i$85-] THE BOND OF ASSOCIATION. 547 way was God's way, and for that reason, and that reason only, she persisted in it. The subsidy, she said, would be employed on the defence of the country. Public necessity only had obliged her to apply for it, and if that necessity did not exist she would rather return than receive it. 1 The Parliament was dismissed, and that trouble waa happily over ; but foreign perplexities remained as en- tangled as ever. With a Protestant Scotland heartily attached to her, the Queen might have looked on upon the troubles of the Continent and have seen with regret, but without alarm for her own security, the collapse and defeat of the Netherlands. But the Scotch Protestant leaders were dead or in exile, the ministers were scat- tered or crushed, and the power of the country was in the hands of an unprincipled adventurer and a treach- erous and ambitious boy. The Netherlands problem therefore remained formidable as ever. Without help either from herself or France it was clearly impossible for the States to hold out, and immediately on their conquest the reckoning with England was to follow. France was ready to go to war for them alone if they would become French subjects, or to go to war for them by the side of England, leaving their future to be deter- mined at the close of it. Elizabeth could resolve on neither, but still clung to the hope that she could manoeuvre Henry into committing himself, and by keep- ing aloof from the quarrel dictate the terms of the set- tlement. 1 Speech of the Queen at the close of the Parliament of 1584-5. Rft- ported by Stowe, who was present.
