hardly any who have caused more blood to flow from the veins of
their own people. His life is proof that a well-meaning bigot can do
more harm than the most abandoned debauchee. "I would rather lose all
my kingdoms," he averred, "than allow freedom of religion." And again,
to a man condemned by the Inquisition for heresy, "If my own son were
as perverse as you, I myself would carry the faggot to burn him."
Consistently, laboriously, undeterred by any suffering or any horror,
he pursued his aim. He was not afraid of hard work, scribbling reams
of minute directions daily to his officers. His stubborn calm was
imperturbable; he took his pleasures--women, _autos-da-fe_ and
victories--sadly, and he suffered such chagrins as the death of four
wives, having a monstrosity for a son, and the loss of the Armada and
of the Netherlands, without turning a hair.

Spain's foreign policy came to be more and more polarized by the rise
of English sea-power. Even under Charles, when France had been the
chief enemy, {432} [Sidenote: Spain vs. England] the Hapsburgs saw the
desirability of winning England as a strategic point for their
universal empire. This policy was pursued by alternating alliance with
hostility. For six years of his boyhood Charles had been betrothed to
Mary Tudor, Henry VIII's sister, to whom he sent a ring inscribed,
"Mary hath chosen the better part which shall not be taken away from
her." His own precious person, however, was taken from her to be
bestowed on Isabella of Portugal, by whom he begot Philip. When this
son succeeded him, notwithstanding the little unpleasantness of Henry
VIII's divorce, he advised him to turn again to an English marriage,
and Philip soon became the husband of Queen Mary. After her death
without issue, he vainly wooed her sister, until he was gradually
forced by her Protestant buccaneers into an undesired war.

Notwithstanding all that he could do to lose fortune's favors, she
continued for many years to smile on her darling Hapsburg. After a
naval disaster inflicted by the Turks on the Spaniard off the coast of
Tripoli, the defeated power recovered and revenged herself in the great
naval victory of Lepanto, in October 1571. The lustre added to the
Lions and Castles by this important success was far outshone by the
acquisition of Portugal and all her colonies, in 1581. Though not the
nearest heir, Philip was the strongest, and by bribery and menaces won
the homage of the P