The story which is contained in the following pages is, Of necessity, brief, for I cannot go beyond the limits Of the series. But it need not be given in great detail. It is possible by a short narrative to recount the prin cipal facts in the greatest and most important Of all European wars, that in which the seven provinces Of Holland secured their independence against the monarch who was supposed to possess the mightiest powers Of the age. Holland was won by its people acre by acre, field by field, against the best European troops Of the time, the most practised generals, and what seemed to be boundless resources. The details Of the struggle are dry and tedious. The interest in the story lies in the spirit and resolution Of the Hol landers, in the tenacity with which they clung to their purposes, in the entire success which attended their efforts, and the great results which followed from the victory which they won, after a war Of unparalleled duration. The Spanish king, their foe, represented the two principles Of sixteenth-century despotism.