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English harbours had been the home of a Dutch privateer fleet; ships built in England, armed in England, and manned by Englishmen had held the Channel under the flag of the Prince of Orange; and if Alva attempted to interfere with them, they were sheltered by English batteries. Dover had been made a second Algiers, where Spanish gentlemen were sold by public auction. The plunder of the privateers was openly disposed of in the English markets, even royal purveyors being occasionally its purchasers. Philip felt, and not without cause, that he was free in equity from any obligations to a nation which had set at defiance the usages of civilised countries, or to a government which had permitted and even aided these piratical expeditions. Open war would have been the legitimate remedy; but that did not suit his policy, and he thought that the wrongs and insults his people had sustained demanded a retribution of a more terrible character. He had also his own ends to serve on behalf of the Catholic faith, and he knew that if, while inflicting a summary though revolting punishment upon England, he could restore the people to the Church of their fathers, Catholic Europe would applaud his conduct, while the Pope would of course readily grant him pardon for any crimes he might commit for so just an end. In a word, the design he had been so long secretly maturing was nothing short of an invasion of England, the murder of Elizabeth, and the establishment of Mary Queen of Scots on the throne of that country.

Some of the old aristocracy of England, including the Duke of Norfolk, had too readily become