Excerpt from Treason and Plot: Struggles for Catholic Supremacy in the Last Years of Queen Elizabeth
The adoption of the Reformation by England was an event which did not alone concern the nation itself, but threw out of balance the whole edifice of European power, built upon traditional alliances and international policies that had survived for centuries. However much it may have suited the temporal ends of Spanish monarchs to incite their subjects to religious exaltation, it was not crusading zeal or spiritual fervour which impelled them for half a century to lavish the blood and substance of their countries, and to exhaust every expedient, from marriage to murder, for the purpose of bringing England back to the Catholic fold. A Protestant England and a divided Germany inevitably meant the decadence and final ruin of the great Spanish empire which the Catholic sovereigns had reared upon a base of bigotry.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Martin Andrew Sharp Hume, (1843 -1910) born Martin Andrew Sharp, was an English historian and longtime resident of Spain.
After some practice in journalism, he meanwhile produced his first book, A Chronicle of King Henry VIII of England (1889), a translation from the Spanish. Though this attracted little attention, Hume persevered, and The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth; a History of the Various Negotiations for her Marriage, and The Year after the Armada, and other Historical Studies, both issued in 1896, were received with a degree of popular favour which led him to adopt authorship as a profession. In 1897, he published Sir Walter Ralegh and Philip II of Spain, the latter monograph showing insight and independence of view.
Next year Hume succeeded Pascual de Gayangos at the Public Record Office as editor of the Spanish State Papers, and did sound work in this capacity. However, his official duties did not absorb all his energies. In 1898, he published The Great Lord Burghley, a readable study, and Spain, its Greatness and Decay, 1479–1789, a useful historical outline, which he completed in the following year by the publication of Modern Spain, 1788-1898 (1899 ; new edit. 1906).