alliance, by submitting to any
terms which she pleased to require of them. The debt which they owed
her was now settled at eight hundred thousand pounds: of this sum they
agreed to pay, during the war, thirty thousand pounds a year; and these
payments were to continue till four hundred thousand pounds of the debt
should be extinguished. They engaged also, during the time that
England should continue the war with Spain, to pay the garrisons of the
cautionary towns. They stipulated, that if Spain should invade England,
or the Isle of Wight, or Jersey, or Scilly, they should assist her with
a body of five thousand foot and five hundred horse; and that in case
she undertook any naval armament against Spain, they should join an
equal number of ships to hers.[*] By this treaty, the queen was eased of
an annual charge of a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

* Rymer, vol. xvi. p. 340.

Soon after the death of Burleigh, the queen, who regretted extremely the
loss of so wise and faithful a minister, was informed of the death
of her capital enemy, Philip II., who, after languishing under many
infirmities, expired in an advanced age at Madrid. This haughty
prince, desirous of an accommodation with his revolted subjects in the
Netherlands, but disdaining to make in his own name the concessions
necessary for that purpose, had transferred to his daughter, married to
Archduke Albert, the title to the Low Country provinces; but as it
was not expected that this princess could have posterity, and as the
reversion, on failure of her issue, was still reserved to the crown of
Spain, the states considered this deed only as the change of a name, and
they persisted with equal obstinacy in their resistance to the Spanish
arms. The other powers also of Europe made no distinction between the
courts of Brussels and Madrid; and the secret opposition of France, as
well as the avowed efforts of England, continued to operate against the
progress of Albert, as it had done against that of Philip.

CHAPTER XLIV.

ELIZABETH.

{1599.} Though the dominion of the English over Ireland had been
seemingly established above four centuries, it may safely be affirmed,
that their authority had hitherto been little more than nominal. The
Irish princes and nobles, divided among themselves, readily paid the
exterior marks of obeisance to a power which they were not able to
resist; but, as no durable force was ever kept on foot to retain them