all,
died, the one in prison, the other on the scaffold. But the virulence
and boldness of their language produced a powerful effect, for it was
impossible under the system of Elizabeth to "mar" the bishops without
attacking the Crown; and a new age of political liberty was felt to be
at hand when Martin Marprelate forced the political and ecclesiastical
measures of the Government into the arena of public discussion.

[Sidenote: The gathering of the Armada.]

The strife between Puritanism and the Crown was to grow into a fatal
conflict, but at the moment the Queen's policy was in the main a wise
one. It was no time for scaring and disuniting the mass of the people
when the united energies of England might soon hardly suffice to
withstand the onset of Spain. On the other hand, strike as she might at
the Puritan party, it was bound to support Elizabeth in the coming
struggle with Philip. For the sense of personal wrong and the outcry of
the Catholic world against his selfish reluctance to avenge the blood of
its martyrs had at last told on the Spanish king, and in 1584 the first
vessels of an armada which was destined for the conquest of England
began to gather in the Tagus. Resentment and fanaticism indeed were
backed by a cool policy. The gain of the Portuguese dominions made it
only the more needful for Philip to assert his mastery of the seas. He
had now to shut Englishman and heretic not only out of the New World of
the West but out of the lucrative traffic with the East. And every day
showed a firmer resolve in Englishmen to claim the New World for their
own. The plunder of Drake's memorable voyage had lured fresh freebooters
to the "Spanish Main." The failure of Frobisher's quest for gold only
drew the nobler spirits engaged in it to plans of colonisation. North
America, vexed by long winters and thinly peopled by warlike tribes of
Indians, gave a rough welcome to the earlier colonists; and after a
fruitless attempt to form a settlement on its shores Sir Humphry
Gilbert, one of the noblest spirits of his time, turned homewards again
to find his fate in the stormy seas. "We are as near to heaven by sea as
by land," were the famous words he was heard to utter ere the light of
his little bark was lost for ever in the darkness of the night. But an
expedition sent by his brother-in-law, Sir Walter Raleigh, explored
Pamlico Sound; and the country they discovered, a country where in their
poetic fancy "men lived after th