The
leaders of the popular movement were men of rank, like Egmont and
William of Orange, men not likely to go to extremes. And it was an
axiom that the masses are always led by few, and cannot act of
themselves. But in the Netherlands more than elsewhere the forms, if
not the reality, of freedom were preserved, and the sovereign was not
absolute. Moreover, he governed from a distance, and, in addition to
his constitutional caution and procrastination, correspondence was
very slow.

The endeavour of Philip to substitute his will for self-government
provoked a Catholic and aristocratic opposition, followed by a
democratic and Protestant movement, which proved more difficult to
deal with. The nobles were overcome by the strong measures of Alva.
The Gueux were defeated by Don Juan and Farnese, after the recall of
Alva. And it seemed, for many years, that the movement would fail.
It is to the statesmanship of William the Silent, who was neither a
great soldier nor a strong churchman, that they owed their success.
He failed, indeed, to keep Protestants and Catholics together on a
wide basis of toleration. In 1579 the southern provinces returned to
Spain, and the northern provinces cast off their allegiance. But, by
the union of Utrecht, they founded that confederacy which became one
of the foremost powers in the world, and the first of revolutionary
origin. The southern provinces remained Catholic. The northern were,
in great measure, Protestant, but with a large Catholic population.
William, the Stadtholder, was killed by an assassin in 1584, before
his work was done. He had brought in Alencon, Elizabeth's suitor,
that he might secure the help of France. But Alencon proved a
traitor; and during the proconsulate of Farnese, Duke of Parma, the
Spaniards gained much ground.

Philip II stood at the height of his power in the middle of the
eighties. He had annexed Portugal, with its immense colonial empire.
By the death of Alencon, the King of Navarre, who was a Huguenot,
became the heir to the crown of France, and the Catholic party looked
to Spain for their salvation. Now, after many patient years, he
prepared for war with England. For Drake was ravaging Spanish
territory; and an English army under Leicester, having occupied the
Netherlands after the death of William, though they accomplished
little, gave just cause for an open quarrel. Whenever, in the course
of the Counter-Reformation, it came to a duel betw