The death of queen Elizabeth,and the accession of king James the First,made a vast alteration in the government of our nation at home,and in her conduct abroad,about the end of the first of these periods.The wars that religion occasioned,and ambition fomented in France,through the reigns of Francis the Second,Charles the Ninth,Henry the Third,and a part of Henry the Fourth,ended:and the furies of the league were crushed by this great prince,about the same time.Phillip the Second of Spain marks this period likewise by his death,and by the exhausted condition in which he left the monarchy he governed:which took the lead no longer in disturbing the peace of mankind,but acted a second part in abetting the bigotry and ambition of Ferdinand the Second and the Third.The thirty years war that devasted Germany did not begin till the eighteenth year of the seventeenth century,but the seeds of it were sowing some time before,and even at the end of the sixteenth.Ferdinand the First and Maximilian had shown much lenity and moderation in the disputes and troubles that arose on account of religion.
Under Rodolphus and Matthias,as the succession of their cousin Ferdinand approached,the fires that were covered began to smoke and to sparkle:and if the war did not begin with this century,the preparation for it,and the expectation of it did.
The second period ends in one thousand six hundred and sixty,the year of the restoration of Charles the Second to the throne of England;when our civil wars,and all the disorders which Cromwell's usurpation had produced,were over;and therefore a remarkable point of time,with respect to our country.It is no less remarkable with respect to Germany,Spain,and France.
As to Germany;the ambitious projects of the German branch of Austria had been entirely defeated,the peace of the empire had been restored,and almost a new constitution formed,or an old one revived,by the treaties of Westphalia;nay the imperial eagle was not only fallen,but her wings were clipped.
As to Spain;the Spanish branch was fallen as low twelve years afterwards,that is,in the year one thousand six hundred and sixty.Philip the Second left his successors a ruined monarchy.He left them something worse;he left them his example and his principles of government,founded in ambition,in pride,in ignorance,in bigotry,and all the pedantry of state.I have read somewhere or other,that the war of the Low Countries alone cost him,by his own confession,five hundred and sixty-four millions,a prodigious sum in what species soever he reckoned.Philip the Third and Philip the Fourth followed his example and his principles of government,at home and abroad.
At home,there was much form,but no good order,no economy,nor wisdom of policy in the state.The church continued to devour the state,and that monster the inquisition to dispeople the country,even more than perpetual war,and all the numerous colonies that Spain had sent to the West Indies:for your lordship will find that Philip the Third drove more than nine hundred thousand Moriscoes out of his dominions by one edict,with such circumstances of inhumanity in the execution of it,as Spaniards alone could exercise,and that tribunal,who had provoked this unhappy race to revolt,could alone approve.Abroad,the conduct of these princes was directed by the same wild spirit of ambition:
rash in undertaking though slow to execute,and obstinate in pursuing though unable to succeed,they opened a new sluice to let out the little life and vigor that remained in their monarchy.Philip the Second is said to have been piqued against his uncle Ferdinand,for refusing to yield the empire to him on the abdication of Charles the Fifth.Certain it is,that as much as he loved to disturb the peace of mankind,and to meddle in every quarrel that had the appearance of supporting the Roman and oppressing every other church,he meddled little in the affairs of Germany.But,Ferdinand and Maximilian dead,and the offspring of Maximilian extinct,the kings of Spain espoused the interests of the other branch of their family,entertained remote views of ambition in favor of their own branch,even on that side,and made all the enterprises of Ferdinand of Gratz,both before and after his elevation to the empire,the common cause of the house of Austria.What completed their ruin was this:they knew not how to lose,nor when to yield.They acknowledged the independence of the Dutch commonwealth,and became the allies of their ancient subjects at the treaty of Munster;but they would not forego their usurped claim on Portugal,and they persisted to carry on singly the war against France.Thus they were reduced to such a lowness of power as can hardly be parallelled in any other case:and Philip the Fourth was obliged at last to conclude a peace,on terms repugnant to his inclination,to that of his people,to the interest of Spain,and to that of all Europe,in the Pyrenean treaty.
As to France,this era of the entire fall of the Spanish power is likewise that from which we may reckon that France grew as formidable,as we have seen her,to her neighbors,in power and pretensions.Henry the Fourth meditated great designs,and prepared to act a great part in Europe in the very beginning of this period,when Ravaillac stabbed him.His designs died with him,and are rather guessed at than known;for surely those which his historian Perefixe and the compilers of Sully's memorials ascribe to him,of a Christian commonwealth divided into fifteen states,and of a senate to decide all differences,and to maintain this new constitution of Europe,are too chimerical to have been really his:but his general design of abasing the house of Austria,and establishing the superior power in that of Bourbon,was taken up,about twenty years after his death,by Richelieu,and was pursued by him and by Mazarin with so much ability and success,that it was effected entirely by the treaties of Westphalia and by the Pyrenean treaty;that is,at the end of the second of those periods I have presumed to propose to your lordship.
When the third,in which we now are,will end,and what circumstances will mark the end of it,I know not;but this I know,that the great events and revolutions,which have happened in the course of it,interest us still more nearly than those of the two precedent periods.I intended to have drawn up an elenchus or summary of the three,but I doubted,on further rejection,whether my memory would enable me to do it with exactness enough:and I saw that,if I was able to do it,the deduction would be immeasurably long.Something of this kind,however,it may be reasonable to attempt,in speaking of the last period:which may hereafter occasion a further trouble to your lordship.
But to give some breathing time,I will postpone it at present,and am in the meanwhile,My lord,yours,&c.
