n February 1577, therefore, he ratified the
Pacification of Ghent, consented to the maintenance of the liberties of
the States, and engaged to withdraw the army. He stipulated only for its
withdrawal by sea, and for a delay of three months, which was needful
for the arrangement of his descent on the English coast. Both demands
however were refused; he was forced to withdraw his troops at once and
by land, and the scheme of the Papacy found itself utterly foiled.

[Sidenote: The Prince of Parma.]

Secret as were the plans of Don John, Elizabeth had seen how near danger
had drawn to her. Fortune once more proved her friend, for the efforts
of Don John to bring about a reconciliation of the Netherlands proved
fruitless, and negotiations soon passed again into the clash of arms.
But the Queen was warned at last. On the new outbreak of war in 1577 she
allied herself with the States and sent them money and men. Such a step,
though not in form an act of hostility against Philip, for the Provinces
with which she leagued herself still owned themselves as Philip's
subjects, was a measure which proved the Queen's sense of her need of
the Netherlands. Though she had little sympathy with their effort for
freedom, she saw in them "the one bridle to Spain to keep war out of our
own gate." But she was to see the war drift nearer and nearer to her
shores. Now that the Netherlands were all but lost Philip's slow
stubborn temper strung itself to meet the greatness of the peril. The
Spanish army was reinforced; and in January 1578 it routed the army of
the States on the field of Gemblours. The sickness and death of Don John
arrested its progress for a few months; but his successor, Philip's
nephew, Alexander Farnese, the Prince of Parma, soon proved his
greatness whether as a statesman or a general. He seized on the
difference of faith between the Catholic and Protestant States as a
means of division. The Pacification of Ghent was broken at the opening
of 1579 by the secession of the Walloon provinces of the southern
border. It was only by a new league of the seven northern provinces,
where Protestantism was dominant, in the Union of Utrecht that William
of Orange could meet Parma's stroke. But the general union of the Low
Countries was fatally broken, and from this moment the ten Catholic
states passed one by one into the hands of Spain.

[Sidenote: The Papal attack.]

The new vigour of Philip in the West marked a change in the whole p