The Thirty Years War, book 2 | Page 4

Rome had had but one interest?
France had lost with its great Henry all its importance and all its weight
in the political balance of Europe. A turbulent minority had destroyed
all the benefits of the able administration of Henry. Incapable ministers,
the creatures of court intrigue, squandered in a few years the treasures
which Sully's economy and Henry's frugality had amassed. Scarce able
to maintain their ground against internal factions, they were compelled
to resign to other hands the helm of European affairs. The same civil
war which armed Germany against itself, excited a similar commotion
in France; and Louis XIII. attained majority only to wage a war with
his own mother and his Protestant subjects. This party, which had been
kept quiet by Henry's enlightened policy, now seized the opportunity to
take up arms, and, under the command of some adventurous leaders,
began to form themselves into a party within the state, and to fix on the
strong and powerful town of Rochelle as the capital of their intended
kingdom. Too little of a statesman to suppress, by a prudent toleration,
this civil commotion in its birth, and too little master of the resources of
his kingdom to direct them with energy, Louis XIII. was reduced to the
degradation of purchasing the submission of the rebels by large sums of
money. Though policy might incline him, in one point of view, to assist
the Bohemian insurgents against Austria, the son of Henry the Fourth
was now compelled to be an inactive spectator of their destruction,
happy enough if the Calvinists in his own dominions did not
unseasonably bethink them of their confederates beyond the Rhine. A
great mind at the helm of state would have reduced the Protestants in
France to obedience, while it employed them to fight for the
independence of their German brethren. But Henry IV. was no more,
and Richelieu had not yet revived his system of policy.
While the glory of France was thus upon the wane, the emancipated
republic of Holland was completing the fabric of its greatness. The
enthusiastic courage had not yet died away which, enkindled by the
House of Orange, had converted this mercantile people into a nation of
heroes, and had enabled them to maintain their independence in a
bloody war against the Spanish monarchy. Aware how much they owed
their own liberty to foreign support, these republicans were ready to
assist their German brethren in a similar cause, and the more so, as both
were opposed to the same enemy, and the liberty of Germany was the

best warrant for that of Holland. But a republic which had still to battle
for its very existence, which, with all its wonderful exertions, was
scarce a match for the formidable enemy within its own territories,
could not be expected to withdraw its troops from the necessary work
of self-defence to employ them with a magnanimous policy in
protecting foreign states.
England too, though now united with Scotland, no longer possessed,
under the weak James, that influence in the affairs of Europe which the
governing mind of Elizabeth had procured for it. Convinced that the
welfare of her dominions depended on the security of the Protestants,
this politic princess had never swerved from the principle of promoting
every enterprise which had for its object the diminution of the Austrian
power. Her successor was no less devoid of capacity to comprehend,
than of vigour to execute, her views. While the economical Elizabeth
spared not her treasures to support the Flemings against Spain, and
Henry IV. against the League, James abandoned his daughter, his
son-in-law, and his grandchild, to the fury of their enemies. While he
exhausted his learning to establish the divine right of kings, he allowed
his own dignity to sink into the dust; while he exerted his rhetoric to
prove the absolute authority of kings, he reminded the people of theirs;
and by a useless profusion, sacrificed the chief of his sovereign rights--
that of dispensing with his parliament, and thus depriving liberty of its
organ. An innate horror at the sight of a naked sword averted him from
the most just of wars; while his favourite Buckingham practised on his
weakness, and his own complacent vanity rendered him an easy dupe
of Spanish artifice. While his son-in-law was ruined, and the
inheritance of his grandson given to others, this weak prince was
imbibing, with satisfaction, the incense which was offered to him by
Austria and Spain. To divert his attention from the German war, he was
amused with the proposal of a Spanish marriage for his son, and the
ridiculous parent encouraged the romantic youth in the foolish project
of paying his addresses in person to the Spanish princess. But his son
lost his bride, as his son-in-law lost the