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 CHAPTER XIV THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES: GERMANY, ITALY, AND THE PAPACY With the close of the crusading period, Western Europe with the exception of Venice almost gave up its interest in the east. The nations of the west were engaged in giving i. survey of themselves a more and more definite shape, during the period. the two hundred years which are now coming under our review. France and England became gradually engaged in a long struggle, during which it seemed possible at two separate periods — one in the fourteenth and one in the fifteenth century — that the King of England might become the Lord of France. On each occasion France recovered herself and expelled the E ng i an( i ) English. The attempts of the English kings to Scotland, subjugate Scotland failed; Scotland not only main- and France - tained her independence, though it was momentarily torn from her by Edward i., but continued throughout the whole period a most valuable ally to France, and a thorn in the side of England. In England popular liberties were made secure, and the power and prosperity of the nation increased steadily in spite of the civil broils which alternated with her foreign wars. France, in spite of humiliations in the course of the English war, extended her dominions, absorbed the greater part of the old Burgundian kingdom, and finally cleared herself of the English altogether. At the conclusion of the struggle the Crown had achieved a supremacy heretofore threatened, and sometimes rent from it altogether, by the power of the great nobles. In Germany, on the other hand, the power of the separate princes increased at the expense of that of the German