faiths and acknowledged still the old mysteries included many of the most
essentially religious spirits of the time. If the Protestants won a new
freedom, the Catholics acquired a new fervour and on the whole a new
spirituality. For both Catholic and Protestant, religion meant something
which had been lacking to latter-day mediaevalism: something for which it
was worth while to fight and to die, and--a much harder matter than dying
--to sever the bonds of friendship and kinship. That these things should
have needed to be done was an evil; that men should have become ready to do
them was altogether good. The Reformation brought not peace but a sword;
Religion was but one of the motives which made men partisans of either
side; yet that it became a motive at all meant that they had realised it as
an essential necessity in their lives.

[Sidenote: The New World]

It is hardly necessary to dwell at length on the magnitude of the
maritime expansion; the Map [Footnote: See Map 1]is more eloquent than
words. In 1485 the coasts that were known to Europeans were those of
Europe, the Levant, and North Africa. Only such rare adventurers as
Marco Polo had penetrated Asia outside the ancient limits of the Roman
Empire. In 1603, the globe had been twice circumnavigated by Englishmen.
Portuguese fleets dominated the Indian waters; there were Portuguese
stations both on the West Coast of India and in the Bay of Bengal;
Portuguese and Spaniards were established in the Spice Islands whence
there was an annual trade round the Cape with the Spanish Peninsula:
the English East India Company was already incorporated, and its first
fleet, commanded by Captain Lancaster, had opened up the same waters
for English trade. Mexico and Peru and the West Indies were Spanish
posses-*