James Edwin Thorold Rogers

“ Though Holland was constantly in danger from the ocean, it was from the ocean that she derived her wealth and her means for fighting in the struggle for independence. She chose with reason the symbol which she adopted for her flag—a lion struggling with the waves, and her motto, Luctor et emergo, “I struggle, I rise.”
For a time Philip had been the guardian of his cousin Jacqueline of Holland, and in this capacity he had sworn to maintain the privileges and institutions of the Netherlands. ”

“ At a crisis in French history, the Court lawyers of France declared that women could neither sit on the throne nor transmit a title to it through their descendants. The result of the English claim to the throne of France was a war which lasted for a hundred years, off and on, and a claim to sovereignty over France which was only relinquished in the present century. From the accession of Hugh Capet (978) to the present time this family has never lacked male descendants. No other such regal house has existed in Europe. ”

“ It was by female descent that the English King Henry II. (1154-1189) possessed or claimed the whole seaboard of France, from the mouth of the Seine to the mouth of the Rhone. A woman, therefore, could transmit the rights of her ancestor over his subjects to a stranger, and thus the marriages of princes have changed from time to time the political geography of Europe. The domains of the house of Austria were built up by fortunate marriages. It was by such marriages that the Netherlands came first into the power of the Dukes of Burgundy, and thence to the Spanish branch of the Austrian line. ”