l put to the work his
helping hand, whereby it may be lustily followed, and the war not
suffered to cool. The freehold of England will be worth but little, if
this action quail, and therefore I wish no subject to spare his purse
towards it."

Spain moved slowly. Philip the Prudent was not sudden or rash, but his
whole life had proved, and was to prove, him inflexible in his purposes,
and patient in his attempts to carry them into effect, even when the
purposes had become chimerical, and the execution impossible. Before the
fall of Antwerp he had matured his scheme for the invasion of England, in
most of its details--a necessary part of which was of course the
reduction of Holland and Zeeland. "Surely no danger nor fear of any
attempt can grow to England," wrote Wilford, "so long as we can hold this
country good." But never was honest soldier more mistaken than he, when
he added:--"The Papists will make her Highness afraid of a great fleet
now preparing in Spain. We hear it also, but it is only a scare-crow to
cool the enterprise here."

It was no scare-crow. On the very day on which Wilford was thus writing
to Walsingham, Philip the Second was writing to Alexander Farnese. "The
English," he said, "with their troops having gained a footing in the
islands (Holland and Zeeland) give me much anxiety. The English Catholics
are imploring me with much importunity to relieve them from the
persecution they are suffering. When you sent me a plan, with the coasts,
soundings, quicksands, and ports of England, you said that the enterprise
of invading that country should be deferred till we had reduced the
isles; that, having them, we could much more conveniently attack England;
or that at least we should wait till we had got Antwerp. As the city is
now taken, I want your advice now about the invasion of England. To cut
the root of the evils constantly growing up there, both for God's service
and mine, is desirable. So many evils will thus be remedied, which would
not be by only warring with the islands. It would be an uncertain and
expensive war to go to sea for the purpose of chastising the insolent
English corsairs, however much they deserve chastisement. I charge you to
be secret, to give the matter your deepest attention, and to let me have
your opinions at once." Philip then added a postscript, in his own hand,
concerning the importance of acquiring a sea-port in Holland, as a basis
of operations against England. "Without a po