Spain was crushed.

Sixtus V.was not a man to waste money, which he loved, in support of a losing cause.
What Froude wrote to establish, and succeeded in establishing, was that between 1529 and 1588 the Reformation saved England from the tyranny of Rome and the proud foot of a Spanish conqueror.
The true hero of Froude's History is not Henry VIII., but Cecil, the firm, incorruptible, sagacious Minister who saved Elizabeth's throne, and made England the leading anti-Catholic country.

Of a greater man than Cecil, John Knox, he was however almost an idolater.

He considered that Knox surpassed in worldly wisdom even Maitland of Lethington, who was certainly not hampered by theological prejudice.

With Puritanism itself he had much natural affinity, and as a determinist the philosophical side of Calvinism attracted him as strongly as it attracted Jonathan Edwards.