maturely reflecting, I have decided that it is time for me to act.
Nevertheless, as I cannot forget the friendship my ancestors always felt
for your country, I could not but see with pain that, though you have
taken no share in Philip's acts of injustice, on you will fall the first
blows of a war so terrible, and I thought it my duty to warn you of my
purpose before I proceed to execute it. If you can prevail upon the King
of Spain to withdraw the army which he is having levied on the frontier,
and to give no protection for the future to rebels of my kingdom, I will
not declare war against him, provided that I have certain proof of your
good intentions, and that you give me reasonable securities for them
before the 1st of January in the approaching year." [_Lettres missives
de Henri IV,_ p. 280--De Thou, _Histoire universelle,_ t. xii. pp. 328-
342.]

These letters, conveyed to Arras by one of the king's trumpeters,
received no answer. The estates of Flanders, in assembly at Brussels,
somewhat more bold than those of Artois and Hainault, in vain represented
to their Spanish governor their plaints and their desires for peace; for
two months Henry IV. heard not a word on the subject. Philip II.
persisted in his active hostility, and continued to give the King of
France no title but that of Prince of Bearn. On the 17th of January,
1595, Henry, in performance of what he had proclaimed, formally declared
war against the King of Spain, forbade his subjects to have any com merce
with him or his allies, and ordered them to make war on him for the
future just as he persisted in making it on France. This able and worthy
resolve was not approved of by Rosny, by this time the foremost of
Henry's IV.'s councillors, although he had not yet risen in the
government, or, probably, in the king's private confidence, to the
superior rank that he did attain by the eminence of his services and the
courageous sincerity of his devotion. In his _OEconomies royales_ it is