redress in London were perhaps protracted so long by contradictory averments, that the decision might be too late for any purpose, either of compensation to the sufferers, or of the execution of justice on the wrongdoers.

Francis Drake was perhaps the most distinguished among these freebooters, whom the spirit of maritime adventure sent forth, and who afterwards signally served their country by a more honourable exercise of their knowledge and valour. His first expedition in 1572, in which he attacked Nombre de Dios, displays a most lively picture of an union of watchfulness, activity, caution, and resolution, which, though they were then applied by him to the purposes of robbery, are in themselves qualities by which friends are protected, enemies are quelled, and men in general are ruled. In a hazardous journey across the isthmus of Panama, his Indian guides showed him from the top of a high mountain the South Sea, which no English vessel had ever entered. He secretly resolved on sailing in an English vessel on that sea, and with that mixture of piety, which forms so strong a contrast with his ordinary occupations, falling on his knees and lifting up his hands to heaven, implored the blessing of God upon the enterprise on which he had just determined.† An event occurred in his second voyage so characteristic of the spirit and manners of the age that it seems worthy of being related in the words of an eye-witness. "In this port (St. Julian) our general began to enquire diligently into the actions of Mr. Thomas Doughty, the second in command, and found them not to be such as he looked for,

The

The complaints of pillaged merchants of both countries formed the subject of a large part of the correspondence between the two courts. negotiations of Man, the English ambassador at Madrid, in 1564, remaining in the State Paper Office, chiefly apply to complaints of English merchants of piracy and other grievances. On the other hand, we find Elizabeth obliged, in 1573, by the clamours of Spanish and Portuguese merchants, to issue commissions of enquiry into their complaints. See Rymer, xv. 719. 721. +"E montibus Mare Australe conspexit: huic homo, gloriæ opumque cupiditate inflammatus, navigandi mare illud tanto flagravit ardore, ut eo loci in genua procumbens, divinam opem imploraret ad mare illud aliquando navigandum et explorandum, et ad hoc voti religione se obstrinxit."Camd. ii. 352.

but tending rather to contention or mutiny, whereby the success of the voyage might be hazarded. Whereupon the company were called together, and made acquainted with the particulars of the cause, which were found partly by Doughty's confession, and partly by the evidence of the fact, to be true; which when our general saw, although his private affection for Mr. Doughty (as he then in the presence of us all sacredly protested) was great, yet that the care he had of the state of the voyage, of the expectations of her majesty, and of the honour of his country, did more touch him (as indeed it ought) than the private respect to one man; so that the cause being thoroughly heard, and all things done in good order as near as might be to the course of our laws in England, it was concluded that Mr. Doughty should receive punishment according to the quality of his offence; and he seeing no remedy but patience, desired to receive the communion, which he did at the house of Mr. Fletcher, our minister, and our general himself accompanied him in that holy action, which being done, and the place of execution made ready, he having embraced our general, and taken leave of all the company, with prayers for the queen's majesty and her realm, in quiet sort laid his head to the block, where he ended his life." * The expedition of Drake in 1577 has become memorable as the first in which the commander accomplished in his own person the circumnavigation of this planet. For Magalhanes, though he perfected the practical demonstration of the earth's spherical form, having by a western route reached the Moluccas,— the navigation to which by the Cape of Good Hope had become familiar, yet having been killed in those islands on his return to Europe in 1521, had completed his fame indeed, but without perfectly attaining his object. After an interval of sixty years, in which discovery slumbered, this achievement was performed by Drake, who, in this respect more fortunate than the discoverer, reached in 1580 by the southern promontory of Africa

* Hakluyt, 643, 644.

the port of Plymouth, from which he had sailed three years before by the road round Cape Horn. Drake was directly encouraged in this enterprise by his sovereign, who said to him before he sailed, "We do account that he which striketh at thee, Drake, striketh at us." * After his return Elizabeth dined with him on board his own vessel, on which occasion she conferred on him the honour of knighthood. The pertinency of many of the particulars which have been now related to the subsequent history of this reign, independently of their immeasurable importance as a part of the history of human civilisation, will appear evident to the reader from the fact that ten years afterwards, when England was exposed to one of the most tremendous dangers which she ever encountered, sir Francis Drake, sir John Hawkins, and sir Martin Frobisher were the efficient commanders of a fleet to which the salvation of their country was intrusted.

CHAP. IV.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

1565-1577.

WE have thus endeavoured to trace the guarded steps by which the queen of England advanced, as well as some of the various means by which she was gradually prepared to venture beyond the boundaries of her wary system, and to take a decisive part in the commotions of Europe. As in the period of her caution, so in that of her energy, her strength consisted in acting at the head of her people. She was a demagogue. In that character her sway began to spread among protestants of every nation. Her sex perhaps partly prevented her pursuit of popularity from lowering her dignity; her com+ Ibid. 809.

* Stowe, 807.

Camd. ii. 573.

manding genius, and her power of arming herself with sternness, contributed much more to the same effect.

The first movement of the human mind in the sixteenth century which may be called Lutheran, was very distinguishable from the religious convulsions which afterwards ensued. The German reformation was effected by princes in form subordinate, in fact independent. As soon as the revolt of the boors was suppressed, the new religion coalesced with the established government as perfectly as the ancient faith had before done. All changes were introduced by legal authority, and the same power restrained them within their original limits. If some German states had not adopted a Calvinistic system, which gave rise to the distinction between "Evangelicals and Reformed," there would have been no inlet left for toleration among the rigid doctors of the Saxon reform. But after a time, being most reluctantly compelled to make common cause against the church of Rome, they very slowly learned the necessity of extending the boundaries of toleration beyond those of common belief. The principle of the Lutherans was the right of the civil ruler to reform religion, and to maintain it as it was reformed. Laws had established Lutheranism: it had been the object of negotiation, and consequently liable to some compromise. Treaties had secured the religion of each separate state. At the point where we now pause, the face of Germany was calm, and its general quiet was for many years after undisturbed.

The second religious movement, called Calvinistic, was of more popular origin, and rose in defiance of the authorities of the world. In France and the Low Countries, its principal seat, it had to struggle with bigoted sovereigns and cruel laws. The reformation was indeed every where connected with civil liberty. But among the Lutherans the connection was long invisible, and the fruits of it very slowly ripened. Among the French and Belgic Calvinists who were obliged to resist the civil as well as the ecclesiastical superiors, the connection of civil and religious liberty was no longer

indirect. It forced itself on the eyes and hearts of all protestants. It had long before been foretold that a revolt against the ancient authority of the church would shake the absolute power of monarchs to its foundation. But it was not till princes became religious persecutors that persecuted subjects enquired into the source and boundaries of political power. The Calvinists resisted their monarch in order to defend themselves. The wars, whether we call them foreign or civil, were fiercer and more bloody, but especially more disorderly, lawless, and irreconcilable than those which had distracted Germany in the reign of Charles V. National attachments were more nearly dissolved. Agreement in religion grew to be the prevalent principle of union; and dissension on that subject became an incentive to hatred over which the ties of country and kindred were often unable to prevail. The protestants of France, Britain, and Belgium forgot their national jealousies amidst the fervour of religious attachment. The inquisitors of Spain embraced the leaguers of France as their brethren by a dearer tie than that of a common country. A civil war between the catholic and protestant factions spread over a considerable portion of Europe. Germany was restrained by the circumstances which have been mentioned. Italy was enslaved by Spain. Elizabeth, after she had suppressed all hostility in Great Britain, brought the whole of the united strength of her people to the aid of the continental protestants.

Her first exertions, conformably to the maxims of her policy at that time, were limited and guarded. Something has already been said of the proscriptive edicts of Henry II. against the protestants, who were termed huguenots in France, from a German word used in Switzerland, which signifies bound to each other by oaths. * The house of Bourbon led the huguenots, the house of Lorrain was at the head of the catholics. the spring of 1560 the protestants, with other chiefs who were weary of the domination of the princes of * Eidgenossen- Conjurati.

In