in the East, who ruled over Indian territories that never had been reached even by the Macedonian Alexander.  From his cabinet in Madrid, he fixed the fate of many millions of the first peoples in the world, members of the races most advanced in all the arts of war and of peace.  His least whisper could affect the every-day life of men in the principal cities of both hemispheres.  He who was sovereign at Madrid and Lisbon, at Naples and Milan, at Brussels and Antwerp, was sovereign also at Mexico and Lima, at Goa and Ormuz.

Philip’s power was by no means to be measured solely by the extent and various character of his dominions.  His position, as a great monarch, and as the chief champion of the Catholic cause, made him, at times, master of many European countries over which he could exercise no direct rule.  England trembled before him even after the “Armada’s pride” had been rebuked, and Elizabeth came much nearer being vanquished by him than is generally supposed.  Nothing but the blockade of Parma’s forces by the Dutch, and the occurrence of storms, saved England from experiencing that sad fate which she has ever been so ready, with cause and without cause, to visit upon other countries.  In Ireland the Spanish monarch was more respected than Elizabeth, its nominal ruler, and he was regarded by the Irish not only with reverence as the first of Catholic princes, but also with that affection which men ever feel for the enemies of their enemies.  Whoso hates England is sure of Irish affection, and as it is today so was it three hundred years ago, and so will it ever be, unless the very human heart itself shall undergo a complete change.  Scotland furnished a Spanish party that might have become formidable to England, had events taken a slightly different turn; and the old Caledonian hatred of Southrons had not been extinguished by the success of the Reform party in both countries.  The Scotch Catholics called Philip “the pillar of the Christian commonwealth,” (Totius reipublicae Christianae columen,) and sought his assistance to restore the old religion to their country.  France was for several years more at the command of Philip than at that of any of its own sovereigns, the weak dregs of the line of Valois.  The League would willingly have transferred the French crown to any person whom he might have named to wear it; and perhaps nothing but the sensible decision of Henry IV., that Paris was worth a mass, prevented that crown from passing to some member of the Spanish branch of the House of Austria.  In Germany Philip had an influence corresponding to his power, which was all the greater because he was the head of a Germanic house that under him seemed destined to develop an old idea that it should become ruler of the world.  If anything marred his strength in that quarter, it was the fact that the junior branch of the Austrian family was at that time inclined to liberalism in politics,—­an offence against the purposes and traditions of the whole family of which few members of it have ever been guilty, before or since.