86. The fate and exploits of the Armada are graphically summed up in the emphatic language of Sir Francis Drake. "It is happily manifested," he says, "indeed, to all nations how their navy which they termed _invincible_, consisting of nearly one hundred and forty sail of ships, were by thirty of her Majesty's ships of war, and a few of our own merchants, by the wise and advantageous conduct of Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of England, beaten and shuffled together from Lizard in Cornwall to Portland, from Portland to Calais; and from Calais, driven by squibs from their anchors, were chased out of sight of England, round about Scotland and Ireland. With all their great and terrible ostentation, they did not, in all their sailing round about England, so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cock-boat of ours, or even burn so much as one sheep-cote on the land." CHAPTER VIII. _FREEDOM'S VOYAGE TO AMERICA._ DISSENT AND PERSECUTION. 1. Through the middle ages England, like the rest of the world, had been in full communion with the Church of Rome. When the Reformation had swept over Europe and left dissent to crystallize into various Protestant sects, England too had dissented, and her king had established the Anglican Church. This church, when it assumed final form, had for its supreme head, not the pope, but the king, and under him the clergy held their offices. The Roman Catholic ritual was not, as in some of the European sects, entirely given up, but was modified to suit the new order. And when the change was effected, the new ministers firm in their positions, the new service-books ready for use, then the Catholics were summarily ordered to embrace the reformed faith. 2. At that time it had not dawned upon the world that there might be more than one way to worship God in truth. Catholics honestly believed that Protestants were going straight to perdition, and Protestants as honestly believed that a like fate was in store for the pope and his followers. When this was the temper of conviction, the natural thing for each church to do was to persecute every other; not from hate, but from the benevolent determination to oblige men to accept the true religion and save their souls, even though it might be necessary in the course of proceedings to burn their bodies. Mixed with this legitimate missionary spirit were all sorts of political motives. The church, whether Catholic or Protestant, was closely connected with the state, and through all the corruptions of party politics religion had to be dragged.