“The state of international relations in the sixteenth century is hardly conceivable at this day. The Puritans of England and the Huguenots of France regarded Spain as their natural enemy, and on the high seas and in the British Channel they joined hands with godless freebooters to rifle her ships, kill her sailors, or throw them alive into the sea. Spain on her side seized English Protestant sailors who ventured into her ports, and burned them as heretics, or consigned them to a living death in the dungeons of the Inquisition. Yet in the latter half of the century these mutual outrages went on for years while the nations professed to be at peace. There was complaint, protest, and occasional menace, but no redress, and no declaration of war.”

—  Francis Parkman

Pt. I, Ch. 9 Charles IX and Philip II
Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The state of international relations in the sixteenth century is hardly conceivable at this day. The Puritans of Englan…" by Francis Parkman?
Francis Parkman photo
Francis Parkman28
American historian 1823–1893

Related quotes

Francis Parkman photo

“In the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain was the incubus of Europe. Gloomy and portentous, she chilled the world with her baneful shadow.”

Francis Parkman (1823–1893) American historian

Pt. I, Ch. 2 Villegagnon
Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley photo

“He [King Philip II of Spain] is the mightiest enemy that England ever had, mightier than his father, the emperor Charles, or any other monarch of Christendom was these many years. … Her Majesty's special and most proper defence must be by ships. For ships of England, her Majesty is of her own proper ships so strong as the enemy shall not be able to land any power where her Majesty's navy shall be near to the enemy's navy. The ships of her subjects are also at this day both in number, in strength, in all captains and mariners, stronger than ever they were in memory of man.”

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1520–1598) English statesman

Memorandum of February, 1588.
Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London: Jonathan Cape, 1960), pp. 418-9.

Clement Attlee photo

“In regard to…action in the South Atlantic, we all desire to join in the tribute paid to the gallantry of our sailors. It is one of the almost inevitable conditions of sea warfare that so much of the fighting is done between adversaries of very different strengths, and the way in which our ships, despite their smaller gun-power, tackled and stuck to this very powerful enemy vessel and forced her to take refuge, is worthy of the highest traditions of the British Navy.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1939/dec/14/the-war#S5CV0355P0_19391214_HOC_265 in the House of Commons (14 December 1939) after the Battle of the River Plate where the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee was forced to harbour by the Royal Navy <br class="br">Leader of the Opposition

Peter Paul Rubens photo

“[on the high seas] the English are increasing their insolence and barbarity. [T]hey cut to pieces the captain of a ship coming from Spain and threw all the crew into the sea for having defended themselves valiantly.”

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) Flemish painter

In a letter to Pierre Dupuy, 7 June 1627; as quoted by Simon Schrama, in Rembrandt's eyes, Alfred A. Knopf - Borzoi Books, New York 1999, p. 244
1625 - 1640

Matilda Joslyn Gage photo

“An examination of history proves that in Christian Russia as in Christian England the husband could release himself from the marriage bond by killing his wife, over whom under Christian law he had power of life and death. Her children, as to-day in Christian England and America, are not under her control; she is to bear children but not to educate them, for as under Catholic and Protestant Christianity, women are looked upon as a lower order of beings, of an unclean nature.”

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898) American abolitionist, writer

Source: Woman, Church and State (1893), pp. 380-381

Gordon Lightfoot photo

“Some say he was a sailor who died away at sea
Some say he was a prisoner who never was set free
Lost upon the ocean he died there in the mist
Dreaming of a kiss
Bitter Green they called her walking in the sun
Loving everyone that she met
Bitter Green they called her waiting in the sun
Waiting for someone to take her home”

Gordon Lightfoot (1938) Canadian singer-songwriter

Bitter Green, Track 4, UNITED ARTISTS
Back Here On Earth (1968)

“Night threw her shadow on the world. Sailors out at sea looked up at the circling Bear and the stars of Orion. Travellers and watchmen longed for sleep, and oblivion came at last to mothers mourning for their children's death. In the town, dogs ceased to bark and men to call to one another; silence reigned over the deepening dark. But gentle sleep did not visit Medea. In her yearning for Jason, fretful cares kept her awake. She feared the great strength of the bulls; she saw him face them in the field of Ares; she saw him meet an ignominious end. Her heart fluttered within her, restless…”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 744–755

Lucy Stone photo

“While the law dealt thus with her in regard to her property, it dealt still more hardly with her in regard to her children. No married mother could have any right to her child, and in most of the states of the Union that is the law to-day. But the law's in regard to the personal and property rights of women have been greatly changed and improved, and we are very grateful to the men who have done it.”

Lucy Stone (1818–1893) American abolitionist and suffragist

The Progress of Fifty Years (1893)

“Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Related topics