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CHAPTER XIV: Henry

The good and great Henry IV., king of France, whose excellent qualities were not thoroughly appreciated in his own age, was assassinated, and his kingdom again became the prey of factions : A. D. 1610. His widow, Marie de Medicis, sacrificed the welfare of the state to her personal inclinations: and her son, Louis XIII., who was a child at the time of his father's death, never became a man of independent character. It has been well remarked, that "the power of a state depends not so much on the numerical amount of its forces, as on the intelligence which animates their movements; " and certain it is, that France, which in the latter part of the reign of Henry IV. seemed likely to produce a universal revolution in the condition of Europe, had lost much of its political importance.

Free nations are never more powerful than when they are obliged to depend exclusively upon their own resources for defence, and when the magnitude of the dangers which menace them, compels the development of their moral energy. This was instanced in the case of Holland. In the midst of its contest for freedom, the republic erected a mighty empire in the East; and its navy rode triumphant on the seas. Its recognition as an independent state was soon after the necessary consequence. The death of Henry IV. of France was not merely a disastrous event as regarded the prosperity of that kingdom, but one which had a powerful influence on the hopes or fears of the other principal monarchies of Europe; and by none more than by the House of Austria. Rodolph II. was succeeded in the empire by his brother, the archduke Mathias, a man of great activity and an insatiable thirst for dominion. Though originally favorable to the protestants, he now evinced a disposition to oppose them ; and being supported by Ferdinand, duke of Styria, and the court of Spain, the protestants took the alarm, and had recourse to arms; which may be considered as the origin of the celebrated "thirty years' war."