But though Holland stood thus finally free, we have to remember that there still were what were called "the Spanish Netherlands," a district, under the rule of Spain, not very different in its boundaries from modern Belgium. In these Spanish Netherlands fighting between France and Spain continued, in spite of the Treaty of Westphalia. They met each other too in Italy, and the war lingered on with changing results for more than ten years. In Germany the Protestants had gained religious freedom under the Treaty of Westphalia, and the German princes of both Protestant and Catholic faiths had been freed from the rather uncertain bond of union in which they had been held by the Emperor. Thus disunited, they had little power, and the power of France became greater by their weakness. [Sidenote: Mazarin's policy] Richelieu died in 1642 and another great churchman, Cardinal Mazarin, became the king's chief minister in his place. But in the following year died also that king whom Richelieu had served faithfully, ably, and unscrupulously. He was succeeded by Louis XIV., the monarch whose Court was so splendid, with himself as the centre of its glory, that he is known as Le Roi Soleil--the Sun King. He was a child of four when he came to the throne. The regent was his mother, and since she was a daughter of Philip II. a reversal of the policy of Richelieu was expected from her. To the grievous disappointment of a large party in France itself and also in Spain and Austria, she put herself into the hands of Mazarin; and he was a {81} faithful follower of Richelieu. The war with Spain continued. But in the very year of the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia there broke out in France that uprising of the nobles and of the people which is called the "Fronde." It had a remarkable success at first; though a success which did not endure. Under the captaincy of the great Prince Condé, who had led an earlier rising of the nobles against the Crown and, before that, had taken a leading part on the Huguenots' side, Mazarin was driven from Paris. The strength of the two parties was so evenly divided, however, that in this very same year Condé himself and a number of his adherents were put under arrest. Within three years from the middle of the century the Queen Mother, with Mazarin as her minister, was re-established in power and the old lines of policy were pursued, both at home and abroad. Our England, as we have seen, played little direct part in the long drawn-out war between the Protestants and Catholics on the Continent. Neither did she directly take any large part in the European contest between the two great Catholic powers. She did, nevertheless, come into touch and into opposition with both France and Spain abroad.