What concerns us specially at present is the effect on the King of Spain.  The reluctance of Philip to undertake the English enterprise (the ‘empresa,’ as it was generally called) had arisen from a fear that when it was accomplished he would lose the fruit of his labours.  He could never assure himself that if he placed Mary Stuart on the throne she would not become eventually French.  He now learnt that she had bequeathed to himself her claims on the English succession.  He had once been titular King of England.  He had pretensions of his own, as in the descent from Edward III.  The Jesuits, the Catholic enthusiasts throughout Europe, assured him that if he would now take up the cause in earnest, he might make England a province of Spain.  There were still difficulties.  He might hope that the English Catholic laity would accept him, but he could not be sure of it.  He could not be sure that he would have the support of the Pope.  He continued, as the Conde de Feria said scornfully of him, ‘meando en vado,’ a phrase which I cannot translate; it meant hesitating when he ought to act.  But he saw, or thought he saw, that he could now take a stronger attitude towards Elizabeth as a claimant to her throne.  If the treaty of peace was to go forward, he could raise his terms.  He could insist on the restoration of the Catholic religion in England.  The States of the Low Countries had made over five of their strongest towns to Elizabeth as the price of her assistance.  He could insist on her restoring them, not to the States, but to himself.  Could she be brought to consent to such an act of perfidy, Parma and he both felt that the power would then be gone from her, as effectually as Samson’s when his locks were clipped by the harlot, and they could leave her then, if it suited them, on a throne which would have become a pillory—­for the finger of scorn to point at.

With such a view before him it was more than ever necessary for Philip to hurry forward the preparations which he had already commenced.  The more formidable he could make himself, the better able he would be to frighten Elizabeth into submission.

Every dockyard in Spain was set to work, building galleons and collecting stores.  Santa Cruz would command.  Philip was himself more resolved than ever to accompany the expedition in person and dictate from the English Channel the conditions of the pacification of Europe.

Secrecy was no longer attempted—­indeed, was no longer possible.  All Latin Christendom was palpitating with expectation.  At Lisbon, at Cadiz, at Barcelona, at Naples, the shipwrights were busy night and day.  The sea was covered with vessels freighted with arms and provisions streaming to the mouth of the Tagus.  Catholic volunteers from all nations flocked into the Peninsula, to take a share in the mighty movement which was to decide the fate of the world, and bishops, priests, and monks were set praying through the whole Latin Communion that Heaven would protect its own cause.