There still remained minor principalities and powers, chiefly in Italy and Germany, which offered an easy prey to their ambitious neighbours; for both nations had (p.

031) sacrificed internal unity to the shadow of universal dominion, Germany in temporal, and Italy in spiritual, things.

Mutual jealousy of each other's growth at the expense of these States gave rise to the theory of the balance of power; mutual adjustment of each other's disputes produced international law; and the necessity of watching each other's designs begat modern diplomacy.[65] [Footnote 65: _Cf._ A.O.Meyer, _Die Englische Diplomatie_, Breslau, 1901.] Parallel with these developments in the relations between one State and another marched a no less momentous revolution in the domestic position of their sovereigns.

National expansion abroad was marked by a corresponding growth in royal authority at home.

The process was not new in England; every step in the path of the tribal chief of Saxon pirates to the throne of a united England denoted an advance in the nature of kingly power.