e late winter campaign on the border was feeble and a failure.

The bonds of alliance, however, were becoming very close between Henry
and the republic. Despite the change in religion on the part of the king,
and the pangs which it had occasioned in the hearts of leading
Netherlanders, there was still the traditional attraction between France
and the States, which had been so remarkably manifested during the
administration of William the Silent. The republic was more restive than
ever under the imperious and exacting friendship of Elizabeth, and,
feeling more and more its own strength, was making itself more and more
liable to the charge of ingratitude; so constantly hurled in its face by
the queen. And Henry, now that he felt himself really king of France, was
not slow to manifest a similar ingratitude or an equal love of
independence. Both monarch and republic, chafing under the protection of
Elizabeth, were drawn into so close a union as to excite her anger and
jealousy--sentiments which in succeeding years were to become yet more
apparent. And now; while Henry still retained the chivalrous and flowery
phraseology, so sweet to her ears, in his personal communications to the
queen, his ministers were in the habit of using much plainer language.
"Mr. de Sancy said to me," wrote the Netherland minister in France,
Calvaert, "that his Majesty and your Highnesses (the States-General) must
without long delay conclude an alliance offensive and defensive. In
regard to England, which perhaps might look askance at this matter, he
told me it would be invited also by his Majesty into the same alliance;
but if, according to custom, it shilly-shallied, and without coming to
deeds or to succour should put him off with words, he should in that case
proceed with our alliance without England, not doubting that many other
potentates in Italy and Germany would join in it likewise. He said too,
that he, the day before the departure of the English ambassador, had said
these words to him in the presence of his Majesty; namely, that England
had entertained his Majesty sixteen months long with far-fetched and
often-repeated questions and discontents, that one had submitted to this
sort of thing so long as his Majesty was only king of Mantes, Dieppe, and
Louviers, but that his Majesty being now king of Paris would be no longer
a servant of those who should advise him to suffer it any longer or
accept it as good payment; that England must treat h