cy, involving
international complications. For Holland, they were a rampart. The
government of the States was in the hands of John de Witt and the
Republicans. They were held in check by the partisans of the House of
Orange, which, in the last generation, had put the republican leader,
the real predecessor of De Witt, to death. The feud was there,
faction was not appeased, and De Witt dreaded the day when the Orange
party should recover power. The Prince of Orange was only 17. When
war came in sight, the Perpetual Edict excluded him from the position
which his family had occupied, by forbidding the Stadtholder from
being at the same time Commander of the Forces. De Witt was not
afraid of a naval war. His brother was the admiral, and it was he who
sailed up the Thames. But war on land would bring the young William
forward. De Witt made every possible concession, hoping to prevent
it. Rather than fight the French, he was willing to agree to a
partition of the Belgic provinces. Already, he was at war with
England, and the sea-fights had been indecisive. Resistance to France
on land was out of the question, except by means of a Coalition, and
as no Coalition could be hoped for, Holland stood aside, while Turenne
overran Flanders. The Austrian Habsburgs did not interfere to protect
the Spanish branch, although they were its heirs. In case his son
should die, Philip IV had left his entire monarchy to his second
daughter, who was married to the Emperor Leopold. It would remain in
the family; whereas, if the French queen had not renounced, it would
be swallowed up in the dominions of a stranger--that was the point of
view of a Spaniard. The Austrian viewed things differently. He knew
perfectly well that France would not be bound by an act which belonged
not to the world of real politics, but to the waste-paper basket.
Therefore, when France proposed an eventual partition, it seemed
important to obtain a more serious and more binding contract than the
queen's renunciation. The conditions were not unfavourable to the
imperial interest. As there were several other partition treaties,
none of which were carried out, the terms of this, the first, need not
occupy us. The treaty was not meant to govern the future, but the
present. It helped to keep the Emperor tranquil during the spoliation
of his Spanish kinsman.

Within a week of the first treaty of partition, Sir William Temple
concluded the Triple Alliance.