And then to Elizabeth.

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And were the designs of Philip so evident, and was it certain that, old as he was, he would really attempt a tremendous struggle which, at best, would be an extraordinary hazard? And what would the Powers of Europe think of an insular kingdom taking possession of the least-defended frontier of France, and of all the mouths of the German rivers? Would not such a step determine Valois, who even yet might free himself from Philip? And how would the English Catholics brook defiance of the Catholic King, and would the English conservatives support an alliance with a revolutionary republic? Besides, the proffer of the States was ungracious, and was fenced round with restrictive conditions which appeared odious to a Tudor sovereign. The appeal to England had been a tardy one; and had the Provinces been merged in France, they would probably have become an outwork against England. Moreover, though the envoys of the States had offered the Crown of the Netherlands to the Queen-a dangerous offer at this time-they had shown reluctance to mortgage a town, or give her a harbour for a fleet, displayed a base mechanical spirit,' and 'had cheapened with England on bargaining terms,' which seemed absurd in the weaker party. Under these circumstances, was it not better to leave the half-conquered Provinces to their fate, and to meet the danger, if danger there were, at home, and alone, with the arms of England?

So argued Burleigh, and many of the Council, nor can we doubt but that Mr. Motley has very unduly decried their reasoning. Besides, history is full of proofs how the wisest statesmen are slow to change, especially when the question is to embark a state in perilous intervention. It required a positive insult to England to induce her to join in the grand alliance which led to the war of the Spanish Succession, although at the time the attitude of Louis was quite as menacing as that of Philip; and we know well how the Liverpool Cabinet distrusted for years the war in the Peninsula. Mr. Motley should have remembered these facts; though doubtless the arguments urged by the States, which were backed by all the influence of Walsingham, deserved great attention at this juncture, and, on the whole, were certainly the wisest. The Secretary urged the designs of Philip, and that if the Republic were overwhelmed, this would give Spain the postern of England.' He insisted that the alliance with France, to which the Queen still clung with some hope, was out of the question in the state of affairs; that France would form the vanguard of a League against the Protestant powers of Europe; and that it was idle, in French interests, to

pause sending an army to the Netherlands. Open war, therefore, with Philip was the game; he should be assailed on every sea, on the coasts of Spain, America, and the Indies; and, wherever his power could be safely assailed, there England and her allies should strike him. And if this was the case, what a valuable ally would be a Republic, still unvanquished, which still possessed a powerful fleet and an inexhaustible nursery of seamen, and which offered in its adjacent territory an admirable scene for operations from England. Once concede that war with Philip was imminent, and Henry, or rather France, an enemy, and where could be found so good an ally as a power strong in maritime resources, which offered a place of arms to England?

The Queen hesitated, but was not long in coming to a definite conclusion. She declined peremptorily the sovereignty of the States, but promised them aid against Parma and Philip, if they would pledge two cautionary seaports to her, and support a certain number of her soldiers. On these terms, five thousand men were to be dispatched to assist the Republic, and licence was to be given to English adventurers to attack Spain in her maritime possessions. At the same time she positively stipulated that her representative with the States should on no account assume their government in his own person, or in trust for her; and she openly declared that her only object was to gain an honourable peace for the Netherlands, and so to secure her eastern frontier. Never could there be tranquillity for her own realm until these 'neighbouring countries were tranquil. These were her ends and aims, despite all that slanderous tongues might invent. Besides, she reserved to herself the right of dealing separately with the King of Spain, though she promised that any treaty should include provisions for the full security of the Republic. Under these conditions and limitations a treaty with the Provinces was made; and five thousand men, with Leicester at their head, were dispatched from England in December, 1585, the great duel between Spain and England, though as yet only in preliminary feints, commencing thus on the plains of the Netherlands.

It is easy to see hesitation in this policy, and still easier with Mr. Motley to censure it. It certainly was a half-measure, a compromise between the opposite parties in the Council; and we may admit that it does not display the full force of the Queen's wisdom. We see now that its tendency was to irritate Philip into war, without the chance of assuring peace, and to sacrifice part of the strength of England without obtaining a real equivalent, or giving efficient aid to the Provinces. But Elizabeth still believed in the hope of entering into a treaty with Spain; she had still

Treaty with the States-Siege of Antwerp.

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some faith in Henry of Valois; she was cautious not to excite his jealousy by a large display of force on his frontier; and she had little trust in the power of the States, with a very marked antipathy to their dissensions. In this she was wrong, yet the error was natural, considering the time and her means of information; nor are we disposed with Mr. Motley to blame her severely for this error, still less to portray her as a Harpagon, resolved to screw down the States to her terms, and looking only to their power of repaying her. Many arguments might be fairly urged to vindicate even this cautious policy, if we bear in mind the condition of Europe, and the 'mean, chaffering, and mechanical spirit' with which the States had dealt with her. In her resolution to reject their sovereignty we think she acted with true discretion; and her only error seems to have been a want in the highest faculty of insight, in not boldly commencing an inevitable struggle, and not giving a large support to the Provinces. As regards her future relations with the States, her policy had, however, the tendency to produce considerable mutual dissatisfaction. They insisted on dealing with her as an equal, and urged that England and the Republic were now involved in a common peril, and should meet it with their united energies. Especially they deprecated any treating with Philip until the objects of the alliance were attained, which they understood were the freedom of the Netherlands. She looked on them as subordinate allies for whom she was running a great risk, which otherwise she need not have encountered, and she had no notion of defying Spain, and carrying on a war à l'outrance, provided terms could be obtained which should give the States cessation from tyranny, and gain for herself a reasonable security. Thus a chasm was made in the estimates of the subject; and this was certain to cause divergence in the policy and acts of the contracting parties. But even before this alliance had been made, an event had occurred which was generally reckoned the certain prelude of the ruin of the Republic. In the autumn of 1584, the Prince of Parma, having conquered Flanders, had invested Antwerp, which still held out; and after a long and memorable siege, the place had fallen in the following summer. Mr. Motley's account of this great exploit, in which all the military skill and science which Europe possessed in the sixteenth century, were set into play by a consummate general, and valour, energy, endurance, and genius were strangely contrasted with weakness and folly, is a noble piece of historic narrative, in force and brilliancy difficult to equal. The city on the Brabant shores of the Scheldt looked over a low and fertile country towards the sandy islands and

creeks of Zeeland. Huge dykes, on either side of the river, rising up like causeways along the landscape, kept in the stream, and projected forwards until they met the advancing ocean. Two of these, the Blawgaren and Kowenstyn dykes, met at right angles on the Brabant shore, the one running parallel with the Scheldt, the other sweeping from it to the east, and both forming a lofty barrier against the sea rolling inward from Zeeland. If these dykes were pierced, and the sea let in, the right bank of the Scheldt would be covered for miles with water sufficient to float large ships, and a broad lake would be open from Zeeland to any fleet of the sixteenth century. But the land was higher on the left shore, and the piercing the dykes on this bank of the Scheldt would only in part submerge the plain, and not open a way for shipping from Zeeland. Thus the dykes on the right were the key of Antwerp, so far as regards its side towards the sea; possession of these might open a way to a friendly fleet from the Zeeland harbours, or might oppose a vast sheet of water to any attack from the Brabant shore, and it gave a hold of the main causeways that led to the city in that direction.

As Parma's designs on Antwerp had been known before the death of William the Silent, and he saw at a glance the great importance of opening a way for the sea from Zeeland, he had urged the citizens, in 1584, to pierce the Blawgaren and Kowenstyn dykes, and thus to oppose a flood to the enemy, and afford a path for the fleet of their allies. But the wise advice had been disregarded; and Parma, whose forces had long possessed the approaches to Antwerp on the land side, now seized these dykes from the Brabant shore, placed large redoubts with cannon upon them, and thus shut off assistance from Zeeland, commanded important avenues to Antwerp, and occupied two extensive causeways, which, on the sea side, formed lines against the city. Having thus invested Antwerp from the sea along the Brabant shore of the Scheldt, he drew onward his lines from the Flemish shore. His approaches were pushed on each side of the river until they were only separated by it; and he now commenced constructing a bridge, which was to complete the line of investment, to seal the city up towards the sea, and to cut it off from all aid from Zeeland, even by the narrow channel of the river. With what rapid genius he saw the points where Antwerp was to be first attacked; how he made the dykes on each side of the Scheldt the paths for his troops to hem round the city; how he wound round it along these lines, and baffled surprise by fortifying them strongly; and how with extraordinary skill and perseverance he applied himself to bridge over a stream eight hundred yards wide and sixty feet deep,

in the midst of winter, and in face of his enemy, and thus to complete the investment seaward, is described by Mr. Motley at length, and can be only referred to by us. It increases tenfold our admiration for a man who, if a Hannibal in Punic faith, was nearly a Hannibal in the art of war, that this great achievement was planned and executed by a general with only ten thousand troops, who, owing to Philip's extreme shortsightedness, were wanting in every military appliance, and frequently were on the verge of starvation. Here is Mr. Motley's picture of this able. soldier:

'Alexander was never more truly heroic than in this position of vast entanglement. Untiring, uncomplaining, thoughtful of others, prodigal of himself, generous, devoted, brave; with so much intellect, and so much devotion to what he considered his duty, he deserved to be a patriot and a champion of the right, rather than an instrument of despotism.

And thus he paused for a moment, with much work already accomplished, but his hardest life-task before him; still in the noon of manhood, a fine martial figure, standing, spear in hand, full in the sunlight, though all the scene around him was wrapped in gloom-a noble, commanding shape, entitled to the admiration which the energetic display of great powers, however unscrupulous, must always command. A dark, meridional physiognomy; a quick, alert, imposing head; jetblack, close-clipped hair; a bold eagle's face, with full, bright, restless eye; a man rarely reposing, always ready, never alarmed, living in the saddle with harness on his back; such was the Prince of Parma, matured and mellowed, but still unharmed by time.'

We add the description of the bridge across the Scheldt, which completed the lines around Antwerp from the sea, and was justly reckoned a wonder of engineering :

'From Fort St. Mary, on the Kalloo side, and from Fort Philip, not far from Ordam, on the Brabant side of the Scheldt, strong structures, supported upon piers, had been projected, reaching respectively five hundred feet into the stream. These two opposite ends were now connected by a permanent bridge of boats. There were thirty-two of these barges, each of them sixty-two feet in length and twelve in breadth, the spaces between each couple being twenty-two feet wide, and all being bound together, stem, stern, and midships, by quadruple hawsers and chains. Each boat was anchored at stem and stern with loose cables. Strong timbers, with cross rafters, were placed upon the boats, upon which heavy framework the planked pathway was laid down. A thick parapet of closely-fitting beams was erected along both the outer edges of the whole fabric. Thus a continuous and well-fortified bridge, two thousand four hundred feet in length, was stretched at last from shore to shore. Each of the thirty-two