The human support which kept him in authority did not enter into his calculations.  The popular notions of the democracies then was that no physical force could sever the alliance which existed between God and monarchs; and there is no evidence that Philip was ever disillusioned.  He regarded his adversaries, especially Hawkins and Drake, in the light of magicians possessed of devilish spirits that were in conflict with the wishes of the Deity.  His highly placed and best naval officer, Santa Cruz, took a more realistic view than his master, though he might have had doubts as to whether the people who were at war with Spain were not a species of devil.  But he expressed the view which even at this distance of time shows him to have been a man of sane, practical thought.  Philip imagined he could agree with the acts of assassins (and also support the Holy Office) in their policy of burning English sailors as heretics.  Santa Cruz reflected more deeply, and advised the King that such acts were positively courting disaster, because “the British corsairs had teeth, and could use them.”

Spain looked upon her naval position as impregnable, but Elizabeth’s pirates contemptuously termed it “a Colossus stuffed with clouts.”  Priests, crucifixes, and reliance on supernatural assistance had no meaning for them.  If any suggestion to impose on them by such means had been made, they would have cast the culprits over the side into the sea.  They were peculiarly religious, but would tolerate no saintly humbugs who lived on superstition.  When they had serious work in hand, they relied on their own mental and physical powers, and if they failed in their objective, they reverently remarked, “The reason is best known to God”—­a simple, unadorned final phrase.

Some of the sayings and doings, reliable or unreliable, that have been handed down to us, are extremely comical, looking at them from our religious standpoint in these days; for instance, Drake’s method of dealing with insubordination, his idea of how treason was to be stamped out, and the trial of Doughty, the traitor.

People who sit in cosy houses, which these early sailors made it possible for them in other days and now to acquire, may regard many of the disciplinary methods of Drake and his sea contemporaries as sheer savage murder, but these critics are not quite qualified to judge as to the justice or injustice of the actions of one man who is responsible for the safe and proper navigation of a vessel, no matter whether on an enterprising voyage of piracy, fair trade, or invasion.  If a nautical project is to be carried out with complete success, the first element in the venture is discipline, and the early seafarers believed this, as their successors have always done, especially during the different periods of the sailing-ship era.  A commander, if he wishes to be successful in keeping the spirit of rebellion under, must imbue those under him with a kind of awe.  This only succeeds if the commander