see between the
ponderous Spanish galleon and the light pinnace of the buccaneers.

[Sidenote: Philip's policy.]

But amidst all the cloud of intrigue which disguised their policy, the
actual course of their relations had been clear and simple. In the
earlier years of Elizabeth Philip had been driven to her alliance by his
fear of France and his dread of the establishment of a French supremacy
over England and Scotland through the accession of Mary Stuart. As time
went on, the discontent and rising of the Netherlands made it of hardly
less import to avoid a strife with the Queen. Had revolt in England
prospered, or Mary Stuart succeeded in her countless plots, or Elizabeth
fallen beneath an assassin's knife, Philip was ready to have struck in
and reaped the fruits of other men's labours. But his stake was too
vast to risk an attack while the Queen sat firmly on her throne; and the
cry of the English Catholics, or the pressure of the Pope, failed to
drive the Spanish king into strife with Elizabeth. But as the tide of
religious passion which had so long been held in check broke over its
banks the political face of Europe changed. Philip had less to dread
from France or from an English alliance with France. The abstinence of
Elizabeth from intervention in the Netherlands was neutralized by the
intervention of the English people. Above all, the English hostility
threatened Philip in a quarter where he was more sensitive than
elsewhere, his dominion in the West.

[Sidenote: Spain and the New World.]

Foiled as the ambition of Charles the Fifth had been in the Old World,
his empire had widened with every year in the New. At his accession to
the throne the Spanish rule had hardly spread beyond the Island of St.
Domingo, which Columbus had discovered twenty years before. But greed
and enterprise drew Cortes to the mainland, and in 1521 his conquest of
Mexico added a realm of gold to the dominions of the Emperor. Ten years
later the great empire of Peru yielded to the arms of Pizarro. With the
conquest of Chili the whole western coast of South America passed into
the hands of Spain; and successive expeditions planted the Spanish flag
at point upon point along the coast of the Atlantic from Florida to the
river Plate. A Papal grant had conveyed the whole of America to the
Spanish crown, and fortune seemed for long years to ratify the judgement
of the Vatican. No European nation save Portugal disputed the possession
of the Ne