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.

The religion of the United Netherlands was Calvinistic.  There were also many Anabaptists in the country.  The Queen of England hated Anabaptists, Calvinists, and other sectarians, and banished them from her realms on pain of imprisonment and confiscation of property.  As firmly opposed as was her father to the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, she felt much of the paternal reluctance to accept the spirit of the Reformation.  Henry Tudor hanged the men who believed in the Pope, and burnt alive those who disbelieved in transubstantiation, auricular confession, and the other ‘Six Articles.’  His daughter, whatever her secret religious convictions, was stanch in her resistance to Rome, and too enlightened a monarch not to see wherein the greatness and glory of England were to be found; but she had no thought of tolerating liberty of conscience.  All opposed to the Church of England, whether Papists or Puritans, were denounced as heretics, and as such imprisoned or banished.  “To allow churches with contrary rites and ceremonies,” said Elizabeth, “were nothing else but to sow religion out of religion, to distract good men’s minds, to cherish factious