ortuguese nobles after the death of the aged king
Henry on January 31, 1580. For sixty years Spain held the lesser
country and, what was more important to her, the colonies in the East
Indies and in Africa. So vast an empire had not yet been heard of, or
imagined possible, in the history of the world. No wonder that its
shimmer dazzled the eyes not only of contemporaries, but of posterity.
According to Macaulay, {433} Philip's power was equal to that of
Napoleon, and its ruin is the most instructive lesson in history of how
not to govern.

How hollow was this semblance of might was demonstrated by the first
stalwart peoples that dared to test it, first by the Dutch and then by
England. The story of the Armada has already been told. Its
preparation marked the height of Philip's effort and the height of his
incompetence. Its annihilation was a cruel blow to his pride. But in
Spain, barring a temporary financial panic, things went much the same
after 1588 as before it. The full bloom of Spanish culture, gorgeous
with Velasquez and fragrant with Cervantes and Calderon, followed hard
upon the defeat of the Armada.

[Sidenote: War with the Moors]

The fact is that Spain suffered much more from internal disorders than
from foreign levy. The chief occasion of her troubles was the presence
among her people of a large body of Moors, hated both for their race
and for their religion. With the capitulation of Granada, the
enjoyment of Mohammedanism was guaranteed to the Moors, but this
tolerance only lasted for six years, when a decree went out that all
must be baptized or must emigrate from Andalusia. In Aragon, however,
always independent of Castile, they continued to enjoy religious
freedom. Charles at his coronation took a solemn oath to respect the
faith of Islam in these lands, but soon afterwards, frightened by the
rise of heresy in Germany, he applied to Clement to absolve him from
his oath. This sanction of bad faith, at first creditably withheld,
[Sidenote: 1524] was finally granted and was promptly followed by a
general order for expulsion or conversion. Throughout the whole of
Spain the poor Moriscos now began to be systematically pillaged and
persecuted by whoever chose to do it. All manner of taxes, tithes,
servitudes and fines {434} were demanded of them. The last straw that
broke the endurance of a people tried by every manner of tyranny and
extortion, was an edict ordering all Moors to learn Casti