8. In regard to England, Philip ventured upon a master-stroke of policy. He sought the hand of Mary, the newly crowned Queen of England, and married her. By this step lie hoped and expected to extinguish dissent in England as he had done in his own dominions, to gradually usurp the government, and to make English naval supremacy subserve the interests of Spain.
9. But Philip was sorely disappointed. Mary, though narrow and bigoted, and at one with hire in creed, had still English blood in her; and English independence had been sturdily maintained through too many centuries to be surrendered to any power or on any pretext. The English Parliament also interfered and refused to crown him jointly with Mary. So Philip found himself united to a sickly, peevish wife of twice his age, and entirely powerless to effect the purposes he had in view.
10. Three or four years passed in fruitless intrigue. Punishments for heresy were frequent, but the fires of persecution never blazed so fiercely in the cooler atmosphere of England as in Spain, and the victims of the stake could be counted singly instead of by the thousand. Then Mary died, and Elizabeth ascended the throne of England. The new queen declined the honor of Philip's hand which was tendered her, and she zealously espoused the cause of the English church. The hunted turned hunters, and the last fires of English persecution were lit by those whom the stake had threatened all through the dreary years of Mary's reign. This change of front and the gradual amelioration of penalties which followed show that persecutions are not the monopoly of any sect, but are rather the manifestations of an irresponsible power in a semi-barbarous age.
11. Philip retired angry and disgusted. The contemptuous refusal of his hand by Elizabeth was a terrible shock to his personal pride; the triumph of the new church inflamed his bigotry; and the sturdy independence of the English people was a severe blow to his pride of country. He brooded over the situation and determined to resent the slights—personal and public—which had been put upon him.
12. From his purpose he was for a time diverted by the attitude of his rebellious subjects in Belgium. Maddened to ferocity by the failure of his plans, he devoted the whole people to destruction, and he sent his best-equipped armies, under the terrible Duke of Alva, to devastate the cities of the dikes as Pizarro had destroyed the homes of the Incas. After innumerable atrocities, and the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children, the remnant of freedom was preserved by the obstinacy of the Dutch burghers, the wise policy of William the Silent, the aid of the sea, and the succor furnished by Elizabeth.
[Illustration: The Spanish Armada]
13. Here, again, was practical defeat. His cherished purposes were thwarted, and the high hope of his life was gone. Nothing was left but despair and revenge. At this time Philip began to exhibit in a marked degree the madness which overshadowed the last years of his life. His hatred of England grew from day to day, and at last took shape in a determination to make one supreme effort to conquer his rival, and to check the rising free thought of the English people. For years the preparations went, on for the great conflict, and in 1588, twenty years after the accession of Elizabeth to the throne, everything was ready.
ENGLAND'S POWER TO RESIST THE ARMADA.
14. And what of England and of her ability to resist this formidable attack? For a hundred years before the beginning of the sixteenth century, the civil wars of the Roses had desolated the country and put an end to national growth. For the next fifty years, and until the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, violence and bloodshed were so common that the population barely maintained its own. In 1588 the whole number of people in England and Wales was estimated at four millions, about one third of the population of Spain.
15. But England possessed two elements of strength—her people, although differing in creed and often warring with one another, were intensely patriotic, and were united as one man against a foreign foe; and the ships of England, manned by English crews and commanded by her great captains—the legitimate successors of the old Vikings—dominated the seas. No enterprise was too hazardous for these hardy mariners to undertake, and no disparity of force ever induced them to pause. Philip was often wrought to frenzy as he saw these bold corsairs capture his treasure-ships and ravage his coasts in sight of his invincible but impotent armies.