o
be seized, it seemed, to form part of an enormous armament, which was to
attack and crush, once and for all--whom? The rebellious Netherlanders,
said the Spaniards: but the queen, the ministry, and, when it was just
not too late, the people of England, thought otherwise. England was the
destined victim; so, instead of negotiating, in order to avoid fighting,
they fought in order to produce negotiation. Drake, Frobisher, and
Carlisle, as we have seen, swept the Spanish Main with fire and sword,
stopping the Indian supplies; while Walsingham (craftiest, and yet most
honest of mortals) prevented, by some mysterious financial operation,
the Venetian merchants from repairing the Spaniards' loss by a loan; and
no Armada came that year.

In the meanwhile, the Jesuits, here and abroad, made no secret, among
their own dupes, of the real objects of the Spanish armament. The
impious heretics,--the Drakes and Raleighs, Grenvilles and Cavendishes,
Hawkinses and Frobishers, who had dared to violate that hidden sanctuary
of just half the globe, which the pope had bestowed on the defender of
the true faith,--a shameful ruin, a terrible death awaited them, when
their sacrilegious barks should sink beneath the thunder of Spanish
cannon, blessed by the pope, and sanctified with holy water and prayer
to the service of "God and his Mother." Yes, they would fall, and
England with them. The proud islanders, who had dared to rebel against
St. Peter, and to cast off the worship of "Mary," should bow their
necks once more under the yoke of the Gospel. Their so-called queen,
illegitimate, excommunicate, contumacious, the abettor of free-trade,
the defender of the Netherlands, the pillar of false doctrine throughout
Europe, should be sent in chains across the Alps, to sue for her life at
the feet of the injured and long-suffering father of mankind, while
his nominee took her place upon the throne which she had long since
forfeited by her heresy.

"What nobler work? How could the Church of God be more gloriously
propagated? How could higher merit be obtained by faithful Catholics?
It must succeed. Spain was invincible in valor, inexhaustible in wealth.
Heaven itself offered them an opportunity. They had nothing now to fear
from the Turk, for they had concluded a truce with him; nothing from the
French, for they were embroiled in civil war. The heavens themselves
had called upon Spain to fulfil her heavenly mission, and restore to
the Church's c