had then been advanced to its present point of progress, if there had been then recognised a Divine right to rule in the numerical majority, even without a Spanish army the seminary priests would have had their way.  Elizabeth’s Parliaments were controlled by the municipalities of the towns, and the towns were Protestant.  A Parliament chosen by universal suffrage and electoral districts would have sent Cecil and Walsingham into private life or to the scaffold, replaced the Mass in the churches, and reduced the Queen, if she had been left on the throne, into the humble servant of the Pope and Philip.  It would not perhaps have lasted, but that, so far as I can judge, would have been the immediate result, and instead of a Reformation we should have had the light come in the shape of lightning.  But I have often asked my Radical friends what is to be done if out of every hundred enlightened voters two-thirds will give their votes one way, but are afraid to fight, and the remaining third will not only vote but will fight too if the poll goes against them?  Which has then the right to rule?  I can tell them which will rule.  The brave and resolute minority will rule.  Plato says that if one man was stronger than all the rest of mankind he would rule all the rest of mankind.  It must be so, because there is no appeal.  The majority must be prepared to assert their Divine right with their right hands, or it will go the way that other Divine rights have gone before.  I will not believe the world to have been so ill-constructed that there are rights which cannot be enforced.  It appears to me that the true right to rule in any nation lies with those who are best and bravest, whether their numbers are large or small; and three centuries ago the best and bravest part of this English nation had determined, though they were but a third of it, that Pope and Spaniard should be no masters of theirs.  Imagination goes for much in such excited times.  To the imagination of Europe in the sixteenth century the power of Spain appeared irresistible if she chose to exert it.  Heretic Dutchmen might rebel in a remote province, English pirates might take liberties with Spanish traders, but the Prince of Parma was making the Dutchmen feel their master at last.  The pirates were but so many wasps, with venom in their stings, but powerless to affect the general tendencies of things.  Except to the shrewder eyes of such men as Santa Cruz the strength of the English at sea had been left out of count in the calculations of the resources of Elizabeth’s Government.  Suddenly a fleet of these same pirates, sent out, unassisted by their sovereign, by the private impulse of a few individuals, had insulted the sacred soil of Spain herself, sailed into Vigo, pillaged the churches, taken anything that they required, and had gone away unmolested.  They had attacked, stormed, burnt, or held to ransom three of Spain’s proudest colonial cities, and had come home unfought with.  The Catholic conspirators had to recognise that they