In 1574, Philip II., whose bigotry and absolutist tendencies had created a terrible enemy to Spain in her Netherland possessions, began to collect a fleet of light vessels at Santander. The Duke of Alva had failed in the Low Countries, and had been succeeded by Don Luis de Requesens, who found that he could do nothing while Admiral Boisot and his flotillas held the sea. The command of the force at Santander was conferred upon Pero Menendez de Aviles, and by the summer it was nearly ready to sail. There were 24 large ships and 188 light vessels of various classes, manned by 12,000 men. Menendez, impressed by the danger in the Atlantic, was anxious to do something more than merely support Requesens. He conceived the design of seizing the Scillies and Falmouth Haven, and occupying them as naval stations. In this way he hoped, with his powerful force, to be able at once to intercept the privateers at the outset of their Atlantic voyage, and establish a solid check upon England. Though Requesens himself was aware of the danger of provoking England, Philip gave his assent. On Elizabeth’s side the now reorganized Royal Navy was prepared for mobilization, together with some fifty sail of armed merchantmen. But so great was the dissension in the Council that Requesens told Menendez that he could sail up the Channel unopposed. The attempt, made in the teeth of England’s sea-power, would probably have failed in the end; yet it might easily have had grave results, and Menendez was a commander of real genius. But he died in the midst of his final preparations, and so much had the armament depended upon his single dominating personality that it broke up. Thus a great danger to England passed away with the man who perhaps of all was best fitted to direct an attack upon her; and, as Mr. Julian Corbett points out, it is worthy of note that almost at the moment when the greatest of the Spanish ocean admirals vanishes from the scene, Francis Drake, the protagonist on the English side, comes to the front. For ten years after the death of Menendez peace nominally subsisted between England and Spain, but it was a peace that was violated every day. England, officially and unofficially, continued to assist the revolted Netherlands, and to raid Spanish and Portuguese commerce. It became an everyday affair for young Englishmen who wanted some fighting to slip across to the Low Countries. Philip countenanced plots against Elizabeth, and intrigued in England and Ireland. The exiled Queen Mary of Scotland was an ever-present source of danger. Above all, the religious side of the struggle became accentuated as time went on. In no man was militant Protestantism more incarnate than in Drake. In 1577 Elizabeth permitted him to sail on his famous raid on the Spanish Pacific Settlements, and his striking success was a new stay to the war-party. He became at once the leading figure on the English side.