, and have
contented ourselves with remarking bow exceptionally
close throughout is the connexion between English and
Continental affairs. Now that we reach the consuraraation
of the Revolution, commonly called the Revolution itself,
by the expedition of William, we renounce not only the
pretension of gi-ving a full narrative but even the attempt
to give any narrative at all. This concluding part wUl
consist simply of such observations on the change of
govemraent effected by WilHara, and the new state of
things introduced by it, as our peculiar point of view
suggests. This point of view presents to us a characteristic of
the Revolution which is overlooked by those who take the
constitutional point of view. How often is this second
18—2

276 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
English Revolution compared to the first, and the points
of (frfference between them reckoned up ! 'It was
bloodless, it was final. It introduced a long period of
prosperity. All these happy characteristics it derived
from the moderation with which it was conducted and
frora the care -with which innovation was restricted to the
strictly necessary and the new was grafted on to the old,'
So much we see from the insular point of -view. But from
the intemational point of -view we perceive another
momentous characteristic of a wholly (Hfferent kind. This
second Revolution involved, us in a great war -with France,
which lasted eight years and proved the first of a long
series of similar wars with France.
There is no greater transition in our whole international
history than this, the last transition we shall deal with.
In the long period we have traversed war between England
and France, in spite of the tra(Htion of rivalry handed
do-wn from Plantagenet times, has been extremely rare;
the normal relation between the two states has been one
of concert. During the same period a state of war has
been on the whole unusual for England, and her wars have
rarely lasted longer than a year or two. We enter now
upon a different age. Frora this tirae through the whole
eighteenth century and in the nineteenth dowTi to the fall
of Napoleon, England and France wage war periodically,
and thefr wars are on a great scale and of long duration.
In this age England is more usually at war than at peace,
and her principal enemy is alraost always France.
This transition was raade at the Revolution of 1688,
and was as much the effect of it as the settlement of our
constitution. In what way the Revolution could produce this effect
•will have been made clear to the reader by our examination

THE REVOLUTION, 277
of the reign of James II. Had it been provoked simply by
the inclination of James to Popery and arbitrary power its
results might have been simply internal and constitutional.
But we have shown that James blended together two ideas
which had no natural affinity, an inclination to Popery and
an adhesion to France at the very moment when the
greater part of Europe was leagued together in a desperate
resistance to France. The result was that the English
struggle was inextricably blended -with the European
straggle. The change of government in England at the
beginning of 1689 has therefore two wholly differertt
aspects. Looked at from the insular point of -view it
seems like a happier repetition of the Great Rebellion, an
assertion of English liberties made -with remarkable success
and -with praiseworthy moderation. But look at it from
the European point of view, and it makes a surprisingly
(Hfferent impression. It now appears to be a struggle
inside a straggle. The question at issue now appears to be
not the liberties of England but the liberties of Europe,
not the cause of Protestantism in these islands but the
cause of Protestantism all over the world. The tjrrant
resisted now appears to be not James II but Louis XIV,
of whom James is but a subaltern. In this resistance
WUHam takes the lead not simply because he is the
husband of her who claims the succession to the English
crown, but because he had long been the champion of
Protestantism and of the liberties of Europe against French
ascendancy. And his expedition to England now appears
not as the first act of an English (frama, but as the
second act of a European drama, as a strategic measure
belonging to a universal war which had broken out two
months earlier, when Louis after four years of delay struck
at last the decisive blow and poured his armies into

278 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Germany. This being perceived, we are prepared to find
that the EngHsh Revolution is, not so much followed by as
in(Hstinguishable and inseparable from, a grand war be
tween England and France.
James had probably no fixed purpose of aiding France,
but in the extreme tension of all intemational relations at
that moraent it was impossible for him to maintain a
middle or neutral position. He was first suspected of ad
hering to France, and then the suspicion itself left him no
choice but to adhere to France. In his flight from England
at the Christmas-tide of 1688 and again in his flight from
Ireland after the Battle of the Boyne he retfres to France
as to his home. He attaches himself to the House of
Bourbon as a poor relation. He passes his latter years and
dies in France, as his mother had done before him. In the
straggle against the new Govemment of England he plays
on the whole quite a secondary part ; it is against Louis
rather than against James that William and Mary have to
defend their crown.
How James regarded continental affafrs may appear
from the following passage in bis Memofrs, in which he
gives his reason for bolcfrng aloof from the gathering
coalition : ' The King (besides the little inclination he had
to fall out with a Prince his near relation and ancient friend)
having the prospect of enjoying a perfect peace and free
trade, when all his neighbours should be engaged in war,
made him give no ear to the earnest solicitations of the
Emperor's and King of Spain's ambassadors, who pressed
him violently to enter into this confederacy; besides his
Majesty looked upon the imagination of a universal Mon
archy (with which they strove to fright him as a thing
aimed at by France) as a fantastical (fream, both impolitic
and impracticable, as appeared by Charles V and Philip II,

THE REVOLUTION. 279
but that were it otherwise, the situation of England stiU
secured it so well against a French, or any other encroach
ment, that neutrality was its trae interest; which raade
his Majesty grasp at this occasion of eating out the Dutch,
the kingdom's rivals in trade, rather than to eat out his
own people's bowels in the defence of that Comraonwealth,
which never failed to leave thefr allies in the lurch at the
least faint appearance of advantage by it.*
Even this -view is so frankly indifferent to the interest
of Europe and hostile to the Dutch that it might have led
the Dutch people to regard a complete change of policy in
England as necessary to their safety; and accordingly
James goes on to say that William 'persuaded the Emperor
and the King of Spain that there was no other mode of
forcing the King of England into the League, and that he
had no further aim in the undertaking,' and again that
'all those fair pretences of asserting the people's liberties
and securing thefr religion were but introductory to and a
cloak to the real design of executing the ends of the
confederacy in general and to serve his own ambition and
insatiate thirst after empire in particular.' But in fact
there were serious reasons to fear that James would not
rpst content with thus ' eating out the Dutch ' by sup
planting them in trade while they waged war -with Louis,
but would actually join Louis against them.
As early as the summer of 1686 a paper recomraending
a joint attack by England and France upon the United
Provinces, such as that which had been made in 1672, was
brought to the notice of James. It did indeed excite his
in(Hgnation, but at least it betrayed what thoughts were
passing through the minds of those who considered inter
national affairs.
At this time too the quarrel between the royal House

280 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
of Denmark and its younger branch of Holstein-Gottorp
was beginning. The question concemed the sovereignty
of Schleswig. The King of Sweden, as so often in a later
age, sided with the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. He threat
ened to invade Denmark with 20,000 men. Denmark was
at this time in close alliance -with France, and, as we have
seen, had lately allied itself by marriage with England.
Sweden on the other band was now opposed to France, and
allied with the Emperor and with the Dutch Republic.
It was usual for England to consider herself closely in
terested in these disputes, which might affect the freedom
of her access to the Baltic. Hence there was talk of a
joint interference of England and France in favour of
Denmark, As the Dutch would be on the opposite side,
this affafr seemed likely to furnish the occasion for the
apprehended repetition of the corabined action of 1672
against the Dutch,
Many signs appeared to indicate the approach of this
event. Early in 1688 Jaraes, instigated by Louis, recalled
the English regiments which had remained in the Dutch
ser-vice since the year of the Treaty of Nimeguen. These
regiments were the only remaining vestige of that family
alliance of William and Charles which in 1678 had caused
so much anxiety to Louis. The recall of them seemed a
significant step in the gradual prPcess by which England
was passing over to the side of France.
There must surely be a secret understanding between
the two Powers ! If any foreign politician, William or the
Emperor or the Great Elector, still doubted it, must not
his doubts have been removed when on Septeraber 9th,
1688 — just as war was on the point of breaking out —
D'Avaux on behalf of Louis presented at the Hague a
meraorial declaring that 'the bonds of friendship and

THE REVOLUTION. 281
alliance were so strict between his Most Christian Majesty
and the King of England that he thought hiraself not only
obliged to assist hira, but should look upon any act of
hostihty done either by sea or land against his Majesty of
Great Britain, as a raanifest rupture of the peace with his
crown.' In this note, presented before William's expedi
tion, we see the first indication of the grand war, which
was approaching, between France and England. At the
same tirae it could not but convince all Europe that, so
long as Jaraes reigned, he would commit England to a
policy, not of mere neutrality, but of active concert with
France. It made a revolution in England necessary to the
cause of Europe. And thus WilHara acqufred quite a new
and much greater position. His right to interfere in the
domestic politics of England had been at the outset purely
personal It could not of course be questioned that, as a
member of the EngHsh royal family and as husband to the
hefress of the three kingdoms, he had a right to protest
against conduct on the part of James which might en
danger his wife's rights and his own, and in the extrerae
case to interfere by decisive action. But he was not a King
in the United Provinces.
The Dutch army and the Dutch fleet were indeed
under his command, but they did not belong to him. They
could not be used for his personal or faraily objects, as the
French army and fleet, for example, not only could be, but
habitually were, used for the honour and glory of Louis
XIV. It would seem then that if he took action in the
English question he must act as Monmouth had so recently
done. He must appear in England at the head of a few
personal followers and trust almost entirely to the support
he might receive from the English malcontents. For such
an expedition the fate of Monmouth afforded an evil omen,

282 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY,
and, Monmouth's invasion had itself furnished the King
with a pretext for keeping on foot a considerable army.
In the face of this army it was not so easy for the mal
contents to make a successful rising. James had actually
attained a position not wholly unlike that of Cromwell,
whose military force raised him far above the fear of a
popular insurrection.
The prospect would be different if William could enter
England at the head of a considerable .military force.
Such a force would hold in check the array of James,
corapel it to assemble at a given point and detain it there.
This would give room and opportunity for insurrection to
break out in all parts of the country, and if in this way the
country should declare itself in favour of the invader the
King's army might probably take tbe infection of the
universal feeling. How then could William obtain the
control of an army and a fleet ?
An army and a fleet were there, and he was afready in
coraraand of thera. But they belonged to the Dutch.
And at this critical raoment of the Republic, when it was
expecting the last irresistible attack of Louis XIV, the
force would scarcely be handed over to the personal
use of the Stadtholder. The Dutch assuredly wanted for
their o-wn protection all and more than all thefr railitary
and naval force. Yes, but the movement in England and
the raovement in Europe were inseparably connected; they
were one and the same. The overthrow of James, so
ardently desfred in England, was desfred by the Dutch too;
nay more, it was even more urgently necessary to the
' Dutch than to the English. In England the tyranny of
James was not unendurable, and the country had learned
heartily to dislike revolutions. But in Holland it seemed
indispensably necessary that James should fall ; no other

THE REVOLUTION. 283
event, they thought, could save them and their religion
from destruction. And thus, by a raarvellous coincidence,
William, as an English prince and as consort of tbe
hefress of England, desfred for family reasons and for
English reasons to appear in England at the head of an
armed force and at the sarae tirae the United Provinces
saw no hope for their independence and religion but in
invading England -with their fleet and army, and of this
fleet and army William himself happened to be the
commander. Still great difficulties remained to be surraounted. At
first it appeared that such strategy was too circuitous in
such a raoment of extreme need. Louis stood there, about
to give marching orders to his overwhelming force. In
a week or two the Rhine might be passed as in 1672
and the Provinces overrun by French armies. Ought they
to fimd the country denuded of troops, the Dutch army and
the Dutch general engaged in England and perhaps unable
to make thefr way back ? It raight seem that the Eng
Hsh expedition must be postponed, and yet to postpone it
might be equivalent to giving it up.
This difficulty was removed in a manner which wore
the aspect of a divine intervention, yet which is after all
expHcable enough. Louis, who had just made so im
perious a declaration at the Hague, opened the European
war in the same month, but opened it not by an attack on
the Dutch but by pouring bis armies across the German
frontier. Though it was in his power by a single well-
arined stroke to frustrate all the designs of William, he not
only did not do so, but involved himself so deeply in
another war as to lose the power of acting against
William. The sequel no doubt proved this step to be an
frreparable blunder. But, as our narrative bas sho-wn, a

284 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY,
war with the Empfre, and not a war -with the Dutch, was
the goal towards which Louis had been steadily travelling
ever since the Peace of Nimeguen. This had long occupied
his mind, and had been practically commenced by the
Reunions and by the seizure of Strasburg. From this
mighty results were to be expected, nothing less than
an unbounded ascendancy of France in Central Europe;
this too would not brook much delay, but must per
emptorily be taken in hand before the Germanic Powers
should have settled accounts with the Turk. This war too
was in a ripe state of preparation, all the preHminary
steps had been taken, the pretexts chosen, the legal case
presented to Europe, and diplomacy was now on the poriit
of making way for strategy. There was not only the
preteijsion of the Duke of Orleans to a share in the
succession of the Palatinate but a really important dispute
about the election to the archbishopric of Cologne, a
dispute so important that Louis could hardly have re
frained from urging it by arms without tacitly abandoning
the attitude which he had now maintained for ten years
towards Germany. At that moment and from his point
J of view this German question could not but seem to
him immeasurably larger than the question between
William and James. He was indeed alive to the dangerous
possibiliby that lay in that question, but such an unheard
of event as the dethronement of an English king by a-
foreign invader could scarcely seem more than a pos
sibility. In the cfrcumstances it is almost surprising
to observe not how insensible but how keenly alive to
the danger Louis showed himself He committed no
oversight. He sent Bonrepaux to England in this very
month of September to offer an alliance of mutual defence
against the Germans and the Dutch, A little later he

THE REVOLUTION. 285
offered to abandon the siege of Philippsburg, which was
formed, and to throw his whole force upon Holland.
Actually he declared war upon the Dutch Republic in the
month of November.
The fault lay with James rather than with Louis,
James came to the throne -with a character for decision
and firmness which gave the impression that at least he
knew his o-wn mind. He seems indeed to have persuaded
himself that his brother had owed his trials and his father
his ruin to their facility in making concessions. Ac
cordingly he adopted a system of obstinacy. But behind
the resolute pose which was so new in the Stuart family
was concealed the same want of grasp, the same helpless
ness, that had marked Charles I. The indistinctness of view,
which had already led him to confuse adhesion to Popery
-with adhesion to France, led him now at the critical
moment to embarrass himself between two irreconcilable
courses of action. His brother had known how to avail
himself at need of France against his people or of his
people against France. James tried to obtain the aid
of both at once, and found himself accordingly in his
extremity left -without aid. He who had yielded so much
to Louis, was now eager to prove himself a true English
King. He took offence at D'Avaux's note, which seemed
to represent him as depending on French protection, he
rejected the proposal brought by Bonrepaux. He was
most unseasonably bent upon proving .that no secret
understaniHng existed between hiraself and Louis, when
matters had already gone so far that only French aid
energetically given could save him. The result was that
both his subjects and the Dutch acted with the energy of
despafr, as though they had to do with a conspfracy
of the two kings, and meanwhile there was no conspiracy

286 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
but only a kind of general agreement, the habitual s)Tn-
pathy of relatives.
We arrive at the memorable occurrence which is
cemmonly described as the Revolution, that is, the sailing
of the Dutch fleet from Helvoetsluys at the beginning of
November, its arrival in Torbay, the formation of the
association at Exeter, the king's refusal to call a Parlia
raent, his arrival in his army at Salisbury on November
19th, his retreat towards the capital, the defection of
Churchill and Grafton, the universal insurrection, the
decision of James to summon a Parliaraent for January
15th, the sending of Coraraissioners to negociate with
WilHara at Hungerford about the conditions under which
the new Parliaraent shall raeet, the despair of James and
his determination to take refuge, with the Queen and the
Prince of Wales, in France, the flight of the Queen and
Prince on December 9th, the flight of the king on December
10th, his detention and second flight, his arrival in France
on Christraas-day, This well-known story is not to be narrated again
here; it coraes before us only that we raay consider it
frora the intemational point of view.
It is the close of that adventure into which Charles II
led the House of Stuart when in 1669 he made the proposals
which were embodied a year later in the Treaty of Dover.
As was reraarked above, the original idea of Charles was
even wilder than that which James attempted with such
disastrous results to carry into effect, but it was sub
stantially the same. And between 1669 and 1688 this
idea never ceased to occupy the minds of English poH
ticians. When we look at it from the constitutional point
of view, we call it Popery and arbitrary power, and perhaps

THE REVOLUTION. 287
attribute it to a certain incurable hatred of liberty which
came to these kings -with their Stuart blood. Perhaps in re
ality their views were somewhat more defensive, soraewhat
less aggressive, than this theory assuraes. If they clutched
at a railitary force and a dispensing power, this was
perhaps rather frora the extreme difficulty of retaining any
power at all than from a desire for unlimited power.
However that may be, the constitutional point of -view only
reveals to us half the phenomenon. The other half of it,
equally observable at the coraraenceraent in 1669 and at
the catastrophe in 1688, is the steadfast gravitation of
both these kings towards France. And this bias is
evidently a family feeling, which coraes to them from
their mother, and which carries with it an inclination to
thefr mother's religion.
But when we survey the whole period we see that the
bias towards France was one thing under Charles and
quite another under James.
Charles in 1669 found that by the disasters of the
Dutch war, followed by the fall of Clarendon, his monarchy
had been undermined. He felt compelled by necessity to
devise something new. He formed a grandiose Macchia-
velHan scheme, which however included one prodigious
miscalculation. Now for the first tirae the Stuart Mon
archy began to lean, as we find it still leaning in 1688,
upon Louis XIV, But in 1669 Louis XIV was still
comparatively at his coramencements. His ascendancy
in. Europe was not yet universally felt; his peculiar
religious policy was not yet developed; the tradition
of the alliance of Cromwell and Mazarin was still recent,
Charles was a keen politician, and as little troubled by
principles, whether moral or religious, as his grandfather
Henry IV. If he had a sincere preference for Catholicism

288 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
he had no intention of being a raartyr to it ; rather
probably he expected to save his throne as Henry IV
had done, by a great recantation. But he soon became
aware of his error ; the recantation is dropped ; only a
family alliance with France remains ; and even this, when
once the irame(Hate object of crushing the republican go
vernment in the United Provinces has been attained, is
readily abandoned or regarded only as a second string to
the bow. If he falls back upon it in the last period of his
reign, this is but an expedient of despair.
James on tbe other band is the very reverse of a
politician. The course he takes on his accession is not in
any sense a scheme adapted to the actual condition of the
country or of Europe. It is but the old scherae, though
the aspect of Europe has by this time entfrely changed.
In his view there is indeed one grain of common sense.
He means to take advantage of the grand victory which
has been won for his cause by the defeat of the Exclusion
Bill. Parliament has pronounced decidedly for the heredi
tary principle. A Papist bas been allowed to mount the
throne, and without limitations imposed on his power. If
a Papist raay be king, surely inferior offices ought to
be tenable by Papists, surely the king's religion ought
to be tolerated, the king's worship ought not to remain
illegal. And the courage with which the king confessed
his faith before men, the frankness with which he took in
hand to give it a position in the country, commanded
respect. Many thinkers and philosophers all over Europe
favoured him so far. He was applauded by Bayle and by
William Penn.
But what had all this to do with adhesion to the side
of France ? James blended together two things whoUy
(frstinct, to all appearance simply from habit and because

THE REVOLUTION. 289
fifteen years earlier his brother had de-vised a plan for
introducing Popery by the aid of France. His muid, we
must suppose, had no penetration or grasp. It takes no
hold of the stupendous things which the Continent now
presented to it.
The alliance of Cromwell and Mazarin had now receded
Ulto a very dim distance. Louis XIV had now grown,
chiefly by the sufferance of England, into a potentate
similar to Charles V or Philip II. He seemed about
to subdue -with one hand the German Empfre, in which
the Treaty of Westphalia had given him a coraraanding
position, and -with the other the Spanish Monarchy, to
which he had acquired a pretension by the Treaty of the
Pyrenees. He had already given a deadly blow to the
Dutch Republic, which would probably sink into coraplete
dependence upon him as soon as the Spanish Low Countries
should be swallowed up.
It was a good deal for James to ask the English people
to repeal the Test Act and give toleration to the Cattolic
worship. But why ask thera at the same tirae to favour,
or at least not to oppose, these advances of Louis to
universal raonarchy ? The first appeal was based upon the
abstract principle of religious toleration. James professed
to find all forcing of conscience manifestly and shockingly
unchristian. He professed also to have no hostile designs
against Protestantism, But was France a tolerant Power ?
The Dragonnades were taking place at this very raoment,
so that the ascendancy of France now appeared to involve
the destruction of Protestantism on the Continent, and yet
James calmly inculcates toleration as a Christian duty
upon the English people and at the same time connives,
and forces them to connive, at the establishment of French
ascendancy abroad,
s. IL 19

290 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
' But he was a fanatic, and could think of but a single
thing, the advancement of his religion.* Even this state
ment does not adequately describe his policy, or want of
policy. It was not a single thing that he thought of,
but two opposite things which he thought of as one. For
it raust be repeated that France was at this very moment
breaking up the unity of the CathoHc faith, and introducing
a GaUican schisra. This fact was forced upon the notice
of James by the bearing of the Pope himself, who, so far
from rejoicing in the victory of the Church in France, as
the Popes of the Counter-reformation would have done,
stood before Europe in the attitude of a martyr, pointing
to Louis as to the great modem tyrant of the Church and
exclaiming, ' Plead thou my cause, 0 God.* If James could
not see this he must at least have been aware that Innocent
included him in the distrust and disapprobation -with
which he regarded Louis.
JJnder Charles the Stuart policy had had two factors,
Popery and concert with France, but the latter in larger
quantity; indeed the former had spee(Hly disappeared.
Under James Popery was raade prominent again, but it
was still blended with the French concert, and the mixture
was this time infinitely more mischievous and monstrous.
Strictly speaking, it was the French concert, and not
-* Popery, that caused the fall of James. In one word had
he but sided -with the Pope, he would not have fallen,
at least when and as he (Hd. For the side of the Pope
was at that crisis the side of William and the Great Elector
and the Emperor and the King of Spain. It was the
part of James, precisely as a Catholic King of England
asserting the right of English Catholics to toleration, — it
was his part to protest energetically against the Revocation
and also against the treatment of the Pope, it was his part

THE REVOLUTION. 291
to guarantee the Trace of Regensburg, and to prevent
Louis by resolute intervention from invading Germany.
In aU this he might have counted on the enthusiastic
support of Parliaraent. At the same time he would have
rendered himself necessary to the leaders of the European
CoaHtion, includuig William. Holding this position in
Europe, a position at once truly English, and strictly
Catholic, nay even Popish, he would on the one side not
have been deserted by his people, so tfred of revolutions,
on the other side he would not have been attacked by
WUliara nor by a Dutch fleet and army.
But thus to (frsentangle two things which had so Ion,?
been entwined together demanded a clear understanding,
a firm will, even an elevated character, A person so
or(Hnary as James alike in understanding, will and
character, (Hd not even perceive the inconsistency of
sympathising at the same time -with William Penn and
with the author of the Dragonnades, -with the Pope and
the modem Philip the Fair who was trampHng on the
Pope, with the Emperor who was dri-ving back the Turk
and the king who was so mischievously playing into the
hands of the Turk. And so he was left with scarcely a
friend in the worid but Louis XIV. At home the Tory
Danby signed his name by the side of the names Russell
and Sidney to the invitation to William : abroad Catholic
and Protestant Powers agreed in desiring his fall.
This is the one point in the Revolution of 168.8 which
concems us here. When we see that James was ruined
mainly by his concert -with Louis we perceive on the one
side the unity of the whole movement from 1669 tO 1688,
on the other we understand why the Revolution led, as a
matter of course, to a long war between England and
France,
19—2

292 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
The inclination to Popery and the inclination to France
both in Charles and James were but (Hfferent aspects
of the same family feeling, which was inbred in the
sons of Henrietta Maria and the grandsons of Henry IV.
And so the whole second Revolution of England may be
traced to the French marriage of Charles I, and may be
regarded as the resistance to a re-vival of dynastic poHcy,
Alike in 1672 and in 1688 the cause of discord is funda
mentally this, that the people call for a Protestant and
an Anti-GalHcan policy, while the king feels himself (frawn
by faraily ties to the House of Bourbon, This fact at the
same time explains what followed the change of govem
ment. There is in one respect a sharp contrast between
the first and the second English Revolution, In the
first Revolution nothing is more remarkable — we have
called attention to the fact above — than its insularity. It
is indeed full of the interaction of the insijlar kingdoms, it
is raainly a settlement of the relations of England, to
Scotland and Ireland. But foreign States, especially
France, have on the whole remarkably little influence upon
it and receive little influence from it. England has no
share in the Westphalian settlement ; on the other hand
neither France nor any other Power contributes much to
bring about the Restoration. Just the contrary in the
second Revolution. From first to last this is mainly a
(Hsturbance in the foreign relations of England. It
takes its rise in a treaty with France, the Treaty of
Dover. It first comes to light in a war -with the United
Provinces. In the long parliamentary struggle which
follows, foreign relations are the main topic, and foreign
states through thefr Ambassadors marshal votes against
each other in the House of Commons. At last the knot
is cut by a foreign prince, who crosses the Channel with a

THE REVOLUTION. 293
foreign fleet, lands an army in great part foreign upon the
English coast, and exhibits on his flag the words Pro libera
Parliamento et Protestante Religione, and undei-neatb the
Orange motto, Je maintiendrai.
As a foreign prince heads one party in the contest, we
should be prepared to flnd another foreign prince heading
the other. For in the question at issue even William was
not so decidedly the head of one party as Louis XIV was
head of the other. Jaraes had fallen, as we saw, not so
much in the cause of religion as in the cause of Louis
XIV. Accordingly when all hope for the present is lost
he does not take refuge with Dundee in Scotland or with
Tyrconnel in Ireland, but he goes after wife and child to
France, as to his horae.
As Louis XIV had taken a leading part through his
secret influence in the parliamentary struggle of Charles
H's time, because tbe struggle in England was but a part
of the European struggle, so for the sarae reason he must
take part in the English Revolution which broke out in
1688. It is Louis who has been attacked by WUliara in
England; Louis therefore- must resist him in England.
And thus a war of England and France sprang by
inevitable necessity out of the Revolution.
That is, it seemed necessary at the time, though the
sequel may be thought to show that Louis would have
provided better for his o-wn interests if he had abstained
from intervening in the English question. He had his
hands afready more than full on the Continent. It would
have been for him a great point gained if England would
but remain neutral. And he might conceivably have
enjoyed that good fortune if he had not himself forced
England to join the European Coalition. For the con
vulsion of the change of government would paralyse

294 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
England at least for a while. A reaction -visibly set in
when such questionable steps were taken as the dethroning
of a king and the making of another king by the Act of
Convention. It was raost doubtful whether William could
raaintain hiraself, and so long as he had to straggle with
disaffection here, he and his military force were subtracted
from the total of force against which Louis had to contend
abroad. He would -wish no doubt to bring his new
subjects to the help of his old countrymen ; but so long as
France afforded no pretext for war, would he not endanger
his precarious throne by raaking the suggestion ? Would
not the party of reaction, the clerical party and high
Tories, afready full of raisgiving at what had been done,
make an urmecessary and uncalled for war -with France a
reason for totally deserting his cause ?
But this is a retrospective -view. At the point of -view
where Louis stood at the end of the year 1688 no such
artful forbearance could seem possible to him.
In the flrst place he had pledged himself to intervene
by his declaration of September. Pledges of this sort
Louis was the last person to leave unredeeraed. He
belonged in general to an active, adventurous, under
taking school of politicians. He had of late carried this
system to such a length that be had issued a separate
defiance to alraost every Power in Europe, to the Emperor,
to the Germanic Body, to Sweden, not to speak of the
Spanish Monarchy and the United Provinces, which had
long since felt the full weight of his pride. He had defied
the whole Catholic world by his treatment of the Pope,
and then the whole Protestant world by the Dragonnade
and the Revocation. Why should he make a single
exception in favour of England ?
Mazarin indeed had had a wholesome fear of England,

THE REVOLUTION. 295
but the EngHsh army of Mazarin's day had been dissolved,
and Louis himself had hitherto not found it so difficult to
deal -with England. It was, like Poland, tom by factions,
and his experience taught that a little money judiciously
(Hstributed between the Government and the Opposition
effectually disabled it for the purpose of foreign policy.
There was as yet no reason to think that this disease was
likely to be healed. On the contrary faction was now
wilder than ever in the three kingdoms. Who could for
a moment believe that the enterprise of William, so
unprecedented, could succeed at least -within any moderate
period ? Little therefore would be risked by intervening
openly in favour of James. He was bound to it in
honour, and to honour was added knightly compassion
when a (Hstressed queen carrying a disinherited prince
appeared before his throne.
He had been at war with England before, in 1667, and
had thought little of it. He had no suspicion that he was
now dra-wing France into a series of mighty duels with
her old rival, which would cover much more than a
century. On the contrary he conteraplated an easy,
inexpensive war. For was not WUliara already sur
rounded by enemies ? France had but to furnish officers
and a little money, as forraerly in Portugal ; the rank and
file would be furnished by Ireland and by the clerical
party in England. Moreover WUliara could not do
without a Parliament, and a Parliament would take
French money.
True, these calculations were quite uncertain. It was
possible no doubt that William might carry everything
before hira, as indeed for the raoraent he appeared to do.
Louis might see his most resolute enemy, an experienced
statesman and general, at the head of one of the greatest

296 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
states. But in that case too intervention would be
politic, or rather prompt and decisive intervention would
be urgently necessary. For everything ought to be
hazarded in order to avert the danger of seeing English
fleets and armies put at the service of the Coalition,
which already included most of the Continental Powers.
It could already be seen that everything depended on the
course which England might take in the European ques
tion, and thus the whole fortune of Louis was staked upon
the success or failure of the English Revolution.
These calculations were plausible, and such as were
certain, when we consider the character of Louis XIV's
govemment, to prevail. Nevertheless they were not just,
and at the sarae time they were so important that they
altered the whole course of European history and had a
main share in determining the intemational character of
the eighteenth century.
In one word this French intervention, intended to
overthrow the Revolution, proved to be the one thing
which was capable of consolidating it, and at the same
tirae it had tbe effect of creating a new rivalry of England
and France such as had not existed for centuries, and
which was henceforth for a long time the dominant fact of
intemational politics.
To bring England into the field against Louis was no
doubt an object which from the outset had lain much
nearer the heart of WilHam than to set the English crown
on his own head. Yet he had not the slightest chance of
attaining this object by influence or persuasion. Had he
hinted at such a thing the reaction against him would
speedily have become overwhelming. The utmost he
could by himself accoraplish was to prevent England from
joining, as under James it might have done, the side of

THE REVOLUTION. 297
France, This possibility no doubt was extinguished once
for all by the Revolution. But there was in England so
much insular indifference, and so much natural ill-humour
against William himself, there was so much to do at home
in a time of revolution, that neutrality in the European
struggle might seem the course England would now be
most likely to adopt. A very serious probability, since
in that case the European cause would simply have lost
by the effect of the Revolution, at least for a long time, its
ablest champion, William himself, now detained in Eng
land! This (Hfficulty was removed in the most obliging and
effectual manner by Louis himself Whether England
would, or would not, corae to the rescue of Europe, was a
question which she was never called upon to decide or
even tp discuss. No choice was allowed her, unless she
was prepared to cancel all that she bad done after full
deliberation, at the dictation of Louis XIV. For he did
not think twice, as Mazarin had done in the first Revo
lution. Without hesitation he adopted the cause of
James, equipped him for Ireland, and took an active share
in arranging the dangerous civil war which now began.
The question was raised above what cause or causes
may have checked the progress of French ascendancy,
which between 1678 and 1684 had been so irresistible,
and yet thirteen years later at the Peace of Rys^wick
appeared plafrily to be an ebbing tide. Those causes begin
now to appear, and we can perceive that, after James II
himself, scarcely any ruler was ever more misguided than
Louis XIV at the sarae period, whUe he took the advice
of Louvois, The old statesmanship of the age of the
Oarduials has fallen out of use at the very time when the
harvest of thefr vast ideas falls to be reaped Louis has

298 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
defied almost all states at once and both religions, and
now at the crisis of his career, when in September 1688
he strikes the decisive blow, we can perceive signs of
conscious embarrassment. He doubts whether after all he
is really a match for all Europe at once ! He has been
led too far ! He is no Richelieu, no Napoleon, and bis
great adviser, Louvois, is a mere railitary specialist.
He began a war which lasted nine years, and which
alraost ruined France. It is the beginning of the decline
of the House of Bourbon. Probably he entered upon it in
the hope of gaining his objects, both in Gerraany and
afterwards in England, imraediately and in a single
campaign. He had just this chance. If he should meet
with steady resistance, he must fail in the end, and his
failure would be disastrous. But there was a possibihty
that his opponents would give way at once.
We see Europe assuming a new shape, but a shape it
was to retain for a very long tirae. The King of Spain
has altogether lost his preeminence, and has given place
to tbe King of France, as Saturn to Jove. On the other
hand the commencement of European war on a grand
scale in 1688 and 1689 is remarkably sirailar to the
comraenceraent of the great revolutionary war in 1792
and 1793. In both cases France overruns the ecclesi
astical territory on the Rhine and takes Mainz ; it also
advances into the Catholic Low Countries; a little later it
is found also at war with England,
France is now at the height of military efficiency and
reputation. For some time to come she will outshine her
opponents and ¦win victories. But this ¦will avail her
nothing unless she can speedily bring the war to an end.
For her resources are overstrained, and time is against
her.

THE REVOLUTION. 299
And first in Germany the indications are unfavourable
for France; Louis has let his opportunity slip. Forty
years have passed since the Peace of Westphalia, and a
still longer tirae since Gerraany was rained and depopu
lated in the Thfrty Years' War. As late as 1681, when
Louis seized Strasburg, she had shown little power of
resistance, and in 1683 the Turk had encamped before
Vienna. But now there was a new Germany ! She had
overthrown the Turk, and won for herself and for Christ
endom the great victory of the age. Belgrade was captured
at this very moment. Moreover the Hohenzollem was
now reconciled to the Habsburg, and that internal discord
which a few years earlier had paralysed her, as it paralysed
her again in the age of the French Revolution, was
appeased for the tirae.
Accordingly when the army of Louis, beginning with
the capture of Philippsburg, proceeded to overrun the
Palatuiate, to occupy Heidelberg and Mannheim, and
then, entering the ecclesiastical region, seized Mainz,
Bonn and other towns, what followed? The Gerraans
were in tirae tp save Coblence and Cologne, but the loss of
so many important positions was a blow which a few years
earlier might have inclined thera to subraission. Now
however they exerted themselves most successfully. The
Elector of Brandenburg retook Bonn with Rheinbergen and
Kaiserswertb, and the Duke of Lorraine formed the siege of
Mayence, and captured it with a French garrison of raore
than 10,000 raen. It began at once to appear that the
French were not prepared for resistance of this kind.
The devastation of the Palatinate was a confession of
weakness in the characteristic manner of Louvois. How
could France find troops enough to hold so many positions,
especially if she was to have a war with England too ? If

300 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
she could not hold them, she could destroy them, and so
Worms, Spiers, Mannheim, Heidelberg, with countless
¦villages were reduced to rains.
But would England resist ? Here at least Louis
might hope for an iraraediate and overwhelraing success.
For the country was convulsed with Revolution ; it might
seem irapossible that it should long acquiesce in the rule
of a Dutch conqueror. Ireland was already in adhesion
to Jaraes, who had there an array so nuraerous that
Schoraberg did not venture in 1689 to risk a battle. An
embittered struggle of Whigs and Tories took place in
the Convention Parliament, so that WilHam was obliged
to dissolve it suddenly in 1690, We are to bear in mind
that England was in those days so far from being mistress
of the sea that she was hardly considered equal as a naval
Power to France, which had recently been raised by
Colbert to the highest point of naval efficiency, and which
had now a most ambitious Minister of naval affafrs in
Colbert's son Seignelai.
Perhaps in the whole long period we have reviewed
there has been no moment, not even that of the Armada,
so critical for England as the summer of 1690, William
went to Ireland early in June. Shortly afterwards the
Battle of Beachy Head was fought. It may be regarded
as the commencement of the long series of naval actions
which ended at Trafalgar, But it was a -victory for
France, About the sarae time Luxemburg defeated
Prince Waldeck, commander of the Dutch in William's
absence, at Fleurus. What made these disasters so por
tentous was the fact that the new Govemraent had taken
no root in England, and that an overwhelming reaction
was but too probable. Thus writes Queen Mary, 'I
beHeve never any person was left in greater straits of all

THE REVOLUTION. .SOI
kinds.... I never wanted those who put me perpetually in
fear, Lord President himself (Danby, now Caermarthen)
once asking rae the question the king had put to rae
before he went, what I would do in case of any rising or
disturbance in the City, which they both thought likely to
happen.... 1 had prepared myself for the worst, and when
the king went believed it was likely we should never meet
more.... I knew there was nothing for me to trust to,
humanly speaking, when the king was gone. And cer
tainly if any rising had happened upon the appearing of
the French fleet, or had they landed after ours was beaten,
I had been in a very bad condition.' In this situation we
have only to suppose one more disaster, a defeat of
William in Ireland, or his defeat and death, and a strange
vista opens !
France might thus have obtained, on the side of
England at least, that rapid success which, as we have
seen, was necessary to her. James raight have been
restored, and England might have made a humiliating
peace. At the same time the fall of William might have
caused a revolution in the United Provinces, which raight
have obliged them too to make a humiliating peace.
At this moment William struck, with a directness and
rapi(Hty unusual in the military operations of that age, a
stroke which, though by no means decisive of the whole
war, was decisive of one part of it* and restored his cause
in public estimation. Landing in Ireland on June 14th,
he advanced straight upon Dublin with an array of
perhaps 36,000 raen. James had about 23,000 men, and
wished to avoid a battle. But a somewhat confused
battle was fought at the passing of the Boyne, after which
the Irish army was enclosed between two divisions of the
English. It was irapossible to maintain Dublin. James

802 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY,
abandoned his whole Irish enterprise, and raade his way
back to France. In Ireland, where shortly before the
Protestant cause had so desperately maintained itself at
Derry and Enniskillen, such a transformation took place
that the Catholic cause was now in like manner shut up
in Limerick. Little over a fortnight passed between the
landing of WUliara and the embarkation of James.
It does not appear that James fled in despafr. That
was the moment of the battle of Fleurus and the battle of
Beachy Head. For his cause he must have been full of
hope. But he wanted to be king of England, not king of
Ireland, and had perhaps become diraly aware that the
more his cause prospered among the native Irish popula
tion, the more his English subjects would be alienated
from hira.
Meanwhile this short campaign strikingly showed how
little insular, how truly European, was the straggle for
which our islands then furnished an arena. The Battle of
the Boyne can scarcely be called an English battle. Not
only did about half of the rank and file in William's army
consist of foreigners, Dutchmen, Danes, French refugees;
but the principal officers too were foreign. After William
himself the eye rests upon Marshal Schomberg and his
son Meinhard Schomberg, who executed the most im
portant military operation; beyond these we see Count
Solm, Prince Ferdinand Wilhelm of Wiirtemberg, and
several other foreigners. On the side of James too the
best troops were the French corps under Count Lauzun.
It would perhaps have been well for Louis if the
Battle of the Boyne had not been half-hidden from his
-view by his victories of Fleurus and Beachy Head. His'
triumphs were a fatal will-o'-the--wisp to him. They recon
ciled him to a war which, whether waged successfully or

THE REVOLUTION. 303
unsuccessfully, was a burden far too heavy for France to
support. Mere victories were of little use to her, she
needed speedy and overwhelming -victories, which raight
give her peace. Such -victories (frd not arrive, but for a
long tirae they seeraed about to arrive, and in the mean
while Louis accustoraed hiraself to a position in Europe
which he had never occupied in his early prosperous days
and could not maintain long -without exhausting France.
We have seen how his ascendancy had grown up since
1668 entfrely through the connivance or neutrality of
England. Now as the years passed and William did not
faU, he found himself contending against the old CoaHtion
of the last war reinforced by England.
England had not yet begun to defeat him in the field,
but the mere fact that she was against him raade his task
hdpeless. So long as England had been neutral he could
throw all his force upon his northern and eastern frontier,
and here he had the superiority. But now he had to
employ his force on both sides at once, to ride the Channel
-with his fleets and to feed the Irish rebellion -with troops,
officdrs, artillery, and subsidies. So much even while he
had the upper hand against England. The case would be
much worse should the English naval power re-vive as in
the days of Blake and Monk. In that case the long
coast-line of France would be exposed to attack, and a
great proportion of her force must be -withdrawn from the
Rhine and Meuse in order to guard it.
But the will-o'-the-wisp long danced before him. In
1692 it seemed almost as likely as in 1690 that William's
throne would fall before a dfrect stroke. William's party
was breaking up ; the Princess Aime and her Marlborough
were deserting him. He was himself absent in the Low
Countries, whither the English troops were to follow him.

304 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
An army of 30,000 men under Bellefonds, convoyed over
by a fleet under Tour-ville, would succeed as certainly as
half that number of men had succeeded under William
four years before. It was the frivolous fashion of the
English to try experiments in government, but it had
been shown in 1660 that they returned in the end to thefr
natural king. The enterprise however did not end accord
ing to these expectations. It resulted not in a new
English Restoration, but in the Battle of La Hogue.
This battle has often been called great; it has been
compared to Lepanto. It was rather perhaps significant.
In itself it was scarcely a more decisive defeat for the
French than that of Beachy Head had been for the
English. Nevertheless it proved to be a tuming-point ui
naval history. The great maritime rivalry of France and
England was now beginning. At the outset the French
were the superior naval Power, They had defeated the
English in the Channel, landed troops freely rii Irelan(l ; it
would even seera that they ought to have prevented
WUliara frora landing in Ireland in 1690. In the long
period which lies behind us we have not raet with a naval
-victory of England over France. Yet such victories
recurred almost uniformly in the frequent wars of the
eighteenth century. The series begins at La Hogue, and
though no decided naval predominance of England can yet
be spoken of, on the other hand the naval superiority of
France is at an end from this tirae.
In order to estiraate the disaster which France suffered
at La Hogue we raust raake a remark which applies to
the whole war. She lost ranch more by her defeats than
she gained by her victories. She was the ascendant,
assailant Power, Her opponents, who were fighting for
life and independence, were prepared for many defeats

THE REVOLUTION. 305
from a Power far superior to any of them in military
efficiency and resource. To them each defeat was as a
lesson which they might profit by. To Louis on the other
hand anything short of a complete victory was as a loss,
and a great defeat was a loss almost irreparable. Half the
work of Colbert was thrown away at La Hogue ; and for
what purpose ? For the satisfaction of restoring James II
to the throne of England.
Louis suffers no such defeat by land. Luxeraburg
defeats William more than once in the Low Countries.
In campaign after campaign France has the advantage,
although she stands alone against almost all Europe. But
Louis had not gone to war in order to show, while his
people bled to death, that he was a raatch for all Europe.
His object had been to convert the Truce into a Peace,
and to assert his supremacy -within the Empire so as
utterly to eclipse the House of Habsburg. But as tbe
war advances we can perceive that his object becomesi
much more modest. Long before the Peace of Ryswick
he recognised that he had failed. The last campaigris
are in reality defensive. He fights on only in order to
secure Strasburg and Luxemburg. He has quite ceased
to be the tyrant of Europe. English fleets bombard
his seaports. The Duke of Savoy invades France frora
the south. He maintains indeed a certain superiority up
to the time when the negociations begin at Ryswick. But
how? He purchased the defection of Savoy frora the
CoaHtion by yielding Casale and Pinerolo, that is, by
abandoning the ascendancy in Italy which he had been at
such pains to establish.
This measure, which enabled him to transfer his Italian
army to the Low Countries, was indeed decisive. It
brought on the Treaty of Ryswick. But by this treaty
s, II, 20

306 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
he did not retain Strasburg and Luxemburg, but only
Strasburg, and at the same time he yielded the whole
point in debate between himself and England by under
taking not to aid any revolutionary movements in Eng
land. When for liberty or independence a nation has waged
for nine years an exhausting war, and then lays down its
arms, impoverished perhaps and exhausted, but free, such
a nation will deem itself successful. The French nation
was now indeed exhausted ; the economical mischief was
done for which no remedy could ever be found while the
House of Bourbon reigned. But for this great effort what
had France to show? Simply this, that she had lost
Casale, Pinerolo and Luxemburg, and that she saw England
which had been an obsequious ally, henceforth a jealous
rival, raore than a match for her by sea.
Such was the disaster of Louis XIV's reign in the age
of Louvois. The principal author of it disappeared, in
1691, and we begin to perceive from this tirae among
French politicians some at least who are touched with a
profound misgiving. The splendour is fading from the
reign, though not yet so manifestly that all the world can
see it. Europe however breathes again. That universal
catastrophe which ten years before seemed ine-vitable is no
longer (freaded. In 1697 Europe has forgotten the feelings
that tormented her in 1687,
These summary remarks on the great war have been
made in order to complete our view of what has been
called here the second English Revolution, For as that
Revolution begins not with WilHam's expedition in 1688
but with the Treaty of Dover in 1670, so it ends not
with the flight of James in 1688 but -with the Treaty
of Ryswick in 1697. At least the struggle of twenty-

THE REVOLUTION. 307
eight years between those two dates is essentially one
and the same. From first to last the enemy of the
English people is not so much thefr king as the French
king, and the evil they apprehend is rather dependence
on France than the growth of the prerogative; or of Popery
at home. In the last nine years this fact is patent,
Erigland wages war by sea and land against France ; it is
by French ships and troops and money that Jaraes hopes
to! be restored; and bis restoration would have involved
the dependence of England on France, But what thus
became manifest in 1689 was equally the case earlier,
between 1669 and 1689, It was only because they were
backed by Louis that either Charles II or James II had
been in the least degree formidable, and Louis, it is
needless to say, backed them for his own ends.
As the attack on English liberties came really from
France, so the vindication of them reacted on France, and
that in the most decisive manner. We saw that it was
purely through the dependence of the English Government '
on France that Louis became the tyrant of Europe. But
for this there would have been no War of Holland, no
triumphant Treaty of Nimeguen, no Reunions or seizure of
Strasburg; nay more, there would have been no Dragonn
ades and no Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It is
naturally therefore not less trae that the cessation of this.
dependence by the accession of William and Mary saved
Europe not less directly than it saved England. It
involved the fall of the ascendancy of Louis along with
the fall of James II.
The idea of a Balance of Power was already an old
English tra(Htion. It had been boasted of Henry VIII
that he held the balance between Charles V and Francis I.
WUliam now, as king of England, in a still more
20—2

308 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
effectual manner restored the European balance. Louis,
attacked now on both sides at once, found his offensive
speedily dwindle to a defensive; and even his defensive
ruined France. He had recklessly increased the number
of his enemies before 1688 ; he had lost the support of
Sweden and of the Great Elector. But he committed his
irreparable blunder when at the beginning of 1689 he
actually forced England to take the field against him.
From this time it was certain that, if he did not speedily
crush the English Revolution, if it could but maintain
itself against him, then there was an end of his ascendancy
in Europe. He was henceforth overmatched.
In intemational history the second English Revolution
is thus infinitely raore important than the first. It was
an event which decided the whole subsequent course of
European history, and was speedily perceived to have
done so. It is in this respect the unique event of the
history of England. Both before and since, in Elizabeth's
time and in Pitt's time, the immovable stability of Eng
land has made her serve as a breakwater to some European
deluge, in the former case the Counter-reformation, in
the latter the French Revolution. In this case it was not
her stability but her mobility that had a decisive effect."
In this one instance only the disturbance of Europe,
instead of being rejected from our shores, actually over
flowed into the British islands and overturned the British
throne, until tbe decisive battle of European ci-vilisation
was fought under the leadership of Dutch, French and
German warriors by an Irish river.

CHAPTER IL
THE WORK OF WILLIAM IIL
To the growth of British Policy, as it is considered in
this book, three persons mauily contributed, Elizabeth,
Oliver, and William III.
We have found Elizabeth, not so much by her action
as by abstinence from action, maintained with invincible
patience and courage through a long reign, drawing Eng
land out of foreign entanglements and laying a deep
foundation for the great insular and maritime state.
We have found Cromwell with restless energy and
enterprise creating a state which for the moment was the
most powerful in the world.
We found this state anticipating in several respects
the British Empfre of more recent tiraes. But we found
it necessarily ephemeral, as resting on a basis strong
indeed for the raoment, but, as it were, accidental, the
army which had been created only for the needs of a
revolutionary tirae.
We have now contemplated another most imposing
developement, represented by a thfrd great person.
The work of King William III in tbe world was on a
vast scale. It is seldom contemplated as a whole, because

310 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
it embraces many countries at once, while history has the
habit of considering each country separately. Here we
are to consider his place in British Policy, but he has a
place not less eminent in European and in Dutch policy
than in British, and in justice to him we ought to mark
this immense range of his activity before we concentrate
our attention on that division of it which concerns us
most. He was called upon in earliest manhood to play the
great part which was hereditary in his bouse. But he
had to deal with a crisis more extreme than had tried any
of his predecessors except William the Silent. The enemy,
France, was a Power much greater and more energetic
than Spain had been in the days of his grandfather
Frederick Henry or his great-uncle Maurice. And he
had to restore a spirit and an organisation which had
fallen into decay during the Stadtholderless time. If we
suppose that William had (Hed at the end of his first, or
Dutch period, about 1678, how would he appear in history?
It would be said of hira that in a life of less than thirty
years he had earned for himself a place among great
national deliverers, and the United Pro-vinces would reve
rence him as their great restorer and second founder.
In the latter part of his life he appeared as the, great
European statesman of his age, A great Alliance had to
be founded and held together. Never had Europe seen
such a great and complicated Coalition, It had to be
held together in spite of many failures through nine years
of war, and then four years after the Peace it had to be
reconstituted and made ready for a second trial more
tremendous even than the first. All this was done, and
the great League went through the second ordeal with
triumph. The work of William ended just when this

THE WORK OF WILLIAM III. 311
second struggle began, but the vast preparation for it was
made by him. Marlborough wielded the weapon which
WUHam had forged, or we may say that he lived in a
house which William had built. It is true that Europe
has since seen coalitions still greater and more victorious,
but when we compare the resistance of Europe to Louis
XIV with that which was offered to the French Revolu
tion and Napoleon we are struck by this difference, that in
the later and larger struggle there is no person on the
side of Europe answering to William III, no presi(Hng
statesman to hold everything together. It is impossible
to find a greater achievement in international statesraan-
ship than this of William's.
He who had ruled and saved his country in youth
rules, in a sense, and saves Europe in middle age. Two
such achievements in a short life ! But we mention them
only to dismiss them. We are concerned here -with quite
another aspect of this short life, and -with other achieve
ments, namely, those which he performed in Britain.
His work here too falls naturally into two parts. We
aU know that he settled our constitution upon a permanent
basis. But it is not , only our constitution, it is also our
policy, our definitive position among the states of the
world, that we owe in the main to hira.
Now that we have traced through so long a period the
gradual growth of English policy we are in a condition to
describe shortly the decisive modification introduced into
it by the Revolution.
A kind of disease in the body politic had made it rest
less ever since 1669. Monarchy had been restored, nor
was there any general inclination to repeat tbe experiment
which under the name of a Commonwealth or Protectorate
had given us in reality only a Military State. There was

312 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
however a general feeling that something was terribly
wrong. The e-vil was perceived only in partial glimpses.
At one tirae it appeared that the Monarch aimed at
arbitrary power, at another time that he was secretly
inclined to Popery, and always that be leaned too much
on France. Our analysis has led us to regard these as so
many sjonptoms of an e-vil which lay deeper, an evil which
was by no means new. Monarchy could scarcely subsist
without intermarriage with other monarchies, and, it had
long been known that such intermarriage might have
immeasurable consequences. What strange results bad
flowed from the marriage of Henry VIII and Catharine of
Aragon ! And still more fatal results had been on the
point of following from the marriage of Philip and Mary.
Accordingly the redemption of England in the sixteenth
century had been achieved by a sovereign who abstained
from marriage. Owing to the fact that her reign was
very long, this remedy had proved sufficient. But it did
not remove the evil. In general kings and queens must
marry; they would be likely to marry into other royal
houses; it would be thefr interest to select the greatest
houses ; and so the danger would retum which had been
seen in its extreme form when the Queen regnant of
England had wedded tbe King of Naples and Sicily, who
in due time succeeded to half the thrones of Europe.
The danger did return when Charles I married Henri
etta Maria, but it returned more gradually and in a form
less easily recognisable. The result of this marriage was
that in the next generation we had two kings in succession
who felt not only as foreigners but as Frenchmen, that is, as
members of a race markedly different, almost antipathetic,
to our own, and at the same time prodigiously influential.
Thefr ideas of govemraent, raorality, religion, were the

THE WORK OP WILLIAM IIL 313
ideas of the French court of the time. They leaned on
the French court, as it were, instinctively, and even when
on thefr own principles they ought not to have done so.
Moreover they themselves made marriages calculated to
increase the e-vil Both married CathoHc princesses.
And yet the evil seemed inseparable from Monarchy,
and that generation was convinced that it could not
dispense with Monarchy,
By a marvellous combination of cfrcurastances it
happened that the same person who had been able to
save the United Provinces, and who in later years was
able to marshal all Europe against French ascendancy,
possessed the remedy which alone could cure the disease
which troubled Britain.
Everyone knows the details, how he was married to
the hefress of James II, who was at the same time
English on the mother's side and a staunch Protestant,
how he was himself a Stuart on the mother's side and also
a staunch Protestant, and how owing to these circum
stances he was able to place himself and his wife in the
seat of James II. The remedy was adapted -with curious
nicety to the need. As nearly as possible the strict
monarchical principle was respected, but at the same tirae
the Monarchy was purged in a great degree of its alien
and unnational character. Mary might be called an Eng
lishwoman, William was partly English, and was in any
case not French. MeanwhUe for the first time since
Queen Elizabeth the people could look up to a Monarchy,
which they could feel to be staunchly Protestant, while it
represented at the same time the two chief forms of
Protestantism known in Britain, Mary being Anglican,
WUHam Calvinist.
It was attempted to perpetuate the reform of the

314 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Monarchy thus introduced by a Coronation Oath. Natu
rally, as James II had made it his object to repeal the
Test Act, the nation answered him by extending the Test
Act to tbe Crown. But in reality it was not enough to
make the Monarchy Protestant ; the problem was to make
it national. And when we compare the period since the
Revolution with the period before it we see that the
problem has been to a respectable degree solved, but not
by means of the Coronation Oath. We see that in the
Gist place the queens of England since the Revolution
have been invariably Protestant, whereas before it they
were, almost as a matter of course, Catholic. In the
second place we see that the sovereigns of England have
never since the Revolution sought wives or husbands in
the greatest royal Houses of Europe, but always in those
of secondary rank and Germanic or Scandinavian blood.
This new systera was strikingly inaugurated in the next
reign. Under Queen Anne English poHcy was more
active on the Continent than almost at any time before
or since. Anne was not indeed like Queen Elizabeth
unraarried, but her raarriage to a younger son of the
House of Denmark had no political importance, and left
British policy unaffected. Under the first two kings of
the House of Hanover the Monarchy was no doubt once
more felt to be in a certain degree alien; Still there is a
broad distinction between the Hanoverian policy of
George I and George II, which was at least (Hsavowed;
denied, and kept secret, and the foreign predilections,
avowed and paraded, of the Stuarts.
So far we see royal raarriage curing the disease which
royal raarriage had caused. What had been caused by
the raairiage of Charles I to Henrietta Maria was cured
by the marriage, first of the Princess Mary to William II

THE WORK OF WILLIAM IIL 315
of Orange, then of another Princess Mary to William III.
When the storm of the Revolution had subsided and
WUliam had been succeeded by Anne, it might be said
that the Restoration was consummated. The Monarchy
was now completely reconcUed to the nation. Its foreign
taint was purged away. Without personal ability Anne
enjoyed a prosperous reign, as being an Englishwoman
and a Protestant. The Monarchy was now national, until
in her last years the old difficulty threatened to retum
(and in a modified forra it did retum) owing to the death
of her children.
So far in short we see William appljring to English
Monarchy precisely the needful remedy. But the Revo
lution (Hd not simply set things right. It modified in a
most important manner, and in a raanner which we cannot
-without qualification call beneficial, the whole position of
England in the world.
This modification appeared at once when it was
perceived that the Revolution had drawn us into a great
European war. As it was a reaction against a foreign
influence, the Revolution might perhaps have seemed
likely to make us more insular and more indifferent to
continental affairs than ever. It had precisely the con
trary effect. It gave us a policy which was indeed
Protestant and national, but at the same time far more i
entangled in foreign alliances and continental affafrs, and
therefore far raore warlike, than the policy of the Stuarts.
This modification might have seemed at first to be only
temporary, but in fact it did not disappear at the Peace of
Rys-wick. When the new Govemment was securely es
tablished, England did not become peaceful and insular
again. She entered upon a period of great wars, which
lasted through and beyond the eighteenth century, and

316 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
during all this long period she was more closely con
nected than she had been before -with the Continent.
We have seen Elizabeth extremely averse to inter
vention, James I peaceful, Charles I, after the short age
of Buckingham, peaceful also. We found the Common
wealth and the Protectorate more warlike. Charles II
appeared to have enterprising -views, partially borrowed
from the Protector ; but we found hira unable in the long
run to carry thera into effect. We have seen James H
expressing the coldest and most complete indifference to
the dangers which threatened the Continent in his tima
England, he thinks, will ran no risk, England will only
profit by the ruin of the Dutch. The Revolution intro
duces a wholly new way of thinking. Henceforth inter
vention is neither disapproved as rash and ambitious nor
approved as a spfrited poHcy, but simply adopted under
pressure of compulsion. It is not now a matter of choice
but of necessity. England in self-defence makes common
cause with the Continental Powers that are united in
resistance to France. The struggle is severe and lasts
several years. When it is over England has adapted
herself, as never before, to a condition of war. And then
new cfrcumstances arise which make a second war and
a second European Coalition necessary. In this way we
drift into a new international system, and the eighteenth
century is for England a century of great wars.
This is one of the greatest transitions, and it is the
final transition discussed in this book. William may be
said to have steered us through it, since be not only
conducted the first of our great wars, but also made aU
the arrangements and preparations for the second.. But
a transition so irrevocable must evidently have been
decided by very large causes, of which WilHam could be

THE WORK OF WILLIAM III. 317
little more than the instrument. We ought now to be
able to indicate these causes. In fact the connexion
between tbe Revolution and the first great war has been
indicated already. But it gradually appeared that the
immense developement of France had altered permanently
her relation to England,
We have traced that developement in outline. We
have seen her straggling in Richelieu's tirae against the
two allied branches of the House of Habsburg, how that
struggle, originally defensive, became offensive, and ended
first in a -victory over the Austrian Branch in tbe Peace of
Westphalia, then in a still more decisive victory over the
Spanish Branch in the Peace of the Pyrenees. Both of
these victories opened for France an immeasurable pros
pect. The Bourbon might wrest from the Austrian
Habsburg the Empfre, and he might supplant the Spanish
Habsburg on the throne of Spain. But the opportunity
must be patiently awaited. The first two wars of Louis,
that of Devolution and that of Holland, are but preludes
with which he solaces the long years of expectation. His
harvest- time begins later. In the year 1688 he strikes
for the Empfre ; again at tbe end of the century he takes
possession for his House of the Spanish Monarchy.
After so many preliminary flourishes, after such a
brilliant overture, the piece proves disappointing. In
both these grand enterprises be meets with much failure.
Perhaps in the war of 1688 his failure was really more
complete, though he won so many victories, than in the
war which witnessed the defeats of Blenheim, Turin,
Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet. We have afready
analysed this failure, and have seen that the principal
cause of it lay in the fact that Louis at a moment when
he had all Europe on his hand, engaged also in a quarrel

318 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
with England. It was such a quarrel as England could
not in honour evade or coraproraise. We were offered the
choice of sinking into humble dependence on France or
resisting her dictation, and in the cfrcumstances to resist
raeant to throw ourselves with all our resources, naval
military and financial, into the European war.
It was a severe trial for us, partly because we were.
so much divided, partly because I'rance was then so
immensely powerful, and powerful by sea as well as by
land. In order to meet it we had to make many legis
lative changes. If the reign of William witnessed a great
internal transformation and tbe appearance of many new
institutions, — the Array, the Bank, the National Debt —
this was the effect rather of the great European War than
of the Revolution itself.
But was not the war quite an exceptional occurrence ?
England had seen nothing sirailar since the days of
Elizabeth. Why should anything similar be seen agaia,
when once the dictation of France had been successfully
repelled ? Peace would come, and then the army would
be disbanded, as at the Restoration, and the Debt would
speedily be paid off. Such was the calculation, but it
proved erroneous. The old state of things was never to
retum. The new institutions were to take root The
new aspect of the State was to become permanent, and
England was to go through the whole eighteenth century
with an Army, a Debt continually increasing, and a war
with France almost always on hand or in prospect.
How did the temporary state of things thus change its
character and become permanent ?
The principal cause was this, that no sooner had
Europe and England with iraraense effort and labour
repelled the first grand attack of Louis than the time

THE WORK OF WILLIAM III. 319
came for him to make his second. That very year, 1697,
which witnessed the Peace of Ryswick, witnessed also the
clearing of the stage for the still greater drama of the
Spanish Succession. This second struggle concerned
England much more closely than the first. There had
been indeed some cynical philosophy in the indifference
with which James II had regarded the continental en
croachments of Louis in 1688. The interest of England
was indeed only in(Hrectly concerned in the question
whether the Truce of Regensburg should be converted
into a definitive Peace. A Richelieu or a Mazarin would
probably have known how to secure the neutrality of
England at the crisis of 1688. Only by a blunder of the
same transcendent kind as that invplved in the Revocation
had England been not tempted, or allowed, but actually
forced to enter at that time into the continental war. It
was quite otherwise when the second struggle began, just
at the opening pf the eighteenth century, just at the close
of the life of WilHara. The question was now not of
territory on the Rhine and Neckar or of influence in
North Germany, but of the Spanish Monarchy, that is,
not of the Continent, but of the Ocean, the scene and
home of all English commerce, enterprise or ambition.
When the House of Bourbon took possession of the throne
of Spain, as it did in November 1700, Louis seeraed
practically to enter into possession of Antwerp and the
Low Countries, and to be about to obtain Spain for
France, and to exclude England frora the American trade.
In other words, on the succession in Spain depended the
¦whole commercial future of England.
It had been by an almost inconceivable good fortune
that WiUiam had been able to bring England into the
first war. And when that war was over the principal

320 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
topic of Toryism and Jacobitism was the expense and
bloodshed that had been brought on the nation by
William and his Revolution through the European war.
Now in his last days William had to bring England into
another and still greater war. He succeeded again, though
with difficulty. Or rather England again resolved upon
war, for in both cases William could only laisser faire,
laisser passer. In the first case honour and self-respect,
in the second case interest, left her no choice.
But the effect was that the new war-institutions, the
Debt and the Army, had to be maintained for another
term of years, and the country grew yet more accustomed
to war -vrith France. Military glory was now acqufred,
victories were won such as had been unknown to England
in the seventeenth century. But, as the House of Bourbon
after all retained possession of Spain and the In(Hes, that
is, of the maritirae region, even at the end of this seconfd
war, tbe spfrit of rivalry between England and France that
animated it was by no means allayed. France appeared
henceforth dra-wing Spain in tow. The two Bourbon
states had a family alliance, as the two Habsburg states
had had in the seventeenth century. But that alliance
had been continental, the Bourbon famUy alliance was
mainly maritime, and for that reason it pressed far more
uncomfortably upon England. And in this way the
hostility of England and France, which had been accu
mulated during two great wars, was not allowed to die
away, but lasted on and became a cause of periodical wars
through the whole eighteenth century.
In intemational history the grand difference between
the seventeenth century and the eighteenth is this, that,
whereas in the former France and the Spanish Monarchy
are standing enemies, so that, as Louis XIV himself told

THE WORK OF WILLIAM IIL 321
US, no treaties between them can have any force, in the
latter on the other hand France and Spain belong to
gether, so that discord between thera is quite exceptional
and thefr norraal relation is a family alliance. But this
standing concert, since Spain is a maritirae and oceanic ^
Power, creates between France and England a chronic dis
cord, so that, whereas in the seventeenth century France
and England had been for the most part friendly, in the
eighteenth — except in the time of Fleury and Walpole —
thefr constantly recurring wars convulse the world.
These are the large causes, independent of the person
ality of William, which brought about the transition.
But it was owing mainly to .William that the transition
was effected so successfully as to make England under the
new system strong and triumphant, so that she was able
in the long duel of the eighteenth century to hold her
own against France. We have seen her in her extreme
danger and feebleness at the time of the Battle of Beachy
Head. How could a country so torn with faction and so
unprepared for war resist the commanding unity and
miHtary efficiency of France ? But the country adapted
itself, though slowly, to the new conditions. In tbe second
war, though not in the first, it was able to defeat France
in the field, and thenceforward throughout the eighteenth
century it exhibited a solidity, a stability, an uninterrupted
prosperity, which carried it through all the vicissitudes of
the duel. A fixed state of things succeeded when once
the storm of the Revolution itself had subsided. After
this, except in the last four years of Queen Anne, when
a new experiment in succession gave for the moment a
revolutionary tinge to our politics, there are scarcely any
more violent fluctuations. The period of growth in policy '-
seems to be over.
S. IL 21

822 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
Such solid, permanent results remind us of those
achieved by Queen Elizabeth. That a foreigner, who
brought a mind preoccupied with continental ideas, whose
taste, training and knowledge qualified him for Dutch
rather than English affafrs, and who bad little sympathy
with English people, should leave a mark so absolutely
indelible upon English history, is very surprising.
His birth and marriage, as we have seen, enabled hfrn,
and him alone, to heal the disease which afiHcted English
Monarchy. He had another immense felicity. We have
traced through a long period the relations of the English
and the Dutch, remarking how exceptionally close they
were and how that very clpseness soraetimes introduced
discord. The Dutch had asked Elizabeth to be thefr
sovereign. The English Commonwealth had offered to
the Dutch an incorporating union. Charles II had
scarcely regarded his restoration as complete until the
republican government could be overthrown in the United
Pro-vinces too. Two such nations were raade to be linked
together in personal union, and, so linked, they would
gain vastly in international influence. Just at the raoment
when it became thefr interest to unite against Louis they
found themselves also united in the person of WiUiam of
Orange. He who was almost a king to the Dutch became
quite a king to ourselves. Thus the alliance of the Sea
Powers was cemented in the firmest manner and the
military policy of the two states lay thenceforward in the
same hand. Sfr William Teraple saw the union of which
he had sown the seed become a mighty tree, and round
this nucleus grew the Great Alliance which in Marl-^
borough's days gave the law to Europe. It is a curious
speculation what would have happened had William and
Mary left a son. But in fact the union thus established

THE WORK OF WILLIAM III. 523
lasted raore than half a century. Much later another
Prriice of Orange raarried another English princess, and in
another war with France between 1744 and 1748 England
and Holland stand side by side.
It is easy to see how many advantages William gained
from his bfrth and his marriage. He was bom to be the
saviour of his own country, he was bom and married to be
the saviour of England and of the English Monarchy and
to unite the Sea Powers in an indissoluble aUiance. So
much was done for him by fortune. His personal merit
consisted in this, that he did not mar his great oppor
tunities by superfluous action, while he always had
energy and proraptitude enough to avail hiraself of
them. He was rapid and decisive in his English ex
pedition, rapid and decisive in his Irish campaign. But
the main reason why his work has proved so strangely
durable is that it was never excessive. He had that
wise parsimony in action of which we found so striking
an example in Queen Elizabeth.
We see in Louis XIV how difficult it is to husband
wisely a great inheritance of political power. Why indeed
should he be sparing who possesses so much ? The great
King fancied himself omnipotent. Hence those prodigious
blunders, the Revocation, the intervention in England.
How easy, how alraost inevitable, might it seem for
William to misunderstand his position on the throne of
England ! For though we identify his name with liberty,
he had hitherto seemed to himself and to his countrymen
the great representative of the monarchical principle.
His rise in 1672 had been the fall of a republican system,
he had frequently been spoken of as a tyrant, and under
him the stadtholderate had become scarcely distinguish
able from monarchy, the raore so as he was hiraself of
21—2

324 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
royal birth. Now that he was king indeed, and needed
all the force of England for his European war, how
natural would it have been for him to aspire to a sort
of Cromwellian monarchy, a monarchy at once military
and protestant ! His training had been military ; he had
comraanded armies when he was but twenty- two years
old. And the cause was that of religion, and there was
in England, be might know, a fund of pent-up Protestant
feeling. What was not done, easily escapes notice ; and yet the
masterpieces of the statesman's art are for the most part
not acts but abstinence from action. William abstained
from the policy of Crorawell. He did not attempt to
inspire the English people with his own ideas, or to lead
them upon a Protestant crusade. Though he took the
royal office with a determination that it should lose no
power in his hands, yet he allowed it to lose a certain
degree of power. He did not force England into war, but
allowed her of her own will and for her own interest to
enter into war. In his reign that National PoHcy which
had long been an ideal, which had been realised for a time
in the latter years of Elizabeth and partially realised
under the Commonwealth, but had hitherto seemed
scarcely compatible in ordinary circumstances -with Mo
narchy, was brought finally -within the sphere of practical
politics. Under William there was far more war than under the
Stuarts. He conducted to the end one mighty war, and
raade all the preparations for a second. These wars suited
his views, they were the fulfilraent of all his wishes. Yet
it cannot seriously be maintained that by some high-
banded exercise of royal prerogative or royal influence he
drew the country into them. He never had a positioB

THE WORK OF WILLIAM TIT. 325
which could enable him to do this. Regarded coldly as a
foreigner, dependent upon Parliament by the very circum
stances of his accession, malignantly watched by a vast
adverse party, he was condemned in this matter to wait
upon public opinion. It would have been fatal to hira to
take the initiative. In both cases the war was made
necessary by the conduct of Louis XIV, and was freely
accepted by tbe people. In both cases the merit of
William consisted in reserve and self-restraint. He did
not mar his good fortune by needless or precipitate
action. He had the bearing and behaviour of one who lays
solid and durable foundations. A man who has received
this mission comraonly feels hiraself an instrument, and
shows a certain impassiveness, a certain fatalism. William
was taciturn, phlegmatic, dry in his raanner. In his pose
he offered a marked contrast to his rival Louis XIV. He
thought not so much of himself as of tbe forces which
worked in and through him. His chief study seemed to
be not to do or to say too much, not ' to do anything good
or bad of his own mind.' He was the pius Aeneas, who
bears the weight of destiny, but as the hero of a poem
may perhaps create disappointment.
We may perceive however that his training had
peculiarly fitted him for the part he had to play on the
throne of England. His continual struggle with parties
in the country he had saved may be depressing in history,
but it was not new to him, or essentially unlike the
struggle he had maintained all his life among the Dutch.
It has been said of him that ' he was king in Holland and
Stadtholder in England,' and the latter half of this
description contains an important truth. He took up in
England much the same position that he had held, and

326 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
that his ancestors had held before him, in Holland. But
that position was after all royal only the royalty was
rational and political, not feudal. Among the Dutch a
monarchy had gradually grown up, evolved by a natural
process and meeting a practical need. It was a sort of
hereditary guardianship of tbe country against the foreign
enemy, for the raain function of the Prince of Orange was
that of general and adrafral, rather than that, which gave
him his ordinary title, of Stadtholder. Accordingly when
the United Provinces were at peace, the Prince of Orangej
as we remarked in 1648, found his occupation gone, and
as soon as war broke out again, as in 1672, he returns to
power. It had been the good fortune of William in 1672 to
assume the guardianship of the country in a war which
was undoubtedly defensive and necessary. He had not
made the war, but he conducted it. It was also an
immense good fortune for him when he found himself
King of England that this coimtry too had to fight for its
independence. Had William had a peaceful reign in
England, it is difficult to imagine that be could have had
much success, and yet in those days the normal condition
of England was peace. The House of Orange (Hd not
understand peace ; thefr specialty was war. Throughout
his life WUliara lived and breathed in war. When he was
not commanding armies in the field, he was negociating
great military alliances. But as it was the pleasure of
Louis XIV that England in 1689 should fight for her
independence, William at once found himself in his
element. Where a war of independence was waged there
a Prince of Orange was at home. For eight years this
war continued, and gave William an ample opportunity
of displaying all his great qualities, that is a kind of

THE WORK OF WILLIAM III. 327
defensive heroism, invincible constancjr, inexhaustible
patience, a statesmanship firraly based on grand and
simple ideas.
Between 1689 and 1697 WUliam does for England
what between 1672 and 1678 he had done for his native
country. He presides over a war of independence, in
which he bears up manfully against defeat and attains his
end at last. He repeats for the benefit of England the
performance for which the princes of the House of Orange
were celebrated. He does once more what had been done
by WUHam the Silent, by Maurice, by Frederick Henry
and by himself Had not Louis afforded him an oppor
tunity of playing this part, had the Revolution of 1688
been followed in England by a period of insular peace, the
Monarchy under William must have sunk very low and
perhaps he would have been unable to maintain his
position. This reign has a very unique character in international
history. It is wholly occupied with intemational events
of the most momentous character, ffrst the great war, then
from 1697 to 1700 an unparaUeled negociation, in which
England and France undertake to transform the whole
map of Europe, lastly the preparation of a new European
war. In fact the European systera is undergoing trans
formation. Great Britain is now a mature and stable
Power with a national policy, adapted for war by new
military and financial institutions, and she takes up a
position of (Hrect rivalry to France such as she had not
(Jccripied under the Stuarts.
' The reader is by this time familiar -with the expression
the second Revolution and with the view that this was
not a single occurrence belonging to the year 1688, but a
long development beginning many years before and

328 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
ending considerably later than 1688. We have laid it
down that the end of it cannot be placed before the
Treaty of Ryswick, that is before 1697, But we have
laid it do-wn also that with the second Revolution ends
the period of growth in British Policy, after which there
opens a fixed condition of affafrs, the policy of the mature
British Empfre. If however we try to define this transition
we shall perhaps find that it cannot be said to have been
completed even so early as 1697. It is tirae therefore to
state more particulariy in what precise sense it may be
said that about that time and as a result of the Second
Revolution the period of growth gave place to an ladult
or fixed condition. 1697 is the year in which the revolu
tionary throne of William was established by the cessation
of the enmity of France, and when the war ¦with France
which had gro-wn necessarily out of the change of
govemment made in 1688 came to an end. This may
be called the close of the second Revolution so far as
that was throughout determined by France and her
relations to England. On the other hand it is by no
means the date of a complete change in policy, of the
completion of a great period. It was followed -within five
years by another war, a war -with France and so far a war
of the Revolution that it was in a great degree occasion
ed by Louis XIV's recognition of the Pretender. We
must look on a few years further, when we shall indeed
find a decisive tuming-point, the commencement of a
fixed condition, when our policy was established in its
main outlines almost for the whole eighteenth century.
Ffrst, it is evident that the accession of the House of
Brunswick in 1714 constitutes a sort of Revolution which
must be regarded as supplementary to that of 1688 and
equally necessary to the establishment of the monarchy, in

THE WORK OF WILLIAM III. 329
its revolutionary form. Next the Union with Scotland
in 1707 settled one of those larger internal questions
concerning the mutual relation of the insular Kingdoms
which from the outset of our troubles bad been closely
involved with the question of constitutional liberty.
Further still the war of the Spanish Succession leading
up to the Barrier Treaty and to the Treaties of Utrecht
was necessary to settle those foreign controversies which
had caused the wars of the later Stuarts, and to fix oxir
relations with France and our maritime and colonial
relations with Spain as well as our highly important
relations to the Power which since the sixteenth century
had interested us so closely, bhe United Provinces. It is
to be added that the settleraent of the Irish question
in a manner which was to satisfy the eighteenth century
was also effected by Acts of Parliaraent, some of which fall
later than tbe reign of Anne. But when Anne had been
peaceably succeeded by George I, a most comprehensive
settlement of all affairs which corae under the bead of
policy had certainly been arrived at. Not only was
Dynastic Policy at an end, but it had been abandoned
with full conservation of raonarchical govemraent, so that
a dynasty had begun to reign to which the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries were to belong. The two parts
of Britain had also been united in a manner which was to
prove permanent, Ireland had found a settlement which,
however unsatisfactory, was to last without fundamental
change for nearly eighty years. Accounts had also been
settled with the House of Habsburg and the House of
Bourbon. The Protestant interest had been successfully
maintained. For the first time Protestant Powers had
taken the lead in a great settleraent of Europe. It might
be said that the Counter-reformation had run its course

330 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
and the great Power which all along had represented the
Counter-reformation, Spain, had passed under the rale of
the House of Bourbon.
To Britain the result of all this was in one respect
unsatisfactory. She had advanced greatly in internal
union and liberty, in wealth, in maritime and colonial
power, even in military strength. But her policy became
more warlike than it had been in forraer times. Under
WUliam and Anne she had taken a leading part in vast
European wars. She had fought battles in the heart
of Spain and in the valley of the Danube. Nor could she
henceforth quit this path. Her standing army could not
be a second time disbanded. The eighteenth century was
to be for her a period of wars, and the scene of those wars,
more remote than ever, would sometimes be the banks of
the Ganges or of the St La-wrence. A new financial
problem would occupy her statesmen, the problem of
paying for wars so vast and distant and of dealing with
an unheard-of debt.
But, if more warlike, our policy is henceforth fixed
and uniform, or, as we say, the period of growth is over.
On the surface of the eighteenth century the steadfast
tranquillity of British affafrs is apparent. Henceforth no
more revolutions, no more reigns of terror such as between
1678 and 1688. We are no longer tbe turbulent nation
of Europe, the nation dont la Ugeret4 est connue. All the
great questions seem to have been settled ; religion itself
bas become so rational and sensible that it loses its awful
character and looks like an exhausted volcano. The
surface is so smooth that perhaps few people in George I's
reign could foresee that England had still before her
a Roman career and that she was to become the centre of
a boundless dominion.

THE WORK OF WILLIAM HI. 331
This essay does not deal with that further develop
ment. It closes where the agitations of the seventeenth
century subside. It does not look at all beyond the arrival
of the dynasty of Brunswick, and it discusses even bhe
reigns of William and Anne only so far as may be
necessary to show how the afterswell of the second
Revolution led naturally to the decisive tuming-point in
policy, the close of the period of gro-wth which has been
described. For this purpose it is desirable to consider for
a moment how much was absolutely involved in the
Revolution itself which nevertheless could not be accom
plished but after a good many years.
The Revolution is usually considered only from the
constitutional point of view as an assertion of liberty
against absolutist pretensions. We, regarding it inter
nationally, have laid more stress upon the opposition
which was involved in it to French ascendancy. We have
treated it as an asseition of national against dynastic
policy, in which however the raonarchical principle was
careffiUy raaintained. Even this formula however is by
no means comprehensive enough. The change had still
other aspects and involved several other minor changes.
To proclaim the throne vacant and then to place
WUliam and Mary upon it was indeed much in a genera
tion so possessed with the mystical view of monarchy and
so unwilling to repeat the error of those who overthrew
Charles I. It was much also for a state that was no
longer military to defend the new settlement in a war of
eight years against France. But much raore remained to
be done. In the first place it was not enough to raake a
new king or a new queen. Monarchy requfred not raerely
a king but an assured succession of kings. For the
moment we had been fortunate enough to obtain for our

332 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
king the ablest statesraan in Europe, who was afready
quasi-king in a state which had an exceptionally close
connexion -with our o-wn. But it soon appeared that he
was not to have chilifren. Accordingly only one succession
could be clearly foreseen. The Princess Anne had indeed
children, sixteen or seventeen. But when all these died
in succession, it began to seem as if half the work of 1688
was to do again. Parliament must again engage in the
questionable enterprise of making a king, and this time it
must break even more decidedly than before -ivith the
mystical school which had such an ascendancy over the
English mind. It appeared that another revolution must
be raade in order to ratify the revolution of 1688. Another
prince must cross the sea and receive the crown of
England. The change of 1714 appeared to be necessarily
involved in that of 1688.
But the second Revolution had again another and a
wholly cHfferent aspect by which it strikingly reminds us
of the first Revolution. For it bad not been a mere
resistance of the English people to tyranny and popery
but a resistance of three insular states at once, of the
English, Scotch and Irish, to the common sovereign
who had pursued the same innovating policy in all alike.
Throughout the seventeenth century our ci-vil troubles
had been complicated by this triple character of the
insular community. Especially in the first Revolution
had the interaction of the three communities been incessant
and striking, so that we even ventured to lay it down that
that disturbance had really its origin in the necessity of
revising thefr mutual relations. The second Revolution
is not indeed in this respect wholly similar to the first.
It looks far more towards France and less towards Scotland
and Ireland, Nevertheless, it also is by no means a mere

THE WORK OP WILLIAM TIL 333
English revolution, but British, or more even than British
— a revolution of the British Isles. As far back as the
controversy about the Exclusion Bill it had been a serious
matter for consideration that James, even if excluded from
the English, could not by an English Act be excluded
from the Scottish throne. And when the struggle actually
began the scene of it was rather in Scotland and Ireland
than in England. The naval part of this civil war was
indeed English, but by land the battles are Scotch and
Irish, at Killiecrankie and Dunkeld, at Enniskillen and
Derry, at the Boyne, at Limerick and Aghrim. Politically
too the Second Revolution involved a complete reconstruc
tion not only in England but separately in Scotland and
ia Ireland. It is one evidence of the immense extent of
William's performance that he marks a great tuming-
point in Scotch and in Irish as well as in English history.
This is still more visible if we contemplate the reigns of
WUliam and Anne together, as indeed they belong
together. The reign of Anne finished in general what
that of W^illiam began, and even Marlborough is in states
manship as it were a pupil of William. But in these two
reigns Scotch and Irish affafrs took the definitive shape
which they were to keep through most of the eighteenth
century. Ireland received the penal code. Scotland
obtained her ecclesiastical settleraent and finally that
Union upon which her modem prosperity has been based,
and ff we examine the circumstances which raade the
Union possible we shaU find that they arose dfrectly out
of the Revolution itself
The second Revolution has stiU another aspect. It is
not merely a rebellion, even a triple rebellion, agariist
Popery and arbitrary power ; it is also in its very nature
and origin, as we have shown, a resistance to French

334 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
ascendancy. The British moveraent cannot be separated
or considered apart from the European raovement, nor
can Williara's policy as king be separated from his policy
as Stadtholder. Thus in the first place the European war
rose by necessity out of the English event of 1688. But
we are now also to observe that a second and greater war
was equally unavoidable. This second war began within
five years of the peace of Rys-wick. It was the War
of the Spanish Succession, and England took an even
more leading part in it than she had taken in the War of
the Revolution. Though when the second war began
William was no more, it bears his stamp, and especially in
this that it is based upon that close alliance of the two
Sea Powers which he had created and, as it were, imper
sonated. Both Sea Powers were equally interested in
this Spanish question which had impended over Europe
for forty years. Thefr interests were bound together in
the person of William and in his revolutionary throne.
Accordingly if we would contemplate the Revolution as a
whole we must embrace in it this second war not less
than the first, the war which followed upon the death of
James II and the recognition of his son as English king
by Louis not less than the war which arose out of his
deposition and his flight to France.
Summing up all that has been said, we would see in
the second Revolution a great transition in English affairs
which, beginning in 1669 and culminating in 1688, is not
fafrly concluded till the accession of George I, a transition
by which not only our constitution was settled but the
Scotch Union was established, a new systera of Irish affairs
introduced and at the same time our relations -with the
United Pro-vinces, France and Spain rearranged in a de
finitive manner. All these relations together have been be-

THE WORK OF WILLIAM IIL 335
fore us from the beginning of this essay. Under Elizabeth
we considered chiefly those with the Spanish Monarchy and
the United Provinces. Then we watched the rise of the
House of Bourbon and the transformation of France by
RicheHeu ; then the transformation of England and of the
relations of the insular kingdoms in the first Revolution
and in the age of Oliver. Then came a reaction and later
a second Revolution, of the origin, nature and extent of
which we have found so much to say. Regarded thus com
prehensively this second Revolution brings us within the
eighteenth century, where we come in sight of quite a new
development and see the country entering upon a series of
wars and expanding into a World-Empri-e. What has
hitherto given unity to this long re-view has been the
opposition between two systems of policy, the dynastic and '
the national. We began at a point where the forraer
system seemed inseparable frora monarchy, where the
Habsburg system was everywhere supreme and all inter
national history turned on royal marriages and royal bfrth*
We have seen however after many vicissitudes the two
things separated, monarchy preserved and at the same
time a national policy established. The difficulty however
was too closely inherent in monarchy not to show itself
again. The revolutionary monarchy was short lived. A
supplementary revolution had to be made, and this put on
the throne a foreigner, one of the Electors of the Holy
Roman Empfre. Accordingly in that eighteenth century
period which lies beyond our liraits the old dispute was
revived. Under George I and George II no question of
foreign policy was more warmly or perpetually discussed
than the alleged postponement of British to Hanoverian
interests. We do not discuss this, nor do we even find room here

336 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
to inqufre bow far the policy of William and Anne might
be held to be, though not dynastic, yet at times not wisely
national The question is how to bring this essay to an
end, and we desfre to do no more than to characterise
broadly the results of the second Revolution. It closed a
great period and opened a new period. Now that a
national interest is established in foreign policy it would be
satisfactory if we could state with some distinctness in what
that national interest was supposed to consist. Hitherto
we have had occasional glimpses of such a national interest,
for instance the panevangelical idea of Oliver or the ne
cessity of preserving access to the Baltic, but now that it
begins to rule our policy a time has corae when it must
be more clearly and fully defined.
Throughout we have seen that it falls into two distinct
halves. Considered as a state among other states England
looks on one side at the great continental states, on the
other at Scotland and Ireland. She cannot arrive at a
definitive condition merely by holding in check the Bourbon
and the Habsburg; she must also — and this seems even more
difficult — de-vise a satisfactory systera for the two islands,
create a Great Britain out of England and Scotland, and fix
the relation of Great Britain to Ireland. Elizabeth, we
saw, coraraenced this work by la3ring a foundation of
Protestantism upon which a union of Scotland and England
could be built. A comraon monarchy has since been added
to a coraraon religion. But even now that the Second
Revolution is far advanced the insular settlement is stUl as
far frora being completed as the settlement of the position
of England among the European Powers. The fundamental
conditions of a Britannic Union are by no means fully
realised. After the struggles of the seventeenth century
even Scotland and England reraain distinct in religion, the

THE WORK OF WILLIAM III. 337
one Presbyterian, the other EpiscopaHan, while Ireland is
divided from Britain by the whole (Hfference between
Catholicism and the Reformation. Thus disunited the
three communities are called upon first to make a coraraon
revolution upon the basis of religion. Catholic Ireland has
to expel a raonarch because he is Catholic, and Presbyterian
Scotland has to cooperate with Anglicanism. And then
the three communities thus undermined by religious discord
have to fight side by side against the two branches of the
House of Bourbon.
It is this incredibly difficult transition that was raade
under William and Anne. We had astonishuig success in
our war against the two crowns and at the same time
we dealt also with the Scotch and Irish problems. With
the first successfully, so that alraost at the same moment
that by the victory of Ramillies we tore tbe Low Countries
from the House of Bourbon we also created Great Britain,
and the fabric has proved much more solid and satisfactory
than such political combinations usually prove. The Irish
problem proved far too difficult for us under William
and Anne, being coraplicated with Popery and with (frre
memories of massacre and confiscation, as it had been too
(Hfficult for Elizabeth and Cromwell, and yet even this was
dealt with after a fashion.
If we continue to look at the transition as a whole we
shall perhaps discover a certain unity in it. We shall find,
that is, that the national interest which has emerged after
all the struggles of the seventeenth century has a distinct
character, and that British policy, which now takes the place
of English policy, has its own definite object. It is the
object which from the course of development in the seven
teenth century we might anticipate. For underneath all
the fluctuations of the ffrst and second revolutions we have
s. IL 22

338 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
perceived that our state has been gradually assuming a
peculiar type. Ever since the struggle of Elizabeth -with
Spain it has been growing more maritime and more
commercial It has advanced in this course side by side
with the United Provinces and at the expense of the
Spanish Monarchy. Under Elizabeth it established itself
as a kind of pfratical state on the oceans which then
belonged to Spain. Under Jaraes it founded colonies in
Araerica. WhUe the first Revolution was proceeding it
became a leading maritime Power. With the Na-vigation
Act it becarae an aggressive coraraercial rival of the other
Sea Power. And now in its second Revolution it arrives at
a critical point in this development. For with WUliam
the peculiar relation of our state to the United Provinces
is settled for a long period and by the war of the Spanish
Succession the fundamental maritime question, which is
the monopoly of Spain in the New World, is thoroughly
overhauled. Thus we arrive at the consummation of the
development of which we marked the coraraenceraent under
Elizabeth. What began about 1567 with the commence
ment of the Dutch rebellion is in a sense completed at ;the
Treaty of Utrecht. For us the result is that our state
begins to assume the character of a great Trade Empfre.
This fact, if we well consider it, brings together: the
two halves of our policy. The Union -with Scotland and
its success, the new system in Ireland and its failure, are
closely connected with those wars with France and Spain
which gave us a new position among the Powers.
Commerce is now the clue to everything alike, at once to
the changes in our foreign relations and to the develop
ment of our insular relations. Why do we interfere with
such decision in the question of the Spanish Succession,
fight battles on the Danube and send our armies to Madrid J

THE WORK OP WILLIAM III. 339
The answer is that the commercial classes clamoured for
war, demanding in the interest of trade that the House of
Bourbon should not be allowed to swallow up the Spanish
Monarchy with its boundless colonies. But again, why
(Hd we make a union with Scotland and why did the
Union prosper ? We made the Union because the revolu
tion settlement, at least that supplementary part of it
which is the Hanoverian Succession, imperatively requfred
it. And the Union prospered because we had one
invaluable boon to give to the Scotch and did give it.
This was a free admission into the commerce of a great
Trade Empfre. And once more, why did we at the same
time make a settlement -with Ireland which proved to be
no settlement and which is the opprobrium of English
history ? We failed here mainly because we adopted the
opposite system, because instead of granting freely to
Ireland a share in our trade we jealously excluded her,
because we interfered to crush Irish indu.sbry. But in
whichever (Hrection we look we find ourselves in the
midst of economic phenomena. The second Revolution,
which seemed to take its rise in religion, ends in
commerce, it results, if we regard it comprehensively, in
establishing a greater commercial state than the world
had yet seen.
The intemational interest of the insular state, as soon
as it began to be studied, could not but appear to be
mainly commercial The English were not aggressive or
conquering like the Turks, and they had now abandoned
the dynastic policy of the peoples who were subject to the
Habsburg and the Bourbon. But they inhabited a group
of islands looking abroad over the Atlantic and they now
saw a near prospect of uniting these islands under a
common govemment. Thefr internal difficulties appeared
22—2

340 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
almost at an end. It remained for them to embrace the
globe with thefr trade, as Spain, in spite of her great
opportunities, had so conspicuously failed to do, and as
the United Provinces, thefr cousrii-state, had sho-wn them
tbe way to do. But in order to do it they must on the
one hand complete the union of the insular kingdoms, on
the other hand they must remove the great hindrance
which lay in the ancient monopoly of the New World stiU
claimed by Spain, which, in whatever way the question of
the Spanish Succession might be settled, Spain (Hd not
intend to abandon. And thus it afready appears that
England on emerging from her second Revolution would
have before her probably a war -with Spain and unions
between England and Scotland and Ireland, Just this
was in fact the work which WUliam bequeathed to his
successor Anne. Besides this it would be necessary to
make English institutions more suitable for commercial
purposes. This was what William himself was specially
qualified by his Dutch training to do, and what accordingly
he did by the coraraercial policy which gave us the Bank
and the reform of our finance, which combined our East
India. Companies and purified our currency.
Such was the positive or constructive task which lay
before William when he found himself king. There was
also the negative task of maintaining the Monarchy in the
form which he had given it. At first this did not seem
likely to be difficult. Mary would probably survive him
by many years, in which case Jacobitism would have time
to (He out. Mary might have chUdren who would succeed
to William's position both here and in the United Provinces;
in that case another king-stadtholder would be seen. Mary
herself, we know, hoped for chil(fren. In any case Anne
might Hve to be old and she had children enough to

THE WORK OP WILLIAM IH. 341
mamtain the Monarchy. If aU these resources, contrary
to expectation, should faU, then certainly a great difficulty
might be foreseen. Someone must be found similar to
WUliam himself, a Protestant and possessed of a certain
hereditary claim to the throne. The Revolution of 1688
would need to be repeated, the old mystical controversy
would need to be re-vived. That the Monarchy could pass
safely through such an ordeal we know by the result, yet
assuredly he who would have predicted it would have
seemed a bold prophet.
But another Power remains to be considered whose
relations to England have occupied us throughout this
essay. What effect -wUl the great transition of the second
Revolution have upon our relations with France ? France
was stUl the most prominent Power, the Power which had
mainly caused our Revolution and had engaged in war
with us on account of it. And yet until 1689 France had
rarely since the accession of Elizabeth appeared as a dfrect
antagonist of England and never as the head of the
opposite system in Europe. Spain had all along occupied
that position, and all along France had been in opposition
to Spain and for the most part in friendly relations with
England. The chronic antagonism of Spain and France
has hitherto been the most unalterable feature of inter
national relations. France has had to shake herself free
from a certain internal dependence on Spain, in one age
from the League, in another from the Fronde. She has
achieved this successfully, and in achieving it she has
weU-nigh dissolved the complex fabric of the Spanish
Monarchy. She has taken a leading share in depriving
her first of the United Provinces, then of Portugal and the
Portuguese Colonies. She has also straitened her boundaries
on the side of Flanders and she has robbed her of Franche-

342 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
Comte. As against the United Provinces and Portugal
England has cooperated -with France, so that it may be
questioned from which of those two Powers the Spanish
Monarchy has suffered most injury. William's work has
hitherto consisted in raising the British state to a position
in the world sirailar to that which had been hitherto
occupied by Spain. He unites the two raaritirae Powers
which on the sea and in the New World are the successors
of Spain. The British Trade Empire which now begins to
take shape can only flourish at the expense of Spain, The
maritime sceptre is about to pass from Spain and seems
likely to pass to Britain. The question of the Spanish
Succession is thus twofold; it is the question not only
who shall be Spanish King on the death of Charles II,
but also who shall succeed to the ancient maritime and
colonial monopoly of Spain.
France will put in her claim to tbe latter succession as
well as to the former. For France too has experienced
that singular transformation which marks in England, as
we have seen, the age of the second Revolution. French
politics too have been passing into the commercial phase.
It could not be otherwise since the position of France and
her relation to the Spanish monopoly was very similar to
that of England. If England was insular and oceanic,
France too bas a long sea-board, facing at once the
Northern Seas, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. She
has flourished hitherto upon the spoils of Spain, why
should she not acqufre the most precious of all Spain's
treasures, her colonial monopoly ? She is prepared to do
so, for of all the many developments of French activity m
that age, in which she was so active, perhaps the most
remarkable was that to which Colbert gives his name.
With him she had entered into commercial and maritime

THE WORK OF WILLIAM III. 343
policy, and before the battle of La Hogue she had ranked
as the first maritime Power.
These considerations prepare us to understand what a
vast revolution in international relations was involved in
the war of the Spanish Succession. It did not merely put
the Spanish Monarchy into the hands of the House of
Bourbon, but it also founded a wholly new relation between
France and Spain, a relation which in the eighteenth
century was the most important of all intemational
relations. The misfortunes of France during the war did
not prevent her from founding a Bourbon dynasty in
Spain nor even frora founding a permanent alliance, which
by and by became a pacte de famille, between France and
Spain. We saw how in the (lays of Cromwell Louis XIV
regarded tbe war of France and Spain as something
necessary and, so to say, eternal. Now at the opening of
the eighteenth century this gives place to a friendship
which is almost equally close and necessary between
the same Powers, The effect of this upon British policy
could not but be all-important. Hitherto we have seen
England standing between France and Spain, regarding
the latter usually as her eneray and therefore the former
usually as a friend. This phase is now at an end. In the
eighteenth century France is her standing enemy, but it is
France aided by Spain. A new Hundred Years' War of
France and England is opening, but England's enemy is not ,
to be strictly France but the House of Bourbon, which now
rules France and Spain alike. This new phase begins -with
the War of the Spanish Succession. England's participa
tion in this is but a part, as we have- remarked, of that
transformation of her policy which left it raainly cora-
mercial. In like manner the new relation of France to
Spain is grounded in the coraraercial and raaritirae develop-

344 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
ment of France, and thus at the same time that we see
Great Britaui preparing for a long struggle with the House
of Bourbon we are able to foresee what the nature and what
the scene of that struggle will be. It -wUl be no longer
confined to the Channel or the Flemish towns ; it -wUl be a
great Oceanic and New World contest. Englishmen and
Frenchmen will confront each other in the eighteenth
century in America and in India,
Such then are the various aspects of the Second Revo
lution, It was in the first place a rising against arbitrary
power, but a rising undertaken in cfrcumstances so peculiar
that it necessarily involved (1) an immediate war with
France, (2) a supplementary revolution of the same kind,
which we call the Hanoverian Succession, (3) another
great war with Spain and France, (4) a union with Scot
land and at least the introduction of a new system ia
Ireland, (5) and as the result of all these things a great
development of trade and the foundation of a Trade
Empfre, which brings us into a position of permanent
rivalry to France and Spain henceforth united in a family
policy. To complete this general view of the results of the
second Revolution one more reflexion is requfred. We
must think not only what that Revolution was but also
what it seemed to be to the generation that made it. That
generation fixed its eyes far too exclusively upon the
constitutional and especially the ecclesiastical aspect of it.
The question of di-vine right and non-resistance, what
Anglican divines called the doctrine of the cross, possessed
the public mind in a surprising manner from the days of
the Exclusion Bill to those of SachevereU, This was
the most ob-vious philosophy of the Revolution, but another
theory of it also prevailed which had great practical impor-

THE WORK OF WILLIAM IIL 345
tance and which concerns us more nearly. What was at the
time most striking about the second Revolution was just
the fact that it was the Second, that is, that the nation
after having failed in and repented of revolution once
should so speedily betake itself again to that discredited
remedy. Naturally therefore they instituted perpetual
comparisons between the two revolutions and, as the first
was acknowledged to have failed, as the Great Rebellion
had been followed by the Restoration, put themselves on
the watch to see whether a sirailar disappointraent would
not follow upon the change of 1688. And they soon raade
an observation which was om inous and at the same time
really iraportant. The failure of the flrst Revolution had
been due to the intrusion of a military element. In fact
the so-called Commonwealth had been from the outset a
govemment by the army, what has been called here an
ImperiaHsm. It was natural therefore to conclude that
Revolution was exposed to this danger, that rebellion,
however justified, against constituted authorities led natu
rally to the establishment of a military authority. A
Charles I would be succeeded, through some unknown law
governing states, by a Cromwell. Now in this respect the
experience of the country after 1688 was really most
menacing. The change of government had no doubt been
effected with ease, and it had been found possible this
tune to preserve the principle of Monarchy. No Restora
tion this time would be necessary because no Common
wealth had been set up. But the mUitary element had
reappeared in the most striking manner. The second
Revolution had restored by its Mutiny Act that standing
army which in the first the Rebellion bad created and
the Restoration had to dissolve again. Much more than
this ; the second Revolution had plunged "the country into

346 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
a European War which was on a great scale, and scarcely
had this war been brought to an end when a new one on a
still greater scale came in prospect. The old fatality
seemed plainly to be still at work. The second Revolution,
like the first, had produced its Cromwell, or rather it
produced in succession two Crorawells. William himself
was one and Marlborough was the other. They did not
indeed dissolve Parliaments, or put the country under a
govemraent of Major-Generals, but they involved it in
foreign wars which seeraed to have no end, and these foreign
wars brought with them new taxes, new governmental
machinery, and a debt which, as it could not be paid, seemed
to be a bankruptcy.
This reflexion gives the clue to all the phases of reaction
under WUliara and Anne. Behind the Toryism of di-vine
right there grew up another Toryism which consisted in
opposition to the railitarisra which came in the train of the
second Revolution as of the ffrst. In the last five years
of William it takes shape in measures for dirainishing the
array and checking the interference of the English govem
raent in European affafrs. Under Anne it begins with
opposition to Marlborough, and then in the last four years
of her reign, which raay alraost be called a revolutionary
period, it blends with the Toryism of divine right and
succeeds both in dethroning the Crorawell of the day,
Marlborough, and in extricating the country after eleven
years of war from those foreign complications in which it
seemed to be losing itself
This curious theory of revolution is not only important
as explaining the party politics of the reigns of WUliam
and Anne. It cannot be overlooked when we try to under
stand the great transition in policy which occupies us here.
The age of revolutions led to the tranquil Georgian period

THE WORK OF WILLIAM HI. 347
The constitutional question was satisfactorily settled and
at the same time the monarchy came safely through the
(aisis. But the country could not forget its misgiving
about raUitarisra. After all the second Revolution did
end like the first by giving a military tinge to our policy.
It did create an army ; then it gave us military glory such
as we had not kno-wn for centuries. And it was not found
possible, as time went on, to restore the old habit of peace.
The army could not be disbanded again, and the habit
of intervention in European wars grew upon us. The
Georgian period was, except under Walpole, warlike
throughout. After William and Marlborough came others
of thefr kind, the elder Pitt with Wolfe and Clive and later
stiU the younger Pitt with Nelson and Wellington. And
necessarily debt grew along with the habit of war. It grew
at last to a fabulous amount. These two features, war and
debt, along with thefr result, a coraraercial and maritime
empire, are the principal features of the eighteenth century
in English history, that period to which this essay undertakes
only to furnish an introduction.
Between the Treaty of Utrecht and the Battle of
Waterloo, a period of rather more than a century, we
engaged in five great wars similar to the two which had
sprung out of the Revolution. Most of these wars lasted
for several years ; they were waged in all parts of the globe
and involved us in expenses which confounded not only
the finance but almost the very arithmetic of those times.
This essay began with a purely insular England, -with
that cession of Calais which seemed finally to shut us up in
our island. After so many changes we leave England at
the commencement of a new expansion which will be on a
greater scale than ever. From her trials she has leamt
much, but she has not learnt peace, nor has she leamt to

348 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY,
rest content with a modest sphere of action. What she
has leamt is foreign trade, and now that she has settled
so many internal questions her next step will be to succeed
the Spanish Monarchy on the Ocean and in the New World.
She has therefore before her a period of war, but not such
war as in old Plantagenet times. She will not again invade
France, but she -will proceed on the new lines laid down at
La Hogue. Her wars in the coming period will be mainly
maritime, they will end in acquisitions either of colonial
territory or naval stations. The Treaty of Utrecht marked
the dfrection of our new expansion by giving us Gibraltar,
Port Mahon and Acadie,

CHAPTER III,
THE COMMERCIAL STATE,
In the last chapter an attempt was raade to bring
together into one ¦view the great occurrences which belong
to the morrow of the Revolution, that is, to the age of
Anne, and to establish a sort of unity among them.
These occurrences are (1) the war in which England took
a leading part against the two cro^wns of France and
Spain, the war called from the Spanish Succession and
remembered in England chiefly from the victories of
Marlborough, (2) the Hanoverian Succession decreed
during this time and realised at tbe end of it, (3) the
Union of England and Scotland and the meeting of the
first parliament of Great Britain in the year 1707, (4) the
new Irish settlement including what is called the Penal
Code. That all these things arose by a kind of necessity
out of the Revolution and that taken together they
brought to an end a great period of English history and
introduced a period markedly different is evident enough.
It will be however worth while to consider somewhat
more at length how necessarily they arose out of the
Revolution and how closely they were connected together.
A war in Flanders, Bavaria and Spain on the question

350 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
of the Spanish Succession does not at first sight seem
necessarily connected ¦with the expulsion of Jaraes II;
and it raay cost us an effort to bring together in our
minds this war ¦with the incorporating union of England
and Scotland or that Union ¦with the Revolution of 1688,
This essay has throughout studied to bring together
the two great movements which mark the period from
Elizabeth to Anne, the foreign moveraent by which our
State grew at the expense of tbe Spanish Monarchy and
in concert with the United Provinces, and the insular
raovement which fixed the mutual relations of England,
Scotland and Ireland. The essay will therefore be best
closed by an exposition of the last stage in this double
process, tbe definitive settlement of our foreign relations
after the Revolution and the definitive settlement at the
same time of the relations of the three parts of the
insular community.
In the period imraediately foUowing 1688 this requfres
little exposition. A war with France could not be avoided
considering the course Louis chose to adopt towards
James and WilHam, nor does it requfre explanation that
the civil war which arose out of the Revolution should
overflow into Scotland and Ireland. In the second as in
the first Revolution the great (Hfficulty lay in the fact
that the comraunity which raade the Revolution was
triple. But it raight seem that all these complications
came to an erid at the Treaty of Ryswick when the civU
war on the ond hand was over and when on the other
hand France was disarmed. The Treaty of Ryswick
therefore seems at first sight to mark the close of the
second Revolution. How carae it that within a few
years all was unsettled again ; that England was again at
war by land and sea both with France and Spain ; that a

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 351
new revolution, under the name of a Union, took place in
Scotland, and that a new system was established in Ireland?
Were these new changes accidental and unconnected with
each other or are they also to be reckoned among the
necessary consequences of the Revolution ?
One manffest link connects the second war ¦with the
first and -with the Revolution. For the second war did
not arise simply out of the question who should succeed
Charles II in Spain or whether the successor should
enjoy the whole undivided Spanish Monarchy or only a
part of it. This was indeed in itself a vast question, but
it might be questioned how far it concemed England and
still more how far it concemed our Revolution. But all
the work of the Treaty of Ryswick was undone and the
revolution controversy was reopened by the death of
James II on September 6th, 1701, and the proclamation
of the Pretender as King of England, Scotland and
freland by Louis XIV. In opening his last parliament
in the next January William said, " The recognition and
declaration which have been made of the so-called Prince
of Wales as King of England is not only the greatest
injury done to my person and to the nation, but it also
eomes home so particularly to every man who has any
regard for the Protestant religion or for the present and
future tranquillity and happiness of his country that I
need not press you to take it seriously to heart and to
consider what new measures may efficaciously be taken to
assure the succession of the Crown in the Protestant
fine." So far then as it was caused by this reckless act of
Louis XIV, the second war, it appears, was a war of the
Revolution as much as the ffrst. Nevertheless a mere
recognition of the Pretender on the part of Louis, though

352 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
a fair ground of war, was by no means so necessary a
ground as that active and aggressive aid fumished to
Jaraes II in 1689 which had brought on the former war.
Nor was it the ruling ground which decided us to
participate with so much energy in the War of the
Spanish Succession. What was the real ground of that
decision is alraost the fundaraental question upon which
our comprehension of English history in the eighteenth
century depends. The most obvious and perhaps the
received view of it is that we went to war in order to
prevent France and the House of Bourbon from acquiring
excessive power by tbe absorption of the Spanish Mon
archy, or that we did so partly for this purpose and partly
out of resentment for the recognition of the Pretender.
But there was a thfrd ground of war which in the
cfrcurastances was raore urgent than either of these and
which characterises more clearly the transition through
which our state was then passing.
The testament of Charles II of Spain by which the
succession passed undi^vided to the Duke of Anjou and
the acceptance of the testament by Louis XIV are
occurrences belonging entfrely to that dynastic system; of
policy which we had left behind us. Since the age of
Charles V there had been no example so striking of the
predominance of the principle of royal raarriage as when
the whole Spanish Monarchy was disposed of as if it had
been an estate and by means of a will, and when the
French were called upon to wage war through eleven
years for no public interest of France but for the fanrily
interest of the House of Bourbon. But with all this we
had no concern. We did not go to war to prevent the
Duke of Anjou from succeedbig in Spain nor even on the
speculative ground that so vast an augmentation of the

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 353
power of the French king was likely to be dangerous to
Europe. It is to be remarked that the death of Charles
II of Spain took place in November 1700 and that the
Duke of Anjou arrived in Spain early in 1701, i.e. a full
year before England intervened as a belligerent. It is
also to be remarked that in the two Partition Treaties by
which the succession had been regulated before the death
of the King of Spain very large concessions had actually
been made to France ¦with the consent of William.
WUliam had been prepared to give France the kingdom of
Naples and SicUy ¦with a number of Tuscan towns and the
province of Guipuscoa on the Spanish frontier. All this
had been arranged before Louis made the death of James
n the occasion of so dfrect an attack upon England and
the English Revolution.
We are not to think of that generation of Englishmen
as actuated by a half-barbarous love of war or insensibility
to the e^vils involved in war. Thefr state of raind was
different. They were fresh from the second Revolution,
and they had an almost superstitious misgiving that it
would lead, Hke the first, to a railitary govemraent. A
new Cromwell was held to be due; men waited till he
should be revealed. Already the array was there, for the
Mutiny Act had been passed, afready the country had
passed through a European war of eight years. A
second war after so short an interval seemed Hkely to fix
the military yoke for ever on our necks and to make the
debt, afready so serious, a permanent butden. Why did
they then (Hsmiss these misgivings and plunge after all
into the war which they felt to be so dangerous ?
The answer is to be found in that gro^wth of com
mercial policy which was the raain characteristic of the
age. It was not a general augmentation, however vast,
s. II. 23

354 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
of the power of France through the absorption of the
Spanish Monarchy that was feared but an augmentation
of a special kind, especially intolerable to the two trading
and maritime Powers represented by William. WUliam
had been prepared, as we saw, to see the House of
Bourbon acqufre Naples, SicUy and even more. But he
could not see it absorb the Spanish Monarchy, for the
Spanish Monarchy was the very Power at the expense of
which since the reign of Philip II both the Dutch
Empfre and the British Empire had gro^wn up. Not
French aggrandisement in general but French aggran(Hse-
ment in two special quarters was inadmissible to WUliam.
He could not see the House of Bourbon swallow up the
Catholic Low Countries nor yet the American trade.
Throughout the period that has been reviewed in this
essay and since Alexander of Parma had rescued a large
territory for Spain frora the rebellion of the Low Countries,
the whole straggle of thd Westem Powers has centred in
these Catholic Low Countries, Richelieu had hoped to
absorb thera in 1635. Here the alliance of Crorawell and
Mazarin had been most active. Here bad been the scene
of the first war of Louis XIV. Here later he had for a
moraent held possession of Luxeriiburg. This region was
adjacent to Williara's two dorainions, that which called
him King and that which knew him as Stadtholder. Since
France had succeeded Spain as the great enemy of the
Dutch and especially since she had renounced religious
toleration, the Dutch had come to consider that thefr
independence and thefr religion forbade them to aUow
this region to pass into the hands of France. England
for her part bad with(fra^wn from Dunkfrk and renounced
the continental schemes of Cromwell's miHtary state. On
the other hand she was now more closely united than

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 355
ever -with the Dutch and more decidedly Protestant. Her
unwillingness therefore to see France swallow up the
Low Countries was no mere vague jealousy of French
aggrandisement, but was a necessary part of her general
policy and of that relation to the Dutch which was alike
the cause and the consequence of the second Revolution.
But through the acceptance by Louis of the testament of
Charles II the Catholic Low Countries passed under the
rale of the House of Bourbon. How much this change
involved appeared in February 1701, when Louis con
temptuously swept away the nascent Dutch Barrier,
seized the eight fortresses of the Catholic Low Countries
which the Dutch had in thefr hands and made the Dutch
garrisons prisoner.
But another French aggrandisement of the most in
tolerable kind was to be feared. The absorption of the
Spanish Monarchy did not mean simply the absorption of
certain European territories ; it meant that of the greatest
colonial and commercial system in the world. The Spanish
Succession which was really all-important was the suc
cession to Spain's commercial position. The Power which
had (frscovered America, which had for a long time
divided ¦with Portugal the oceanic world, and then for
almost a century had possessed the Portuguese colonies
along ¦with Portugal itself, and which though it had
greatly declined maintained still its old pretensions — that
this Power should pass into new hands involved the
greatest commercial revolution that can be conceived.
For any European Power that was mainly coraraercial it
raised the most vital questions, questions of life and
death. England had become by this time just such a
state. William had made her conscious that she had this
character, that she was a kind of successor in commercial
23—2

356 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
supremacy to the United Provinces, Commercial states,
it had been found, must have religious toleration, and he
had given us the Toleration Act ; they must have a bank,
and he had created the Bank of England, By the
Navigation Act she had entered into dfrect rivalry ¦with
the United Pro^vinces and she seemed now to have settled
all her domestic difficulties. But in most of these stages
of economical progress France had marched abreast 'with
her and France had outstripped her in war and in general
influence. The Spanish question might decide the com
petition of the two states once for all in favour of France,
by throwing open all the oceans and at the same time
the Mediterranean to French trade and to French ships,
and perhaps also by closing all this area to the trade of
England. In the critical year 1701, wben the question of peace
or war was decided, the Tory party, that is the party
which was most nervously afraid of military politics and
foreign complications, had the lead in England. It was in
spite of their inclination that in the course of that year
public opinion became decisively convinced of the neces
sity of war. The argument was mainly economic. The
nature and conditions of our trade were more carefully
considered than at any former time. It was understood
that a crisis had been reached in the commercial develop
ment of the country.
The character of this war, the greatest in which we
were engaged before the Napoleonic time, ought to be
clearly understood. It was unlike those that had gone
before in this, that it was a war against France and Spain
at once. This very fact marks the transition that was
being made, since throughout the eighteenth century
those two Powers are commonly in alHance against us.

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 357
Elizabeth and CromweU had made war ¦with Spain alone
and we were to make war ¦with Spain alone again in 1739.
Those Spanish wars have all a common character. All
arose alike out of Spain's monopoly in the New World ; all
are alike mainly trade-wars. The peculiarity of the Marl
borough war lies in this that it sees France passing over
from opposition to Spain to alliance with her. But in other
respects the war, so far as it concerns England, resembles
those which had preceded and those which were to follow
it. It too is a trade-war. It was especially necessary to
us because in this case our old enemy and trade-rival was
aided by the greatest of military Powers, which was
also a great naval and a great coraraercial Power. The
conjunction of the old maritime Power of the past with
¦the great military Power of the actual time threatened
such a Power as England had now begun to be with ruin.
This was the view which influenced us in 1701. William
revived the Grand Alliance and it was determined by a
new war to obtain security for Britain and for the United
Provinces and at the same time an indenmity for Austria,
the rival claimant to the Spanish Succession on the
ground of hereditary right. Such was the coraraenceraent
of the war; let us now look at its results. One of its
results was to deprive the House of Bourbon of the
Catholic Low Countries which were given to Austria,
whUe a barrier of fortresses in this region was given to the
Dutch. Such was the final settleraent of that long debate
which had really begun when Alva was sent to the Low
Countries in 1567. For eighty years the Dutch had
struggled ¦with Spain and then after a stadtholderless
interval they struggled for nearly forty years -with France.
In the end the French power was held at a sufficient
distance from thefr frontier and a barrier was established

358 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
which was to serve as a bulwark to them for the greater
part of the eighteenth century. Thus did the United
Provinces by the help of England cro^wn the work which
they had begun in the sixteenth century. But what (Hd
England acqufre for herself by this war of the Spanish
Succession? By considering this we may see in what
way she thought herself interested in the war. She took
Gibraltar and Port Mahon ; she took Acadie ; and by the
Asiento Compact she acqufred a certain share in the trade
¦with Spanish America. Thus preoccupied is the English
mind ¦with the subject of trade. By occupying two
Mediterranean stations she enters upon that policy which
she has since pushed so far. She first establishes that
K^lfejtelifeM?;gL,,.which in her modem World-Empfre is so
characteristic. She takes up a position at the entrance.
of tbe Mediterranean. In course of time she was to take
up many simUar stations both in the Mediterranean and
in greater seas. Gibraltar was to be the first of a series
to which ¦within a century Malta, the Cape of Good Hope,
besides Quebec, Ma(fras and Calcutta, and within two
centuries many other trading and mUitary stations in all
parts of the world were to be added.
So far the war was waged for the commercial interest
of the English and Dutch. It travelled however beyond
these objects. For, first, it gave to Austria not only the
Catholic Low Countries but also Milan and Naples, to
which territories was added a few years later SicUy.
Thus at the sarae time that England stationed herself
at tbe entrance of the Mediterranean she prevented the
House of Bourbon from taking possession of its central
region, which, be it remarked, she had consigned to that
House in the Second Partition Treaty. Secondly, in the
course of the war, though not in the original design of it,

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 359
other questions of vast extent were raised. An attempt
was made to dethrone the Bourbon prince in Spain itself
and to set up the Habsburg claimant in his place. More
than once the English Parliaraent affirmed that the honour
and interest of England would not allow any part of the
Spanish Monarchy to remain under the govemment of a
pruice of the House of Bourbon. But frora this position
we were forced in the end to recede, as we had not at the
outset contemplated taking it up. It was an unfortunate
afterthought, which altered the whole character of the
war, transforming it from a necessary vindication of our
position in the world into a speculative half-dynastic
straggle of the kind which we especially desfred to avoid.
It was reduced to an absurdity when the Habsburg
candidate, the Archduke Charles, became Eraperor in
1711 on the death of his brother Joseph, after which we
found ourselves pledged, in order to prevent the House of
Bourbon from becoming too strong, to make the House of
Habsburg stronger still. It now began to be said that
the Eraperor Charles VI was the greatest Eraperor that
had been seen since Charies V, and the English public
now prepared for the reaction which swept away Marl
borough and the war together. It is enough that the
war, so far as it was based on a truly national and
self-consistent policy, was a war of trade, marking the
transition through which we assumed the character of the
great commercial state.
Not less than the war, the party politics of Queen
Anne's reign betray the commercial character which our
policy was beginning to assume. The great reaction of
1700 brought to light another phase of Toryism besides
its dread of militarism. The reaction against the second
Reyolution had several aspects, which in the four last

360 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
years of the Queen carae to Hght together. Ffrst there
was ecclesiastical Toryisra represented by SachevereU,
which would have led naturally to the recall of the
Pretender. Then there was that Anti-Cromwellism of
which we have spoken, that misgiving that Revolution
ended naturally in military govemment, and that Marl
borough was the predestined successor of Crorawell.
But Harley and St John gave the reaction a thfrd
aspect when they also maintained that the govemment of
the country belonged by right to the landed interest, but
that in consequence of the Revolution and the wars it
brought in its train govemment was being transferred to
the raonied and the trading interest. This contention
certainly grasped the trae character of the transition
which was going forward. It perceived that England
was to emerge as a commercial state from the second
Revolution. But it is time to consider another great change which
falls in the midst of Anne's reign and in its magnitude
rivals the Marlborough campaigns or that supplementaij'
revolution which came on the death of Anne to close the
whole transition, namely, the succession of the German
Elector, This change is the Union of England and
Scotland, and it is to be considered here only so far as
it may illustrate the general nature of the transition by
which the Corairiercial State established itself The
creation of Great Britain by an incorporating union of the
two parts of the island is an event which it is particularly
necessary to consider historically. In the abstract such a
union might seem as desfrable as the union of Aragon and
Castille, and we readily understand that in a tirae of wai
it raight appear absolutely necessary. And yet it did
not take place siraply because it was desfrable or even

THE COMMERCIAL STATE, 361
necessary, but for ranch raore special reasons. If a change
which had been found impracticable during many centuries
was now brought without extreme difficulty to pass, these
special reasons, which belong to the time and to the
transition which necessarily followed upon the second
Revolution, explain the reraarkable result. As Marl
borough's war, so the Union -with Scotland is to be ex
plained less by general considerations of policy than by ^
those special commercial and maritime interests which
were becoming supreme in that age or by these conjoined
with the question of succession which had arisen out of
the Revolution.
We have remarked throughout how the great internal
changes in England invariably brought the Scotch question
into prominence. The Elizabethan settlement of England
caused and prepared the personal union of England and
Scotland under the family of Stuart. The first Revo
lution, when it destroyed monarchy in England, turned
the hefr of Charles I into a King of Scots and led to the
Anglo-Scotch wars in which were fought the battles of
Dunbar and Worcester. The second Revolution could
not but produce a simUar effect; it too revived the
Scotch question. This second settleraent of the relations
between the nation and the raonarchy brought to light
the unsatisfactory nature of the relation between North
and South Britain and offered a choice between two
courses. Either the personal union must corae to an
end and the Scotch kingdom have its own royal House,
or a completer union must be formed and a new State
be founded whose territorial basis should be the whole
island of Britain, It was indeed by a reraarkable good
fortune that the unsatisfactory, serai-union had held
together through the crisis of 1688, that almost at the

362 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY,
same time that in London the Convention pronounced the
throne to be vacant the Scotch Estates also declared that
King James the Seventh " hath forefaulted the right to the
Crown, and the throne is become vacant," and that having
done so they declared WUliam and Mary, king and queen
of England, France and Ireland, to be also king and
queen of Scotland -with succession first to the hefrs of
Mary, then to Anne and her hefrs, thfrdly to the hefrs of
William. Thus the personal union was preserved for the
moraent, yet even this remained exposed to risk. As in
England, so in Scotland the Revolution of 1688 requfred a
supplementary revolution. Heirs of Mary, Anne and
William failed in both countries alike, and, if it was
reraarkable that the two coramunities should consent to
travel together over so much rough ground from 1688 to
1714, was it to be expected that they should also agree to
adopt the supplementary revolution, that Scotland as well
as England should consent to be govemed by a German
Elector ? Moreover Scotland as well as England suffered
from that fatality which we have remarked as attending
the second Revolution, Scotland, if she continued to
wait upon England, would have to take part in two
European wars, wars too waged against the ancient ally
of Scotland, France.
If Scotland could go with England not only in the
Revolution but also in two European wars and then in
the Hanoverian Succession, she might probably consent
also to a union more complete and definitive. In the
meanwhile it seemed raore natural for her to take the
opposite course and struggle for complete national inde
pendence. Two ways presented themselves in which this
might be attained. The Revolution itself might be
cancelled; the country might surrender itself to James

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. ,363
or to the son of Jaraes. Or the country might decline
to adopt the supplementary revolution, that is the Han
overian Succession. By either course Scotland would
disentangle herself from England and restore the inde
pendence she had had before the marriage of James IV
to the Tudor Margaret. She had e-vidently arrived at a
parting of the ways, and it raay seem strange that a
proud race of strongly marked character should have
decided to travel by a road so strange as the Hanoverian
Succession to a goal so little inviting as a union which
resembled an absorption, rather than take one of these
altemative courses. On tbe face of the history we may
see how strongly these alternatives impressed thefr minds,
for we see a phase begin in which Jacobitism becomes
predominantly a Scotch interest. In Queen Anne's reign
we see Louis XIV fomenting Jacobite (Hsaffection in
Scotland; Scotland organises the Fifteen and then the
Forty-five. The Scotch dynasty in its decline retfres to
its ancient kingdom, and the Stuart cause dies out where
it had first arisen- — in Scotland. We need only look a
very Httle closer to see bow much the other alternative
course, that of acquiring national independence by reject
ing the Hanoverian Succession, coraraended itself to the
Scotch raind. When we discover what the attraction
was which outweighed all this we shall make a step
towards understanding the transition which was then in
progress. When William died the centenary of the uruon of the
cro-wns was at hand. The experience of a century had by
no means convinced the Scotch people that well-being
was to be found on the path of union or that that path
ought to be pursued further. Fletcher of Saltoun talks of
the poverty, misery and dependence of the country. The

364 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
union of the Crowns had led the country into two revolu
tions and several wars. If it had given scope to its
peculiar religious ideas, so that at one time the Covenant
had been actually adopted by England and Presb3rterianism
was now at length triumphing under William, on the
other hand England had decisively rejected it. Prelacy was
victorious, and the two parts of Britain, though faithful
alike to the Reformation, retained a raarked difference in
religion. It was by no means clear that the next step
ought not to be rather a step backward than a step
forward. ' For my o-wn part,' says Fletcher, ' before I will
consent to continue in our present miserable and languish
ing condition after the decease of her majesty (Anne) and
hefrs of her body failing, I shall rather give my vote for
a separation frora England at any rate.' He expresses
these views in a tone of confidence that they must of
necessity be adopted by all public-spirited men. And yet
within a few years the very opposite views prevailed once
for all. Scotland followed England in accepting the
succession of the German Elector, and instead of claiming
a royal House to itself Scotland surrendered her Assembly
of Estates and entered into an incorporating union ¦with
Prelatic England.
For the Commercial State was establishing itself
Scotland entered into the spfrit of an age in which the
Sea Powers were invading the Spanish monopoly of the
New World, in which great commercial companies were
becoming prominent and which was soon to see ruinous
bubbles both in England and France. In June 1695; the
Scotch Parliament passed an Act in favour of ' a company
trading to Africa and the Indies.' This is the Darien
Company, for which a capital of £400,000 was spee(frly
subscribed. It contdmplated the most various enterprises,

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 365
trade to Greenland, Archangel, the Gold Coast, the Negro
Coast, even trade with India ; especially it contemplated a
Scotch colony to be founded on the Isthmus of Panama.
The excitement and enthusiasm which was aroused in
Scotland by this new enterprise were such as to mark a
new departure in the Scotch mind, the opening of a new
chapter in Scottish history. It is the entrance of Scotland
into the commercial career. At this moment it seems to
pass out of the atmosphere of theology into that of com
merce, as both Holland and England had done before in
the course of the seventeenth century.
These new commercial views, as they modified every
thing else, would modify tbe relation of Scotland to
England. England had been regarded till then frora the
point of view of nationality, as the powerful neighbour
who threatened Scottish independence and Scottish re
ligion. Henceforth she must be regarded from the point
of view of commerce, and the question must be raised,
since Scotland was now deciding to aim at wealth through
trade, what relation to England would be most conducive
to that object. In Hke manner England must modify her
way of regarding Scotland.
The history of the Darien Company introduces us to
precisely the same phenomena with which we have be
come familiar in following the developement of England.
WilHam was at that moment busy with his Partition
Treaties, and the Darien Company raised for Scotland
the same questions which those negociations raised for
England. Any nation which in those days conceived a
commercial ambition could not but turn its eyes towards
the New World, the West Indian islands and the Gulf of
Mexico, and on doing so was immediately confronted -with
the hostUity of Spain. The Scotch carved out a district

366 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
on the Gulf of Darien where they proposed to plant a New
Caledonia and to build a New Edinburgh and a New
St Andrews, They did this in the sumraer of 1698 and
no doubt believed themselves to be occupying a central
position for the trade of the planet. But they found
themselves in the very midst of the Spanish monopoly,
neighbours of Carthagena and Porto Bello. And in May
1699, Spain protested by a meraorial presented to William
against the Scotch settleraent as an invasion of Spanish
territory. The question of the Spamsh Succession, then
coming to a head, showed itself ever3rwhere, for there
was a succession of trade as well as a succession of
govemment. The Scotch Colony failed disastrously, but not -without
transforming the whole aspect of the relation between
England and Scotland. Scotland had now corae forward
as a Commercial State, and England now began to regard
her as a Coraraercial rival. The aspfrant to colonies in
Central Araerica began to seem a natural enemy, as the
United Pro-vinces had seemed when Shaftesbury said of
thera "Delenda est Carthago." And on the other hand
Scotland had now an additional reason for desiring to
disentangle herself frora England, from the great Com
mercial State which might thwart her newly conceived
ambition. It was likely that the commercial classes in
England would exclude Scotch competition as resolutely
as they were then bent upon checking French com
petition. So far trade was the greatest argument against union
between the two kingdoms. But the matter might be
regarded otherwise and in such a way as to make trade
the greatest argument in favour of union. If England
had it in her power to close, she had it also in her power

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 367
to open, the trade of the world to Scotland. If she
might indulge her trade jealousy she raight also lay it
aside. The advantage to England of union -with Scotland
was evident, especially in time of war. Scotland would
be called upon to sacrifice much, her pride in an inde
pendent Parliament if not also an independent Monarchy.
But the Commercial State was founding itself and England
had it in her power to offer to Scotland a share in her own'
commercial and maritime greatness.
Commercial jealousy was in that age the dominant
feeling of the English mind. It was scarcely therefore
to be anticipated that England would be magnanimous
enough for the sake of any contingent advantages to
admit Scotland to a share in her trade. The Darien
affafr stimulated this English jealousy, and William in his
last days provoked much bitterness by occupying a sort
of neutral position in the trade rivalry of England and
Scotland, which for his misfortune was now added to the
Pld trade rivafry of England and Holland. He did not
Hve to make the Union but he declared strongly in favour
of it more than once, at the beginning of his reign in
1689 and again at the close of it a raonth before his
death. He raay be said to have laid the foundation of
the incorporating union as we remarked that the union of
the Cro-wns though founded at the accession of James I
rested on a basis which had been laid by Elizabeth.
Thus the first step towards Union was taken at the
time when England was preparing to enter into the war
of the Spanish Succession. At that moment Scotland
found herself entering the Commercial movement and
acqufred quite a new sense of the intolerable entangle
ment of her interests with those of England. That the
relation could not remain unaltered was the conclusion

368 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
forced upon her by the failure of tbe Darien enterprise.
A wUd quarrel between the two comraunities now began,
and proved strangely to be the prelude to thefr union.
The reign of Anne commenced and brought -with it new
and vast complications. It brought a new European war,
in which it might be held that Scotland had no interest.
Now too the Hanoverian Succession was established, by
which Scotland would lose the kind of precedence she had
hitherto had as the home of the royal House. It was a
settlement which not only seemed highly artificial, but
also suggested that if a new relation were needful between
England and Scotland there was an altemative to union,
-viz., complete disunion. The former union of the Crowns
had gro-wn up naturally and to Scotland it had been
honourable; a new union of tbe Crowns now came in
prospect of which this could not be said. Why should
Scotland cro-wn a German Elector? A second step was
now taken which again shows how closely related is the
developement which ended in the Union to the general
developement of the second Revolution. The Scotch
passed in 1703 an Act for the Security of the Kingdom,
which was dfrected against the Hanoverian Succession.
It provided that on the death of the Queen without issue
the Estates should name a successor from the Protestant
descendants of the royal line of Scotland, but not the
successor to the cro-wn of England 'unless there be such
conditions of govemment settled and enacted as raay
secure the honour and sovereignty of this crown and
kingdora, the freedora, frequency and power of parlia
ments, the religion, freedom and trade of the nation, from
English or any foreign influence.' This Act was passed,
and though the touch of the sceptre, which in Scotland
corresponded to the royal assent in England, was refused

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 369
to it in 1703, even this was granted when it was passed a
second time in 1704. Strange things were brought into
prospect by this Act of Security. It appeared that the
House of Branswick was to resemble the House of Tudor
rather than that of Stuart. Its dominion was to be
bounded by the Tweed ; an independent king was to rule
at Holyrood, who would have his ambassadors at Madrid
and Vienna, who would sign treaties of alliance, perhaps
also raarriage treaties, -with the royal House of France.
Who this king would be could not yet be kno-wn, but it
was not impossible that he might come from St Germains;
some thought he would be the Duke of Hamilton. There
was, as we may see frora Lockhart, a considerable Jacobite
party in Scotland, It might prove that by refusing the
supplementary Revolution of 1714 Scotland would in fact
cancel the Revolution of 1688, And thus in 1704 the
Scotch question assumed quite a new aspect. Meanwhile
the rancorous quarrel between the two comraunities was
raised higher than ever, chiefly through the affafr of the
Worcester. The trial of Captain Green began in March
1705 ; in April took place his execution -with that of two
(jf his crew, of which act Mr Burton says simply, the poor
men were sacrificed not to penal laws but to national
hostility; they were -victims of war rather than of justice.
It began to be e-vident that there was no time to lose.
Queen Anne herself indeed had nine years to live, but the
Tory reaction was to come in five years. Had Harley and
St John in those last four years of the Queen been backed
in Scotland by a strong national party headed by Fletcher
and Belhaven, at a time when the Scotch people had been
further embittered by long broodfrig over the Darien
faUure and had the Act of Security to work -with, it is
evident that the crisis' of 1714 would have been much
s, n. 24

370 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
more difficult than it actually was. The time was not
lost. In 1706, that is, the year after the execution of
Green, coraraissioners were appointed in both kingdoms
to agree upon articles of Union. In January 1707 the
Act passed the Estates and was touched with the Sceptre
by the Duke of Queensberry, Queen Anne's High Com
missioner; in March it received the royal assent in
England from Queen Anne herself Mr Burton remarks,
' If it were to be asked what one man (frd raost for the
accoraplishment of the Union it would not be unreasonable
to say it was the Duke of Marlborough.' And indeed that
decisive year 1706 was the year of Ramillies, that is the
most decisive of his victories and the victory in which he
had not the help of Eugene. It was the victory which
more even than Blenheim brought horae to Louis XIV
the conviction that he was beaten. Thus the Union
passed at a moment when the Revolution after so many
vicissitudes had gone through its most difficult ordeal and
had decisively beaten France and Spain in fafr fight. It
was a necessary part of the Revolution, as much a supple
ment to it as was the Hanoverian Succession.
A measure so thoroughgoing as the Union, adopted at
so short notice and carried through in spite of difficulties
so various and prejudices so deeply rooted, excites astonish
ment. Bumet introduces it with this natural reraark,
'The union of the two kingdoms was a work of which
many had quite despafred, in which number I was one;
and those who entertained better hopes thought it must
have run out into a long negociation for several years;
but beyond all men's expectation it was begun and
finished within the compass of one,' It involved prac
tically the ruin of Jacobitism and the establishment of
the Hanoverian Succession, but at the particular moment

THE COMMERCIAL .STATE. 371
perhaps the most surprising feature about it was the
concession which was made to Scotland of coraraercial
equality. It has always been remarked that the modem
wealth and prosperity of Scotland have been based upon its
admission by this article into the commerce of a leading
commercial state. But it surprises us that the admission
should have been granted at that precise time, a time
when commercial jealousy was at its height in England,
Our coraraerce had just emerged from a long period of
rivalry with the Dutch commerce. The Dutch never
ceased to complain of our Navigation Act, and not all the
community of our political interests nor our military
alHance could for a moment abate the keenness of that
rivalry. We were engaged at the raoraent in resisting in
the interest of our coraraerce the conjunction of the two
Cro-wns of France and Spain. And yet at this raoment
we freely admitted the competition of the Scotch, who had
just given e-vidence by founding the Darien Company of
the extent and audacity of thefr commercial ambition. But
of all the contrasts by which the coraraercial liberality of
the Scotch Union can be set off, perhaps the raost striking
is that which is afforded by our conduct at tbe sarae time
towards Ireland. For the afterswell of the second Revolu
tion requfred a new settlement in Ireland as much as in
Scotland, and in Ireland too the coraraercial question
which dominated the age would have to be dealt with.
The question arises if a union with Scotland in spite of its
enormous difficulty was achieved, why could it not be
accompanied Or followed up by a union with Ireland?
Most of the arguments which pleaded for the one union
pleaded also for the other. Nor were they overlooked.
An Irish union was demanded and (Hscussed almost at the
same time that the Scotch union was enacted. And it
24—2

372 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
was so much in the drift of things that an Irish union did
in the end take place. The Dublin Parliament in the end
ceased to sit as did the Parliament of Edinburgh. This
essay is no contribution to the redoubtable Irish question,
and yet a general view of the second Revolution and of
the establishment of the Commercial State must take
account of the fact that the Irish Union did not form a
part of that transition, that it was delayed for another
century and that in the meanwhile a different, a very
strange and unsatisfactory settlement was provided for
Ireland, The contrast between our Irish and our Scotch
policy is one of the most marked features of the transition,'
and it is the more striking because the commercial
jealousy characteristic of the time was carried to its
extreme point in our dealings -with Ireland at the same
time that it was so happily renounced in our dealings with
Scotland, The problem which the second Revolution left behind
it was in some respects the same for England, for Scotlandf
and for Ireland, All three countries alike bad to make
also the supplementary Revolution of 1714; all alike had
- to submit to the necessity of taking part in two great
European wars; all alike bad to withstand reactionary
tendencies represented by Jacobitism and Popery; lastly
supposing all alike to accomplish -with success this great
transition, they had also to accept its total result and take
thefr places as parts of a great commercial empfre. A
great Britannic Union suggested itself as almost a neces
sary condition of the transition. But of the whole ' com
plex problem different parts presented special difficulties
in England, Scotland and Ireland. It may be said of
Ireland that her special difficulty was to resist the ten
dency to reaction, to prevent the Revolution of 1688 from

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 373
being undone agaui. In England and Scotland that
change had been accomplished with surprising unanimity,
and the revival of Jacobitism in Queen Anne's time,
though startling, had its evident Hraits. There was not
now, as in Queen Elizabeth's reign, any doubt that
England and Scotland belonged to the Reforraation;
Popery, as such, was no longer dangerous in either part
of Britain. But in the other island, in Ireland, the Revo
lution of 1688 seemed to have been much less definitively
made. There in the first place Popery itself reigned and
had a majority in tbe population; in the second place
Jacobitism had appeared in its most intense and aggres
sive form at the time of the Revolution itself There
James and William had decided their quarrel in the field ;
there a Catholic ParHament had met; there French troops
and French diplomatists had openly aided the Jacobite
cause. In the second Revolution Ireland had played
much the same part as in the first, and had been a kind
of citadel of the Stuart cause. The Dublin Parliaraent with
its Act of Attainder had corresponded in the second Revo
lution to the rebellion and massacre of 1641 in the first.
Here then it might appear that Jacobitism would revive
in vigour, since here alone it had a popular basis, here
alone that which in England and Scotland was its fatal
weakness, -viz., the creed, first of James himself and after
wards of his son, was actually its strength and the ground
of its popularity. Accordingly the problem in Ireland under
William and Anne differed from the problem in England
and Scotland. Here progressive changes were raade,
and at last an incorporating union was established. But
in Ireland policy is more retrospective and directed rather
to consolidating the Revolution than to developing it
further. No union is enacted there, but the foundation

374 GROWTH OP BRITISH POLICY.
upon which the existing state of things rests is examined
and, being recognised to be hollow, is strengthened by
new legislation. The question is what to do in the
Britannic world -with an island where the majority of the
population is Catholic. It appears that this' fact, incon
sistent -with the Revolution and -with all that can be built
upon it, must at all risks be altered. Acts must be
passed for the repression of Popery ; a penal code must be
introduced. How else can a German Elector peacefully
succeed to the throne, or the descendants of a king whose
only fault was that he was a Catholic be permanently
excluded ?
In the whole period before us we are astonished at the
success which attends legislation, since it is a common
place in general that legislation is an instrument of very
limited efficacy. Thus the Union of 1707 seems a marvel
and it seems also a mfracle that the Revolution of 1714
should have been so easily accoraplished and should have
had results so durable. But the Irish legislation of the
period seeras to form a grand exception. The penal code,
— those ' tremendous statutes,' to speak with Hallam — ' the
ferocious acts of Anne,' to use the language of Burke — are
now condemned on all hands as detestable. Even here
however we have to recognise that the object contem
plated was in a remarkable degree attained. New evils
no doubt were introduced ; an Irish question was created
which would take a form almost revolutionary in the last
years of the eighteenth century and would dominate
EngHsh politics through most of thd nineteenth. But the
old evU was really removed. Ireland did cease to be the
citadel of the Stuart cause. The second Revolution was
secured at least from Irish reactions. Jacobitism had its
headquarters henceforth not in Ireland but in Scotland.

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 375
The Revolution of 1714 raet with no opposition in Ireland;
Ireland took no share Hi the risings of 1715 and 1745.
How great this result was is best measured by com-
parriig in this respect the second Revolution with the
first, and reraarking how in the second Ireland drops out
of the struggle, whereas in the first it had throughout
from the days of Strafford to the Restoration contributed
the largest share of the bloodshed and the horror.
Thus the penal code so far as it was dfrected against
¦Popery arose naturally out of the Revolution. It was a
violent and demoralising scheme, yet a scheme which in
the cfrcurastances was held necessary for securing a
Protestant govemraent in a country where the population
was in majority Catholic. But the age requfred some-
thriig more than this. Throughout tbe Britannic world
the transition we are studying had a double aspect. It
was not merely a settleraent of the religious question ; it
was also the establishment of the commercial state. In
Marlborough's war and in the Union with Scotland we
have traced the dominant influence of commerce. In the
settldment of Ireland too we may expect to find this
double character. It ¦will have an aspect looking towards
the past. In this aspect it ¦will be, as we have seen, the
establishment of a Protestant govemment in a Catholic
country and on a territory strewn with the ashes of past
conflagrations. But it must also look towards the future ;
it must have also a raore positive aspect. The govemment
once established must do something; the Irish people
once pacified must occupy themselves in some way. Here
too must they not follow the example of England and
Scotland, must they not tum their attention to commerce
and set up in Ireland too the Commercial State? This
commercial aspect of the transition is not less con-

376 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
spicuously visible in Ireland than in Scotland. Complex
as is the Irish legislation of this age, vast and intricate
as is the Irish Question in the new shape which it now
assumes, we easily (Hscem a doubleness in it. There is
on the one side the attack made by legislation upon
Popery, whether by crippling the priesthood or preventing
a succession in the priesthood or by offering inducements
to in(fr^vidual Catholics to adopt Protestantism. But on
the other side there is legislation upon Irish trade, those
acts of commercial repression which have shared pretty-
equally with tbe penal code itself the reprobation of later
times. It is this point alone with which we are now con
cerned. Those questions so numerous and so much dis
cussed, where we first went ¦wrong, who was most to
blarae, what we ought to have done and what we ought
to do now, the moral side and the political side of the
Irish Question, do not occupy us. We desfre only to find
its right place for the settleraent of Ireland in the great
universal settlement of the Britannic World which followed
the Second Revolution. It was a general characteristic of
that settleraent that it gave a new importance to com
merce. In general we find tbe British state at this time
bidding for supremacy in tbe coraraercial world and dis
posed to see in every other Power a commercial rival
She has however waived this view in the case of Scotland,
where she found herself on the point of awakening a
national rivalry so close to her o-wn doors that it threat
ened to overthrow at once the Revolution and the
Hanoverian Succession. We reraark now that the very
sarae question arises in Ireland too. Shall England offer
the sarae liberal treatment to Irish as to Scotch trade or
shall she here follow the dictates of commercial jealousy ?

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 377
And we observe at once that Ireland has not the same
means that Scotland possesses of putting pressure upon
England. Scotland has already national independence
and her own Assembly of Estates and she now plunges
independently and ¦with enthusiasm into the commercial
career. Complete national independence, if England
should refuse to come in to her terms, seems within her
reach and she had enjoyed it as recently as the sixteenth
century. Ireland can contemplate no such altemative.
She has no such tradition of national independence to
look back upon ; her parhament has no real independence ;
in her Popery she stands quite isolated in the Britannic
world ; by resistance to England she can only bring on
herself another of those ruinous calamities, those sub
versions of the very foundations of society, to which since
EHzabeth's time she has been several times exposed. She
was fresh from a destructive civil war. No sane man in
Ireland could adopt the tone of Fletcher of Saltoun;
freland had no alternative but to submit to the destiny
which England might ordain for her. This is the relation
between the two comraunities which made it possible for
Burke himself to describe the settlement we are now
considering in the foUo^sring words. 'AU the penal laws
of that unparalleled code of oppression which were made
after the last event [the reduction of Ireland in 1691]
were manifestly the effect of national hatred and scorn
towards a conquered people, whora the victors delighted to
trample upon and were not at all afraid to provoke.' But
the code of oppression had two parts ; it was dfrected in
one part against Irish popery, in the other against Irish
trade. Neither part is discussed here; it is sufficient to
remark the sharp contrast between the admission of
Scotland tp English trade and the commercial legislation

378 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
which was pro^vided about the same time for Ireland; and
which is thus summed up by Mr Lecky : — Irish forbidden
to export cattle to England — Excluded from the colonial
trade — Forbidden to export unmanufactured wool to the
Continent — Forbidden to export raanufactured wool— Ef
fects of the destruction of mariufactures— Extreme poverty
— Famine. In short in Ireland too politics take, though in a very
unhappy way, the same economical or commercial tinge
that they take everywhere at the same time. In Irish
history a transition is made which is none the less decisive
for being unhappy. The old Irish question at least dis
appears though a new one forms itself • The Stuart cause
¦with all that belongs to it passes into an obsolete con
dition. The second Revolution with its supplement the
Hanoverian Succession are disturbed by no Irish reaction.
A new leaf is turned over; the seventeenth' century
recedes into the past with all its violence, 'civil war,
massacre, confiscation ; Ireland leaves behind the days of
Strafford, Phelim O'Neil and Crorawell, ' and' does not
revive in the eighteenth century the scenes bf Derry,
Aghrim and Limerick. A new scene opens and new
topics are discussed; These are in a great degree indus
trial and economical It is complained that the jealousy
of England destroys Irish trade ; it is asked how in such
circurastances the people are to find subsistence. Govem
raent seems to be regarded from a new point of view, as if
its object were actually the material prosperity of the
people. The new Ireland has its thinkers who discuss
with vigour the condition of the people. But Jonathan
Swift and George Berkeley bring to the discussion of
poHtical topics a 'novel kind of realism. They speak of
industry and money making, of the raeans of averting

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 379
famine. Swift conjures the people to reject all the pro
ducts of English industry, to prove their Irish patriotism
by the food they eat and the clothes they wear. Or look
at a paper like the Querist of Berkeley and remark how
the antithesis of wealth and poverty, industry and beggary
pervades it. He asks, whether the drift and aim of every
wise state should not be to encourage industry in its
members. This is his thfrd query; his nineteenth runs
thus : — Whether the bulk of our Irish natives are not kept
from thriving by that cynical content in dfrt and beggary
which they possess to a degree beyond any other people in
Christendom ? And this is the 132nd, Whether there be
upon earth any Christian or civilised people so beggarly,
wretched and destitute as the common Irish ? These
hints are woven together by a series of reflexions on the
nature of wealth, its relation to money, to trade, especially
foreign trade, to banks, to culture and education. In
short here is the science of political economy in an era-
bryonic stage. But we may be surprised to find the great
idealist so intensely preoccupied with the subject of wealth
and industry as to ¦write for example, query 359, Whether
it be not a sad cfrcumstance to live araong lazy beggars ?
And whether on the other hand it would not be delightful
to live in a country swarraing, like China, with busy
people ?
Such is the Commercial State which grew up in the
Britannic world in the afterswell of the second Revolution,
That unparalleled settlement which dealt so successfully
with questions so fundamental, which at the same tirae
settled the succession of the Cro^wn, waged war victoriously
against France and Spain, and established the state of
Great Britain by the union of England and Scotland, left
us a state predominantly commercial. The British policy,
which had ceased to be dynastic and had established

380 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
itself upon the national interest, found that interest in
trade. The eighteenth century was to show that in that
notion of trade was involved the erapire of the sea and; a
vast colonial dominion. But this was not as yet recog
nised. For the raoraent, that is, in the reign of Anne,
it was only visible that the Britannic State showed a
military and diplomatic skill which were wholly novel,
and interfered in Continental affairs with more decision
than had been her wont under either the Tudors or the
Stuarts. When the period of war was over, the House of
Brunswick speedily succeeded to an insular state far more
consolidated at home than had been kno^wn before. And
then after a few years France recovered under the guidanpe
of Fleury from the serious blows she had received, and it
seemed that the age of Louis XIV was to be foUowed as
it had been preceded by a great age of the Cardinal. And
then gradually the total result of the great transition
became measurable; Europe of the eighteenth century
displayed its main intemational features. Frederick the
Great finds that all the states of Europe are (fra^wn in the
train of England and France and that the standing
hostUity of those two states rules everylihing. This grand
rivalry reminds him of the Punic Wars. The French,
restored to thefr old influence by Fleury, strike him as
the modem Romans. Great Britain, he admits, cherishes
no designs of conquest; she desfres only to push her .trade.
She is the modem Carthage ; but it is a great evil that
all the states of Europe alike are forced to take part; in
this grand rivafry which embraces the globe. This; we
see, is the very conception which in the first years of the
nineteenth century possessed the mind of Napoleon and
led to a Punic War indeed, which had its Hannibal and
had also its Battle of Zama. But the intemational
situation which led to this result was already ¦visible

THE COMMERCIAL STATE. 381
before the middle of the eighteenth century and had
begun to exist earlier still. It was the consequence of
that transition which we have considered, of the establish
ment of a Commercial State including the whole Britannic
world. The modem Carthage was founded when the
second Revolution followed by the Hanoverian Succes
sion established a secure govemment with a national
and no longer a dynastic policy, and when this acqufred
Britain instead of England for its territorial basis and was
able also to draw in its train Ireland, not indeed united
nor satisfied but pacified and withdrawn from the in
fluences of reaction. When this great Britannic State
defeated in the field the combined powers of France and
Spain and began to be acknowledged as the leading
maritime Power, while at the sarae tirae it devoted itself
to trade, a State appeared which resembled tbe ancient
Carthage as much as the great states of the modem world
can resemble the small states of antiquity.
The same eighteenth century was to exhibit this
Britannic State as no mere commercial state. Even in
the two transition-reigns of William and Anne the
learning and phUosophy of Europe had begun to look to
Britain as they had never done before. In William's
reign were published the Principia of Newton, Locke's
Essay on the Human Understanding, and Bentley's In-
qufry into the Letters of Phalaris. When George I
ascended the British throne he could boast for a year or
two that both Ne^wton and Leibnitz were his subjects,
though the former called him King and the latter Elector.
Soon after Voltafre, in reviewing the great historical
periods of literature, was compelled to acknowledge that
by the side of the age of Louis XIV must be placed the
EngHsh period

882 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY,
All has now been said which falls within the plan of
this essay. I may bid farewell to my readers with a few
sentences of recapitulation. They ¦will have discovered
long since that the work is strictly a historical essay and
makes no pretension to be a history. It has been
throughout rather a dissertation than a narrative, and if
it has thrown any iraportant light on the period of which
it has treated, this has not been by direct investigation of
the occurrences that happened but by presenting a con
nected view of thefr significance. The occurrences dealt
¦with have been those larger revolutions which belong to
the very outline of history, but they have been presented
from an unusual point of view. Spme of the best known
and most iraportant events of English history have been
reviewed frora a point of ¦view not English but European,
not national but intemational. Whether we have con
templated the Elizabethan age or the Great RebelHon or
the Revolution, we have seen events in a framework
different from that in which they appear in histories of
England. We have had always before us not one state
but several, not England but the relations of England to
the Houses of Habsburg and Bourbon and to the United
Pro^vinces. The great transitions have thus assumed a
somewhat new appearance. Thus in the Great Rebellion
we have been less strack by the quarrel itself of King and
Parliament than by the action and reaction of France
transformed by Richelieu and England transformed by
the Rebellion. In like raanner what has chiefly occupied
us in dealing ¦with the Revolution has been the European
war which iraraediately preceded William's expedition and
that other European war which grew out of it.
Looked at frora this point of ¦view it has seemed to us
that the long period beginning with the accession of

conclusion. 383
Elizabeth and closing with the reign of Anne has a
certain unity. Much has been said on this point, but rii
concluding I may tell the .reader again why ray essay set
out with Elizabeth and why it closed ¦with Anne. In one
word this period covers the whole age of the Spanish
Habsburgs and ^also the whole great age of the Dutch.
Nearly at the commencement of it the Dutch question
was opened at a time when the Spanish Monarchy was
rising to a sort of universal empfre. This period saw on
the one side the House of Philip II die out and the
Spanish Habsburgs give place to the House of Bourbon ;
on the other side it saw the heroic branch of the House of
Orange-Nassau (fre out with the death of William III.
Throughout the period international relations were domi
nated by this struggle and the attitude which was assumed
towards it by England and France, at first while they
favoured the Dutch against Spain, afterwards while France
meditated the absorption of the Spanish Monarchy.
This struggle comes to an end, and at the same time
it may be said that the Counter-reformation, with
which throughout it was closely connected, comes to
an end, with the settlement of Utrecht. Upon the
Counter-reformation the greatness of the Spanish Habs
burgs was from the outset founded, and the Counter-
reformation was still vigorous in the year 1685 when the
Edict of Nantes was revoked in France and James II
came to the throne in England. But after the Peace of
Utrecht it raay be said that the Counter-reforraation is at
an end. For the first time Protestant Powers had given
the law to Europe; Voltafre was beginning his career;
and the characteristic eighteenth century view of religious
questions, the opposition of the modem state to all ecclesi
astical powers, was beginning visibly to prevaU. Accord-

384 GROWTH OF BRITISH POLICY.
ingly, if we take the intemational point of ¦view, this long
period, whether as the period of the Counter-reforraation
or as the period of the Habsburg, Monarchy in Spain, may
be regarded as one. If I pursued the subject further I
should in like manner treat the period beginning with the
settlement of Utrecht and ending with the fall of Napoleon
as one. This would be the period of the straggle between
Great Britain on the one side and France, coramonly allied
with Spain, on the other, the period of English ascendancy
on the sea and in the New World.

INDEX.

Abbot, Archbishop, i 280
Acclamation, 'War of, begins in
1640, I 162
Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, ii 149,
167
Albert, Archduke, Netherlands
transferred to, i 237, 239 ; helps
Philip II, 254 ; marries Clara
Isabella, daughter of Philip II,
302
Alcazarkebir, Battle of, i 162, 165
Alencon, Francis, Duke of, oharao-
ter, 1 149 sq ; death, 168 sq,
186 sq
Alexander, Dukeof Parma, il60sq;
recovers Walloon proviuces, 185 ;
his schemes, 187 sq ; failure at
(rravelines, 213 ; success, 226 sq ;
relieves Paris, 227; death, 228
Alfonso, King of Portugal, com
pared -with Charles II, n 178
Alliance, Triple, u 147, 165 sqq,
184 sq
Almexial, Battle of, u 128
Alsace, acquired by France, i 362,
384
Alva, Duke of, in the Netherlands,
iliesq, 122, 147 sq, 158; letter
from Brussels in 1571, 153
Amboise, Conspiracy of, 1 57 ; Peace
of, 129 S. II.

America, discovery of, n 355 ; North,
colonisation, of, 1 352 sq ; Spanish,
English share in trade with, n
358
Anglicanism, establishes itself, i
19; vitality, 279; and toleration,
353
Anjou, Philip, Duke of, in Spain in
1701, II 353
Anne of Austria, marriage with
Louis XIII, I 253, 284; policy
against Spain, 367 sq, 411 ; death,
11155
Anne, daughter of James II, mar
riage, II 248; reign, party poli
ties of, 359; revival of Jacobi
tism under, 373
Antonio, Don, Prior of Grata,
exiled, i 162 ; Portuguese preten
der, 166
Antwerp, Fury of, 1 158, 182 ; Truce
of, 263
Arlington, Bennet, Earl of, a
Catholic, II 159; has a Dutch
wife, 164; and the Cathohc
party in England, 202
Armada, SpoMish, anticipation of,
I 153; Spanish history of, 171;
and death of Mary Stuart, 201 sq;
coming of the, 207, 212 sqq
Amauld, ii 236 25

386

INDEX.

Ascham, Antony, murder of, ii 56, 83
Augsburg, Peace of, i 33; League
of, II 269
Austria, Duchy of, given to Habs
burgs, I 12; connexion with the
Empire, 13; united with Bur
gundy and Netherlands, 16;
foundation of, 32 ; developement
of modem, 298-301; power, not
recognized in England, 322 sq;
alliance ¦with Spain, 382; union
with Bavaria dissolved, 417 ;
and War of Spanish Succession,
II 858
Austria, House of, i 253 sqq; pro
minence from 1619, 309; in
fluence over French-speaking
people, 377; supports Spanish
monarchy, 378
Raas, Baron de, and plot of Gerard
and Nowell, ii 70
"Balance of power," ii 307 sq
Baltimore, Calvert, Lord, intro
duces toleration in Maryland,
1 353
Bamberg, House of, in Austria, 1 12
Ba/rbadoes, royalism in, ii 32
BWrnwaide, BicheKeu and Gustavus
at, I 348 '
Bavaria, union with Austria dis
solved, I 417
Baxter, Richard, i 423
Bayle, n 288
Bayonne, Conference at, 1 121 sq
Beachy Head, Battle of, ii 35, 302
Belgium, mbdem Kingdom of an
ticipated, I 302
Bellievre, French Ambassador, i
395-8; Mazarin's Instructions
to, 419 sqq
Bergerac, Treaty of, i 160
Berkeley, George, on Ireland, ii
378 sq

Bemard of Saxe Weimar, i 380;
and France, 383; takes Breisach,
394; dies, 396
Berwick, Treaty of, i 103
Biron, conspiracy of, i 242, 359
Bishoprics, the three, i 49
Bla,ke, Robert, n 21, 27 sq, 31 ; and
Tromp, 33 sqq, 37 ; sails for the
Mediterranean, 70 sq; our "sea-
king," 87; sails for Cadiz, 89;
destroys silver fleet, 90; death, ib.
Blois, Treaty of, 1 136
Bohemia, i 31 ; returns to Catholic
ism, 69; aristocracy of, 307;
war in, 1618-20, 345
Bolingbroke, 'Viscount, on Crom
well, II 134
Bonrepaux, sent by Louis XIV, ii
¦ 284 sq ¦
Bordeaux, M. de, n 30; letters of,
•72, 79; how treated by Charles
n, 120
Borromeo, S. Carlo, his influence,
I 75, 79
Bossuet, II 236; his four Articles,
253
Bothwell, Earl of, 1 106, 117
Boulogne, Reynolds at, ii 90
Bourbon, House of, allied with
Protestants, i 6; marriages of,
11; its beginning, 44; rivalry
¦with the Habsburgs,. 46 sq, 121 ;
relation to the Stuarts, 58; es
tablished, 170, 251; as royal
house, 188 sq; and Richelieu,
316; a new type, 368; minors
in, 369; climax of monarchy of,
II 139 ; begins to decline, 298 ; an
nexes Spanish monarchy, 319 sq,
359 ; family alliance, 320
Boyne, Battle of, ii 302 . i
Braganga, House of, 1 162 ; see also
Catherine, Maria
Brandenburg, Elector of, i 66

INDEX.

387

Brazil, conquered by the Dutch, ii
64 sq
Breda, Declaration of, ii 109;
Treaty of, 149, 154
'Breitenfeld, Battle of, i 380
'Britain, Great, beginning of modern ,
I 64; and Cromwell, n 63, 103;
advance of, 330 ; its trade-
empire, 342; compared to Car
thage, 380 aq
Brussels, Union of, i 158
Buckingham, George, Duke of, his
policy, I 322, 326 sq, 332-5; and
Parliament, 328
Burjund^, united with Netherlands,
I 14; and with Austria, 16; in
herited by Philip II, 34; con
ferred by King John of France
on younger son, 45; relations
with England, 45, 154; seized
by Louis XI, 45
Bwgundy, Louis, Duke of, receives
title, n 227
Bwleigh, 'William Cecil, Lord, i
154 ; and the Anti-Spanish party,
238
Calais, won by Henry II of France,
1 49
Calvin, his influence, i 67
Calvinism, English, and toleration,
1 353 ; German, growth of, 307
Campion, Edmund, i 172
Caraffa, see Paul IV
Cardenas, Alonzo de, Spanish Am-
. bassador, i395; ii 30, 85
Cmlos, Don, proposed marriage of,
1 100 ; character, 150
Ga/rlowitz, Treaty of, ii 267
Casale, siege of, i 376 sq
Castellamare, naval battle at, i 428
Cateau-Cambresis, Treaty of, i 36,
38, 76, 120, 145, 189 ; compared
with Treaty of the Pyrenees, ir 97

Catherine of Aragon, aunt of
Charles V, i 19
Catherine of Bragamja, marriage,
n 118, 124 sq
Catherine de Medicis, claims tlirone
of Portugal, I 166; death, 225
Catholicism, its viotoriousness, i
62; Jesuitic, 8; its advantages
in 1560, 72; weakness, 73; be
ginning of modern, 76; after
1564 becomes conservatism, 80;
in England, 116
Cecil, Sir Edward, his expedition
against Cadiz, i 333
Charles I, marriage, i 5, 35, 58,
253, 331, 337, 391 sqq; ii 272,
292, 312 sq; and Thirty Years'
War, I 318 sq, 346 ; and his con
temporaries, 330 ; policy, 335-41,
344, 349 sq ; interferes in France,
340; reign, second period of,
343; character, 343 sq; "Peace"
of, 345; attempts to unite his
three kingdoms, 350; and the
Bourbon-Habsburg struggle, 390-
3 ; failures, 393-8 ; bargains with
French and Spanish Ambassa
dors, 395 sq ; and Prince Palatine,
396; position in Europe, 397 sq;
forms royalist party, 413 sq; at
Newcastle, 432 sq
Charles II, relations with France,
1 5, 52; II 163, 287; with Louis
XI^V, 213 sq, 240, 287 sq; himself
half French, i 278; advised by
Mazarin, ii 30 ; family alliances,
215 sqq, 239 aq; a Catholic, 180
sq, 181 sqq, 287 sq; and the
dynastic system, i 401 ; relations
with the Netherlands, II 210 sq;
Dutch wars of, 2, 151; and
William H of Orange, 16; at
Bruges, 85; Restoration, i 416;
n 105, 110 sqq, 145; policy,
25—2

388

INDEX.

107 sq, 109 sq, 120 sq, 129, 174
sqq, 181, 185 sqq, 187-91, 193 sq,
219 ; Declaration of Breda, 109 ;
character, 111, 169, 191 sq; and
Lambert, 112; relations with
Spain, 114 sq, 163 ; proposed
Spanish match, 121 sq; com
pared with Pedro H, 178; with
Charles I, 201 sq; position, 117,
131 sq, 160 sq, 179; marriage,
118, 123 sqq, 126 sqq; and tole
ration, 175 sq; ministers, 178;
and Parhament, 242 sq ; and
Triple Alliance, 185; personal
victory of 1672, 197; reign,
periods of, 212, 223 sq, 247 sq
Charles V, King of Spain, a
Fleming, i 17; elected Roman
Emperor, ib. ; becomes German
King and Emperor, 18; as a
statesman, 20; retires to a
monastery, 28 ; death, ib. ; resig
nation, 35 ; rivalry vrith Francis
1, 46 ; founds Catholic monarchy,
140; relations to House of
Othman, 143
Charles VI, Emperor, ii 359
Charles VII of France, i 44
Charles IX of France, accession, i
57; marriage, 127; and Coligny,
130, 132; prepares for war with
Spain, 130 sq ; aUiance with
Elizabeth, 136
Charles II, King of Spain, u 138;
accession, 139 ; will, 352
Charles Gustavus of Sweden, ac
cession, ii59sq; and CromweU,
60, 68; policy, 92 sq; tyrant of
the North, 143 sq ; death, 144
Chevreuse, Duchesse de, and Henri
etta Maria, i 392
Christian of Anhalt, i 308
Christina, Queen of Sweden, secretly
a Catholic, ii 55 sq; abdication,

59 sq; on the Dragonnades and
Revocation, 259 sq
Cinqma/rs, Henri, Marquis de, i 361
Clara Isabella, daughter of Philip
II, proposed marriage with
Henry IV, i 230 sq; wife of
Archduke Albert, 237, 239, 302
Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of,
fall, II 173 sq, 179
Claude, Huguenot, his book publicly
burnt, a 261
Clement VIII {Aldobrandini), and
Treaty of Vervins, i 235 sq
Colbert, Jean Baptiste, his system,
n 149 ; raises French navy, 300
Coligny, and Charles IX, i 130;
conversation with Middlemore,
132 sq; character, 150
Colonisation, Dutch, i 292 ; English,
under EHzabeth, i 260 sq, 291;
plan of, 294; Portuguese, 1 167;
Spanish, character of, i 294
Commonwealth, its navy, ii 27;
feels secure, 29 sqq
CondS, I 358, 361; and Mazarin,
388; campaigns, compared with
Marlborough's, 416 sq; success
at Valenciennes, n 83
Consilium Aegyptiacum, see Leib
nitz
Copenhagen, Treaty of, ii 144
Corunna, attacked by the Enghsh,
I 229
Counter-Reformation, period of, i
6, 27, 75; its suddenness, 61;
account of, 63 sqq; causes of,
67; causes English war with
Spain, 72 ; meaning of word, ib. ;
elements of, 77, 79; effect on
Papacy, 79; and PhiUp H's as
cendancy, 89; England's problem,
90, 105 3q; failure, 114; phases,
118, 130, II part in, chap, v
passim, 225, 237 ; and Rising in

INDEX.

389

the North, i 119; and campaigu
of Lepanto, 142; opens new age
of war, 256
Coutras, Battle of, i 209
Soxe, William, as historian, i 2
Crespy, Peace of, i 20
Croissy, Colbert, French Ambas
sador, II 185 aqq
Cromwell, Oliver, compared with
EUzabeth, i 5, n 98 sq ; with
William HI, i 5 ; with Napoleon,
II 43 sqq, 58; with Csesar, 43 sqq;
with Ralegh, 77 sq ; with Queen
Mary, 96 sqq ; relations with
France, 1 5, ii 69 sq, 78; with Maz
arin, I 421; represents national
feeling, 423; position, 435, ii 57,
77 sqq; policy, 2, 68, 70 sq, 73,
74 sqq, 83, 86, 88, 90; appears
in different characters, 7sq; as
miUtary commander, 8; as states
man, 45; relations with Sweden,
46, 55 sq; and Charles X of
Sweden, 60, 73; relations with
the Netherlands, 48, 54 sq; and
De Witt, 47; hostile to House
of Orange, 52 sqq; relations with
Spain, 58, 65 sq, 69 sq, 74; treaty
with Jo5o IV, 65 ; protests a-
gainst Inquisition, 80; creates
a Puritan chivalry, 48 ; relations
with Scotland, 54 sq ; and Tole
ration, 49 sq; and the Baltic
question, 55 ; period of, divided,
58; and projected Protestant
League, 66 sq, 69; threatens aU
non-Protestant states, 72 sq ; his
alUes, 73 ; restores international
relations of monarchy, 84 ; Pan-
evangeUcal system, 93, 106 sq;
and modern British Empire, 103 ;
death, 96 ; work, summary, 309
Cromwell, Richard, begs aid of
Mazarin, ii 128

Cyprus, in 1566, i 143 ; Venetians
in, attacked, 146
Danby, Thomas Osborne, Earl of.
Lord Treasurer, ii 212, 218 ;
character, 219 ; period of, 223 ;
and Louis XIV, 241 ; joins in
invitation to William, 291
Darien Company, ii 364 sqq
Darnley, Henry Stua/rt, Lord, mar
ries Mary Stuart, i 100 sqq;
character, 103 sq
Deane, Admiral, ii 35
Demosthenes, translated by Dr Wyl
son, 1 156
Denmark, treaty with the Nether
lands, IX 40 sq ; England's claims
on, 57 ; allied with France, 280
Dorislaus, Dr Isaac, murdered, ii
83
Dover, Treaty of, marks transition,
II 119 ; begins second Revolution,
172 sq
Dragonnades, the, ii 253
Drake, Sir Francis, schemes of, i
187; in the Atlantic, 196; im
portance, 205 sqq ; compared
with Ealegh, 220 sq; on war
with Spain, 228 sq
Drogheda, massacre of, n 7
Dunes, Battle of the, i 348 ; ii 94
sqq
Dunkirk, taken, ii 69 sq, 84, 85 ;
sold, 118, 129, 133
Dwy, John, ii 66 sq, 72
Edinburgh, Treaty of, 1 55, 97, 108,
245
Edward VI, and Charles V, i 20,
26
Egmont, Count, i 147, 150
Eliot, Sir John, ou foreign policy
of Charlea I, i 344
Elizabeth, Queen of England, com-

390

INDEX.

pared with Cromwell and WiUiam
III, I 5 ; acceaaion, 9 ; marriage-
proposals, 11 sq, 71, 93, 125, 127,
136 sq, 176 sqq ; courting of, 37 ;
character, 29 sq, 64, 175, 188 sqq ;
poUcy, 36, 41, 55, 70 sqq, 93,
112, 132, 180-4 ; perilous position,
39, 50, 60 ; and Reformation, 51 ;
and Counter-Reformation, 63 ;
excommunicated, 68 ; reign,
periods of, 71, 95 sq, 118, 126,
186, 219 sqq, 241 ; reign transi
tional, 90, 179; her successor,
92 ; relations with Spain, 72,
242; dealings with Scotland, 96;
with Mary Stuart, 97, 100 sqq,
197 sqq ; relations ¦with France,
126, 242; aUiance ¦with Charles
IX, 136; aUiance -with Henry
IV, 232 ; and secular continental
pohtics, 128 sq, 135, 137; rela
tions with the Netherlands, 174
sqq, 185, 190-5, 241; her war
compared with others, 179; "the
King," 217; ministers, 205; fa
vourites, 218; death, 243; sum
mary of reign, 243-50 ; compared
with the Stuarts, 257 aqq ; work,
summary, ii 309
Elizabeth of France, marries PhUip
IV, I 253, 284
Elizabeth Stuart, marriage, i 28,
258
Elizabeth of Valois, see Isabel
Empire, the, weakness of, i 14 ; Re
formation in, 66 ; and Treaty of
Munster, 428 ; and Treaty of
Osnabriick, ib.; and France, ii
268
England, view of history iu, i 2 ;
modern, its beginning, 8 ; effect
of royal marriages on, 11, 19, n
182 ; succession, uncertainty of,
I 42 sq; insular character, 69;

maritime bias, causes of, 87 ; as
an Oceanic Power, i 188 sq, 212
sq, 215, 260, 269 sqq, ii 118 sq,
140; poUcy, i 149, 223 sq, 259,
262, 406 sq, ii part m, cap. i
passim, 39 sqq, 44 sq, 101 sq,
328 ; politics of, and the Valois, i
42 ; growth of commercial policy,
II 358 sq ; position in Europe,
after Elizabeth's accession, i 42 ;
under EUzabeth, 243-50; and
the Reformation, 24, 66, 70 ; and
Council of Trent, 83 ; and tolera
tion, 275 ; Queens of, their reh
gion, n 182, 814 ; rehgious panic
of 1678, 238, 240 sq; relations
with the Netherlands, i 34, 128,
181 sq, 225, n 81 sq, 143 sq;
wars with the Netherlands, 10,
22, 33, 36, 141 ; relations with
Burgundy, i 45, 154 ; and House
of Habsburg, 23 sqq, 27, 58 ; re
lations with Prance, 128, 225,
410, n 307, 317, 321; wars with
France, i 4, 39, 45, 841 sq, n
152, 276 sq, 298 ; relations with
Scotland, i 65, 414 sqq, 422 sq,
n 4 sqq, 6 sq ; position compared
with Scotland's, 1 50 ; union with
Scotland, 51, 351 sq, n 329, 360-
77, 362; relations with Ireland,
I 352, 407 sq, ii 4 sqq ; relations
with Spain, i 86 sq, 168 sqq, 323
sq, II 56, 110, 211 ; wars with
Spain, I 92, 203-7, 216 sq; Anti-
Spanish party, 279 sq; and
Spanish colonies, 292; its own
colonies, 295 sq; n 118 sq; and
Thirty Years' War, i 257, 313-6;
and war of the Palatinate, 317-
21; in 1620, 258; in 1690, n
300 sq; Monarchy of, its rela
tions with the French, i 347 sq,
391 sqq ; Great EebelUon, causes

INDEX.

391

of, 351 ; civil war in, 389 sq, 418 ;
n 21, 28, 31-9 ; transformation
of, I part n cap. vi passim, 419
sqq; the Cromwellian miUtary
state, 435 ; ii 23, 28, 46, 57 sq,
63, 117 sq; claims upon Den
mark, 57 ; European interest in
government of, 271; how de-
velpped by European war; 318
England, New, beginning of, i 294
Espei, Gueran de, Spanish Am
bassador, expelled, 1 126
Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of,
as favourite, i 219
Evertsen, Dutch commander, ii 35
Ferdinand I, an Emperor of the
old type, I 22 ; King of the
Romans, 31 ; elected King of
Hungary and Bohemia, ib. ;
weakness, 87, 89
'Ferdinand II, Emperor, accession,
I 298 sq ; aUied with Philip IV,
312
Ferdinand III, Emperor, death, ii
91
Ferdinand, Cardinal-Infant, and
Wallenstein, i 381 ; invades Pi
cardy, 393
Ferdinand Wilhelm, Prince of Wiir
temberg, u 302
'Butcher of Saltoun, on state of
I Scotland, ii 363 sq
Fleurus, Battle of, ii 302
Fleury, Cardinal, ii 380
France, view of history in, i 1 ; re
lations with England, 128, 225,
410, 418, II 69 sq, 163, 307; wars
with England, i 4, 89, 341 sq, ii
298 ; Monarchy of, relations with
the Enghsh, i 347 sq ; relations
with Charles U, 5, 52, 278, ii
163; relations vrith Scotland, i
42; relations with Spain, 119

sqq, 121, 168 sqq, 208, 361 sq,
873, 382, 431 ; n 136, 320 sq,
341 sqq ; wars with Spain, 1 387,
393, II 9, 61 sqq,, 139 ; relations
with the Netherlands, 1 128 ; and
the Empire, 428, ii 268; rela
tions with the Porte, i 146, n
245 ; relations with Sweden, i
349, 384, II 158, 238 ; aUied with
Denmark, 280 ; state of, in 1558,
I 44; in 1560, 56; in 1588, 209
sq ; in 1629, 358 ; in 1647, 480 ;
in 1646, 433; in 1648, ib. ; in
1654, II 63; in 1672, 205 sq ;
Religious Wars in, i 57, 84, 116,
123, 128 sq ; and the Reforma
tion, 60, 371 sq ; and the Counter-
Reformation, 124, 125, 304; re
Ugious revolution in; ii 234 sqq,
250 sq ; Catholic Church in, 2a6,
263 sq ; and Catholic League, i
208 ; question of origin ot go
vernment raised in, 68 ; want of
national consciousness in, 125 ;
transformation of, part ii cap. v
passim, 386; under Marie de
Medicia, 347; poUey, 149, 256,
361, 376, II 230, 233; aaoen-
dancy, i 354 sqq; n 130 sq, 167,
225, 227 sq; and Thirty Years'
War, I 359, 374 ;. royal power in,
860 ; naval power, 384 ; ii 800 ;
military power, i 411 ; constitu
tional movement of 1648, 434;
, effect of settlement of Westphalia
on, II 62 ; coalition against in
1673, 207 sq; exhaustion of, 306;
economical progress, 356
Francis I, King of France, at war
with Charles V, i 20; rivalry
with him, 46 ; gives monarchy
peculiar character, 48
Francis II, King of France, death,
I 57

892

INDEX.

Frederick II, Emperor, compared
with Charles V, i 9
Frederick the Great, compares Bri
tain to Carthage, ii 380 sq
Frederick IV, Elector Palatine,
becomes Calvinist, i 307 sqq
Frederick V, Elector Palatine, con
trasted with Jamesl,i 281; policy,
309 ; elected King of Bohemia,
311 ; scheme for depriving him of
Palatinate, 312 ; conduct, 325
Frederick Hemry of Nassau, i 383,
412; and Charles I, 330; deaith,
nil
Freiburg, Battle of, i 416
Fronde, the, i 348, 887 sq, 429, 481,
1x38
Froude, J. A., on EUzabeth, 1 180-
3
Gardiner, S. R., his view of English
history, i 2 ; his view of the
Great Rebellion, ii 45
Geddes, James, his "Administration
of John de Witt," ii 17
Gemblours, Battle of, i 160
Genoa, James I projects attack on,
I 288
George, Prince of Denmark, marries
Princess Anne, n 248
Germany, view of history in, i 2 ;
modern, its beginning, 8 ; Elec
tors, 13, 817 ; and ihe Reforma
tion, 302 sqq ; and the Counter-
Eeformation, 69, 804; wars in,
302 sqq, 345; danger of disin
tegration, 805, 307; revolution,
308; and Henry IV, 308 sq ; and
the Turk, n 246 ; renewed vigoiu:,
246, 29^
Ghent, Pacification of, 1 158, 185
Ghislieri, see Pius V
Glamorgan, Earl of, negociates, i
415

Gondomar, Sarmiento, Cownt of,
Spanish Ambassador to England,
I 276 ; and EngUsh popijlar feel
ing, 314
Grand Remonstrance, i 407
Gravelines, Battle of, i 38 ; its
effects, 213
Gregory XIII {Boncempagni),
schemes re-conquest of England,
1 159, 172
Gu£ux, the, occupy PhiUp, 1 116
Guiana, and Ralegh, i 292
Guise, House of, its first ascendancy,
1 56 ; leads Mary Stuart's party
in France, 156
Guise, Francois de, i 56
Guise, Henri I de, allied with Mary
Stuart and Philip, 1 156 ; schemes
of, 187; heads party, 209 sq;
success, 214 ; murdered, 224
Guise, Henri II de, i 377
Gustavus Adolphus, and Charles I,
1 330 ; and the Stuarts, 346 ; meets
EicheUeu at Barnwalde, 348 ; in
Pomerania, 379 ; conquers Fran
conia, 880 ; dies, 381
Gustavus Wasa, leader of reform in
the North, i 66
Habsburg, House of, I 6; power,
10 ; rise, 12 ; periods, of ascen
dancy, 18, 20, 89 sq; and EngUsh
Reformation, 19 ; and Roman
Church, 26 ; relations with Eng
land, 24, 40, 48, n 359 ; trans
formation, I 31 ; and Counter-
Reformation, 256 ; relations with
the Valois, 43, 45; vrith the
Bourbon, 46, 121 ; poUey, 87 sq,
252-6 ; the Austrian, and Spain,
174 sq, 241, 264; German branch,
history of, 298 sq ; the Spanish,
summary, ii 383 sq
Habsburg marriages, system of, ill,

INDEX.

393

16, 120, 272 sq, 283 sq; compared
with others, 23 ; show great
influences of small causes, 37;
prevailed throughout 17th cen
tury, 58
Hague, the, secret articles signed
at, in 1668, ii 166
Bartlib, Samuel, ii 66
Hein, Piet, Admiral, i 360 ; takes
silver fleet, 383
Henries, the three, campaign of, i
209
Henrietta Anne, daughter of
Charles I, marries Philip, Duke
of Orleans, xi 129; takes her
mother's place, 192
Henrietta Maria, marries Charles
I, I 331, 887 ; associates with
Duchesse de Chevreuse, 392 ; her
party, 406 sqq; and EicheUeu,
409 ; at the Hague, 410, 413, 457
Henrique, Cardinal-Infant, suc
ceeds Don Sebastian of Portugal,
1 162, 165
Henry VIII, divorce of, i 19 ; and
Charles V, 20; his system, 41;
his queens, 64
Henry, son of James I, proposed
Spanish match for, i 253
Henry II of France, premature
death, i 48, 52; wins the three
Bishoprics, and Calais, 49
Henry III of France, proposed mar
riage with Elizabeth, i 125
Henry IV (of Navarre), delivers
France, i 44 ; his right to throne
denied, 68; proposed marriage
with Margaret of Valois, 125
becomes heir to throne, 162
takes prominent position, 187
received into Catholic Church,
229 sqq; prepared to marry
Clara Isabella, 230 sq ; relations
with the Dutch, 231 sq ; declares

war against Spain, 232 ; Treaty
of alliance with Elizabeth, ib. ;
character, 283 ; position, 234 sq;
and Biron'a conspiracy, 242 ;
and new Habsburg ascendancy,
254 sq ; relations 'with Germany,
264, 308 sq; diplomacy, 268,
272 ; murdered, 288
Hesse, Landgrave of, and the Ee-
formation, i 66
History, classification of, 1 1 sq
Hohenstauffen, House of, compared
with the Habsburg, i 13
Holland, see Netherlands
Hoorn, Comte de, 1 147
Huguenots, the, i 65 ; desertion of
leader, 69 ; occupy French govern
ment, 70; appear strong, 116 ;
sudden riaing, 122; eatablish
themselves in EocheUe, 124 ; first
victory, 209 ; rebel against Louis
XIII, 339 ; under EicheUeu, 871;
under Rohan, 375 sq
Hungary, Ferdinand elected King
of, 1 31 ; aristocracy of, and the
Eeformation, 307
India Company, East, foundation
of, I 291 sq
Innocent X (Pamfili), anti-French,
I 428
Innocent XI {Odescalchi), ii 253, 263
Inquisition, the, instrument of
Counter-Eeformation, i 77, 85 ;
introduced into Netherlands, 85
Interim, German affairs regulated
by the, i 21
Ireland, rebelUon of, i 238 sq, 407
sq, 415 ; invaded by Don Juan de
Aguilar, 242 ; relations with Eng
land, 352, 407 sq, 416, xi 4sqq, 336
sqq; William Ill's campaign in,
801 sq; question of, 329; receives
penal code, 333 ; system in, fails,
25—5

394

INDEX.

338 sq, 371-9; and the Revolu
tion, 373, 875
Isabella, Infanta, proposed marriage
of, I 253
Isabel of Valois, marries Philip II,
I 86, 120 ; dies, 121
Italy, servitude of, i 8 ; attitude of
France towards, 376 ; aud Maza
rin, 428
Ivry, Battle of, i 227
Jamaica, occupied by Penn and
Venables, ii 81
James I, coronation, i 106, 109 ;
Spanish marriages of his reign,
258, 816, 324 sqq; and Parlia
ment, 259 sq; reign, 263, 296;
a peace-maker, 264 sqq, 281 sq,
329 ; and Gondomar, 280 ; and
Thirty Tears' War, 318 sq ; poUey
towards Spain, 286 sqq ; pursues
no uniform plan, 289 sqq, 822;
policy of his later years, 309 sq
James II, relations with France, i
52, 278; ii 278, 287; and Louis
XIV, 262, 269 sq; flight to
Prance, 298; adopts dynastic
system, i 402; accession, ii 265;
policy, 107 sq, 258 sqq, 261;
character, 257, 264 sq, 288, 291 ;
why he fell, 258; and toleration,
261 sq, 289 sq ; proclaims rights
of conscience, 254 ; courses open
to, 263 sq ; reign, periods of, 264 ;
hostihty to the Dutch, 279 sq ;
attitude towards the Pope, 290
sq
James IV of Scotland, his marriage,
England aud Scotland united by,
I 59
Jamac, Battle of, i 116, 123, 130,
161, 182 ; a blow to EUzabeth,
134
Jesuits, Order of, its beginning, i 8 ;

instrument of Counter-Eeforma
tion, 77 ; oppose the Pope, ii 265
Joao IV (Fernandez Vieira), heads
Portuguese in BrazU, ii 64 ; treaty
with England, 89
John, Don, of Austria, at Lepanto, i
124; character, 150 sq; governor of
Netherlands, 151 sq ; as a states
man, 156; Mary Stuart his aUy,ib. ;
death, 157 ; relation to Philip, 159
John, Don, of Austria, governor of
Netherlands in 1656, n 83
John Sobieski, King of Polamd,
reUeves Vienna, ii 244, 266
Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and
Isabella, marries Philip of Bur
gundy, I 15; consequences of
marriage of, 17 ; alienation of
mind of, ib.
Juan, Don, de Aguilar, invades
Ireland, x 242
Kara Mustafa, ii 245, 266
Kardis, Treaty of, ix 144
Keyser, Dutch envoy, xx 41
Kinglake, his view of English
history, i 8
La Hogue, Battle of, compared
io Lepanto, ix 304
La Renaudie, executed, x 57
Lauzun, Count, n 802
Lavalette, defends Malta, 1 145
League, Catholic, helps PhiUp II, i
39, 208, 226 sq ; War of the, 47;
Holy, established by Pius V, i
146; dissolved, 151; terms of
the, 173 sq; Schmalkaldic, de
feated at Miihlberg, i 21 ; and
ihe Reformation, 305
Leibnitz, Consilium Aegyptiacum,
nl68
Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl. of,
candidate for hand qf Mary

INDEX.

395

Stuart, I 100 sq; in the Nether
lands, 193 sq; death, 218
Leopold, Emperor of Germany,
elected, ii 92 ; marries Margaret,
daughter of PhiUp IV, 121;
joins eoaUiion of 1673, 208;
treaty with Dutch Republic, 209
Lepanto, Battle of, i 142, 146 sq,
161
Lerma, Vizir of Philip III, x 241;
why dismissed, 265 sq; his hopes
of Jamea I, 267; his truce, 268
Lockhart, Colonel, envoy of Crom
weU in Paris, n 88
Longjumeau, Peace of, x 129
Lorraine, House of, joins the
Empire, 1 18 ; see Guise ; Charles,
Duke of, and the Turks, ii 244
Louis XI, seizes duchy of Burgundy,
x45
Louis XII, popular, x 48
Louis XIII, marries Infanta Anne,
I 253, 284; Huguenots rebel
against, 339; relations with
Charles I, 340, 397 sq
Louis XIV, birth, x 394 ; marriage,
23, II 124, 137 ; assumes govern
ment, 129 ; reign, i 411, ii 95 ;
character, 294; ascendancy, 177,
289; policy, 203, 243-7, 295;
and toleration, 175; anti-papal,
252 sq, 259, 290 ; a new Henry
VIII, 260; position, 228 sqq,
266, 303; failure, 305,308,323;
second attack, 318 sq; relations
with England, 176, 222, 241;
with Charles H, 126, 213 aq, 240,
243, 287; with James II, 269 sq;
and the Pretender, 351 sq, 368;
proposed Emperor, 92, 94, 231
sq ; obtains Alsace, i 431 ; War
of Devolution, ii 147, 177 ; and
the Netherlands, 146 sq, 149,
1C7 ; and Portugal, 122 sqq, 125 ;

designs on Spanish monarchy,
138 sq ; resistance of Europe to,
209 sq ; threatens Germanic
Powers, 231
Louis Gimther of Nassau, and
Charles IX, i 131 sq ; takes
Mons, 148 ; besieges Cadiz, 235
Louvois, Marshal, re-organises
French Army, ii 203 ; poUcy, 230 .
282, 255, 299
Low Countries, see Netherlands
Liibeck, Treaty of, i 342, 346
Luther, Martin, heresy of, to be
put down by Charles V, i 21;
sides with the state, 65 ; denies
authority of General Councils,
78; creates Teutonic Christianity,
83
Lutter, King of Denmark defeated
at, I 846
Luxemburg, House of, and the
Habsburg, i 12, 13; Town of,
acquired by Louis XIV, ix 247,
854
Madrid, Peace of, x 332
Malta, defended by Knights of St
John, I 143, 145 ; besieged by
Soliman, 145
Margaret, daughter of Henry VII,
her marriage, i 23 ; Scotch claim
derived from, 43 ; unites England
and Scotland, 59
Margaret Theresa, daughter of
Philip IV, marries Emperor
Leopold, II 121
Margaret of Valois, proposed mar
riage with Henry of Navarre, i
126
Maria of Braganga, proposed mar
riage -srith Cardinal-Infant Hen-
rique, i 165
Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip
IV, marriage, ii 124, 137

396

INDEX.

Marie de Medicis, her influence in
France, i 347
Marignano, victory of Francis I at,
I 49
Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke
of, and WilUam Iil, ix 333, 346 ;
and the Union, 370
Marriages, royal, results of, i 10,
17, 18, 37 and passim
Mary, daughter of Henry VIII,
marriage, x 11, 23 ; cousin of
Charles V, 19 ; her reign a Habs
burg invasion, 24; Spanish in
feeling, 25 ; her persecutions,
Eauke's opinion of, 26 ; death,
29; its effect on position of
England, 84; compared vrith
Mary Stuart, 49 sq, 98
Mary, daughter of Charles I, mar
riage, X 405 sqq, 409, 418, ix 10
Mary, daughter of James, Duke of
York, marriage, i 405 sqq, 409,
413, IX 218 sq; AngUcan, 313
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, mar
riages, I 11, 12, 42, 93, 100;
marriage-proposals, 117, 124 sq ;
compared ¦with Mary, Queen of
England, 49, 50, 98; first Stuart
Pretender, 52 sq; and Counter-
Eeformation, 71, 94, 115, 123;
connexions, 56, 94 ; career, pe
riods of, 94 sqq, 102; principal
resources, 95 ; forms Anglo-Scotch
party, 96, 103; relations vrith
EUzabeth, 97, 100 sqq, 197 sqq;
and ihe Scotch, 97, 105 ; poUcy,
99 sqq; and Philip II, 124; vrill,
157; execution, 196 sq, 199-202
Mary of Modena, marries James,
Duke of York, ii 201
Mary of Burgundy, marries Maxi-
mUian I, i 14
Maryland, toleration introduced in
by Lord Baltimore, i 853

Masaniello, i 428
Maubeuge, Treaty of, ix 62
Maurice of Nassau, begins his ca
reer, I 227
Maximilian I, marries Mary of
Burgundy, x 14; his impecuni
osity, 15
Maximilian II, and Protestant dis
sensions, I 115 ; inheritance, 800
sq; feelings towards Philip II,
ib. sq
Mazarin, Cardinal, aud England,
I 419 sqq, 423 sqq, 432 sq; and
the Commonwealth, 848, ix 81,
83 sqq; and CromweU, i 421; on
EngUsh affairs in 1659, n 113
sqq; under a Spanish Queen, X
368 ; aud Cond^, 388, ii 38 ; and
Italy, 428; aud French Parlia
ment, 429 ; compared with Na
poleon, 430; patron of letters,
ib.; decUne, beginning of, ib.;
second retirement, n 68 ; second
ascendancy, 67 ; death, 127
Middlemore, agent of Elizabeth, i
182 sq
Milan, Duchy of, given by Charles
V to PhiUp n, X 34
Mohacz, Louis H of Hungary de
feated by SoUman at, x 31, 141,
144
Mommsen, Theodor, on CromweU,
XI 103
Moncontour, Battle of, i 116, 123,
180, 161, 182 ; a, blow to EUza
beth, 134
Monk, General, ii 35, 87 sq
Monmouth, Duke of, ix 281 sq
Montagu, Admiral, sails for (Jadiz,
n 89 ; in the Baltic, 144
Montecuculi, defeats Turks at St
Gothard, ii 245, 266
Montmorency, Henri II, Due de, i
361; rebels, 367; execution, 381

INDEX.

397

Moors, conquest of the, i 16
Moritz, Elector, rebeUion of, x 22;
an adversary of Charles V, 26
Moritz, John, of Nassau, in Brazil,
II 64 sq
Morland, ou Waldenses, ii 77 sq
Miihlberg, Schmalkaldic League de
feated at, I 21
Miinster, Treaty of, i 418, 427 sqq,
431
Mwrray, James Stuart, Earl of, his
control over Mary, i 102; mur
dered, 113; character, 150
Nantes, Edict of, i 287; Revoca
tion of, 6, IX 204, 251
Naples, won by Spain, 1 16
Nwoigation Act, ix 25 sq, 38; not
directly owing to Cromwell, 31
Netherlands, united vrith Burgun
dy, 1 14; with Austria, 16; under
Spain, 34, 175; relations vrith
England, 34, 128, 181 sq; how
treated by Elizabeth, 174 sqq;
reUgious movement in, 65, 116;
and Alva, 117; relations with
France, 131, 281 sq; anticipated
partition of, 131; European im
portance of movement in, 133,
140; Don John, governor of,
151 sq; rebelUon irrepressible,
216 ; transferred to Archduke Al
bert, 237, 239 ; the CathoUc, 302,
n 354 sq, 857 ; the united, republic
of, 1 155, 194, 232, 364, 412, ii 9 ;
relations vrith Spain, x 427 sqq,
n 209; wars with Spain, i 226,
255, 312, 383; relations with
England, 225, ii 31 sq, 143 sq,
145, 161 sq, 210 aq, 822 sq; wars
with England, 10, 22, 33, 36 sq,
141 ; repubUcanism of, compared
with English imperialism, 23 sq ;
fleet enters Thames, 152 sq ; re

lations with France, 1 225, xi 140,
149, 156 ; treaty with Denmark,
40 sq ; treaty with Emperor Leo
pold, 209; as a sea-power, i 269
sqq, 349 sq; in 1620, 268; and
trade, 293, n 13 sq, 31 sq, 39 sqq;
government a loose federation,
50 sq, 54; dangerous position,
149; failure iu North America,
156 ; revolution in, 194-7
Nevers, Prince, succeeds to Mantua
aud Montferrat, i 376
Newfoundland, x 271
Nicholas, secretary to Charles II,
II 73
Nimeguen, Treaty of, n 140, 223;
establishes French ascendancy,
224, 227
Nordlingen, Battle of, i 849, 380
sq, 416
Norfolk, Duke of, under EUzabeth,
his treason, i 113 sqq; proposed
marriage with Mary Stuart, 117
Nyborg, taken by De Euyter, xi 144
Oates, Titus, ii 239
Oldenbarneveldt, i 413
Oliva, Treaty of, ii 144
Olivarez, i 385, 386
Oquendo, Spanish admiral, i 395 sq
Orange, House of, connexion with
the Stuart, i 409, n 141 ; charac
ter, I 412 ; raised to royal rank,
413, n 141 ; power shaken, 11 ;
opposed by Cromwell, 52 sqq;
Principality of, occupied by the
French, n 233
Orleans, Gaston, Duke of, i 361 ;
rebels, 867, 381
Orleans, Philip, Duke of, marries
Henrietta, daughter of Charles I,
XI 129; marries Palatine Princess
EUzabeth Charlotte, 268 sq
Ormond, Earl of, ii 7

398

INDEX.

Osnabriick, Treaty of, i 418, 428,
431
Othman, House of, stiU powerful in
1566, I 141 sqq
Oxenstierna, ii 69
Palatinate, question of the, i 317;
Spanish troops in, ib. ; War of
the, 845 ; devastated by Louvois,
1X299
Papacy, claims to dictate to kings,
1 67 ; effect of Counter-Eeforma
tion on, 79; re-converted to
Christianity, 81
Paris, religious influence of iis
University, x 77; dissociates it
self from the Eeformation, 84;
declares for the Counter-Eefor
mation, 209 ; relieved by Parma,
227 ; Parliament of, and Mazarin,
429; aUiance signed at, in 1657,
n83
Parliament, foreign policy of, in
1625, 1336-9; and Buckingham,
337; and the fleet, 890; and
Louis XIV, II 241
Parma, see Alexander of
Parsons, arrives in 1580, x 172
Pascal, XX 236
Paul IV {Caraffa), and Counter-
Eeformation, X 73; Christian
character of, ib. ; unfortunate,
74 ; a NeapoUtan politician, ib. ;
his opposition to PhiUp divides
Britain from Eoman Church,
74 sq; his minister, 75; his
religious zeal, 81; in Spain,
83
Pavia, Battle of, i 46
Pedro II of Portugal, ii 178
Pell, John, II 67, 72, 81
Penn, Admiral, ii 70, 73 sq, 77;
sent to the Tower, 81
Penn, William, ii 288, 291

Pennington, Admiral, i 376
Perez, Antonio, minister io Philip
II, I 240
Philip II of Spain, marriages, x
28, 36, 38, 120, 127; marriage-
proposals, 36, 38 ; plays the part
of Eoman Emperor, 32; inheri
tance, 84; maritime power, 35;
successes at Si Quentin and
Gravelines, 88 ; makes Treaty of
Cateau-Cambresis, ib.; partly a
Valois, 45 ; relation to Charles ihe
Bold, 46; compared with Theo
dosius, 78, 140; with Emperor
Leopold, 143; vrith Louis XIV,;
149; character, 85, 139, 154;
greatness, 161 ; policy, 88 sq ;
aud Mary Stuart, 124, 200 sq;
and battle of Lepanto, 147;
threatens African ports, 145 ;
relation to Don John, 159 ; sup
ported by CathoUc League, 208;
always bankrupt, 227 ; war with
the Three Powers, character of,
232-6; relations vrith England,
28, 72; with Prance, 119 sqq,
124; and Portugal, 88, 162 sqq;
relations with the Netherlands.
194; reign, 208; death, 89
Philip III of Spain, i 225 ; enemy
of Elizabeth, 237-242; poUcy,
238; dismisses Lerma, 265; his
religion, 274
Philip IV of Spain, marries EUza
beth of Prance, i 258, 284; alUed
with Ferdinand II, 312; his
brother Ferdinand, 381; declares
war with CromweU, ii 81; death,
138
Philip the Handsome, of Burgundy,
I 14; inheritance and marriage,
15; consequences of marriage,
17; death, ib.
Philippson, Martin, his view of

INDEX.

399

Mary Stuart, i 95; on aUiance
of Scotland aud Prance, 108
Pinerolo, Treaty of, ii 81 sq
Pius IV {Giovanni Angela Medici),
state of Church under, i 74; and
his minister, 75; and the
Counter-Eeformation, ib.
Pius ^((JftisJifiri), excommunicates
Elizabeth, i 68; his religion,
81 sq ; establishes Holy League,
146
Plot, Gunpowder, i 279
Poland, returns to CathoUcism, i
69; war in, ii 68 sq
Pomerania, Gustavus Adolphus in,
I 879
Port Royal, ix 236
Portugal, coveted by Habsburgs, i
34; claimed by PhiUp II, 88; an
nexed by Spain, 160 sqq, 162 sqq,
166; recovers iis independence,
162, 364, 385 sq; colonies, 167;
national feeling, 229; union of
with Spain, compared with union
of England and Scotland, 885;
war with Spain, ii 61 ; revival
of monarchy, 64; relations with
Louis XIV, 122 sqq, 156; saved
by victory of Almexial, 128;
lost to Spanish monarchy, ib.
Prague, Treaty of, i 346, 849, 382
Protectorate, different phases of, ii
86
Puritanism, iu England, i 115 ;
vitaUty of, 279; becomes separ
atism, 295 sq
Pym, John, speech of, in 1621, i
316
Pyrenees, Treaty of, i 363; n 114,
122 sq; compared with Treaty
of Cateau-Cambresis, 97; effect
on France, 130
Ralegh, Sir Walter, i 219-24; com

pared with Drake, 220 sq; poUcy,
223; and Anti-Spanish party,
280; last adventure, 285-8,
290 sq
Ranke, his view of English History,
I 2; opinion of the Marian
persecutions, 26; on Charles I,
425 ; ou the Restoration, ii 117
Ratisbon, Diet held at, in 1608, 1 809
Ravaillac, murders Henry IV, i
283 sq
Reformation, its end, i 20; retains
its first gains, 70; saved by
England and Scotland, ib.; its
legal method a General Council,
78; as rebelUon against State,
67; effect of ConuoU of Trent
on, 79 sq, 85 sq; Calvinistic,' x
65; becomes rebelUon, 67; iu
Scotland, 104; Dutch, i. 129-
English, connexion with Habs
burg .Power, X 19, 61 ; character,
51 ; caused by the King, 66 ;
French, beginning of, i 60 sq;
German, i 302 sqq; Lutheran,
character of, x 66; politically
conservative, 305 sq; Scotch, x
51, 55; begins as rebelUon, 64,
104 ; Swiss, beginning of, x 66
Regensburg, Treaty of, ii 247; and
James H, 270
Requesens, Governor of the Nether
lands, death, 1 151
Restitution, Edict of, l 345 sq, 378
Revolution, the English, ii 172 sq,
176 sq, 212 sq, 221, 224, 226 sq,
260, Part vii, cap. i passim,
274 sq, 276 sq, 281 sq, 286, 292 sq,
296, 311 sqq, 315 sq, 321, 328,
331, 332 sq, 334-9, 341 sqq,
344 sqq; the European, how a-
verted, ix 256 sq; the French,
compared with the reUgious wars,
X 128 sq

400

INDEX.

Reynolds, lands troops at Boulogne,
II 90
Rhine, Confederation of the, xi 94
Riccio, murder of, x 105
Richelieu, Cardinal, period of, x
316, 347, 382 ; poUcy, 256, 340,
359, 374 sq, 882 sq, 410; and
Charles I, 330, 398 sq ; and
Henrietta Maria, 409 ; and Gus
tavus Adolphus, 348, 378-82;
his idea of the state, 366-70 ;
dictates international history,
360-5; founds school of diplo
macy, 870; intervenes in Val-
teUin, ib. ; supports Protestant
ism abroad, 372 sq ; attacks
Honse of Austria, 373 sq ; reUeves
Casale, 376 sq ; appUed to by
Scotch insurgents, 407 ; death,
886, 410
Ridolfi, CathoUc agent, x 119, 131
Rocroi, Battle of, i 386, 411, 416
Rome, Sack of, i 46
Rouen, Treaty of, 1 109
Rudolf II, inheritance, i 300 sq
Rupert, Prince, heads a maritime
royaUsm, n 21, 28
Ruyter, Michael Adrian de. Admi
ral, II 34 sq, 154; takes Nyborg,
144; vrins battle of Southwold
Bay, 196
Ryswick, Treaty of, ix 297, 305 sq,
350 sq
Salisbury, Robert Cecil, Earl of,
becomes minister, i 237
Sandwich, Lord, ambassador at
Madrid, n 163 sq
Santa Cruz, wins naval battle, i
162 ; writes to PhiUp, 171 ; urges
Viim to suppress England, 196
Savoy, Charles Emanuel, Duke of,
u 71 sq, 79; invades France,
305

Saxony, Elector of, and the Eefor
mation, I 66 ; the chief Lutheran
state, 345
Schleswig, disputed sovereignty of,
1x280
Schmalkaldic League, see League
Schomberg, Marshal, enters Portu
guese service, xx 128, 130 ; at
Battle of the Boyne, 302
Schomberg, Meinhard, his son, n
302
Scotland, connexion with the Va
lois, I 40 ; relations with France,
42 sq, 108 sqq ; relations with
England, 50, 414 sqq, 422 sq, ii
4 sqq, 6, 336 sqq; union with
England, i 51, 107 sqq, 351 sq,
IX 329, 338 sq, 360-77, 362;
national feeUng, i 51, 54; Re
formation in, character of, 51,
66; civil war in, 55, 389; Bis
hops' Wars, 415 ; Revolution in,
n 260 ; ecclesiastical settlement,
338 ; as a commercial state, 366
sq; and the Hanoverian succes
sion, 368 sq; Jacobite party in,
369 ; prosperity, 371
Sebastian, Don, of Portugal, faUs
at Alcazarkebir, x 162, 165
Seignelai, naval minister, ii 300
Selden, writes Mare Clausum, i 350
Selim II, I 143; alUed ¦with the
Moriscoes, 145 sq; character,
146
Shaftesbury, Ashley Cooper, Lord,
n 198, 200 ; his programme, 241
Sicily, won by Spain, 1 16
Sixtus V, X 187 ; and death of
Mary Stuart, 200
Soissons, Louis de Bourbon, Comte
de, I 361
Soliman, Sultan, i 141 ; besieges
Malta, 145
Solm, Count, xi 302

INDEX.

401

Sophia, Electress, i 404
Soure, Count de, Portuguese envoy,
II 124
Southwold Bay, Battle of, n 196
Spain, how made, i 16 ; its Chris
tianity, , products of, 83 ; mari
time power, 141 sqq, 214 ; Mos
lem population, 144 ; aud Portu
gal, 160 sqq, xx 61, 166; relations
with England, x 86 sq, 152 sq,
II 56, 69 sq, 211; and Charles
II, 114 sq, 163 ; wars with
England, i 92, 203-7, 216 sq,
323 sq; relations with France,
373, 431, n 841 sqq ; wars with
France, i 224, 387, 393, ii 9, 61
sqq, 139 ; relations with the
Netherlands, 427 sqq, n 209;
wars with the Netherlands, i 224,
226, 255, 383; relations with
Italy, 376 ; alUed with Austria,
382; poUoy, 240, 265 sq; decUne,
282 sq ; power augmented, 874 ;
cedes Franche Comt6, n 208 ;
end of ascendancy, 180 sq
Spanish Monarchy, i 83 ; Part i
chap. V passim ; isolation, 132 ;
nature, 139 sqq, 388 sqq; re
lations with England, 162 sq,
168 sqq; relations with France,
168 sqq, 361 sq, xx 136, 820 sq ;
wars vrith France, x 382 ; designs
of Louis XrV on, ii 138 sq;
passes to House of Boiurbon, 819
sq ; wars vrith the Netherlands,
I 312; loses Franche Comte, ii
227; dissolution, x 364; sup
ported by Austria, 378 ; loses
Portugal, II 128
Spanish Succession, first attempt to
settle, n 209 ; war of the, 329,
334, 343, 349-59
Spiee Islands, and the Dutch,
I 292

Spinola, Spanish general, invades
Palatinate, i 313
Stayner, Captain Richard, ii 89
St Bartholomew's Day, massacre of,
I 113, 187, 182; attitude of
EUzabeth towards, 126
St Domingo, Venables lands in, xi
80 sq
St Germain, Peace of, 1 129, 136
St Gothard, Battle of, n 245
St John, Knights of, in Malta, i
143, 146
St John, Oliver, English Ambas
sador to Holland, ii 20, 23 sq,
27
Stockar, JohannJakob, Swiss envoy,
1x67
Stow-on-the-Wold, Battle of, x 416
St Quentin, Battle of, i 38, 46, 144,
147, 161
Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl
of, conduct, I 338 sq ; opinion of
Charles I's foreign policy, 344;
hates war, 394 sq
Strasburg, annexed by France, ix
233 sq
Strickland, Walter, EngUsh Am
bassador to Holland, n 20, 28
sq, 27
Stuart, House of, claims upon Eng
land, X 40; in BngUsh poUtics,
52 ; its Pretenders, ib. ; Mary as
Pretender, 53; connexion with
the Bourbon, 58; marriage-poUcy,
273-8 ; and Gustavus Adolphus,
846 ; connexion with House of
Orange, 409 ; at the Hague, ii
24 ; periods of, 105
Stuart Monarchy, false position of
I 399 sq ; famUy point of view,
ib. sq ; Queens, always Catholic
408 ; policy, dynastic aud na
tional, 436
Sully, mission of, i 268

402

INDEX.

Susa, Treaty of, i 332, 340 sq
Sweden, threatened on ihe Baltic,
I 348; and Prance, 349, 374,
884, n 158; and the Thirty
Years' War, i 874; and Treaty
of Osnabriick, 428, 431
Swift, Jonathan, on Ireland, n 378
sq
Switzerland, Eeformation iu, i 66 ;
relations with England, n 67,
81
Temple, Sir William, and Triple
AUiance, ii 147, 163 sq; his
achievement, 158 sqq ; style of
his despatches, 159 sq ; on Louis
XIV, 167 sq; ou Turenne, 168 sq
Teneriffe, ix 90
Texel, Battle of the, ii 35
Thames, Dutch fleet enters, ii 152 sq
Thirty Years' War, i 255, 264;
beginning of, 310; and question
of the Palatinate, 317 ; character
of, 345 ; last phase, 362 ; Prance
aud Sweden, 374; end of, 429
lok'oly, Emerich, n 246
Toleration, idea of, in England,
I 353
Toryism, phases of, n 346 sq, 359 sq
Trent, Council of, begins Counter-
Eeformation, I 6, 20, 75 ; success
of, 76; principles of Counter-
Reformation codified at, 77; in
fluence of its decisions, 78; com
pared vrith Council of Nicaea, ib ;
foUowed by a coalition, 86
Tromp, Cornelius, Admiral, i 350,
395 sq ; battle with Blake, ii
83 sqq
Troyes, Treaty of, i 136
Tunis, taken by SeUm II, i 146
Turenne, campaigns compared with
Marlborough's, i 416 sq ; wins
battle of ihe Dunes, ii 94 sqq;

and Duke of York, 112 sq; cam
paign in the Netherlands, 168 sq
Turkey, decline of, x 146; and
Balance of Power, 207
Turks, Ottoman, ¦withstood by
Charles V, x 21 ; and by Austria,
32; by Germany, 33; they be
siege Vienna, ii 225, 244 sq
Utrecht, Treaty of, xx 338, 348
Valois, House of, and the Habs
burg, X 40, 45; connexion with
Scotland, 40, 49; enters into
EngUsh politics, 40, 42 sq; dy
nasty of, ends, 44; briUiant epoch
of, 48; disappears, 170 sq
Vane, Sir Harry, i 353; reorga
nises navy, ii 31
Venables, Admiral, ii 73 sq, 77 ; in
St Domingo, 80 sq ; sent to ihe
Tower, 81
Venetians, attacked iu Cyprus by
SeUm II, 1 146
Vervins, Treaty of, 1 170, 189, 225,
232, 233, 285
Villa Viciosa, Battle of, xx 128
Virginia, colony of, when founded,
1271, 293 sq
Waldenses, persecution of, n 71 sq,
79
Wallenstein, x 879 sq; replaces
Gustavus Adolphus, 381
Wassenaer, Jacob van. Baron of
Obdam, succeeds Tromp, xx 38
Westminster, Treaty of, n 82, 210 sq
Westphalia, Treaties of, i 312, 386,
418, n 62, 229
Wexford, massacre of, ii 7
Whitelocke, Bulstrode, at Upsala,
n 56 sq, 69 sq
White Mountain, Battle of, 1 264, 311
William I of Orange, and Louis of

INDEX.

403

Nassau, i 131; exiled, 147 sq;
character, 150; flrst successes,
151; murdered, 168, 186 sq
William II of Orange, marriage,
compared with 'William Ill's,
I 405 aqq, 409, 413, ii 10; cha
racter, 11 sqq; poUoy, 13, 15 sqq,
17; and Charles II, 16; death,
12, 17 sq
William III, compared with Eliza
beth aud Cromwell, x 5; mar
riage, 23, 69, 406 sqq, xi 218 sq;
reconciles dynastic with national
system, i 402 sq; in ihe Nether
lands, a Pretender, xx 141 sq;
founds union against Louis XIV,
210 sq; represents Protestan
tism, 216 aq, 277 ; cauae of hia
succeas, 258; acceasion in Eng
land, 331; poaition, 294, 297;
Irish campaign, 301 sq; as Euro
pean statesman, 310; Calvinist,
313; training, 325 sq; poUoy,
324; reign, 327; work (sum
mary), 309 sqq, 333, 340
Wilmerger war, the, ii 81

Winnington Bridge, Battle of, ii
115
Winwood, Ralph, and Anti- Spanish
party, i 280; favours Ealegh'a
scheme, 287
With, Cornelis de, Vice-Admiral
Witte, IX 34
Witt, Cornelius de, arrested, ii
195
Witt, John de, i 413 ; becomes
Pensionary, xx 24 ; ou ihe United
Netherlands, 36; and CromweU,
47 ; feels as a HoUander, 50 sq ;
presides over Dutch Common
wealth, 141 sq ; his government,
144 ; policy, 148, 160 ; attempted
assassination of, 195; resigna
tion, ib
Wrangel, Swedish general, i 417
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, his rebelUon
crushed, i 25
Wylson, Dr, translates Demos
thenes, I 156
Zutphen, Battle of, i 194

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