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When I remembered that I had to address the Society to-day I thought at first of choosing some subject remote from the troubles of the moment, something analogous to my former addresses on the development of historical studies in England. But it was not possible to do so. The events which are in progress now have too absorbing an interest to permit us to abstract ourselves from them, for which of us is not in some way or other intimately affected by them? Besides that, these events have for any historian not merely the interest which all of us share, but an interest of a very special kind. The historian sees in action before his eyes the abstractions he has been reading about in books all his life: the struggle of races, the conflict of opposing ideas, the operation of economic laws, the development of historical tendencies, and perceives what these phrases really mean when they are translated into facts. There has been no such open conflict of ideals since the wars of the French Revolution. There has been no such huge conflict of races since the time when the Teutonic peoples moved westward to overthrow Roman civilisation and plant their own in its place. One of Milton's similes for the Satanic host pictures their coming:
‘A multitude like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons Came like a deluge on the South, and spread Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.’
page 3 note 1 Stubbs, , Historical Introductions to the Rolls ServesGoogle Scholar, collected by Hassall, A., 1902, p. 185.Google Scholar
page 3 note 2 Norman Conquest, v. 706.Google Scholar
page 4 note 1 Cf. Pirenne, H, Histoire de Belgique, 11. 75, 93.Google Scholar
page 5 note 1 Pirenne, , iii. 61.Google Scholar
page 5 note 2 Williamson, J. A., Maritime Enterprise, 1485–1558, Oxford, 1913, 192Google Scholar; see also 19, 131, 184.
page 6 note 1 Williamson, , 187Google Scholar; Lingelbach, W. L., The Merchant Adventurers of England, 1902, xxxv.Google Scholar
page 6 note 2 Froude, , v. 309Google Scholar; Rymer, , Foedera, xv. 377Google Scholar; Dollot, R., Origines de la neutralité de la Belgique, 14Google Scholar; Pirenne, , iii. 141.Google Scholar
page 6 note 3 Pirenne, , ii. 93.Google Scholar
page 8 note 1 Somers Tracts, i. p. 411.Google Scholar
page 8 note 2 See de Lettenhove, Kervyn, Relations politiques de l'Angleterre et des Pays Bas sous Philippe II, 10 vols., 1882–1891.Google Scholar
page 8 note 3 Froude, , History of England, viii. 444.Google Scholar
page 9 note 1 Strype, , Annals of Queen Elizabeth, i. pt. ii. 268Google Scholar; ii. pt. ii. 1–9.
page 9 note 2 ‘A Warning to London by the Fall of Antwerp’: Collier, , Old Ballads, 89 (Percy Society, 1840).Google Scholar
page 9 note 3 Froude, , x. 108, 369.Google Scholar
page 10 note 1 Somers Tracts, i. 169, 170.Google Scholar
page 10 note 2 Froude, , x. 359Google Scholar; xi. 163, 550.
page 11 note 1 Motley, , United Netherlands, ii. 485.Google Scholar
page 11 note 2 Markham, , The Fighting Veres, 285.Google Scholar
page 12 note 1 ‘Lord Willoughby,’ Roxburghe Ballads, iv. 4Google Scholar; see also Transactions, third series, 1909, no.Google Scholar
page 13 note 1 Sir Thomas Overbury his Observations upon the State of the XVII Provinces as they stood a.d. 1609Google Scholar, Works, ed. 1856, 227, 246.Google Scholar
page 13 note 2 Burton, 's Parliamentary Diary, iii. 394.Google Scholar
page 14 note 1 Burnet, , History of My Own Time, i. 456.Google Scholar
page 15 note 1 Marvell, , WorksGoogle Scholar, ed. Grosart, , iv. 265, 319, 363.Google Scholar
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page 15 note 4 The Duke of York to the Prince of Orange, May 31, 1678: Dalrymple, , Memoirs, i. 228.Google Scholar
page 15 note 5 Temple, 's Works, i. 353 (ed. 1754).Google Scholar
page 16 note 1 A map showing the barrier towns is given at p. 397 of Dollot, 's Origines de la neutralité de la Belgique.Google Scholar
page 17 note 1 Grey, 's Debates, v. 308.Google Scholar
page 17 note 2 See Malo, H., Les Corsaires Dunkerquois et Jean Bart, 2 vols., 1913–1914.Google Scholar
page 17 note 3 Toland, , Dunkirk or Dover, p. 32.Google Scholar
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page 19 note 1 Castlereagh, to Aberdeen, , 11 13, 1813Google Scholar, Castlereagh, Despatches, ix. 75.Google Scholar
page 19 note 2 SirGrenville, to Whitworth, Charles, 11 16, 1798Google Scholar: Dropmore Papers, iv. 379.Google Scholar
page 19 note 3 See Dollot, René's Les Origines de la neutralité de la Belgique, Paris, 1902, 59–66, 121, 412.Google Scholar Richelieu suggested a free state linked to France by an offensive and defensive alliance, Mazarin a free state guaranteed by a defensive alliance with France and Holland. Neutralisation was sug gested by France in 1713.
page 20 note 1 The best account of this episode is contained in The Life of Frère-Orban, by Hymans, M. Paul, vol. ii. Brussels, 1910.Google Scholar The author is now the Belgian ambassador in London.
