Spain, which had played so insignificant a part throughout the Revolutionary War, was now about to become the theatre of events that opened a new world of hope to Europe. Its King, the Bourbon Charles IV., was more weak and more pitiful than any sovereign of the age. Power belonged to the Queen and to her paramour Godoy, who for the last fourteen years had so conducted the affairs of the country that every change in its policy had brought with it new disaster. In the war of the First Coalition Spain had joined the Allies, and French armies had crossed the Pyrenees. In 1796 Spain entered the service of France, and lost the battle of St. Vincent. At the Peace of Amiens, Napoleon surrendered its colony Trinidad to England; on the renewal of the war he again forced it into hostilities with Great Britain, and brought upon it the disaster of Trafalgar. This unbroken humiliation of the Spanish arms, combined with intolerable oppression and impoverishment at home, raised so bitter an outcry against Godoy's government, that foreign observers, who underrated the loyalty of the Spanish people, believed the country to be on the verge of revolution. At the Court itself the Crown Prince Ferdinand, under the influence of his Neapolitan wife, headed a party in opposition to Godoy and the supporters of French dominion. Godoy, insecure at home, threw himself the more unreservedly into the arms of Napoleon, who bestowed upon him a contemptuous patronage, and flattered him with the promise of an independent principality in Portugal. Izquierdo, Godoy's agent at Paris, received proposals from Napoleon which were concealed from the Spanish Ambassador; and during the first months of 1806 Napoleon possessed no more devoted servant than the man who virtually held the government of Spain. [Spain intends to join Prussia in 1806.]