and America, owe a large share of such political liberty as they have
enjoyed to Calvinism. It may be possible for large masses of humanity to
accept for ages the idea of one infallible Church, however tyrannical but
the idea once admitted that there may be many churches; that what is
called the State can be separated from what is called the Church; the
plea of infallibility and of authority soon becomes ridiculous--a mere
fiction of political or fashionable quackery to impose upon the
uneducated or the unreflecting.

And now Essex, Raleigh and Howard, Vere, Warmond and Nassau were about to
invade the shores of the despot who sat in his study plotting to annex
England, Scotland, Ireland, France, the Dutch republic, and the German
empire to the realms of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Milan, and the Eastern
and Western Indies, over which he already reigned.

The fleet consisted of fifty-seven ships of war, of which twenty-four
were Dutch vessels under Admiral Warmond, with three thousand sailors of
Holland and Zeeland. Besides the sailors, there was a force of six
thousand foot soldiers, including the English veterans from the
Netherlands under Sir Francis Vere. There were also fifty transports
laden with ammunition and stores. The expedition was under the joint
command of Lord High Admiral Howard and of the Earl of Essex. Many noble
and knightly volunteers, both from England and the republic, were on
board, including, besides those already mentioned, Lord Thomas Howard,
son of the Duke of Norfolk, Sir John Wingfield, who had commanded at
Gertruydenburg, when it had been so treacherously surrendered to Farnese;
Count Lewis Gunther of Nassau, who had so recently escaped from the
disastrous fight with Mondragon in the Lippe, and was now continuing his
education according to the plan laid down for him by his elder brother
Lewis William; Nicolas Meetkerk, Peter Regesmortes, Don Christopher of