WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.

Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, captain general of the Spanish armies, and governor of the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands, was beyond all comparison the greatest military genius of his age. He was also highly distinguished for political wisdom and sagacity, and for his great administrates talents. He was idolized by his troops, whose affections he knew how t« win without relaxing their discipline or diminishing his own authority.

Pre-eminently cool and circumspect in his plans, but swift and energetic when the moment arrived for striking a decisive blow, neglecting no risk that caution could provide against, conciliating even the populations of the districts which he attacked by his scrupulous good faith, his moderation, and his address, Farnese was one the most formidable, generals that ever could be placed at the head of an army designed not only to win battles, but to effect conquests. Happy it is for England and the world that this island was saved from becoming an arena for the exhibition of his powers.

Whatever diminution the Spanish empire might have sustained in the Netherlands seemed to be more than compensated by the acquisition' of Portugal, which Philip had completely conquered in 1680. Not only that ancient kingdom itself, but all that fruits of the maritime enterprises of the Portuguese, had fallen into Philip's hands. All the Portuguese colonies in America, Africa, and the East Indies acknowledged the sovereignty of the King of Spain, who thus not only united the whole Iberian peninsula under his single scepter, but also had acquired a transmarine empire little inferior in wealth and extent to that which he had inherited at his accession.

The splendid victory which his fleet, in conjunction with the papal and Venetian galleys, had gained at Lepanto over the Turks, had, deservedly exalted the fame of the Spanish marine throughout Christendom; and when Philip had reigned thirty-five years, the vigor of his empire seemed unbroken, and the glory of the Spanish arms had increased, and was increasing throughout the world.

One nation only had been his active, his persevering, and his successful foe. England had encouraged his revolted subjects in Flanders against him, and given them the aid in men and money, without which they must soon have been humbled in the dust.

English ships had plundered his colonies; had defied his supremacy in the New World as well as the Old; they had inflicted ignominious defeats on his squadrons; they had captured his cities, and burned his arsenals on the very coast of Spain. The English had made Philip himself the object of personal insult.

He was held up to ridicule in their stage-plays and masks, and these scoffs at the man had (as is not unusual in such cases) excited the anger of the absolute king even more vehemently than the in juries inflicted on his power. Personal as well as politico-revenge urged him to attack England. Were she once subdued, the Dutch must submit; France could not cope with him, the empire would not oppose him; and universal dominion seemed SUM to be the result of the conquest of that malignant island.

There was yet another and a stronger feeling which armed King Philip against England. He was one of the sincerest and one of the sternest bigots of his age. He looked on himself, and was looked on by others, as the appointed champion to extirpate heresy and re-establish the papal power throughout Europe. A powerful reaction against Protestantism had taken place since the commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, and he looked on himself as destined to complete it.

The Reformed doctrines had been thoroughly rooted out from Italy and Spain. Belgium, which had previously been half Protestant, had been reconquered, both in allegiance and creed by Philip, and had become one of the most Catholic countries in the world. Half Germany had been won back to the old faith. In Savoy, in Switzerland, and many other countries, the progress of the counter-Reformation had been rapid and decisive.

The Catholic league seemed victorious in France. The papal court itself bad shaken off the supine ness of recent centuries, and, at the head of the Jesuits and the other new ecclesiastical orders, was displaying a vigor and a boldness worthy of the days of Hildebrand, or Innocent III.