He had now nothing to expect from her but energetic and pertinacious hostility.

A few weeks earlier he might not unreasonably have hoped to subjugate Flanders and to give law to Germany.

At present he might think himself fortunate if he should be able to defend his own frontiers against a confederacy such as Europe had not seen during many ages.

From this position, so new, so embarrassing, so alarming, nothing but a counterrevolution or a civil war in the British Islands could extricate him.

He was therefore impelled by ambition and by fear to espouse the cause of the fallen dynasty.