CHAPTER XLI.

Death of Queen Elizabeth--Condition of Spain--Legations to James I.
--Union of England and Scotland--Characteristics of the new monarch
--The English Court and Government--Piratical practices of the
English--Audience of the States' envoy with king James--Queen
Elizabeth's scheme far remodelling Europe--Ambassador extraordinary
from Henry IV. to James--De Rosny's strictures on the English
people--Private interview of De Rosny with the States' envoy--De
Rosny's audience of the king--Objects of his mission--Insinuations
of the Duke of Northumberland--Invitation of the embassy to
Greenwich--Promise of James to protect the Netherlands against
Spain--Misgivings of Barneveld--Conference at Arundel House--Its
unsatisfactory termination--Contempt of De Rosny for the English
counsellors--Political aspect of Europe--De Rosny's disclosure to
the king of the secret object of his mission--Agreement of James to
the proposals of De Rosny--Ratification of the treaty of alliance--
Return of De Rosny and suite to France--Arrival of the Spanish
ambassador.

On the 24th of March, 1603, Queen Elizabeth died at Richmond, having
nearly completed her seventieth year. The two halves of the little island
of Britain were at last politically adjoined to each other by the
personal union of the two crowns.

A foreigner, son of the woman executed by Elizabeth, succeeded to
Elizabeth's throne. It was most natural that the Dutch republic and the
French king, the archdukes and his Catholic Majesty, should be filled
with anxiety as to the probable effect of this change of individuals upon
the fortunes of the war.

For this Dutch war of independence was the one absorbing and controlling
interest in Christendom. Upon that vast, central, and, as men thought,
baleful constellation the fates of humanity, were dependent. Around it
lesser political events were forced to gravitate, and, in accordance to
their relation to it, were bright or obscure. It was inevitable that
those whose vocation it was to ponder the aspects of the political
firmament, the sages and high-priests who assumed to direct human action
and to foretell human destiny, should now be more than ever perplexed.

Spain, since the accession of Philip III. to his father's throne,
although rapidly declining in vital energy, had not yet disclosed its
decrepitude to the world. Its boundless ambition survived as a political
tr