The instinct of the English sovereign, of English statesmen, of the English nation, taught them that the cause of the Netherlands was their own.

Nevertheless, they were inclined to look on yet a little longer, although the part of spectator had become an impossible one.

The policy of the English government was not treacherous, although it was timid.

That of the French court was both the one and the other, and it would have been better both for England and the Provinces, had they more justly appreciated the character of Catharine de' Medici and her son.
The first covert negotiations between Henry and the States had caused much anxiety among the foreign envoys in France.

Don Bernardino de Mendoza, who had recently returned from Spain after his compulsory retreat from his post of English ambassador, was now established in Paris, as representative of Philip.