furnish to these four thousand men six months' pay in advance before they
should leave England, and that the king should agree to repay the amount
six months afterwards, sending meanwhile four nobles to England as
hostages. If the dominions of the queen should be attacked it was
stipulated that, at two months' notice, the king should raise four
thousand men at the expense of the queen and send them to her assistance,
and that they were to serve for six months at her charge, but were not to
be sent to a distance of more than fifty leagues from the coasts of
France.

The English were not willing that the States-General should be
comprehended among the powers to be invited to join the league, because
being under the protection of the Queen of England they were supposed to
have no will but hers. Burghley insisted accordingly that, in speaking
of those who were thus to be asked, no mention was to be made of peoples
nor of states, for fear lest the States-General might be included under
those terms. The queen was, however, brought at last to yield the point,
and consented, in order to satisfy the French envoys, that to the word
princes should be added the general expression orders or estates. The
obstacle thus interposed to the formation of the league by the hatred of
the queen and of the privileged classes of England to popular liberty,
and by the secret desire entertained of regaining that sovereignty over
the provinces which had been refused ten years before by Elizabeth, was
at length set aside. The republic, which might have been stifled at its
birth, was now a formidable fact, and could neither be annexed to the
English dominions nor deprived of its existence as a new member of the
European family.

It being no longer possible to gainsay the presence of the young
commonwealth among the nations, the next best thing--so it was thought--