nd threatened to hang him as a pirate. The Spaniards, re-reading
his name, called him the Dragon. He was the terror of their seas.

At last the long accumulating quarrel of religious and commercial
motives reached a head. Philip began gathering in all his ports that
vast "Invincible Armada," which was to assert his supremacy on sea as
upon land, to crush England and Protestantism forever. This was the
supreme effort of his life. There was no question as to where the blow
would fall. Elizabeth knew it coming, not to be evaded by any policy or
concessions. Drake knew it coming, and, taking time by the forelock,
sailed boldly into the harbor of Cadiz to "singe the King of Spain's
beard," destroyed all the ships and stores accumulated there.[19] But
Cadiz was only one port among several where preparations were being
hurried forward; there were others the hardy Dragon could not penetrate.
The next year (1588) the "Invincible Armada" sailed for England.

[19] See _Drake Captures Cartagena: He "Singes the King of Spain's
Beard" at Cadiz_, page 230.

The story of its destruction is too well known for repetition. This was
England's proudest achievement. Philip accepted the terrific downfall of
all his scheming and ambitions with a gallant calm. He had truly
believed that Heaven wished him to reassert Catholicism. He accepted the
storms which partly destroyed his fleet as the divine refusal of his
aid. "You could not strive against the will of Heaven," he said kindly
to his defeated admiral.[20]

[20] See _Defeat of the Spanish Armada_, page 251.

In England, the repeated plunderings of Spanish ships, and now this
final victory, flooded the land with wealth and triumph. The internal
improvement, the intellectual advance of the people, were prodigious.
The "Elizabethan Age" is the most famed in English literature. The first
English theatre was built in 1570, a crude and queer affair for cruder,
queerer plays.[21] Yet, in perhaps that very armada year of 1588,
Shakespeare began writing his remarkable plays. In 1601 the drama rose to
its perfection in his _Hamlet_, the flower of English literary genius,
accredited by some as the grandest new creation that ever came from the
hand of man.[22]

[21] See _Building of First Theatre in England_, page 163.

[22] See _Culmination of Dramatic Literature in_ Hamlet, page 287.

Elizabeth died in 1603. Her reign had seen also the final suppression of
the Ir