ted only for the rising in Ireland
and the revolt of the English Catholics which Pope Gregory promised him
to despatch forces from both Flanders and Spain. But the Irish rising
was over before Philip could act; and before the Jesuits could rouse
England to rebellion the Spanish king himself was drawn to a new scheme
of ambition by the death of King Sebastian of Portugal in 1580. Philip
claimed the Portuguese crown; and in less than two months Alva laid the
kingdom at his feet. The conquest of Portugal was fatal to the Papal
projects against England, for while the armies of Spain marched on
Lisbon Elizabeth was able to throw the leaders of the expected revolt
into prison and to send Campian to the scaffold. On the other hand it
raised Philip into a far more formidable foe. The conquest almost
doubled his power. His gain was far more than that of Portugal itself.
While Spain had been winning the New World her sister-kingdom had been
winning a wide though scattered dominion on the African coast, the
coast of India, and the islands of the Pacific. Less in extent, the
Portuguese settlements were at the moment of even greater value to the
mother country than the colonies of Spain. The gold of Guinea, the silks
of Goa, the spices of the Philippines made Lisbon one of the marts of
Europe. The sword of Alva had given Philip a hold on the richest trade
of the world. It had given him the one navy that as yet rivalled his
own. His flag claimed mastery in the Indian and the Pacific seas, as it
claimed mastery in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

[Sidenote: The marriage with Anjou.]

The conquest of Portugal therefore wholly changed Philip's position. It
not only doubled his power and resources, but it did this at a time when
fortune seemed everywhere wavering to his side. The provinces of the
Netherlands, which still maintained a struggle for their liberties, drew
courage from despair; and met Philip's fresh hopes of their subjection
by a solemn repudiation of his sovereignty in the summer of 1581. But
they did not dream that they could stand alone, and they sought the aid
of France by choosing as their new sovereign the Duke of Alencon, who on
his brother Henry's accession to the throne had become Duke of Anjou.
The choice was only part of a political scheme which was to bind the
whole of Western Europe together against Spain. The conquest of Portugal
had at once drawn France and England into close relations, and
Catharine of Medic