d this
monarch, upon her application, to seize a squadron of ships which Philip
had bought or hired in the Danish harbors:[**] the Hanse Towns, though
not at that time on good terms with Elizabeth, were induced, by the same
motives, to retard so long the equipment of some vessels in their ports,
that they became useless to the purpose of invading England. All the
Protestants throughout Europe regarded this enterprise as the critical
event which was to decide forever the fate of their religion; and though
unable, by reason of their distance, to join their force to that of
Elizabeth, they kept their eyes fixed on her conduct and fortune, and
beheld with anxiety, mixed with admiration, the intrepid countenance
with which she encountered that dreadful tempest which was every moment
advancing towards her.

* She made him some promises which she never fulfilled, to
give him a dukedom in England, with suitable lands and
revenue, to settle five thousand pounds a year on him, and
pay him a guard, for the safety of his person. From a MS. of
Lord Hoyston's.

** Strype, vol. iii. p. 524.

The queen also was sensible that, next to the general popularity which
she enjoyed, and the confidence which her subjects reposed in her
prudent government, the firmest support of her throne consisted in the
general zeal of the people for the Protestant religion, and the strong
prejudices which they had imbibed against Popery. She took care, on the
present occasion, to revive in the nation this attachment to their own
sect, and this abhorrence of the opposite. The English were reminded
of their former danger from the tyranny of Spain: all the barbarities
exercised by Mary against the Protestants were ascribed to the counsels
of that bigoted and imperious nation: the bloody massacres in the
Indies, the unrelenting executions in the Low Countries, the horrid
cruelties and iniquities of the inquisition, were set before men's eyes:
a list and description was published, and pictures dispersed, of the
several instruments of torture with which, it was pretended, the Spanish
armada was loaded: and every artifice, as well as reason, was employed,
to animate the people to a vigorous defence of their religion, their
laws, and their liberties.

But while the queen, in this critical emergence, roused the animosity of
the nation against Popery, she treated the partisans of that sect with
moderation, and gave not way to an undi