as well as on the other. It had the further effect of keeping the small continental possessions which England still kept at Calais and Guisnes apart from the French territory. During the reigns of Philip and Charles the Bold, the continental neighbour of England was not France but Burgundy. But this great southern dominion was not lasting. The towns on the Somme, redeemed and again recovered, passed on the fall of Charles the Bold once more into French hands. ♦Recovered by France.♦ So did Artois itself, and, though Artois was won back, Amiens and the rest were not. Yet, if the towns on the Somme had stayed under the rule of the successive masters of the Low Countries, it might by this time have seemed as natural for Amiens to be Belgian as it now seems natural for Cambray and Valenciennes to be French. The Treaty of Madrid drew a definite boundary. ♦France resigns the homage of Flanders and Artois. 1526.♦ France gave up all claim to homage from Flanders and Artois, and Charles the Fifth, in his Burgundian, or rather in his Flemish, character, finally gave up all claim to the lands on the Somme. The south-western frontier was thus fixed; but meanwhile the new state had advanced in other directions. ♦Luxemburg. 1443.♦ Philip’s last great acquisition was the duchy of _Luxemburg_. He now possessed the greater part of the Netherlands; but his dominions were still intersected by the bishoprics of Utrecht and Lüttich and the duchy of Geldern. ♦Geldern and Zutphen. 1472.♦ The duchy of Geldern and county of Zutphen were added by Charles the Bold. ♦Final annexation. 1543.♦ But they formed a precarious possession, lost and won more than once, down to their final annexation under Charles the Fifth. ♦Bishopric of Lüttich never annexed.♦ Of the two great ecclesiastical principalities by which the Burgundian possessions in the Netherlands were cut asunder, the bishopric of _Lüttich_, though its history is much mixed up with that of the Burgundian Dukes, and though it came largely under their influence, was never formally annexed. ♦Annexation of the bishopric of Utrecht, 1531; | and Friesland, 1515.♦ But the temporal principality of the Bishop of _Utrecht_ was secularized under Charles the Fifth. _Friesland_, the Friesland immediately east of the Zuyder Zee, was already reincorporated with the dominions of the prince who represented the ancient counts of Holland. ♦Dominions of Charles the Fifth.♦ The whole Netherlands were thus consolidated under the rule of Charles the Fifth. They were united with the far distant county of Burgundy, and with it they formed the Burgundian circle in the new division of the Empire. The bishopric of Lüttich, which intersected the whole southern part of the country, remained in the circle of Westfalia. ♦The seventeen provinces.♦ Seventeen provinces, each keeping much of separate being, were united under a single prince, and, since the treaty of Madrid, they were free from any pretensions on the part of foreign powers.