llanders, battling as stoutly against
Spain and the pope as they had done during the years when the republic
stood shoulder to shoulder with Henry the Huguenot, could hope for aid
and comfort from their ancient ally.

It is very characteristic of that age of dissimulation and of reckless
political gambling, that at the very moment when Henry's marriage with
Marie de Medicis was already arranged, and when that princess was soon
expected in Lyons, a cabal at the king's court was busy with absurd
projects to marry their sovereign to the Infanta of Spain. It is true
that the Infanta was already the wife of the cardinal-archduke, but it
was thought possible--for reasons divulged through the indiscretions or
inventions of the father confessor--to obtain the pope's dispensation on
the ground of the nullity of the marriage. Thus there were politicians at
the French court seriously occupied in an attempt to deprive the archduke
of his wife, of his Netherland provinces, and of the crown of, the holy
Roman empire, which he still hoped to inherit. Yet the ink was scarcely
dry with which Henry had signed the treaty of amity with Madrid and
Brussels.

The Queen of England, on the other hand--although often listening to
secret agents from Brussels and Madrid who offered peace, and although
perfectly aware that the great abject of Spain in securing peace with
England was to be able to swoop down at once upon the republic, thus
deprived of any allies was beside herself with rage, whenever she
suspected, with or without reason, that Brussels or Madrid had been
sending peace emissaries to the republic.

"Before I could get into the room," said Caron, on one such occasion,
"she called out, 'Have you not always told me that the States never
could, would, or should treat for peace with the enemy? Yet now it is
plain enough that they have proceeded only too far in negotiations.' And
she then swore a big oath that if the States were to deceive her she
meant to take such vengeance that men should talk of it for ever and
ever." It was a long time before the envoy could induce her to listen to
a single word, although the perfect sincerity of the States in their
attitude to the queen and to Spain was unquestionable, and her ill-humour
on the subject continued long after it had been demonstrated how much she
had been deceived.

Yet it was impossible in the nature of things for the States to play her
false, even if no reliance were to be placed