10. Francis Drake's Voyage to Panama. 1572.—The noblest of these mariners was Francis Drake. Sickened by one experience of the slave trade, and refusing to take any further part in it, he flew at the wealth of the Spanish Government. In 1572 he sailed for Nombre de Dios, on the Atlantic side of the isthmus of Panama. Thither were brought once a year gold and silver from the mines of Peru. In the governor's house Drake found a pile of silver bars. "I have now," he said to his men, "brought you to the mouth of the treasury of the world." He himself was wounded, and his followers, having little spirit to fight without their leader, were beaten off. "I am resolved," he said somewhat later to a Spaniard, "by the help of God, to reap some of the golden harvest which you have got out of the earth and sent to Spain to trouble the earth." It was his firm conviction that he was serving God in robbing the king of Spain. Before he returned some Indians showed him from a tree on the isthmus the waters of the Pacific, which no civilised people except the Spaniards had ever navigated. Drake threw himself on his knees, praying to God to give him life and to allow him to sail an English vessel on those seas.

12. The Growth of the Dutch Republic. 1572-1578.—By this time the provinces of Holland and Zeeland had risen against Spain. They placed at their head the Prince of Orange with the title of Stadtholder or Lieutenant, as if he had been still the lieutenant of the king of Spain whom he resisted. The rebels had but a scanty force wherewith to defend themselves against the vast armies of Spain. Alva took town after town, sacked them, and butchered man, woman and child within. In 1574 Leyden was saved from his attack. Holland is below the sea-level, and the Dutch cut the dykes which kept off the sea, and when the tide rushed in, sent flat-bottomed vessels over what had once been land, and rescued the town from the besiegers. Alva, disgusted at his failure, returned to Spain. In 1576 his successor Requesens died. Spain, with all the wealth of the Indies pouring into it, was impoverished by the vastness of the work which Philip had undertaken in trying to maintain the power of the Roman Catholic Church in all western Europe. The expenses of the war in the Netherlands exhausted his treasury, and on the death of Requesens, the Spanish army mutinied, plundered even that part of the country which was friendly to Spain, and sacked Antwerp with barbarous cruelty. Then the whole of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands drove out the Spaniards, and bound themselves by the Pacification of Ghent into a confederate Republic. In 1578 Alexander, duke of Parma, arrived as the Spanish governor. He was a great warrior and statesman, and he won over the Catholic provinces of the southern Netherlands to his side. By the Union of Utrecht the Prince of Orange formed a new confederate republic of the seven northern provinces, which were mainly Protestant.

14. Drake's Voyage. 1577-1580.—Elizabeth had no sympathy with the heroic Netherlanders, who fought for liberty and conscience, but she had sympathy with the mariners who by fair means or foul brought treasure into the realm. In 1577 Drake sailed for that Pacific which he had long been eager to enter. Passing through the Straits of Magellan, he found himself alone on the unknown ocean with the 'Pelican,' a little ship of 100 tons. He ranged up the coast of South America, seizing treasure where he landed, but never doing any cruel deed. The Spaniards, not thinking it possible that an English ship could be there, took the 'Pelican' for one of their own vessels, and were easily caught. At Tarapaca, for instance, Drake found a Spaniard asleep with bars of silver by his side. At another landing place he found eight llamas laden with silver. So he went on, till he took a great vessel with jewels in plenty, thirteen chests of silver coin, eighty pounds' weight of gold, and twenty-six tons of silver. With all this he sailed home by way of the Cape of Good Hope, arriving in England in 1580, being the first commander who had circumnavigated the globe.[17] The king of Spain was furious, and demanded back the wealth of which his subjects had been robbed. Elizabeth gave him good words, but not a penny of money or money's worth.

16. Ireland under Edward VI. and Mary. 1547-1558.—The real difficulty of the English Government in Ireland lay in its relations with the Irish tribes, whether under Celtic chiefs or Anglo-Norman lords. At the end of the reign of Edward VI. an attempt had been made to revert to the better part of the policy of Henry VIII., and the heads of the tribes were entrusted by the government with powers to keep order in the hope that they would gradually settle down into civilisation and obedience. Such a policy required almost infinite patience on the part of the Government, and the Earl of Sussex, who was Lord Deputy under Mary, began again the old mischief of making warlike attacks upon the Irish which he had not force or money enough to render effectual. It was Mary and not a Protestant sovereign who first sent English colonists to occupy the lands of the turbulent Irish in King's County and Queen's County—then much smaller than at present. A war of extermination at once began. The natives massacred the intruders and the intruders massacred the natives, till—far on in Elizabeth's reign—the natives had been all slaughtered or expelled. There was thus introduced into the heart of Ireland a body of Englishmen who, no doubt, were far more advanced in the arts of life than the Irish around them, but who treated the Irish with utter contempt, and put them to death without mercy.

18. The Landing at Smerwick, and the Desmond Rising. 1579-1583.—Elizabeth's servants were the more anxious to subdue Ireland by the process of exterminating Irishmen, because they believed that the Irish would welcome Spaniards if they came to establish a government in Ireland hostile to Elizabeth. On the other hand, the English Catholics, and especially the English Catholic clergy in exile on the Continent, fancied, wrongly, that the Irish were fighting for the papacy, and not for tribal independence, or, rather, for bare life, which tribal independence alone secured. In 1579 Sir James Fitzmaurice landed with a few men at Dingle, under the authority of the Pope, but was soon defeated and slain. In 1580 a large number of Spaniards and Italians landed at Smerwick, but was overpowered and slaughtered by Lord Grey, the Lord Deputy. Then the Earl of Desmond, the head of a branch of the family of Fitzgerald, all-powerful in Munster, rose. The insurrection was put down, and Desmond himself slain, in 1583. It is said that in 1582 no less than 30,000 perished—mostly of starvation—in a single year. It is an English witness who tells us of the poor wretches who survived, that 'out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they spoke like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them.'

19. The Jesuits in England. 1580.—In England the landing of a papal force at Smerwick produced the greater alarm because Parma (see p. 450) had been gaining ground in the Netherlands, and the time might soon come when a Spanish army would be available for the invasion of England. For the present what the Government feared was any interruption to the process by which the new religion was replacing the old. In 1571 there had been an act of Parliament in answer to the Papal Bull of Deposition (see p. 442), declaring all who brought Bulls into the country, and all who were themselves reconciled to the see of Rome, or who reconciled others to be traitors, but for a long time no use was made by Elizabeth of these powers. The Catholic exiles, however, had witnessed with sorrow the gradual decay of their religion in England, and in 1568 William Allen, one of their number, had founded a college at Douai (removed in 1578 to Reims) as a seminary for missionaries to England. It was not long before seminary priests, as the missionaries were called, began to land in England to revive the zeal of their countrymen, but it was not till 1577 that one of them, Cuthbert Mayne, was executed, technically for bringing in a copy of a Bull of a trivial character, but really for maintaining that Catholics would be justified in rising to assist a foreign force sent to reduce England to obedience to the Papacy. There were, in fact, two rival powers inconsistent with one another. If the Papal power was to prevail, the Queen's authority must be got rid of. If the Queen's power was to prevail, the Pope's authority must be got rid of. In 1580 two Jesuits, Campion and Parsons, landed. They brought with them an explanation of the Bull of Deposition, which practically meant that no one need act on it till it was convenient to do so. They went about making converts and strengthening the lukewarm in the resolution to stand by their faith.

20. The Recusancy Laws. 1581.—Elizabeth in her dread of religious strife had done her best to silence religious discussion and even religious teaching. Men in an age of religious controversy are eager to believe something. All the more vigorous of the Protestants were at this time Puritans, and now the more vigorous of those who could not be Puritans welcomed the Jesuits with joy. There were never many Jesuits in England, but for a time they gave life and vigour to the seminary priests who were not Jesuits. In 1581 Parliament, seeing nothing in what had happened but a conspiracy against the Crown, passed the first of the acts which became known as the Recusancy laws. In addition to the penalties on reconciliation to Rome and the introduction of Bulls, fines and imprisonment were to be inflicted for hearing or saying mass, and fines upon lay recusants—that is to say, persons who refused to go to church. Catholics were from this time frequently subjected to torture to drive them to give information which would lead to the apprehension of the priests. Campion was arrested and executed after cruel torture; Parsons escaped. If the Government and the Parliament did not see the whole of the causes of the Jesuit revival, they were not wrong in seeing that there was political danger. Campion was an enthusiast. Parsons was a cool-headed intriguer, and he continued from the Continent to direct the threads of a conspiracy which aimed at Elizabeth's life.

21. Growing Danger of Elizabeth. 1580-1584.—Elizabeth was seldom startled, but her ministers were the more frightened because the power of Spain was growing. In 1580 Philip took possession of Portugal and the Portuguese colonies, whilst in the Netherlands Parma was steadily gaining ground. Elizabeth had long been nursing the idea of the Alençon marriage (see p. 446), and in 1581 it seemed as if she was in earnest about it. She entertained the Duke at Greenwich, gave him a kiss and a ring, then changing her mind sent him off to the Netherlands, where he hoped to be appointed by the Dutch to the sovereignty of the independent states. In the spring of 1582 a fanatic, Jaureguy, tried to murder the Prince of Orange at Philip's instigation. Through the summer of that year Parsons and Allen were plotting with Philip and the Duke of Guise, for the assassination of Elizabeth, on the understanding that as soon as Elizabeth had been killed, Guise was to send or lead an army to invade England. They hoped that such an army would receive assistance from Scotland, where the young James had become the tool of a Catholic intriguer whom he made Duke of Lennox. Philip, however, was too dilatory to succeed. In August James was seized by some Protestant Lords, and Lennox was soon driven from the country. In 1583 there was a renewal of the danger. The foolish Alençon, wishing to carve out a principality for himself, made a violent attack on Antwerp and other Flemish towns which had allied themselves with him, and was consequently driven from the country; whilst Parma, taking advantage of this split amongst his enemies, conquered most of the towns—Antwerp, however, being still able to resist. He now held part of the coast line, and a Spanish invasion of England from the Netherlands once more became feasible. In November 1583 a certain Francis Throgmorton, having been arrested and racked, made known to Elizabeth the whole story of the intended invasion of the army of Guise. In January 1584 she sent the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, out of England. On June 29 Balthazar Gerard assassinated the Prince of Orange.

23. Growth of Philip's Power. 1584-1585.—In the meantime Philip's power was still growing. The wretched Alençon died in 1584, and a far distant cousin of the childless Henry III., Henry king of Navarre, who was a Huguenot, became heir to the French throne. Guise and the ardent Catholics formed themselves into a league to exclude Huguenots from the succession, and placed themselves under the direction of the king of Spain. A civil war broke out once more in 1585, and if the league should win (as at first seemed likely) Philip would be able to dispose of the resources of France in addition to his own. As Guise had now enough to do at home, Philip took the invasion of England into his own hands. He had first to extend his power in the Netherlands. In August the great port of Antwerp surrendered to Parma. The Dutch had offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, and, though she had prudently refused, she sent an army to their aid, but neutralised the gift by placing the wretched Leicester at its head, and by giving him not a penny wherewith to pay his men. In 1586, after an attempt (after Alençon's fashion) to seize the government for himself, Leicester returned to England, having accomplished nothing. What Elizabeth did not do was done by a crowd of young Englishmen who pressed over to the Netherlands to fight as volunteers for Dutch freedom. The best known of these was Sir Philip Sidney, whose head and heart alike seemed to qualify him for a foremost place amongst the new generation of Englishmen. Unhappily he was slain in battle near Zutphen. As he lay dying he handed a cup of water untasted to another wounded man. 'Thy necessity,' he said to him, 'is greater than mine.' Parma took Zutphen, and the territory of the Dutch Republic—the bulwark of England—was the smaller by its loss. By sea England more than held her own, and in 1586 Drake returned from a voyage to the West Indies laden with spoils.

25. Execution of Mary Stuart. 1587.—On February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart was beheaded at Fotheringhay. Elizabeth carried out to the last the part which she had assumed, threw the blame on Davison, dismissed him from her service, and fined him heavily. After Mary's death the attack on England would have to be conducted in open day. It would be no advantage to Philip and the Pope that Elizabeth should be murdered if her place was to be taken, not by Mary, but by Mary's Protestant son, James of Scotland.

2. The Approach of the Armada. 1588.—The Invincible Armada,[18] as some foolish Spaniards called Philip's great fleet, set out at last in 1588. It was to sail up the Channel to Flanders, and to transport Parma and his army to England. Parma's soldiers were the best disciplined veterans in Europe, while Elizabeth's were raw militia, who had never seen a shot fired in actual war. If, therefore, Parma succeeded in landing, it would probably go hard with England. It was, therefore, in England's interest to fight the Armada at sea rather than on land.

3. The Equipment of the Armada. 1588.—Even at sea the odds were in appearance against the English. The Spanish ships were not indeed so much larger than the largest English vessels as has often been said, but they were somewhat larger, and they were built so as to rise much higher out of the water, and to carry a greater number of men. In fact, the superiority was all on the English side. In great military or naval struggles the superiority of the victor is usually a superiority of intelligence, which shows itself in the preparation of weapons as much as in conduct in action. The Spanish ships were prepared for a mode of warfare which had hitherto been customary. In such ships the soldiers were more numerous than the sailors, and the decks were raised high above the water, in order that the soldiers might command with their muskets the decks of smaller vessels at close quarters. The Spaniards, trusting to this method of fighting, had not troubled themselves to improve their marine artillery. The cannon of their largest ships were few, and the shot which they were capable of firing was light. Philip's system of requiring absolute submission in Church and State had resulted in an uninventive frame of mind in those who carried out his orders. He had himself shown how little he cared for ability in his selection of an admiral for his fleet. That post having become vacant by the death of the best seaman in Spain, Philip ordered the Duke of Medina Sidonia to take his place. The Duke answered—with perfect truth—that he knew nothing about the sea and nothing about war; but Philip, in spite of his candour, bade him go, and go he did.

6. The Destruction of the Armada. 1588.—The Spanish fleet was driven northwards without hope of return, and narrowly escaped wreck on the flats of Holland. "There was never anything pleased me better," wrote Drake, as he followed hard, "than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northwards.... With the grace of God, if we live, I doubt not, ere it be long, so to handle the matter with the Duke of Sidonia as he shall wish himself at St. Mary Port[19] amongst his orange trees." Before long even Drake had had enough. Elizabeth, having with her usual economy kept the ships short of powder, they were forced to come back. The Spaniards had been too roughly handled to return home by the way they came. Round the north of Scotland and the west of Ireland they went, strewing the coast with wrecks. About 120 of their ships had entered the Channel, but only 54 returned. "I sent you," said Philip to his admiral, "to fight against men, and not with the winds." Elizabeth, too, credited the storms with her success. She struck a medal with the inscription, "God blew with his wind and they were scattered." The winds had done their part, but the victory was mainly due to the seamanship of English mariners and the skill of English shipwrights.

9. Increasing Prosperity.—It was not so much the victories as the energy which made the victories possible that diffused wealth and prosperity over England. Trade grew together with piracy and war. Manufactures increased, and the manufacturers growing in numbers needed to be fed. Landed proprietors, in consequence, found it profitable to grow corn instead of turning their arable lands into pasture, as they had done at the beginning of the century. The complaints about inclosures (see pp. 368, 415) died away. The results of wealth appeared in the show and splendour of the court, where men decked themselves in gorgeous attire, but still more in the gradual rise of the general standard of comfort.

10. Buildings.—Even in Mary's days the good food of Englishmen had been the wonder of foreigners. "These English," said a Spaniard, "have their houses of sticks and dirt, but they fare commonly as well as the king." In Elizabeth's time the houses were improved. Many windows, which had, except in the houses of the great, been guarded with horn or lattice, were now glazed, and even in the mansions of the nobility large windows stood in striking contrast with the narrow openings of the buildings of the middle ages. Glass was welcome, because men no longer lived—as they had lived in the days when internal wars were frequent—in fortified castles, where, for the sake of defence, the openings were narrow and infrequent. Elizabethan manor-houses, as they are now termed, sometimes built in the shape of the letter E, in honour, as is sometimes supposed, of the Queen's name, rose all over the country to take the place of the old castles. They had chimneys to carry off the smoke, which, in former days, had, in all but the largest houses, been allowed to escape through a hole in the roof. See pp. 466, 467, 469-471.

11. Furniture.—The furniture within the houses underwent a change as great as the houses themselves. When Elizabeth came to the throne people of the middle class were content to lie on a straw pallet, with a log of wood, or at the best a bag of chaff, under their heads. It was a common saying that pillows were fit only for sick women. Before many years had passed comfortable bedding had been introduced. Pewter platters and tin spoons replaced wooden ones. Along with these improvements was noticed a universal chase after wealth, and farmers complained that landlords not only exacted higher rents, but themselves engaged in the sale of the produce of their lands.

12. Growing Strength of the House of Commons.—This increase of general prosperity could not but strengthen the House of Commons. It was mainly composed of country gentlemen, and it had been the policy of the Tudors to rely upon that class as a counterpoise to the old nobility. Many of the country gentlemen were employed as Justices of the Peace, and Elizabeth had gladly increased their powers. When, therefore, they came to fulfil their duties as members of Parliament, they were not mere talkers unacquainted with business, but practical men, who had been used to deal with their own local affairs before being called on to discuss the affairs of the country. Various causes made their opinions more important as the reign went on. In the first place, the national uprising against Spain drew with it a rapid increase of Protestantism in the younger generation, and, for this reason, the House of Commons, which, at the beginning of the reign, represented only a Protestant minority in the nation itself (see p. 428), at the end of the reign represented a Protestant majority, and gained strength in consequence. In the second place, Puritanism tended to develop independence of character, whilst the queen was not only unable to overawe the Puritan members of the House, but, unlike her father, had no means of keeping the more worldly-minded in submission by the distribution of abbey lands.

13. Archbishop Whitgift and the Court of High Commission. 1583.—The Jesuit attack in 1580 and 1581 strengthened the queen's resolution to put an end to the divisions which weakened the English Church, as she was still afraid lest Puritanism, if unchecked, might give offence to her more moderately-minded subjects and drive them into the arms of the Papacy. In 1583, on Grindal's death, she appointed to the Archbishopric of Canterbury Whitgift, who had taken a leading part in opposing Cartwright (see p. 446). Whitgift held that as questions about vestments and ceremonies were unimportant, the queen's pleasure in such matters ought to be the rule of the Church. He was, however, a strict disciplinarian, and he was as anxious as the queen to force into conformity those clergy who broke the unity of the Church for the sake of what he regarded as mere crotchets of their own, especially as some of them were violent assailants of the established order. In virtue of a clause in the Act of Supremacy, passed in 1559, the queen had in that year erected a Court of High Commission. Though many laymen were members of this court, they seldom attended its sittings, and it was practically managed by bishops and ecclesiastical lawyers. Its business was to enforce conformity on the clergy, and now under Whitgift it acted most energetically, sitting permanently, and driving from their livings and committing to prison clergymen who refused to conform.