citing
succors from the duke of Guise, of returning thence into Wales, and of
proclaiming Mary queen of England, and Arthur Pole duke of Clarence.
They confessed the indictment, but asserted that they never meant to
execute these projects during the queen's lifetime: they had only deemed
such precautions requisite in case of her demise, which some pretenders
to judicial astrology had assured them they might with certainty look
for before the year expired. They were condemned by the jury; but
received a pardon from the queen's clemency.[*]

* Strype, vol. i. p. 333. Heylin, p. 154.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

ELIZABETH.

{1562.} After the commencement of the religious wars in France, which
rendered that flourishing kingdom, during the course of near forty
years, a scene of horror and devastation, the great rival powers in
Europe were Spain and England; and it was not long before an animosity,
first political, then personal, broke out between the sovereigns of
these countries.

Philip II. of Spain, though he reached not any enlarged views of policy,
was endowed with great industry and sagacity, a remarkable caution in
his enterprises, an unusual foresight in all his measures; and as he
was ever cool, and seemingly unmoved by passion, and possessed neither
talents nor inclination for war, both his subjects and his neighbors
had reason to expect justice, happiness, and tranquillity from his
administration. But prejudices had on him as pernicious effects as ever
passion had on any other monarch; and the spirit of bigotry and tyranny
by which he was actuated, with the fraudulent maxims which governed
his counsels, excited the most violent agitation among his own people,
engaged him in acts of the most enormous cruelty, and threw all Europe
into combustion.

After Philip had concluded peace at Chateau-Cambresis and had remained
some time in the Netherlands, in order to settle the affairs of that
country, he embarked for Spain; and as the gravity of that nation, with
their respectful obedience to their prince, had appeared more agreeable
to his humor than the homely, familiar manners and the pertinacious
liberty of the Flemings, it was expected that he would for the future
reside altogether at Madrid, and would govern all his extensive
dominions by Spanish ministers and Spanish counsels. Having met with a
violent tempest on his voyage, he no sooner arrived in harbor than he
fell on his knees; and after giving than