importance to all. They had given no further pledge than this to the
Union.

It was plain, however, that France was determined not to lift a finger at
that moment. The Duke of Bouillon and those acting with him had tried
hard to induce their Majesties "to write seriously to the Archduke in
order at least to intimidate him by stiff talk," but it was hopeless.
They thought it was not a time then to quarrel with their neighbour and
give offence to Spain.

So the stiff talk was omitted, and the Archduke was not intimidated. The
man who had so often intimidated him was in his grave, and his widow was
occupied in marrying her son to the Infanta. "These are the first-
fruits," said Aerssens, "of the new negotiations with Spain."

Both the Spanish king and the Emperor were resolved to hold Wesel to the
very last. Until the States should retire from all their positions on
the bare word of the Archduke, that the Spanish forces once withdrawn
would never return, the Protestants of those two cities must suffer.
There was no help for it. To save them would be to abandon all. For
no true statesman could be so ingenuous as thus to throw all the cards
on the table for the Spanish and Imperial cabinet to shuffle them at
pleasure for a new deal. The Duke of Neuburg, now Catholic and
especially protected by Spain, had become, instead of a pretender with
more or less law on his side, a mere standard-bearer and agent of the
Great Catholic League in the debateable land. He was to be supported at
all hazard by the Spanish forces, according to the express command of
Philip's government, especially now that his two brothers with the
countenance of the States were disputing his right to his hereditary
dominions in Germany.