rebellious subjects in Belgium. Maddened to ferocity by the failure of
his plans, he devoted the whole people to destruction, and he sent his
best-equipped armies, under the terrible Duke of Alva, to devastate
the cities of the dikes as Pizarro had destroyed the homes of the
Incas. After innumerable atrocities, and the wholesale slaughter of
men, women, and children, the remnant of freedom was preserved by the
obstinacy of the Dutch burghers, the wise policy of William the
Silent, the aid of the sea, and the succor furnished by Elizabeth.

[Illustration: _The Spanish Armada_]

13. Here, again, was practical defeat. His cherished purposes were
thwarted, and the high hope of his life was gone. Nothing was left but
despair and revenge. At this time Philip began to exhibit in a marked
degree the madness which overshadowed the last years of his life. His
hatred of England grew from day to day, and at last took shape in a
determination to make one supreme effort to conquer his rival, and to
check the rising free thought of the English people. For years the
preparations went, on for the great conflict, and in 1588, twenty
years after the accession of Elizabeth to the throne, everything was
ready.

ENGLAND'S POWER TO RESIST THE ARMADA.

14. And what of England and of her ability to resist this formidable
attack? For a hundred years before the beginning of the sixteenth
century, the civil wars of the Roses had desolated the country and put
an end to national growth. For the next fifty years, and until the
commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, violence and bloodshed were so
common that the population barely maintained its own. In 1588 the