n "the people were swarming daily in the
streets to behold their Captain Drake and vowing hatred to all that
misliked him."

To crown everything, the _Golden Hind_ came round to London, where she
was the wonder of the day, and when the Queen herself went aboard to a
state banquet at which she knighted the hero of the sea: "I bid thee
rise, Sir Francis Drake!"

CHAPTER X

THE SPANISH ARMADA

(1588)

By 1580, the year of Drake's return, Spain and England were fast moving
toward the war that had been bound to come ever since the Old World had
found the riches of the New.

The battle grounds of rival sea-powers had been shifting farther and
farther west since history began. Now the last step was to come. We
have seen already that the centre of the world's sea trade had moved
for thousands of years from south-eastern Asia toward north-western
Europe, and that in the fifteenth century it was pretty well divided
between Venice and the Hansa Towns. This was only natural, because
Venice was in the middle of southern Europe and the Hansa Towns were in
the middle of northern Europe. The two were therefore well placed to
receive, store, and distribute the bulk of the oversea trade. In a
word, Venice (on the Adriatic) and the Hansa Towns (mostly on what is
now the German coast) were the great European central junctions of
oversea trade; while the Atlantic states of Spain and Portugal, France
and England were only terminal points, that is, they were at the end of
the line; for the Atlantic ended the world to the west.

The discovery of a rich New World changed all that. Venice and the
Hansa Towns became only stations by the way; while the new grand
central junction of the world was bound to be somewhere among the
Atlantic states of England, France, Portugal, and Spain. When these
four countries became rivals for this junction England won, partly
because she had the advantage of being an island, and thus safe from
invasion by land, but mostly because her men were of the fighting
kindred of the sea. Yet she had to fight hard to win; she had to fight
hard to keep what she won; and we all know how hard she has just had to
fight again for the real "Freedom of the Seas."

Her first great rival, Spain, was stronger than ever in 1580, because
it was then that Philip II added Portugal, as well as all the oversea
possessions of Portugal to his own enormous empire. He felt that if he
could only conquer England, then th