England, and alliance with them was an opportunity worth seizing. The determining motive however was not this calculation, but outraged honour. When Louis XIV. formally recognised the son of the dying James II. as lawful king of England, he committed at once a crime and a blunder: he deliberately broke his word, and insulted England beyond endurance. Those words cost him his supremacy in Europe, and made England henceforth a permanent and ever weightier factor in European affairs. The military reputation of England had suffered eclipse since the days of Henry V., not altogether deservedly, for the fighting qualities of Englishmen had been conspicuous on many fields, and yet not unnaturally. English troops fighting for the independence of the Netherlands had done excellent service; Cromwell's contingent allied with France in 1658 had mainly contributed to an important victory over Spain. But the few independent expeditions sent by the English government to the continent had been ill managed or ill commanded, and had failed more or less completely. Under William III. they showed all their ancient stubborn valour, but luck was against them. The defeats of Steinkirk and Landen were more glorious to the English infantry than many a victory: the misconduct of their allies in one case, the very superior numbers of the French army and the great skill of its commander in the other case, amply accounted for the failure, but still they were defeats. The great victories of Marlborough, almost as brilliant as Crecy or Agincourt, restored the military credit of England, again not quite deservedly, for the armies of Marlborough were by no means wholly English, and yet very naturally, since the great Englishman was the real conqueror of Louis XIV. The death of William III., just before war actually broke out, left Marlborough, who was all powerful with queen Anne, the real head of the coalition against France.