Throughout 1591, Maurice’s operations were recovering strong places for the States, one after another, from Zutphen and Deventer to Nymegen.  Parma was too much hampered by the bonds Philip had imposed on him to meet Maurice effectively.  And Henry was prospering in Normandy and Brittany, and was laying siege to Rouen before the year ended.

In the spring Parma succeeded in relieving Rouen.  Then Henry manoeuvred him into what seemed a trap; but his genius was equal to the occasion, and he escaped.  But while the great general was engaged in France, Maurice went on mining and sapping his way into Netherland fortresses.  In the meantime, Philip’s grand object was to secure the French crown for his own daughter, whose mother had been a sister of the last three kings of France; the present plan being to marry her to the young Duke of Guise—­a scheme not to the liking of Guise’s uncle Mayenne, who wanted the crown himself.  But Philip’s chief danger lay in the prospect of Henry turning Catholic.

Parma’s death, in December 1592, deprived Philip of the genius which had for years past been the mainstay of his power.  Henry’s public announcement of his return to the Holy Catholic Church, in the summer of 1593, deprived the Spanish king of nearly all the support he had hitherto received in France.  Before this Maurice had opened his attack on the two great cities which the Spaniards still held in the United Provinces, Gertruydenberg and Groningen.  His scientific methods secured the former in June.  In similar scientific style he raised the siege of Corwarden.  A year after Gertruydenberg, Groningen surrendered.

In 1595, France and Spain were at open war again, and in spite of Henry’s apostasy he had drawn into close alliance with the United Provinces.  The inefficient Archduke Ernest, who had succeeded Parma, died at the beginning of the year.  Fuentes, nephew of Alva, was the new governor, ad interim.  His operations in Picardy were successfully conducted.  The summer gave an extraordinary example of human vigour triumphing, both physically and mentally, over the infirmities of old age.  Christopher Mondragon, at the age of ninety-two, marched against Maurice, won a skirmish on the Lippe, and spoilt Maurice’s campaign.  In January 1596 the governorship was taken over by the Archduke Albert.  A disaster both to France and England was the Spaniards’ capture of Calais, which Elizabeth might have relieved, but offered to do so only on condition of it being restored to England—­an offer flatly declined.

At the same time Henry and Elizabeth negotiated a league, but its ostensible arrangements, intended to bring in the United Provinces and Protestant German States, were very different from the real stipulations, the queen promising very much less than was supposed.  At the end of October the Estates signed the articles.