t Court favourites.
The Protestant English mariners stood between them and their prey, and
had to be encountered on an element which did not bow to popes or
princes, before Mary Stuart was to wear Elizabeth's crown or Cardinal
Allen be enthroned at Canterbury. It was a revelation to all parties.
Elizabeth herself had not expected--perhaps had not wished--so signal a
success. War was now looked on as inevitable. The Spanish admirals
represented that the national honour required revenge for an injury so
open and so insolent. The Pope, who had been long goading the lethargic
Philip into action, believed that now at last he would be compelled to
move; and even Philip himself, enduring as he was, had been roused to
perceive that intrigues and conspiracies would serve his turn no
longer. He must put out his strength in earnest, or his own Spaniards
might turn upon him as unworthy of the crown of Isabella. Very
reluctantly he allowed the truth to be brought home to him. He had never
liked the thought of invading England. If he conquered it, he would not
be allowed to keep it. Mary Stuart would have to be made queen, and Mary
Stuart was part French, and might be wholly French. The burden of the
work would be thrown entirely on his shoulders, and his own reward was
to be the Church's blessing and the approval of his own
conscience--nothing else, so far as he could see. The Pope would recover
his annates, his Peter's pence, and his indulgence market.

If the thing was to be done, the Pope, it was clear, ought to pay part
of the cost, and this was what the Pope did not intend to do if he could
help it. The Pope was flattering himself that Drake's performance would
compel Spain to go to war with England whether he assisted or did not.
In this matter Philip attempted to undeceive his Holiness. He instructed
Olivarez, his ambassador at Rome, to tell the Pope that nothing had
been yet done to him by the English which he could not overlook, and
unless the Pope would come down with a handsome contribution peace he
would make. The Pope stormed and raged; he said he doubted whether
Philip was a true son of the Church at all; he flung plates and dishes
at the servants' heads at dinner. He said that if he gave Philip money
Philip would put it in his pocket and laugh at him. Not one maravedi
would he give till a Spanish army was actually landed on English shores,
and from this resolution he was not to be moved.

To Philip it was painfully c