Read "The Greatest Story in the World, Period 2" by Horace G. Hutchinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Thus we have traced in outline the course of the great story up to, / or about, the year 1500, in respect of three of the nations which / were among the foremost actors in it, England, France, and Spain. We / have seen each of them establishing themselves within something very / like the national boundaries which enclose them to-day. England and / Scotland have not yet come into union, but the Tweed is in 1500, as / now, the boundary river between them.
France, by the subtlety of Louis XI., has gained the mastery of all / her great vassal lords. The English, it is true, still hold Calais, / but no other possession on the Continent. And the boundary of France / goes further north in 1500 than now, for it includes that count-ship, / or province, of Flanders which had been brought into the possession / of France's most powerful and dangerous vassal the Duke of Burgundy.