Page:The Evolution of British Cattle.djvu/83

 further and further away from France and Spain, and closer and closer to Holland and Northern Germany. Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558; and the Netherlands revolted against Spain in 1572.

"Volunteers stole across the channel in increasing numbers to the aid of the Dutch, till the five hundred Englishmen who fought in the beginning of the struggle rose to a brigade of five thousand, whose bravery turned one of the most critical battles of the war." In 1585 "Lord Leicester was hurried to the Flemish Coast with 8000 men."

Englishmen renewed their acquaintance with Holland and Western Germany during the Thirty Years' War, begun in 1618; while during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, persecuted Flemings and Huguenots came flocking to Britain.

Before their revolt, the Low Countries had long been in advance of the rest of Europe in agriculture and industry and, after the emancipation of Holland, this advance was far more than maintained, not only in Holland, but also in the neighbouring States still under the rule of Spain.

Dutch and other foreign agricultural books were translated into English, and English writers