Their civil, naval, and military position was unequalled.  The commerce and wealth of the whole world was pre-eminently in their hands, and in common with other nations who arrive at heights of power, prosperity, and grandeur (which last sits so easily on the Spaniard), they gave way to pleasures and to the luxury of laziness which invariably carries with it sensuality.  Wherever they found themselves in the ascendancy, they intrigued to impose the Roman faith on the population, and if that method did not succeed with felicity, whenever the agents of their governing classes, including their king, met with opposition from prominent men or women, their opponents were put to the rack, burnt, or their heads sent flying.  In this country no leading Protestant’s life or property was safe.  Even Elizabeth, during the reign of her half-sister, Mary, was obliged to make believe that her religious faith was Roman in harmony with that of the Queen.  It was either adoption, deception, or execution, and the future queen outwitted all their traps and inventions until Mary passed on, and Elizabeth took her place on the throne.

Meanwhile, Spain, as I have indicated, was tampering with abiding laws.  Catastrophe always follows perilous habits of life, which were correctly attributed to the Spanish.  As with individuals, so it is with nations; pride can never successfully run in conjunction with the decadence of wealth.  It is manifestly true that it is easier for a nation to go up than to realize that it has come down, and during long years Spain has had to learn this bitter lesson.  It was not only imperious pride of race and extravagant grandeur that brought the destruction of her supremacy of the seas, and the wealth and supremacy of many lands, but their intolerable religious despotism towards those who were not already, and refused to become, as I have said, adherents of the Roman Catholic creed.  Poor wretches who were not strong enough to defend themselves had the mark of heretics put on them; and for nearly thirty years Spaniards carried on a system of burning British seamen whenever they could lay hands on them.  They kept up a constant system of spying and plotting against the British Protestant Queen and her subjects of every position in life.  The policy of the Spanish King and government was to make the British and other races vassals of the Pope.  Philip, like all powerful monarchs and individuals who are put into power without any of the qualities of fitness to fill a high post, always believed that his presence on earth was an act of supreme Providence.  Philip, in proclaiming his glorious advent for the good of mankind, explained it with a decorum that had a fascinating flavour.  Unlike some imitators of great personalities, he was never vulgarly boastful in giving expression to the belief that his power came from above and would be sustained by the mystery that gave him it in such abundance, but, in fact, he never doubted what was known as the doctrine of the divine right of kings.