Into this new and free State came many of the reformed religion flying from persecution in their {61} own countries. Holland became populous. Her industries developed. Her foreign trade increased. She had a large trading fleet. It ventured into those waters round the Cape of Good Hope which the Portuguese claimed as their own. It disputed with them the trade of the islands in the Malay Archipelago. And even here the fighting took on something of a religious character, for the battle was between ships of Protestant Holland and of Catholic Portugal. Exactly the same character pertained to certain encounters of ships which began to take place more and more frequently westward of the line which the Pope's Bull had marked out to divide the sphere of Portugal from that of Spain--encounters between the ships of Elizabeth and of Philip of Spain. By the year 1581 that line lost what importance it ever had, because Philip made good, by force of arms, his rather doubtful claim to the throne of Portugal. For three reigns, lasting over sixty years, the King of Spain was King of Portugal also, although the smaller kingdom never lost her national identity. [Sidenote: England's Navy] England had begun to have a considerable fleet. She had long had necessity for ships of war to protect her exports, principally of wool, to the Continent. She was under the necessity of making her fleet stronger and stronger by reason of the growing strength, just noted, of the Dutch fleet, which came from all the ports across the Channel. And especially she had need to strengthen it since Philip, whose proposal of marriage Elizabeth had declined, threatened her with his Armadas. Hostility to England had become a religious duty in his sight. Elizabeth had been excommunicated. The Act of Supremacy, by virtue of which her father had been declared head of the Church in England, had been passed again in her favour, in order to wipe out the measures of reaction {62} towards Rome which had marked the reign of Mary. Ireland had risen in revolt in 1560, and a joint expedition of Spaniards and Italians landed to aid the rebels. They were overwhelmed and destroyed by one, Raleigh, whom Elizabeth knighted as Sir Walter.