Walter Mildmay

"England, our native country, one of the most renowned monarchies in the world, against which the Pope beareth a special eye of envy and malice: envy for the wealth and peace that we enjoy through the goodness of Almighty God...[and] malice for the religion of the Gospel which we profess, whereby the dignity of his triple crown is almost shaken in pieces...Their [our enemies'] scope is by invasion and rebellion to subdue and conquer all, with purpose, as it seemeth, to root out from them [Britain and Ireland] the English nation for ever. And if it fall not out according to their desires — as, with God's help, it never shall — yet at the least they will do their best to trouble the Queen and her State, to burn, to spoil, to kill, to rob...By sea is one of the things we ought chiefly to regard, being rightly termed the wall of England; for which her Majesty, with her provident care, is so furnished with great and good shipping...as in no age the like, and such and so many as no Prince in Christendom may compare with."