Besides employing on all occasions her good offices in favor of the Hugonots, she had expended no inconsiderable sums in levying that army of Germans which the prince of Conde and Prince Casimir conducted into France;[*] and notwithstanding her negotiations with the court, and her professions of amity, she always considered her own interests as connected with the prosperity of the French Protestants, and the depression of the house of Guise.

Philip, on the other hand, had declared himself protector of the league; had entered into the closest correspondence with Guise; and had employed all his authority in supporting the credit of that factious leader.

This sympathy of religion, which of itself begat a connection of interests, was one considerable inducement; but that monarch had also in view the subduing of his rebellious subjects in the Netherlands; who, as they received great encouragement from the French Protestants, would, he hoped, finally despair of success, after the entire suppression of their friends and confederates.
* Camden, p 452.
The same political views which engaged Elizabeth to support the Hugonots would have led her to assist the distressed Protestants in the Low Countries; but the mighty power of Philip, the tranquillity of all his other dominions, and the great force which he maintained in these mutinous provinces, kept her in awe, and obliged her, notwithstanding all temptations and all provocations, to preserve some terms of amity with that monarch.

The Spanish ambassador represented to her, that many of the Flemish exiles, who infested the seas, and preyed on his master's subjects, were received into the harbors of England, and were there allowed to dispose of their prizes; and by these remonstrances the queen found herself under a necessity of denying them all entrance into her dominions.
But this measure proved in the issue extremely prejudicial to the interests of Philip.

These desperate exiles, finding no longer any possibility of subsistence, were forced to attempt the most perilous enterprises; and they made an assault on the Brille, a seaport town in Holland, where they met with success, and after a short resistance became masters of the place.[*] * Camden, p.