84. The pursuit continued until Friday, August 2d. There was now no more danger to be apprehended from the scattered enemy. The wind was threatening, and, the supply of provisions beginning to fail, Howard and Drake determined on returning homeward, leaving a couple of pinnaces to dog the Spaniards past the Scottish isles. Though the wind was contrary, they beat back against it without loss, and in four or five days the vessels, with their half-starved crews, all safely arrived in Margate Roads, having done the noblest service that fleet ever rendered to a country in the hour of supreme peril.
85. Meanwhile, so much as remained of the Invincible Armada was buffeted to and fro by the resistless gale, like a shuttlecock between two invisible players. The monster left its bones on the iron-bound shore of Norway and on the granite cliffs of the Hebrides. Its course could be traced by its wrecks. Day followed day, and still God's wrath endured. On the 5th of August Admiral Oguendo, in his flag-ship, together with one of the great galliasses and thirty-eight other vessels, were driven by the fury of the tempest upon the rocks and reefs of Ireland, and nearly every soul on board perished. Of one hundred and thirty-four vessels which, gay with gold and amid triumphal shouts and loud music, had sailed from Corunna July 12th, only fifty-three battered and useless hulks returned to the ports of Spain.
86. The fate and exploits of the Armada are graphically summed up in the emphatic language of Sir Francis Drake. "It is happily manifested," he says, "indeed, to all nations how their navy which they termed invincible, consisting of nearly one hundred and forty sail of ships, were by thirty of her Majesty's ships of war, and a few of our own merchants, by the wise and advantageous conduct of Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of England, beaten and shuffled together from Lizard in Cornwall to Portland, from Portland to Calais; and from Calais, driven by squibs from their anchors, were chased out of sight of England, round about Scotland and Ireland. With all their great and terrible ostentation, they did not, in all their sailing round about England, so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cock-boat of ours, or even burn so much as one sheep-cote on the land."
CHAPTER VIII.
FREEDOM'S VOYAGE TO AMERICA.
DISSENT AND PERSECUTION.
1. Through the middle ages England, like the rest of the world, had been in full communion with the Church of Rome. When the Reformation had swept over Europe and left dissent to crystallize into various Protestant sects, England too had dissented, and her king had established the Anglican Church. This church, when it assumed final form, had for its supreme head, not the pope, but the king, and under him the clergy held their offices. The Roman Catholic ritual was not, as in some of the European sects, entirely given up, but was modified to suit the new order. And when the change was effected, the new ministers firm in their positions, the new service-books ready for use, then the Catholics were summarily ordered to embrace the reformed faith.
2. At that time it had not dawned upon the world that there might be more than one way to worship God in truth. Catholics honestly believed that Protestants were going straight to perdition, and Protestants as honestly believed that a like fate was in store for the pope and his followers. When this was the temper of conviction, the natural thing for each church to do was to persecute every other; not from hate, but from the benevolent determination to oblige men to accept the true religion and save their souls, even though it might be necessary in the course of proceedings to burn their bodies. Mixed with this legitimate missionary spirit were all sorts of political motives. The church, whether Catholic or Protestant, was closely connected with the state, and through all the corruptions of party politics religion had to be dragged.
3. So, when the English state established Protestantism, its first duty and interest was to suppress Catholicism. After two Protestant kings, a Catholic queen came to the throne, and with her the Protestants fell and the Catholics rose. The former were forbidden their service, their ministers were turned out of their positions; fines, imprisonment, burning punished those who held out against the "true faith." Again the scene changed. The queen died, and by her Protestant successor freedom of worship was denied to Catholics, and the Anglican Church was re-established as the Church of England.
4. Meantime, in the Church of England a spirit of criticism had grown up. Stricter thinkers disliked the imposing ceremonies which the English church still retained: some of the ministers ceased to wear gowns in preaching, performed the marriage ceremony without using a ring, and were in favor of simplifying all the church service. Unpretentious workers began to tire of the everlasting quarreling, and to long for a religion simple and quiet. These soon met trouble, for the rulers had decided that salvation was by the Church of England, as the sovereign, its head, should order. Dissent was the two-fold guilt of heresy and revolution—sin against God and crime against the king and English law. They were forbidden to preach at all if they would not wear a gown during service, and the people who went to hear them were punished. This treatment caused serious thought among the "non-conformists," as they were called, and, once thinking, they soon concluded that the king had no such supreme right to order the church, and the church had over its ministers no such right of absolute dictation.