on the verge of a division into three, between the incompetent Henry
III. on the throne, Henry of Guise of the Catholic League, and Henry of
Navarre, heir apparent and head of the Huguenots.

The Estates offered the sovereignty of the Netherlands to Henry; he
dallied with them, but finally rejected the offer. Meanwhile, there was
an increased tendency to a rapprochement with England; but Elizabeth had
excellent reasons for being quite resolved not to accept the sovereignty
of the Netherlands. In France, matters came to a head in March 1585,
when the offer of the Estates was rejected. Henry III. found himself
forced into the hands of the League, and Navarre was declared to be
barred from the succession as a heretic, in July.

While diplomacy was at work, and the Estates were gradually turning from
France to England, Alexander of Parma, the first general, and one of the
ablest statesmen of the age, was pushing on the Spanish cause in the
Netherlands. Flagrantly as he was stinted in men and money, a consummate
genius guided his operations. The capture of Antwerp was the crucial
point; and the condition of capturing Antwerp was to hold the Scheldt
below that city, and also to secure the dams, since, if the country were
flooded, the Dutch ships could not be controlled in the open waters.

The burghers scoffed at the idea that Parma could bridge the Scheldt, or
that his bridge, if built, could resist the ice-blocks that would come
down in the winter. But he built his bridge, and it resisted the
ice-blocks. An ingenious Italian in Antwerp devised the destruction of
the bridge, and the passage of relief-ships, by blowing up the bridge
with a sort of floating mines. The explosion was successfully carried
out with terrific effect; a thousand Spaniards were blown to pieces; but
by sheer blundering the opening was not at once utilised, and Parma was
able to rebuild the bridge.

Then, by a fine feat of arms, the patriots captured the Kowenstyn dyke,
and cut it; but the loss was brilliantly retrieved, the Kowenstyn was
recaptured, and the dyke repaired. After that, Antwerp's chance of
escape sank almost to nothing, and its final capitulation was a great
triumph for Parma.

The Estates had despaired of French help, and had opened negotiations
with England some time before the fall of Antwerp had practically
secured the southern half of the Netherlands to Spain. It was
unfortunate that the negotiations took the form of hard bargain