During this century Leopold took part in two wars against Louis XIV., which have already been noticed under the head FRANCE. The last of these, disgraced by the most atrocious cruelty on the part of the French generals, was ended by the peace of Ryswick, 1697. The reign of this emperor was signalized by the establishment of a ninth electorate in favour of Ernest Augustus, duke of Brunswick and Luneburg, who became the first Elector of Hanover, 1692; and by the assumption of the regal title by Frederick, elector of Brandenburg and duke of Prussia, in 1701. A permanent diet was also established, attended not by the electors in person but by their representatives.

HOLLAND.

After the battle of Turnhout, Philip II., who had begun to suspect the hopelessness of the contest, transferred the sovereignty of the Low Countries to his daughter Isabella, and her husband the Archduke Albert; but, as the northern states refused to acknowledge these new rulers, the war continued to be prosecuted with vigour both by sea and land. Great part of the Portuguese East India trade fell into the hands of the Dutch, who had become at least the second maritime state in Europe. Prince Maurice of Orange, acknowledged to be the first captain of his day, defeated the forces of the archduke near Ostend, 1600; and the siege of that city, four years after, cost the Spaniards nearly 70,000 men. Spinola, now made commander-in-chief, after two fruitless campaigns, at length gave it as his opinion that the conquest of the United Provinces was impracticable; and Philip III. agreed to sign a truce of twelve years, 1609.

SYNOD OF DORT, 1618.-The republic had hardly secured external peace, ere it began to be troubled with domestic dissensions; religion being, as elsewhere in this age, the ostensible matter of dispute. The disagreements in question arose out of a difference of opinion between two professors of divinity at Leyden, Francis Gomar and James Arminius; the former of whom maintained the tenets of Calvin in their most rigorous form, while the latter advocated a milder system. But this religious schism was not unconnected with political motives. The Prince of Orange, with the established church and the majority of the people, were Gomarists; the Arminian party was chiefly supported by the Grand Pensioner Barneveldt and the higher classes, who suspected the ambitious designs of

Maurice; and both parties sought, under colour of these polemical contests, to forward their respective views. Riots and disorders broke out in various places, and the Gomarists loudly clamoured for a national synod to settle the differences; which accordingly met at Dort in November 1618. This body, as might be expected, secured the triumph of the prince and his party: the Arminian preachers were banished, the patriotic Barneveldt, at the age of seventy-two, was brought to the block, Grotius and others were thrown into prison, and their followers were in general treated with great cruelty and injustice.

The decisions of this assembly excited the utmost horror and disgust throughout Protestant Europe; and the reaction in Holland itself might have proved fatal to the ascendency of Maurice, had not the resumption of hostilities with Spain rendered his military services indispensable to the safety of the republic, 1621. The prince was opposed to his old rival, Spinola, and conducted the warlike operations with great skill till his death in 1625. FREDERICK HENRY succeeded to all his brother's titles and employments, and commenced his career by exercising various acts of clemency in favour of the persecuted Arminians, while he nobly sustained in the field the high military reputation of his family. His son, WILLIAM II., became stadtholder in 1647; and, in the following year, this long contest was brought to a termination. By a treaty signed at Munster, Spain fully recognised the independence of the United Provinces, and abandoned all the places she possessed in Brabant and Flanders. Ever regardful of commercial interests, the Dutch insisted upon closing the Scheldt, by which Antwerp was ruined and the commerce of the remaining Spanish provinces excluded from the sea.

After a brief and inglorious rule, distinguished merely by an abortive attempt to render his power absolute, William II. died in 1650, leaving the state without a stadtholder and the army without a chief. The birth of a son by the widowed princess, a week after, did not prevent a resumption of most of the sovereign prerogatives by the people; and the direction of the military force now devolved on the states-general. About this time the English parliament passed the celebrated Navigation Act, which, though expressed in general terms, was specially directed against the commerce of Holland, and gave rise to a sanguinary naval war between the two republics, in which Van Tromp and De Ruyter were compelled to yield

to Blake, Dean, and Monk, 1652-1654. In the pacification which followed, the Dutch, besides consenting to strike their flag to the English, were compelled to promise that neither the infant Prince of Orange nor any of his family should ever be elevated to the dignity of stadtholder. In 1664, after the restoration of Charles II., the national jealousy of Holland, and the cupidity of the monarch, again plunged the two countries into war. The Pensioner De Witt, who now directed the affairs of the republic, foreseeing the designs of England, had formed an alliance with France; several desperate sea-fights took place, with varied success; in 1665, Admiral Opdam was totally defeated by the Duke of York, while, in 1667, a Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames, and burned several ships of war at Chatham. The treaty of Breda, concluded the same year, at length terminated this absurd and fruitless war.

The general alarm excited by the invasion of Louis XIV. in 1672, effected an immediate revolution in Holland. In a paroxysm of popular phrensy, the great and good De Witt and his brother were torn to pieces, and WILLIAM III., now twentytwo years of age, and conspicuous for the abilities which had distinguished his race, was raised to his father's dignities, with even greater powers. The heroic defence conducted by the young prince has already been noticed under the head of FRANCE. Peace was restored by the treaty of Nimeguen, 1678; and, in 1689, William, who was nephew of James II., and the husband of his daughter Mary, became King of England, and brought the great resources of his new sovereignty to restrain the renewed encroachments of the French monarch.

DENMARK.

CHRISTIAN IV., 1588, reigned several years in profound tranquillity; but his warlike disposition displayed itself in a contest with Sweden about the right to the barren soil of Lapland, 1611-1613. For some time after the conclusion of peace, the king applied his talents to promote the commercial interests of his country; but, in 1625, he was induced to put himself at the head of the Protestant league for the reinstatement of the elector-palatine. After some temporary successes, the fortune of war turned so decidedly against him, that he was obliged to sign a humiliating peace, 1629. During the course of hostilities in Germany, terminated by the treaty of Westphalia, certain unfriendly demonstrations on the part of this king led to a contest with Sweden. In a naval

engagement near the Isle of Laaland, the combined Swedish and Dutch fleets defeated his armament with great loss, 1644; and next year, after some farther operations by land, a peace was concluded, exempting Sweden from the payment of the Sound dues, and securing other important advantages to that country.

FREDERICK III., 1648, engaged in a contest with Sweden, whose sovereign, Charles Gustavus, invaded and overran his dominions; and he was at length forced, by the treaty of Copenhagen, 1660, to cede several important districts. He was consoled for these reverses by an act of the three estates of the realm, who in the same year proclaimed him and his successors absolute sovereigns of Denmark, and established the fundamental law of settlement which still prevails. CHRISTIAN V. succeeded his father in 1670, and shortly after joined in a league against the Swedes, which led to a sanguinary war, the rival princes frequently heading their troops in person. The treaty of Fontainebleau, 1679, led to the re-establishment of peace; and, in 1689, the convention of Altona settled a longpending dispute between Denmark and the Duke of Holstein. During this reign, a West India Company was established, and settlements made in the West Indies and Tranquebar in Hindostan, while the attention of the monarch to manufactures and commerce, and the improvement effected by him in the condition of the humbler classes, contributed even more than his military talents to render him the idol of his people. FREDERICK IV., 1699, renewed hostilities with Sweden, which were brought to a successful close by the peace of Stockholm, 1720,-the claim of Denmark to the sovereignty of Sleswick being fully recognised, and the right of exemption from the Sound dues abandoned by the others.

SWEDEN.

Charles IX. expired in 1611, leaving the sceptre to his son, GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, then only seventeen years of age. A war with Denmark, in which his father had been engaged, was terminated by the young prince in 1613 at Knaerod, to the satisfaction of both parties. Meanwhile, he restored the exhausted finances, filled his ports with ships, disciplined the army, and already gave promise of the highest political and military genius. The deposed monarch, Sigismund of Poland, had not ventured, during the lifetime of his uncle, to disturb the settlement in Sweden; but the inexperience of the youthful ruler encouraged him to renew his claims on the crown.

He

accordingly invaded the country in behalf of his son Ladislaus, then a minor; but this war only served to develop the great talents of Gustavus and the bravery and attachment of his people. He defeated the Czar of Russia, who had taken up arms as the ally of his rival, and also Sigismund himself; and at length, by the mediation of England and Holland, a peace was concluded in 1629, by which the right of the young monarch was secured, and the important town of Riga, with great part of Livonia, annexed to his territory. The high character acquired by Gustavus in these operations now fixed the attention of Europe; and the persecuted Protestants of Germany looked to him eagerly for support and protection. He had a rational attachment for the reformed doctrine, and regarded with horror the atrocious cruelties inflicted on its professors in Bohemia; while the arrogant ambition of Ferdinand, who did not conceal his intention of subjugating Scandinavia itself, added the motive of personal interest to his dislike to the house of Austria. He accordingly put himself at the head of the Lutherans, 1630, and began that career of victory which has been noticed under GERMANY, terminated by the battle of Lutzen, 1632, where he fell at the very moment when the army of the empire recoiled before the valour of his troops.

The crown now devolved on his daughter CHRISTINA, a child five years of age. During her minority, the government was administered by a regency, at the head of which was the Chancellor Oxenstiern, an experienced and enlightened. statesmen, by whom the war in Germany was carried on sixteen years longer. The queen took affairs into her own hands in 1644, when she speedily brought the hostilities with Denmark to a successful termination, and, though contrary to the wishes of her minister and others, pressed on a peace with the emperor. She eventually became a chief party in the treaty of Westphalia, 1648, by which, in consequence of the victories of her troops, she received several millions of dollars, the cession of Pomerania, Bremen, Verden, and Wismar, and three votes in the Germanic diet. The character of this princess is one of the most extraordinary on record: she possessed but little of the gentler qualities of her sex, affecting the society of scholars and learned men, and displaying almost a mania for the collection of books, medals, and philosophical instruments. Grotius, Descartes, the forerunner of the modern philosophy, as also D'Herbelot and Bochart, distinguished for their oriental studies, experienced her protection. In her