Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/275

 THE ERA OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION 263 was always inefficient, because he was incapable of placing confidence in any man, especially any man of ability. His aims were grandiose and far-reaching, his methods slow and ponderous. He never made up his mind to do the right thing until, owing to his delay, it had become the wrong thing. Philip intended to crush England; when he died his fleets were at the mercy of the English sailors. He meant to crush the Netherlands : when he died the victory of the His F«Lilur6 Netherlands, in their struggle for liberty, was all but assured. He wished to dominate France, and when he died the Spanish party in France had almost ceased to exist. The one thing that he did actually accomplish was to make the Crown absolutely supreme in the dominions which remained under his sway ; and to this perhaps it may be added that he had succeeded in convincing himself and the rest of the world so thoroughly of the magnitude of his power, that politicians con- tinued to dread Spain long after she had ceased to be capable of striking any effective blow. It was fortunate for Philip that during this period France was perpetually prevented by her internal discords from depriving him of the European leadership. The direct line . France, of the house of Valois ended, like the direct line of the old house of Capet, with the reign of a series of brothers, none of whom left children. During the greater part of three successive reigns the dominant personality in politics was that of the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, who, ignored by her husband Henry II, while he lived, bided her time and reigned while his sons wore the French Crown. To keep the power in her own hands she persistently played off the Catholics and the Huguenots, as the French Protestants were called, against each other, that she might prevent the chiefs of either party from becoming masters of the state. The century was almost at its close before the perpetual embroilments of the two religious factions were brought to an end; and it might be said that for five and thirty years a civil war was either actually going on, or had just been stopped, or was just going to begin again.