It was destined to endure through all the horrors of the great war, a stronger protection to Vienna than all the fortifications which the engineering art could invent.

He was safe too from Poland, King Sigmund being not only a devoted Catholic but doubly his brother-in-law.
Spain, therefore, the Spanish Netherlands, the Pope, and the German League headed by Maximilian of Bavaria, the ablest prince on the continent of Europe, presented a square, magnificent phalanx on which Ferdinand might rely.

The States-General, on the other hand, were a most dangerous foe.

With a centennial hatred of Spain, splendidly disciplined armies and foremost navy of the world, with an admirable financial system and vast commercial resources, with a great stadholder, first captain of the age, thirsting for war, and allied in blood as well as religion to the standard-bearer of the Bohemian revolt; with councils directed by the wisest and most experienced of living statesman, and with the very life blood of her being derived from the fountain of civil and religious liberty, the great Republic of the United Netherlands--her Truce with the hereditary foe just expiring was, if indeed united, strong enough at the head of the Protestant forces of Europe to dictate to a world in arms.
Alas! was it united?
As regarded internal affairs of most pressing interest, the electoral vote at the next election at Frankfurt had been calculated as being likely to yield a majority of one for the opposition candidate, should the Savoyard or any other opposition candidate be found.

But the calculation was a close one and might easily be fallacious.