Spain moved slowly.  Philip the Prudent was not sudden or rash, but his whole life had proved, and was to prove, him inflexible in his purposes, and patient in his attempts to carry them into effect, even when the purposes had become chimerical, and the execution impossible.  Before the fall of Antwerp he had matured his scheme for the invasion of England, in most of its details—­a necessary part of which was of course the reduction of Holland and Zeeland.  “Surely no danger nor fear of any attempt can grow to England,” wrote Wilford, “so long as we can hold this country good.”  But never was honest soldier more mistaken than he, when he added:—­“The Papists will make her Highness afraid of a great fleet now preparing in Spain.  We hear it also, but it is only a scare-crow to cool the enterprise here.”

It was no scare-crow.  On the very day on which Wilford was thus writing to Walsingham, Philip the Second was writing to Alexander Farnese.  “The English,” he said, “with their troops having gained a footing in the islands (Holland and Zeeland) give me much anxiety.  The English Catholics are imploring me with much importunity to relieve them from the persecution they are suffering.  When you sent me a plan, with the coasts, soundings, quicksands, and ports of England, you said that the enterprise of invading that country should be deferred till we had reduced the isles; that, having them, we could much more conveniently attack England; or that at least we should wait till we had got Antwerp.  As the city is now taken, I want your advice now about the invasion of England.  To cut the root of the evils constantly growing up there, both for God’s service and mine, is desirable.  So many evils will thus be remedied, which would not be by only warring with the islands.  It would be an uncertain and expensive war to go to sea for the purpose of chastising the insolent English corsairs, however much they deserve chastisement.  I charge you to be secret, to give the matter your deepest attention, and to let me have your opinions at once.”  Philip then added a postscript, in his own hand, concerning the importance of acquiring a sea-port in Holland, as a basis of operations against England.  “Without a port,” he said, “we can do nothing whatever.”

A few weeks later, the Grand Commander of Castile, by Philip’s orders, and upon subsequent information received from the Prince of Parma, drew up an elaborate scheme for the invasion of England, and for the government of that country afterwards; a program according to which the King was to shape his course for a long time to come.  The plot was an excellent plot.  Nothing could be more artistic, more satisfactory to the prudent monarch; but time was to show whether there might not be some difficulty in the way of its satisfactory development.