In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Invention of the British Empire

by Laurence Bergreen

won admiration from a most unlikely source, Pope Sixtus V, who offered compliments tinged with regret: “She certainly is a great queen. Were she only a Catholic, she would be our dearly beloved. Just look how well she governs,” he exclaimed. “She is only a woman—only mistress of half an island—and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all.” This cantankerous and unattractive pontiff was smitten by the heretical queen. “A pity we cannot marry, she and I, for our children would have ruled the world,” he lamented. Nor was he alone. English