The fate of all nations was more or less involved in the development of the great religious contest now waging in the Netherlands.  England and France watched each other’s movements in the direction of the provinces with intense jealousy.  The Protestant Queen was the natural ally of the struggling Reformers, but her despotic sentiments were averse to the fostering of rebellion against the Lord’s anointed.  The thrifty Queen looked with alarm at the prospect of large subsidies which would undoubtedly be demanded of her.  The jealous Queen could as ill brook the presence of the French in the Netherlands as that of the Spaniards whom they were to expel.  She therefore embarrassed, as usual, the operations of the Prince by a course of stale political coquetry.  She wrote to him, on the 18th of March, soon after the news of the Grand Commander’s death, saying that she could not yet accept the offer which had been made to her, to take the provinces of Holland and Zealand under her safe keeping, to assume, as Countess, the sovereignty over them, and to protect the inhabitants against the alleged tyranny of the King of Spain.  She was unwilling to do so until she had made every effort to reconcile them with that sovereign.  Before the death of Requesens she had been intending to send him an envoy, proposing a truce, for the purpose of negotiation.  This purpose she still retained.  She should send commissioners to the Council of State and to the new Governor, when he should arrive.  She should also send a special envoy to the King of Spain.  She doubted not that the King would take her advice, when he heard her speak in such straightforward language.  In the meantime, she hoped that they would negotiate with no other powers.

This was not very satisfactory.  The Queen rejected the offers to herself, but begged that they might, by no means, be made to her rivals.  The expressed intention of softening the heart of Philip by the use of straightforward language seemed but a sorry sarcasm.  It was hardly worth while to wait long for so improbable a result.  Thus much for England at that juncture.  Not inimical, certainly; but over-cautious, ungenerous, teasing, and perplexing, was the policy of the maiden Queen.  With regard to France, events there seemed to favor the hopes of Orange.  On the 14th of May, the “Peace of Monsieur,” the treaty by which so ample but so short-lived a triumph was achieved by the Huguenots, was signed at Paris.  Everything was conceded, but nothing was secured.  Rights of worship, rights of office, political and civil, religious enfranchisement, were recovered, but not guaranteed.  It seemed scarcely possible that the King could be in earnest then, even if a Medicean Valois could ever be otherwise than treacherous.  It was almost, certain, therefore, that a reaction would take place; but it is easier for us, three centuries after the event, to mark the precise moment of reaction, than it was for the most far-seeing contemporary to