fruits of that war were now regarded as
quite sufficient for the satisfaction of English demands, this negative
action, followed by no greater fruit than the capitulation of the little
garrison at Mons, began the agitation for peace. Look closely at that
agitation through its details, and personal motives will confuse you; the
motives of the queen, of Harley, of Marlborough's enemies. Look at it in
the general light of the national history and you will perceive that the
winter following Malplaquet, a winter of disillusionment and discontent,
bred in England an opinion that made peace certain at last. The accusation
against Marlborough that he fought the battle with an eye to his failing
political position is probably unjust. The accusation that he fought it
from a lust of bloodshed is certainly a stupid calumny. But the
unpopularity of so great a man succeeding upon so considerable a technical
success sufficiently proves at what a price the barrenness of that success
was estimated in England. It was the English Government that first opened
secret negotiations with Louis for peace in the following year; and when
the great instrument which closed the war was signed at Utrecht in 1713,
it was after the English troops had been withdrawn from their allies,
after Eugene, acting single-handed, had suffered serious check, and in
general the Peace of Utrecht was concluded under conditions far more
favourable to Louis than would have been any peace signed at the Hague in
1709. The Spanish Netherlands were ceded to Austria, but France kept
intact what is still her Belgian frontier. She preserved what she has
since lost on the frontier of the Rhine, and (most remarkable of all!) the
grandson of Louis was permitted to remain upon the Spanish throne.

Such is the general political setting of this fierce action, one of the
most determined known in the history of European arms, and therefore one
of the most legitimately glorious; one in which men were most ready at the
call of duty and under the influences of discipline to sacrifice their
lives in the defence of a common cause; and one which, as all such
sacrifices must, illumines the history of the several national traditions
concerned, of the English as of the Dutch, of the German principalities as
of the French.

No action better proves the historical worth of valour.

II

THE SIEGE OF TOURNAI

When the negotiations for peace had failed, that is, with the opening of
Jun