Nor was that plan at all chimerical, nor its realization improbable. Spain was at that time in possession of Portugal, Naples, Sicily, Milan, Franche-Compte, and the Netherlands; in Africa she controlled Tunis, Oran, the Cape Verde and the Canary islands; in Asia, the Philippine and Sunda Islands and part of the Moluccas; in the New World, the empire of Peru, and of Mexico, New Spain, Chili, Hispaniola and Cuba. Only England held out against the power of Spain and stood adamantine to all her threats, cajolery, caresses. Only England stood between Philip II. of Spain and Spanish dominance in the old and in the New World. English buccaneers seized upon his galleons on their return gem-laden from Peru and Mexico. Drake the “master robber of the New World” had signally dishonored Philip of Spain and had in requital been honored by the English queen with the title _Sir Francis_. England must be destroyed (Britannia delenda est.) Spain seemed powerful enough by land and by sea to be as a new Rome to old Carthage: but winds and waves and rocky coasts and adamantine Englishmen reversed the Roman story (Britannia non deleta est.) THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. “What we _appear_ is subject to the judgment Of all mankind; and what we _are_, of no man.” _Schiller in “Mary Stuart.”_ These lines upon the lips of Elizabeth Tudor are her condemnation in the judgment of all mankind. Short sighted, indeed, and headed directly towards the rapids of the all revealing Real is the mortal who thus honors appearances. Elizabeth would have Mary Stuart put to death, but would _seem_ to have tried to save her: Elizabeth would sign the death warrant, but would _seem_ to have been constrained, to have done so regretfully, to have recalled the fatal sentence when, alas! too late. But all this flimsy Seeming has been blown away by the rugged years; and that which this Machiavellian queen thought subject to the judgment of no man has become her condemnation in the eyes of all. So close they lie together now in old Westminster Abbey--these rival queens who once so cordially feared and hated one another! and for whose conflicting ambitions all Britain was not room enough, but one must die! How ignoble seems now the strife, how despicable the deed of culminant hate, how diaphanous all the Seeming! Was it worth while? The death of Mary, Queen of Scots, at the hands of her cousin Queen Elizabeth aroused a feeling of angry indignation in every court of Europe. France, Spain, and the Vatican, openly denounced the deed. And it was, in great measure, in execration of this unnatural cruelty that Pope Sextus V. espoused the cause of Philip II. of Spain and urged and aided the invasion of England.