Thus was this peace concluded at Susa, April 1, 1629. In [A.D. 1629.] estimating the historical relations of the two kingdoms in general, great importance must be assigned to it. What had been brought about in the times of the Normans and Plantagenets, and once more during the great wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--I mean a most intimate connexion of French and English interest--had, as it were, repeated itself, although on a far smaller scale, during the religious wars. In the times of Queen Elizabeth and James I the French Reformed ranged themselves under the influence of England: even in the time of Charles I this had not ceased. On the other hand the French had sought to establish a counteracting influence on their side, especially by the late marriage contract. Neither of the two governments profited by this. In the peace of Susa they agreed to desist from this mutual action on one another. The French resigned the literal fulfilment of the marriage contract: the English renounced the connexion with the Huguenots which had hitherto been acknowledged. Relations into which religion entered could not be avoided, but the political sting, so to speak, was taken out of them. In France from that date the ascendancy of Catholicism could more decidedly be erected into a principle of the state: in England the court once more asserted its Protestant character. For the moment the result of the peace was to untie the hands of France for the conflict with Spain. Every one knows what vast dimensions this assumed: it set fresh enmity between the parts of the world of that day which it rent asunder, and laid the foundation of the state of affairs which prevailed in the following epoch.