[Sidenote: 1560] By the wise expedient of calling in the {332} debased coins issued since 1543, the hardest problems were solved.
[Sidenote: Underhand war] Towards France and Spain Elizabeth's policy was one well described by herself as "underhand war." English volunteers, with government connivance, but nominally on their own responsibility, fought in the ranks of Huguenots and Netherlanders.

Torrents of money poured from English churches to support their fellow-Protestants in France and Holland.

English sailors seized Spanish galleons; if successful the queen secretly shared the spoil; but if they were caught they might be hanged as pirates by Philip or Alva.

This condition, unthinkable now, was allowed by the inchoate state of international law; the very idea of neutrality was foreign to the time.

States were always trying to harm and overreach each other in secret ways.