married Anne Boleyn in defiance of the Pope, the friendship of Spain was forfeited and at the same time the English Church was separated from that of Rome. When Elizabeth, daughter of Henry and Anne, came to the throne in 1558, Spain, as champion of Catholicism, supported the claim of Mary of Scotland, the legitimate heir in the eyes of those who denied the legality of Henry's divorce. Elizabeth, convinced that her throne was insecure while Mary lived, at last consented to her execution and Spain prepared for war. The defeat in 1588 of the "Invincible Armada" with which Philip II attempted the invasion of England, left her free to pursue colonial projects without fear of Spain's power.

In the years just preceding the war Englishmen made their first serious attempts at colonization. As lord of vacant lands under the feudal law, Queen Elizabeth in 1578 gave a patent for an American fief to Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Gilbert lost his life in a storm at sea and his plans came to nought; but within the six years allowed him for establishing a settlement, his relative, Sir Walter Raleigh, secured a renewal of the patent in his own name. In 1584 Raleigh sent an expedition to select a site for a colony on Chesapeake Bay, but his agents chose Roanoke Island, in Albemarle Sound. Several times during the next few years recruits were sent to Roanoke, but in each case, on one pretext or another, they abandoned the settlement. The last attempt was made in 1587. After landing his passengers the master of the vessel returned to England for supplies, arriving just at the moment when the country was threatened by Philip's Armada. He was detained by the war crisis, and when the colony was visited again, in 1591, the whites had disappeared. The best conjecture is that they had found homes among some friendly native tribe.

In spite of these reverses Englishmen did not lose interest in the colonization of America. They continued to discuss the benefits of "western planting," but for a time they limited their activities to an occasional trading voyage.

THE PLANTING OF VIRGINIA

One of the early acts of James I (son of the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots) who succeeded Elizabeth in 1603 was to make

peace with Spain. The peace was favorable to further attempts at colonization, for although Spain refused to acknowledge that the British had rights in America and watched the development of their plans with a jealous eye, there was no great danger that she would renew hostilities. Raleigh had exhausted his resources in his efforts at Roanoke and had fallen from grace at court. It was some of his friends, however, who decided to make a new trial. Taught by experience that great losses must be expected before profits could be realized, they abandoned the feudal grant and adopted a form of business organization which was proving a great success in the case of the British East India Company. This was the "joint-stock plan," under which the total capital was divided into shares, each of small amount, to be sold to many persons. The device brought together a larger sum than one person could command, and discouragement was much less likely to defeat an undertaking in which profits might be slow in coming.

Upon application of the promoters the King granted them (1606) a charter which created two joint-stock companies known as the "London Company" and the "Plymouth Company." To each was given a tract of land with exclusive rights of colonization and trade. The companies aimed at profit, but also hoped to benefit England and carry Christianity to the Indians. They therefore urged the public to buy stock not merely as an investment but as a patriotic and Christian duty.

It was an ill-equipped and ignorant Europe that essayed the mastery of North America. More than a century had passed since the tiny caravels of Columbus had plowed the first paths to the new "Indies," and still practically nothing was known of the geography or resources of the region to which three small ships bore the first settlers of the London Company in the spring of 1607. It was well for the English that the Atlantic margin of the continent was hospitable. A stern shore line like that of the Pacific coast, where mountains almost meet sea and harbors are few, would have repulsed them. Instead, the indentations of the shore led like open doors to a wide and fruitful plain which welcomed them with the fair promise of a genial climate and abundance.

Even so the contest with nature taxed them to the utmost.

Although, unlike the Spanish, they did not believe in fables, the Virginia colonists cherished illusions woven of the vain fabric of their dreams, hopes of producing wine, silk, and spices and of finding mines of gold and silver, hopes which diverted effort into fruitless channels when the real problem was to become acquainted with the environment and adapt themselves to it.

They began by examining the James River. Like other streams which flow into the Chesapeake from the west, the James is a broad though short river, navigable by small vessels as far as the tides ascend. The lowland, or tidewater, area of Virginia is bounded by the fall line, the edge of a more elevated plain known as the "Piedmont," which stretches away to the Blue Ridge of the Appalachians, and is cut into a number of strips or "necks" by the rivers which flow across it. Of these the chief besides the James are the York and Rappahannock, and, at the northern limit, the Potomac.

After a few days' survey of the James the settlers fixed upon the spot still called Jamestown. Nature was in her most engaging mood in this spring of the long ago, as if to welcome these suitors for the favors of the New World. The woods had again put on their luxuriant garments of green and adorned themselves with garlands of many-hued wild flowers. Through fair meadows and forests of tall and goodly trees the waters of limpid streams flowed in virgin purity. Under the verdant carpeting of the earth showed here and there the red of the luscious strawberry. At first sight the sea-worn travelers fell in love with the beauteous land. But as the summer came on supplies ran low and they did not know how to cultivate the native food crops. Bad water and insufficient food, and the malarial surroundings, brought on fevers and dysentery, from which nearly all suffered and many died. When cooler weather came, the survivors regained their strength, but they were able to procure food for the winter only by trading with the Indians for their surplus corn. With the second summer came again sickness and inability to till the soil. For several seasons this cycle of hardships recurred, and more than once it seemed the colony must be abandoned.

A few score half-starved men, weakened by illness, beset by savage foes, and quarreling among themselves, illy sheltered by miserable huts on a river-edge in the far-off wilderness, three