eyond the Mexique bay!'

Thus sung they in the English boat
A holy and a cheerful note:
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.
--_Andrew Marvell_.

BOOK II

THE SAILING AGE

PART I

THE SPANISH WAR

(1568-1596)

CHAPTER VIII

OLD SPAIN AND NEW

(1492-1571)

Just as Germany tried to win the overlordship of the world in this
twentieth century so Spain tried in the sixteenth; and just as the
Royal Navy was the chief, though by no means the biggest, force that
has won the whole world's freedom from the Germans now, so the Royal
Navy was the chief force that won world-freedom from the Spaniards then.

Spaniards and Portuguese, who often employed Italian seamen, were the
first to begin taking oversea empires. They gained footholds in places
as far apart as India and America. Balboa crossed the Isthmus of
Panama and waded into the Pacific, sword in hand, to claim it for the
King of Spain. A Portuguese ship was the first to go right round the
world. The Spaniards conquered all Central and great parts of North
and South America. The Portuguese settled in Brazil.

While this was going on abroad France and England were taken up with
their own troubles at home and with each other. So Spain and Portugal
had it all their own way for a good many years. The Spanish Empire was
by far the biggest in the world throughout the sixteenth century.
Charles V, King of Spain, was heir to several other crowns, which he
passed on to his son, Philip II. Charles was the sovereign lord of
Spain, of what are Belgium and Holland now, and of the best parts of
Italy. He was elected Emperor of Germany, which gave him a great hold
on that German "Middle Europe" which, stretching from the North Sea to
the Adriatic, cut the rest in two. Besides this he owned large parts
of Africa. And then, to crown it all, he won what seemed best worth
having in Central, North, and South America.

[Illustration: The _Santa Maria_, flagship of Christopher Columbus when
he discovered America in 1492. Length of keel, 60 feet. Length of
ship proper, 93 feet. Length over all, 128 feet. Breadth, 26 feet.
Tonnage, full displacement, 233.]

France and England had something to say about this. Francis I wrote
Charles a pretty plain letter. "Your Majesty and the King of Portugal
have divided the world between you, offering no part of it to me. Show
me, I pray you, the will of our fa