The Prince of Parma, thus encouraged by the great success of his intrigues, was determined to achieve still greater triumphs with his arms, and steadily proceeded with his large design of closing the Scheldt—­and bringing about the fall of Antwerp.  The details of that siege-one of the most brilliant military operations of the age and one of the most memorable in its results—­will be given, as a connected whole, in a subsequent series of chapters.  For the present, it will be better for the reader who wishes a clear view of European politics at this epoch, and of the position of the Netherlands, to give his attention to the web of diplomatic negotiation and court-intrigue which had been slowly spreading over the leading states of Christendom, and in which the fate of the world was involved.  If diplomatic adroitness consists mainly in the power to deceive, never were more adroit diplomatists than those of the sixteenth century.  It would, however, be absurd to deny them a various range of abilities; and the history of no other age can show more subtle, comprehensive, indefatigable—­but, it must also be added, often unscrupulous—­intellects engaged in the great game of politics in which the highest interests of millions were the stakes, than were those of several leading minds in England, France, Germany, and Spain.  With such statesmen the burgher-diplomatists of the new-born commonwealth had to measure themselves; and the result was to show whether or not they could hold their own in the cabinet as on the field,

For the present, however, the new state was unconscious of its latent importance, The new-risen republic remained for a season nebulous, and ready to unsphere itself so soon as the relative attraction of other great powers should determine its absorption.  By the death of Anjou and of Orange the United Netherlands had became a sovereign state, an independent republic; but they stood with that sovereignty in their hands, offering it alternately, not to the highest bidder, but to the power that would be willing to accept their allegiance, on the sole condition of assisting them in the maintenance of their religious freedom.

CHAPTER II.

Relations of the Republic to France—­Queen’s Severity towards Catholics and Calvinists—­Relative Positions of England and France—­ Timidity of Germany—­Apathy of Protestant Germany—­Indignation of the Netherlanders—­Henry III. of France—­The King and his Minions—­ Henry of Guise—­Henry of Navarre—­Power of France—­Embassy of the States to France—­Ignominious position of the Envoys—­Views of the French Huguenots—­Efforts to procure Annexation—­Success of Des Pruneaux.

The Prince of Orange had always favoured a French policy.  He had ever felt a stronger reliance upon the support of France than upon that of any other power.  This was not unreasonable, and so long as he lived, the tendency of the Netherlands had been in that direction.  It had never been the wish of England to acquire the sovereignty of the Provinces.  In France on the contrary, the Queen Dowager, Catharine de’ Medici had always coveted that sovereignty for her darling Francis of Alencon; and the design had been favoured, so far as any policy could be favoured, by the impotent monarch who occupied the French throne.