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 something, but about which he observed strict silence. How to interpret that silence they scarcely knew. They were certain only that it could not be the effect of unconcern. They were well assured that the subject which he so carefully avoided was never, during two waking hours together, out of his thoughts or out of the thoughts of his master. Nay, there was not in all Christendom a single politician, from the greatest ministers of state down to the silliest newsmongers of coffeehouses, who really felt that indifference which the prudent Ambassador of England affected. A momentous event, which had during many years been constantly becoming more and more probable, was now certain and near. Charles the Second of Spain, the last descendant in the male line of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, would soon die without posterity. Who would then be the heir to his many kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, lordships, acquired in different ways, held by different titles and subject to different laws? That was a question about which jurists differed, and which it was not likely that jurists would, even if they were unanimous, be suffered to decide. Among the claimants were the mightiest sovereigns of the continent; there was little chance that they would submit to any arbitration but that of the sword; and it could not be hoped that, if they appealed to the sword, other potentates who had no pretension to any part of the disputed inheritance would long remain neutral. For there was in Western Europe no government which did not feel that its own prosperity, dignity and security might depend on the event of the contest.

It is true that the empire, which had, in the preceding century, threatened both France and England with subjugation, had of late been of hardly so much account as the Duchy of Savoy or the Electorate of Brandenburg. But it by no means followed that the fate of that empire was matter of indifference to the rest of the world. The paralytic helplessness and drowsiness of the body once so formidable could not be imputed to any deficiency of the natural elements of power. The dominions of the Catholic King were in extent and in population superior to those of Lewis and of William united. Spain alone, without a single