The assassination of the prince of Orange on the 10th July, 1584, reduced the defenders of protestantism in the Low Countries almost to despair. Deprived of their only leader, exhausted by a long continued war, opposed to the power of Spain, then the greatest empire in the world, and that power directed by the consummate military skill of the prince of Parma, the states general regarded the further prosecution of their unequal contest with despondency, and looked anxiously around for some helper in their distress, some potentate at once powerful enough and zealous enough to come to their aid. Their first application was made to France; but, tempting as the notion of the annexation of the Netherlands has always been to the holders of the crown of that kingdom, and inclined as Henry III. was to adopt any course of policy which had a tendency to reduce the power of Spain, he felt that, in the unsettled state of his own kingdom, he dared not undertake the defence of protestant interests abroad. Upon his refusal, the sovereignty was tendered to queen Elizabeth, who received the offer with complacency, and referred it to the consideration of her council.