The Battle of Blenheim

Book Excerpt: ...e grasp which that class now had upon the land and capital of the whole country, which it could utilise immediately for interior development or for a war--all this marked the youth and vigour of an oligarchic England, which was for so long to be at once invulnerable and impregnable. At what expense in morals, and therefore in ultimate strength and happiness, such experiments are played, is no matter for discussion in a military history. We must be content to remark what vigour her new constitution gave to the efforts of England in the field, while yet that constitution was young. England, then, having thrown this great weight into the scale of the Empire, and against France, the campaign of 1702 was entered upon with the chances in favour of the former, and with the latter in an anxiety very different from the pride which Louis XIV. had taken for granted in the early part of his reign.* * * * *If the reader will consider the map of Western Europe, the effect of England's joining..