Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/251

LASTING INFLUENCE OF THE PAPAL BULL 197 ical struggles. The punishment provided by the Bull of 1493 was excommunication; and to sovereigns like our Henry VIII, who had broken or were about to break with the Roman See on other grounds, the sen- tence ceased to have terrors. To James I, and to Prot- estant rulers like Cromwell or the champions of Flemish and Dutch liberty, the Bull was null and void. Meanwhile the Papal settlement had passed into the public law of Europe. It is not needful here to inquire whether the Bull of 1493 was only ad spiritualia. The treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 and the Convention of Saragossa in 1529, practically, although not expressly based upon it, were diplomatic facts backed by power- ful armies. If Henry VULL had challenged the principle of the Bull embodied in these instruments, he would have run the gauntlet of Portugal, Spain, and the empire. If Elizabeth had as queen openly encroached within the Spanish line, she would have had to reckon with Philip n. It did not suit her to do so until urged on by his war preparations and emboldened by the destruction of his Armada. During nearly a century England tried to reach India by every possible route not precluded by the treaties which gave effect to the Bull through the ice-bound seas of the northwest and the northeast, overland across Russia by means of the Muscovy Company, and due east, as we shall presently find, by way of the Sultan's dominions and the Levant. The other Protestant sea-power of northern Europe had adopted a similar policy. As early as 1565 the Dutch established a factory, or trading-post, at Kola