se of the grave dangers into which the
struggle with Holland was plunging the country both at home and abroad.
The enormous grant which had been made at the outset for three years was
already spent and a fresh supply had to be granted. But hard and costly
as the Dutch war had proved, a far graver and costlier struggle seemed
opening in its train. The war was a serious stumbling-block in the way
of the French projects. Holland on the strength of old treaties, England
on the strength of her new friendship, alike called on Lewis for aid;
but to give aid to either was to run the risk of throwing the other on
the aid of the House of Austria, and of building up the league which
could alone check France in its designs upon Spain. Only peace could
keep the European states disunited, and it was on their disunion that
Lewis counted for success in his design of seizing Flanders, a design
which was now all but ripe for execution. At the outset of the war
therefore he offered his mediation, and suggested the terms of a
compromise. But his attempt was fruitless, and the defeat off Lowestoft
forced him to more effective action. He declared himself forced to give
aid to the Dutch though he cautiously restricted his help to the promise
of a naval reinforcement. But the chief work of his negotiators was to
prevent any extension of the struggle. Sweden and Brandenburg, from both
of which powers Charles counted on support, were held in check by the
intervention of France; and the Bishop of Muenster, whom an English
subsidy had roused to an attack on his Dutch neighbours, was forced by
the influence of Lewis to withdraw his troops. Sir William Temple, the
English ambassador at Brussels, strove to enlist Spain on the side of
England by promising to bring about a treaty between that country and
Portugal which would free its hands for an attack on Lewis, and so
anticipate his plans for an attack under more favourable circumstances
on herself. But Lewis knew how to play on the Catholic bigotry of Spain,
and the English offers were set aside.

[Sidenote: England and France.]

Lewis thus succeeded in isolating England and in narrowing the war
within the limits of a struggle at sea, a struggle in which the two
great sea-powers could only weaken one another to the profit of his own
powerful navy. But his intervention was far from soaring England into
peace. The old hatred of France had quickened the English people to an
early perception of the dan