ned to undervalue it. She wrote accordingly to the States,
reproaching them for using all that artillery and that royal force
against a mere castle and earthheap, instead of attempting some
considerable capital, or going in force to the relief of Brittany. The
day was to come when she would acknowledge the advantage of not leaving
this earth-heap in the hands of the Spaniard. Meantime, Prince
Maurice--the season being so far advanced--gave the world no further
practical lessons in the engineering science, and sent his troops into
winter quarters.

These were the chief military phenomena in France and Flanders during
three years of the great struggle to establish Philip's universal
dominion.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Negotiations between Queen Elizabeth and the States--Aspect of
affair between England and the Netherlands--Complaints of the
Hollanders on the piratical acts of the English--The Dutch Envoy and
the English Government--Caron's interview with Elizabeth--The Queen
promises redress of grievances.

It is now necessary to cast a glance at certain negotiations on delicate
topics which had meantime been occurring between Queen Elizabeth and the
States.

England and the republic were bound together by ties so close that it was
impossible for either to injure the other without inflicting a
corresponding damage on itself. Nevertheless this very community of
interest, combined with a close national relationship--for in the
European family the Netherlanders and English were but cousins twice
removed--with similarity of pursuits, with commercial jealousy, with an
intense and ever growing rivalry for that supremacy on the ocean towards
which the monarchy and the republic were so earnestly struggling, with a
common passion for civil and religious freedom, and with that inveterate
habit of self-assertion--the healthful but not engaging attribute of all
vigorous nations--which strongly marked them both, was rapidly producing
an antipathy between the two countries which time was likely rather to
deepen than efface. And the national divergences were as potent as the
traits of resemblance in creating this antagonism.

The democratic element was expanding itself in the republic so rapidly as
to stifle for a time the oligarchical principle which might one day be
developed out of the same matrix; while, despite the hardy and
adventurous spirit which characterised the English nation throughout all
its grades, the