d undertaken to do what his father avoided to the end of
his life,--to offer open opposition to the Spanish monarchy and its
aims. Like Queen Elizabeth he took this step in alliance with France,
Holland, and the Protestants of Germany and the North, but yet not in
full agreement with his own people. This was due mainly to the
circumstance that France had become far more Catholic under Mary de'
Medici and Louis XIII than it had been under Henry IV. The offensive
alliance between France and England now developed a character which
rather irritated than quieted the religious feelings which prevailed
in England.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1625.]

On the first shocks sustained by the close alliance which had existed
between the Catholic powers, the Huguenots in France rose in order to
recover their former rights which had been curtailed. But the French
government was not at all inclined to give fresh life to these
powerful and dangerous movements: on the contrary it invoked the
assistance of England and Holland to put them down. For the great
strength of the Huguenots lay in their naval resources, and without
the help of the maritime powers the French government would never
have been able to overcome them. And so imperative seemed the
necessity of internal peace in France,[460] if she was to be induced
to take an active share in the war against Spain, that the English and
Dutch were actually persuaded to put their crews and vessels at the
disposal of the French government, which then used them with decisive
results. The naval power of the Huguenots, which had formed so large
an element of the fighting strength of the Protestants, was broken by
the assistance of England and Holland. Queen Elizabeth, in the midst
of her war with Philip II, would certainly never have been brought to
this step, and even now it roused the bitterest dislike. It was found
that the execution of the orders issued met with resistance even on
board the ships themselves. A light is thrown upon the ill-feeling at
home, when a member of the Privy Council, Lord Pembroke, tells a
captain who resisted this mutinous spirit, that the news of the
insubordination of his crew was the best which he had heard for a long
time, and that it was welcome even to the King: that he must deal
leniently with his men, and only see that he remained master of the
ship.[461] But what an impression must doubtless have been produced on
the population of England, which still stood in the c