Anonymous

REIGN OF ELIZABETH (concluded).

State of Europe on the Death of Mary—Preparations of Philip of Spain—Exploits of English Sailors—Drake Singes the King of Spain's Beard—Preparations against the Armada—Loyalty of the Roman Catholics—Arrival of the Armada in the Channel—Its Disastrous Course and Complete Destruction—Elizabeth at Tilbury—Death of Leicester—Persecution of the Puritans and Catholics—Renewed Expeditions against Spain—Accession of Henry of Navarre to the French Throne—He is helped by Elizabeth—Essex takes Cadiz—His Quarrels with the Cecils—His Second Expedition and Rupture with the Queen—Troubles in Ireland—Essex appointed Lord-Deputy—His Failure—The Essex Rising—Execution of Essex—Mountjoy in Ireland—The Debate on Monopolies—Victory of Mountjoy—Weakness of Elizabeth—Her last illness and Death.

Among all these equivocations Elizabeth displayed her usual ability, and prevented the only thing which she feared—a coalition between Scotland, France, and Spain, to avenge the death of the Scottish queen. James of Scotland was readily checked, being of a pusillanimous character, and fonder of money than of the life and honour of his mother. Henry III. of France, as Elizabeth well knew, was too much beset by difficulties to be formidable. His course was now fast running to a close. Civil war was raging in his kingdom; and we may here anticipate a little to take a view of his end. His feud with the Guises grew to such a pitch, that, to rid himself of them, he determined to assassinate their leaders, the duke and cardinal, the cousins of the late Queen of Scots. For this purpose, near the close of 1588, he assembled a body of assassins in the Castle of Blois, where he privately distributed daggers to forty-five of them. The Duke of Guise was invited to the fatal feast, and murdered at the very door of the king's chamber (December 23). The next day his brother, the cardinal, was also slain. But this infamous action only procured the destruction of Henry himself. The Papists, exasperated by the murder of their chiefs, were infuriated. The Pope excommunicated the king, and the clergy absolved the people from their oath of allegiance; and on August 2, 1589, Henry was assassinated by a fanatic monk of the name of Jacques Clement, whilst besieging his own capital.

But not so readily was Philip of Spain disposed of. He was crafty and powerful, and remembered the conduct of Elizabeth, who, from the very commencement of her reign, while professing friendship and high regard for him, had done all in her power to strip him of the Netherlands. She had supported his insurgent subjects with both money and troops; and at this time her favourite, Leicester, at the head of an army, was enjoying the rule of the revolted territory called the United Provinces, as governor-general. Not only in Europe, but in the new regions of South America, she carried on the same system of invasion and plunder by some of the greatest naval captains of the age—all still without any declaration of war. Besides, Mary had left to him her claim on the English throne, and Philip had accepted it, thereby alienating the King of Scotland. Philip did not hesitate to denounce Elizabeth as a murderer, and excited amongst his subjects a most intense hatred of her, both as a heretic and a woman oppressive and unjust, and stained with kindred and regal blood. In vain did she attempt to mollify his resentment by recalling Leicester from the Netherlands, and alluring a native prince, the Prince of Orange, to take his place. She opened, through Burleigh, negotiations with Spain, and sent a private mission to the Prince of Parma, in the Netherlands. There was a great suspicion in the minds of the Dutch and Flemings that she meant to give up the cause of Protestantism there, and to sell the cautionary towns which she held to Spain. But fortunately for them, Philip was too much incensed to listen to her overtures, and had now made up his mind to the daring project of invading England. News of actual preparations for this purpose on a vast scale convinced Elizabeth that pacification was hopeless, and she resumed her predatory measures against Spain and its colonies.

To obtain a clear idea of the causes which, independent of the continual attempts of Elizabeth to break the yoke of Spain in the Low Countries, had so exasperated Philip, we must refer to the marauding expeditions of Hawkins, Cavendish, and Drake—men whose names have descended to our day as types of all that is enterprising, daring, and successful in the naval heroes of England. They were men who, like most of the prominent persons of that time, had no very nice ideas of international justice or honesty, but had courage which shrank from no attempt, however arduous, and ability to achieve what even now are regarded as little short of miracles. Whilst in Europe they were Royal commanders, in the distant seas of America they were, to all intents and purposes, pirates and buccaneers.

Sir John Hawkins has the gloomy fame of being the originator of the African slave trade (1562). He made three voyages to the African coast, where he bartered his goods for cargoes of negroes, which he carried to the Spanish settlements in America, and sold them for hides, sugar, ginger, and pearls. This traffic, which afterwards increased to such terrific and detestable dimensions, was so extremely profitable that Elizabeth fitted out two ships and sent them under his command. On this his third voyage, however, Hawkins was surprised by the Spanish admiral in the Bay of St. Juan de Ulloa. A desperate engagement took place, and Hawkins's fleet, with all his treasure, was captured or destroyed except two, one of which afterwards went down at sea, the only one returning home being a little bark of fifty tons, called Judith, and commanded by one Francis Drake. Elizabeth, of course, lost her whole venture in the slave trade.

But this Francis Drake, destined to win a great name, could not rest under the defeat in the bay of Ulloa and the loss of his booty. He obtained interest enough to fit out a little fleet, and also made three voyages, like Hawkins, to the Spanish American settlements. In the logic of that age, it was quite right to plunder any people of a particular nation in return for a loss by aggrieved persons of another nation; and Drake felt himself authorised to seize Spanish property wherever he could find it. In his first two voyages he was not eminently successful; but the third, in 1572, made him ample amends. He took and plundered the town of Nombre de Dios, captured about 100 little vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, and made an expedition inland, where, ascending a mountain in Darien, he caught sight of the Pacific, and became inflamed with a desire to sail into that sea and plunder the Spanish settlements there. He captured in March of 1573 a convoy of mules laden with gold and silver, and in October reached England with his plunder.

This success awoke the cupidity of his countrymen. Elizabeth embarked 1,000 crowns in a fresh expedition, which was supported by Walsingham, Hatton, and others of her ministers. In 1577 Drake set out for the Spanish Main with five ships and 160 men. In this voyage he pursued steadily his great idea of adventures in the Pacific, coasted the Brazils, passed the straits of Magellan, and reached Santiago, from which place to Lima he found the coast unprotected, and took the vessels and plundered the towns at will. Among his prizes was a Spanish merchantman of great value, which he captured in the spring of 1579. By this time, however, the Spaniards had sent out a squadron to meet and intercept him at the straits; and Drake, becoming aware of it, took the daring resolution of sailing to the Moluccas, and so home by the Cape of Good Hope. The hardihood of this determination we can scarcely at this day realise, for it implied the circumnavigation of the globe, which had never yet been accomplished, Magellan himself having perished on his voyage at the Philippines. Drake, however, reached Plymouth safely, on the 3rd of November, 1580, after a voyage of three years. The dangers and hardships which he had endured in this unprecedented exploit may be conceived from the fact that only one of his five vessels reached home with him; but that vessel contained a treasure of £800,000.

Elizabeth was in a great strait. The wealth which Drake had brought, and of which she expected an ample share, was too agreeable a thing to allow her to quarrel with the acquirer; but the ravages which he had committed on a Power not openly at war with her, were too flagrant to be acknowledged. For four months, therefore, Drake remained without any public acknowledgment of his services, further than his ship being placed in the dock at Plymouth, as a trophy of his bold circumnavigation of the globe. At length the queen consented to be present at a banquet which Drake gave on board, and she there broke from her duplicity by knighting him on the spot (1581). A tithe of the enormous amount of money was distributed as prize among the officers and men; the Spanish ambassador, who had laid claim to the whole as stolen property, was appeased by a considerable sum; and the huge remainder was shared by the queen, her favourites, and the fortunate commander.

It was not long before Sir Francis Drake was placed in commission and sent out as the queen's own admiral against Spain. In 1585 he sailed for the West Indies with a fleet of twenty-one ships, where he burnt down the town of St. Iago, ravaged Carthagena and St. Domingo, and committed other mischief. The following year Thomas Cavendish followed in Drake's track, with three ships which he had built out of the wreck of his fortune, and reaching the Spanish Main, committed many depredations. In 1587 he secured the freight of gold and silver of a large Manila merchantman, and returned home by the new route which Drake had pointed out.

These terrible chastisements of the Spanish colonies had embittered the mind of Philip and his subjects even beyond the warfare of the Netherlands; and he was now steadily preparing that mighty force and that host of vessels by which he vowed to prostrate the power of the heretic queen, and reduce the British Islands to the Spanish yoke and to the yoke of the Papal Church. Elizabeth, having endeavoured in vain to arrange a peace, buckled on the armour of her spirit, and determined to meet the danger with a fearless front. She despatched Drake with a fleet of thirty vessels to examine the Spanish harbours where these means of invasion were preparing, and to destroy all that he could come at. No task could have delighted him more. On the 18th of April, 1587, he entered the roads of Cadiz, and discovering upwards of eighty vessels, attacked, sank, and destroyed them all. He then sailed out again, and running along the coast as far as Cape St. Vincent, demolished above a hundred vessels, and, besides other injuries, battered down four forts. This Drake called "singeing the King of Spain's beard." In the Tagus he encountered the Grand Admiral of Spain, Santa Cruz, but could not bring him to an engagement, owing to the orders which the admiral had received; but he captured, in his very teeth, the St. Philip, one of the finest ships of Spain, and laden with the richest merchandise. Santa Cruz took it so much to heart that he was not permitted to engage Drake, that he is said to have died shortly afterwards of sheer mortification.

When Drake returned from this expedition he was received by the public with acclamation; but Elizabeth was perfectly frightened by the extent of the calamities inflicted, believing that they would only rouse Philip to more inveterate hostility—and in that she was right. She actually made an apology to the Prince of Parma, Philip's general in the Netherlands, for the deeds of Drake, assuring him that she had sent him out only to guard against any attacks on herself. Farnese replied that he could well believe anything of a man bred as Drake had been in piracy, and professed still to be ready to make peace. But Philip was in no pacific mood. He was now eagerly employed in forwarding his huge preparations; and the name of the Spanish Armada began to sound familiarly in England. He prevailed on the Pope to issue a new bull of excommunication against Elizabeth, and to advance him large sums of money for this holy enterprise, which was to restore these rich but recreant islands to the Holy See. He collected his best vessels into the Spanish ports, and went on industriously building others in all the ports of Spain, Portugal, and those portions of the Netherlands now belonging to him. He collected all the vessels that his Sicilian and Neapolitan subjects could furnish, and hired others from Genoa and Venice. In Flanders he prepared an immense shoal of flat-bottomed boats to carry over an army of 30,000 men to the coasts of England, under the command of the Prince of Parma.

The time appeared to have arrived which was to avenge all the injuries and insults which, during twenty years, the English queen had heaped upon him. She had, in the first place, refused his hand; she had year after year incited and encouraged his subjects in the Netherlands to rebel against his rule; she had supplied them first secretly, then openly, with money; she had hired mercenary troops against him; and, finally, sent the Earl of Leicester to assume the position of a viceroy for herself. While this state of intolerable interference on land had been growing, she had sent out men to attack and plunder his colonies, intercept his treasure ships, and chase from the high seas the merchant vessels of his nation. All this time she had been with an iron hand crushing the Church which he believed the only true one, and had ended by putting to death a queen who was regarded as the champion of that Church in Britain. We are apt, in thinking of the Spanish Armada and the attempt of Philip to invade this kingdom, to overlook these provocations, which were certainly sufficient to rouse any monarch to such an enterprise.

While carrying matters with so high a hand, Elizabeth's parsimony had prevented her from making those preparations for defence which such an enemy dictated. In November, 1587, the danger had grown so palpable that a great council of war was summoned to take into consideration the grand plan of defence, and the mode of mustering an adequate force both at land and at sea. It was well known that the dockyards of Antwerp, Newport, Gravelines, and Dunkirk had long been alive with the building of boats, and that the forest of Waes had been felled to supply material. Farnese, reputed one of the ablest generals in Europe, had at his command, besides the forces necessary to garrison the Spanish Netherlands, 30,000 infantry and 1,800 cavalry; whilst the Spanish fleet consisted of 135 men-of-war, prepared to carry over 8,000 seamen, and 19,000 soldiers. Both in Spain and in the Netherlands the enthusiasm of volunteers for the service had been wonderful; not only the members of the noblest families had enrolled themselves, but the fame of this expedition, which was to be a second conquest of England, yielding far more riches and glory than that of William of Normandy, had drawn adventurers from every corner of Europe.

What had England to oppose to all this force and animating spirit of anticipation? It was discovered that the whole navy of England amounted to only thirty-six sail. As to the army, it did not amount to 20,000 men, and those chiefly raw recruits, the order for the muster of the main body of the forces even having been issued only in June. Courage Elizabeth undoubtedly possessed in an eminent degree; but such was her parsimony, that though the army which was to serve under Leicester was ordered to assemble in June, that which, under Lord Hunsdon, was to follow particularly the movements of the queen, did not receive orders for enrolment till August. What was to be done with such raw recruits against the disciplined and tried troops of Parma, and his military experience? It was the same as regarded the sailors to man the fleet. In the autumn of 1586 she ordered a levy of 5,000 seamen; but in January she thought more of the expense than the danger, and insisted on 2,000 of them being disbanded. The rumours of growing danger, however, enabled the Council to dissuade her from this impolitic measure, and even obtain an increase to 7,000.

In the war council held in November, 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh earnestly advocated what his quick genius had seen at a glance—that the defence of the country must depend on the navy. The enemy must not be suffered to land. At sea, even then, England was a match for almost any amount of force; and never did she possess admirals who had more of that daring and indomitable character which has for ages distinguished the seamen of Great Britain. Sir Walter Raleigh prevailed: and at once was seen that burst of enthusiasm which, on all occasions when Britain has been menaced with invasion, has flamed from end to end of the country. Merchantmen offered their vessels, the people fitted them out at their own expense, and very soon, instead of thirty-six ships of war, there were 191, of various sizes and characters, with not 7,000, but 17,400 sailors on board of them. To the thirty-six Government ships of war were added 18 volunteer vessels of heavy burden, forty-three hired vessels, and fifty-three coasters. The Triumph was a ship of 1,100 tons; there was another of 1,000, one of 900, two of 800 each, three of 600, five of 500, five of 400, six of 300, six of 250, twenty of 200, besides numbers of smaller size, the total amount of tonnage being 31,985.

But the main strength, after all, was in the character of the men who commanded and animated this fleet. Supreme in command was the Lord Admiral, Howard of Effingham, a man of undaunted courage, of firm and independent resolution, and very popular with the sailors. Under him served the Earl of Cumberland and the Lords Henry Seymour, Thomas Howard, and Edmund Sheffield, as volunteers; and the want of experience in these aristocrats was amply overbalanced by the staunch men whose fame was world-wide—Drake, who was lieutenant of the fleet, Hawkins, Frobisher, and others of those marine heroes who had made themselves a terror to the remotest shores of the earth.

The neighbouring Protestant States, who were naturally called on to aid in this struggle, which was not so much for the conquest of England as for the annihilation of the Reformed Church, were Scotland and the Netherlands. But James of Scotland was the worst possible subject to depend on in such an emergency, and no assistance could be secured from him. Very different was the conduct of the Dutch. Though Leicester had wasted their wealth in useless campaigns, abused their confidence, abridged their privileges, encumbered their trade, and insulted their honour; though Elizabeth had appeared quite ready to sell them to Spain, and in their distress had called upon them to raise £100,000 to pay for fresh soldiers, or declared she would abandon them;—yet knowing that it was not Elizabeth or the worthless Leicester they had to support, but the very existence of that faith for which they had fought so long and so bravely, and for their country, which, if England fell, must fall inevitably too, they at once "came roundly in," says Stowe, "with threescore sail, brave ships of war, firm and full of spleen, not so much in England's aid as in just occasion for their own defence, foreseeing the greatness of the danger that must ensue if the Spaniards should chance to win the day and get the mastery over them." They engaged to block up the mouth of the Scheldt with ten ships of war, and sent the others to unite with the English fleet. That fleet was dispersed to watch as much as possible all points of approach, for rumours confounded the people by naming a variety of places on which the descent was to be made. Lord Howard put the division of the fleet immediately under his command in three squadrons on the western coast; Drake was stationed in the direction of Ushant; Hawkins, a regular adventurer, who had not long ago offered his services to Philip and had been rejected, now thirsting for revenge on him, cruised between the Land's End and the Scilly Isles; Lord Henry Seymour scoured the coast of Flanders, blockading the Spanish ports to prevent the passage of the Prince of Parma's army; and other commanders sailed to and fro in the Channel.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.

On land there was at first a haunting fear of the Roman Catholics. Their oppression had been of a character which was not thought likely to nourish patriotism; and the very invasion was professedly for their relief and revenge. But the moment that the common country was menaced with danger, they forgot all but the common interest. There was no class which displayed more zeal for the national defence. Yet to the very last moment their loyalty was tried to the utmost. Few could believe that they would not seize this opportunity to retaliate those severities which had been practised upon them; and there were those who even advised an English St. Bartholomew, or at least the putting to death of the leading Roman Catholics. This bloody project Elizabeth rejected; but they were, nevertheless, subjected to the most cruel treatment out of fear. A return was ordered of those suspected of this religion in London, who were found to amount to 17,000. All such as were convicted of recusancy were put in prison. Throughout the land the old domiciliary searches were made, and thousands of every rank and class, men and women, were dragged off to gaol to keep them safe, while the Protestant clergy inveighed in awful terms against the designs of the Pope and the terrible intentions of the Papists. All commands, with few exceptions, amongst which were those entrusted to the Lord Admiral Howard and his family, were placed in the hands of Protestants; yet this did not prevent the Papists from offering their services, and gentlemen of family and fortune from serving in the ranks, or as sailors at sea. The peers armed their tenants and servants, and placed them at the disposal of the queen; and gentlemen fitted out vessels and put Protestants into command of them. The ministers themselves, in the famous "Letter to Mendoza," which they published in almost every language of Europe, confessed that they could see no difference between the Romanists and the Protestants in their enthusiasm for the defence of the country. They mention the Viscount Montague, his son, and grandson, appearing before the queen with 200 horse which they had raised to defend her person, and add that the very prisoners for their religion in Ely signed a memorial to her, declaring that they were ready to fight to the death for her against all her enemies, whether they were Pope, priests, kings, or any power whatever.

Meanwhile the muster throughout the kingdom had brought together 130,000 men. True, the greater part of them were raw recruits without discipline and experience, and could not have stood for a moment before the veterans of Parma, had he landed; but they were instructed to lay waste the country before him, to harass his march day and night by hanging on his skirts, and obstructing his way; and as not a town would have surrendered without a violent struggle, the event, with the dogged courage and perseverance of an English population, could only have been one of destruction to the invaders. This great but irregular force was dispersed in a number of camps on the east, west, and southern coasts. At Milford Haven were stationed 2,200 horse; 5,000 men of Cornwall and Devon defended Plymouth; the men of Dorset and Wiltshire garrisoned Portland; the Isle of Wight swarmed with soldiers, and was fortified at all points. The banks of the Thames were fortified under the direction of a celebrated Italian engineer, Federico Giambelli, who had deserted from the Spaniards. Gravesend was not only fortified, but was defended by a vast assemblage of boats, and had a bridge of them, which at once cut off the passage of the river, and opened a constant passage for troops between Essex and Kent. At Tilbury, opposite to Gravesend, there was a camp for 22,000 foot and 2,000 horse, under the command of the Earl of Leicester, and Lord Hunsdon defended the capital with an army of 28,000 men, supported by 10,000 Londoners.

Such were the preparations for the vaunted Invincible Armada. With all the courage of Elizabeth, however, she continued to negotiate anxiously for peace to the very last minute, and to the great chagrin of Leicester and Walsingham, who assured her that such a proceeding was calculated to encourage her enemies and depress her own subjects. Burleigh, with his more cautious nature, supported her, and even so late as February, 1588, she sent commissioners to Bourbourg, near Calais, to meet the commissioners of Philip, and they vainly continued their negotiations for peace till the Armada appeared in the Channel.

And now the time for the sailing of this dread fleet had arrived. The King of Spain, tired of delays, ordered its advance. It was in vain that the wisdom of further postponement seemed to be suggested by the sudden death of his experienced Admiral Santa Cruz, and his excellent Vice-Admiral the Duke of Paliano; he immediately gave the command to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a man wholly without such experience, and the second command to Martinez de Ricaldez, a good seaman. In vain the Prince of Parma entreated that he might reduce Flushing before he carried such a force out of the country, and Sir William Stanley, who had deserted to Spain from the Netherlands army, recommended the occupation of Ireland before the descent on England. The Pope had delivered his bull for the deposition of Elizabeth, had collected the money which he promised to advance, had made Dr. Allen a cardinal, and appointed his legate in England to confer on Philip the investiture of the kingdom; the fleet was at anchor in the Tagus, and he commanded it to put forth.

This famous Armada consisted of 130 vessels of different sizes. There were forty-five galleons and larger vessels of from 500 to 1,000 tons each; twenty-five were pink-built ships, and thirteen were frigates. It carried 2,680 pieces of artillery, and 19,295 troops, exclusive of the crews which worked the vessels, of whom 2,000 were volunteers of the highest families in Spain. The English fleet outnumbered the Armada by about sixty vessels, but its entire tonnage did not amount to half that of the Armada.

On May the 30th, 1588, this formidable and long-prepared fleet issued from the Tagus. The spectacle was of such grandeur, that no one could behold it without the strongest emotions and the most flattering expectations of success. But these were of very brief duration: one of those tempests which in every age, since the Norman Conquest, as if indicating the steady purpose of Providence, have assailed and scattered the fleets of England's enemies, burst on the Armada off Cape Finisterre, scattered its vessels along the coast of Galicia, ran three large ships aground, dismasted and shattered eight others, and compelled the proud fleet to seek shelter in Corunna, and other ports along the coast. The damage to the ships was so considerable, that it occasioned the admiral a delay of three weeks at Corunna.

No sooner was this news announced in London, than Elizabeth, amid her most warlike movements never forgetting the expense, immediately ordered the Lord Admiral to dismantle four of his largest ships, as if the danger were over. Lord Howard had the wise boldness to refuse, declaring that he would rather take the risk of his sovereign's displeasure, and keep the vessels afloat at his own cost, than endanger the country. To show that all his vessels were needed, he called a council of war, and proposed that they should sail for the Spanish coast, and fall on the fleet whilst it was thus disordered. At sea they saw and gave chase to fourteen Spanish ships. The wind veered and became at once favourable to his return, and also to the sailing of the Armada. He turned back to Plymouth, lest some of the Spanish vessels should have reached his unprotected station before him.

The event proved that his caution was not vain. He had scarcely regained Plymouth and moored his fleet, when a Scottish privateer, named Fleming sailed in after him and informed him he had discovered the Armada off the Lizard. Most of the officers were at the moment playing at bowls on the Hoe, and Drake, who was one of them, bade them not hurry themselves, but play out the game and then go and beat the Spaniards. The wind, too, was blowing right into harbour, but having with great labour warped out their ships they stood off, and the next day, being the 20th of July, they saw the Spanish fleet bearing down full upon them. It was drawn up in the form of a crescent, the horns of which were seven miles apart, and a nobler or more imposing sight was never seen on the ocean. Lord Howard deemed it hazardous to measure strength with ships of such superior size and weight of metal, and he was soon relieved from the necessity, for the Duke of Medina, on perceiving the English fleet, called a council of his officers—who were impatient to attack and destroy the enemy at once—and showed them his instructions, which bound them strictly to avoid all chance of damage to his vessels by a conflict before he had effected the main object of seeing the Flemish army landed on the English coast. The Grand Armada, therefore, swept on in stately magnificence up the Channel, the great galeasses, with their huge hulks, their lofty prows, and their slow imposing motion, making a brave show. To the experienced eyes of the English sailors, however, this immediately communicated encouragement, for they saw at once that they were not calculated, like their own nimbler vessels, to tack and obey the helm promptly.

And now began, as it were, a strange chase of the mighty Armada by the lesser fleet. The Duke of Medina pressed on with all sail to reach Dunkirk, and make a junction with the fleet of flat-bottomed boats of the Prince of Parma, which were to carry over the army; but some of his vessels soon fell behind, and in spite of his signalling for them to come up, they could not do so before the nimbler English vessels were upon them, and fired into them with right good will. The Disdain, a pinnace commanded by Jonas Bradbury, was the first to engage, and was speedily seconded by the Lord Admiral himself, who attacked a great galleon, and Drake in the Revenge, Hawkins in the Victory, and Frobisher in the Triumph, closed in with the others. Ricaldez, the Rear Admiral, was in this affray, and encouraged his men bravely, but it was soon found that the Spaniards, though so much more gigantic in size, had no chance with the more manageable English ships. Their heavy artillery, from their uncommon height, fired over the enemies' heads, and did little mischief, whilst the undaunted English tacked about and hit them first in one place and then in another. Drake justified his fame by boarding a great galleon, the mast of which was shot away, and taking her with 55,000 ducats on board. The Duke of Medina was compelled to heave-to till the jeopardised squadron could come up; but night set in, and there was seen another of the galleons blazing on the water, having, it was said, been purposely set on fire by a Flemish gunner, whom the captain had accused of cowardice or treachery. In the confusion the neighbouring vessels ran foul of each other, there being a heavy sea, and a third vessel was separated from the fleet, and captured near the French coast.

From a Photograph by W. Heath, Plymouth

THE HOE, PLYMOUTH.

(From a Photograph by W. Heath, Plymouth.)

Lord Howard on the 23rd again came up with the Armada off Portland. He was now reinforced by forty fresh sail, and had on board this accession Sir Walter Raleigh. The weather was still adverse to the advance of the Spaniards, and the English kept them well engaged by pouring in ever and anon a broadside, and then dropping out of range. Sometimes, the wind lulling, they were compelled to stand the full fire of the great ships, and in one of these encounters Frobisher was surrounded in the Triumph, and had to sustain an unequal combat for two hours. By direction of the Admiral, however, a number of vessels moved to his rescue, and reserving their fire till they were close in with the enemy, they poured such a broadside into the Spaniards as turned the scale. Many of the Spanish ships were completely disabled in this day's fight, and a Venetian argosy and several transports remained in possession of the English.

The next day the English fleet could not renew the action, for they had burnt all their powder, and the time to prevent the junction of Medina with Parma was totally lost. The next, the 25th, having in the meantime procured a fresh supply of ammunition from shore, the Admiral renewed the fight off the Isle of Wight, where Hawkins took a large Portuguese galleon, and the Duke of Medina's ship had its mainmast shot away, and was much shattered; but in the midst of the engagement the powder of the English again failed, and they were obliged to draw off. Fortunately the Spanish admiral also found that he had expended his heavy shot, and sent to the Prince of Parma to hold himself in readiness and send him back some shot. On the 26th the Armada held on its way with a fair breeze up the Channel, and Howard, who had received fresh ammunition, besides continual reinforcements of small vessels and men from the ports as they passed, directly pursued. In the Straits of Dover he expected to be joined by a strong squadron under Lord Henry Seymour and Sir Thomas Winter, and, therefore, he reserved his fire. On the following day, the Duke of Medina, instead of making at once for Dunkirk, as he wished, was prevailed on to cast anchor before Calais. It was represented that there was a Dutch and English fleet blockading Newport and Dunkirk, the only outlets for Parma's flat-bottoms, and that the Armada would then be enclosed between the two hostile fleets. It was necessary first to beat off the fleet which hung on his rear, and he had already found it impracticable with his huge unwieldy vessels. He therefore despatched a messenger to the Prince of Parma over land, urging him to send him a squadron of fly-boats to beat off the English ships, and to be ready embarked, that he might land in England under his fire as soon as he could come up.

THE ARMADA IN SIGHT. (See p. 319.)

(From the Painting by Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A., by permission of Mr. Arthur Lucas, Publisher.)

But Parma sent the discouraging news that it was impossible for him to move or even to transport his troops till the grand fleet came up to his assistance. Fourteen thousand troops, he informed him, had been embarked at Newport, and the other division at Dunkirk had been held in readiness for the word of command, in expectation of the arrival of the fleet; but having been so long delayed, their provisions were exhausted, the boats, which had been built in a hurry with green wood, had warped and become unseaworthy, and with the hot weather fever had broken out among his troops. Were he, however, otherwise able to stir, there lay a force of Dutch and English vessels at anchor large enough to send every boat to the bottom.

Under these circumstances there was nothing for it but to make for Dunkirk, force the blockades at the mouth of the Scheldt, and effect the junction with Parma. But now the expected junction of Winter and Lord Henry Seymour had taken place with the Lord Admiral's squadron, and the Spaniards found themselves closely hemmed in by 140 English sail, crowded with sailors and soldiers eager for the fray, and there was clearly no avoiding a general engagement. This being inevitable, the Spaniards placed their great ships in front, anchored the lesser between them and the shore, and awaited the next morning for the decisive battle. But such captains as Drake and Hawkins saw too well the strong position of the Armada to trust to their fighting, and they determined to throw the enemy into confusion by stratagem. They therefore prepared eight fire-ships, and the wind being in shore, they sent them, under the management of Captain Young and Prouse, at midnight, down towards the Spanish lines. The brave officers effected their hazardous duty, and took to their boats. Presently, there was a wild cry as the eight vessels in full blaze, and sending forth explosion after explosion, bore right down upon the Spaniards. Remembering the terrible fire-ships which the Dutch had formerly sent amongst them, the sailors shouted—"The fire of Antwerp! the fire of Antwerp!" and every vessel was put in motion to escape in the darkness as best it might. The confusion became terrible, and the ships were continually running foul of each other. One of the largest galeasses had her rudder carried away by coming in contact with her neighbour, and, floating at the mercy of the waves, was stranded. When the fire-ships had exhausted themselves, the Duke of Medina fired again to recall his scattered vessels; but few heard it, flying madly as they were in fear and confusion, and the dawn found them scattered along the coast from Ostend to Calais. A more horrible night no unfortunate creatures ever passed, for a tempest had set in, a furious gale blowing from the south-west, the rain falling in torrents, and the pitchy gloom being lit up only by the glare of lightning.

A loud cannonade in the direction of Gravelines announced that the hostile fleets were engaged there, and it became the signal for the fugitives to draw together, but all along the coast the active English commanders were ready to receive them, and Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, Frobisher, Seymour, and Cumberland vied in their endeavours to win the highest distinction. Terrible scenes were presented at the different stranded galeasses. One was boarded off Calais after a desperate engagement, its crew and troops were cut to pieces or pushed overboard, and 50,000 ducats were taken out of her. Another galleon sank under the English fire; a third, the San Matteo, was compelled to surrender; and another, dismantled and in miserable plight, drifted on shore at Flushing and was seized by the sailors. Some of the battered vessels foundered at sea, and the duke, calling a council, proposed to return home. This was vehemently opposed by many officers and the seamen, who had fought furiously and now cried for revenge; but the admiral said that it was impossible long to hold out against such an enemy, and gave the order to make for Spain. But how? The English now swarmed in the narrow seas, and the issue of the desperate conflict which must attend the attempt the whole way was too clear. The only means of escape he believed was to sail northward, round Scotland and Ireland. Such a voyage, through tempestuous seas and along dangerous coasts, to men little, if at all, acquainted with them, was so charged with peril and hardships, that nothing but absolute necessity could have forced them to attempt it. The fragments of the Armada, no longer invincible, and already reduced to eighty vessels, were now, therefore, seen with a favourable wind in full sail northward. With such men as Drake and the rest it might have been safely calculated that not a ship would ever return to Spain. A strong squadron sent to meet the Spanish fleet on the west coast of Ireland, and another following in pursuit, would have utterly destroyed this great naval armament. But here again the parsimony of Elizabeth, and the strange want of providence in her Government, became apparent. Instead of pursuing, the English fleet returned to port on the 8th of August, for want of powder and shot, and, as if satisfied with getting rid of the enemy, no measures whatever were taken to intercept the fugitive fleet! "If," says Sir William Monson, "we had been so happy as to have followed their course, as it was both thought and discoursed of, we had been absolutely victorious over this great and formidable navy, for they were brought to that necessity that they would willingly have yielded, as divers of them confessed that were shipwrecked on the coast of Ireland."

This gross piece of misgovernment occasioned much disappointment amongst the brave seamen, both officers and men, a few ships only being able to follow the Spaniards as far as the Frith of Forth. Walsingham, in a letter to the Lord Chancellor at the time, said, "I am sorry the Lord Admiral was forced to leave the prosecution of the enemy through the want he sustains. Our half doings doth breed dishonour, and leaveth the disease uncured." But the winds and waves did for the English what they themselves had left undone. A terrible tempest assailed the flying Armada to the north of Scotland, and scattered its unhappy ships amongst the iron-bound islands of the Orkneys and Hebrides. To save themselves the Spaniards threw overboard their horses, mules, artillery, and baggage, and in many instances to no purpose. On many a wild spot of the shores of the Western Isles, and those of Scotland and Ireland, you are still told, "Here was stranded one of the great ships of the Invincible Armada." Innumerable summer tourists hear this at Tobermory, in the Isle of Mull; and the hosts of visitors to the Giant's Causeway are shown the terrible cliffs of Port-na-Spagna, whose very name commemorates the awful catastrophe which occurred there. More than thirty of these vessels were stranded on the Irish coast; others went down at sea, every soul on board perishing; and others were driven to Norway and stranded there.

Never was there so fearful a destruction; and well might the triumphant Protestants exult in the idea that the wrath of an avenging Deity was let loose against this devoted navy. No mercy was shown to the wretched sufferers in general who escaped to land. In Ireland the fear of their joining the natives made the Government scandalously cruel. Instead of taking those prisoners who came on shore they cut them down in cold blood, and upwards of 200 are said to have been thus mercilessly butchered. Some of the scattered vessels were compelled to fight their way back down the English Channel, and were the prey of the English, the Dutch, and of French Huguenots, who had equipped a number of privateers to have a share in the destruction and plunder of their hated enemies. The Duke of Medina eventually reached the port of St. Andero in September, with the loss of more than half his fleet, and of 10,000 men, those who survived looking more like ghosts than human beings.

Philip, though he must have been deeply mortified by this signal failure of his costly and ambitious enterprise, was too proud to show it. He received the news without a change of countenance, and thanked God that his kingdom was so strong and flourishing that it could well bear such a loss. He gave 50,000 crowns to relieve the sufferers; forbade any public mourning, assigning the mishap, not to the English, but the weather; and wrote to the Prince of Parma—whom the English Government had tempted at this crisis to throw off his allegiance, and make himself master of the Catholic provinces of the Netherlands, as the Prince of Orange had done of the Protestant ones—to thank him for his readiness to have carried out his design, and to assure him of his unshaken favour.

In following the fate of the Spanish fleet, and the bravery and address of England's naval commanders, we have left unnoticed the less striking proceedings of the army on shore. The chief camp at Tilbury, which would have come first into conflict with the Spanish army had it effected a landing, was put under the command of Leicester—a man who had been tried in the Netherlands, and found wanting in every qualification of a general. There, a few days after the defeat of the Armada, Elizabeth held a grand review. Leicester and the new stripling favourite, Essex, led her bridle rein, whilst she is said to have delivered this fine speech: "My loving people! we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and, therefore, I am come amongst you at this time not as for my recreation and sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all—to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know that I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: to which, rather than any dishonour should grow by me, I myself will take up arms—I myself will be your general—the judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I already know by your forwardness that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid to you. In the meantime my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead—than whom never prince commanded a more noble or more worthy subject; nor will I suffer myself to doubt that, by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and my people."

On Lord Howard, as admiral of the fleet, rewards and favours were conferred; but neither he, nor the other heroes of his immortal contest at sea, received a tithe of the honour of Leicester, who had done nothing but write a love-letter to the queen from Tilbury camp. Nothing that she had done or could do appeared adequate to his incomprehensible merits. She determined to create a new and most invidious office in his favour; and the warrant for his creation of Lord Lieutenant of England and Ireland lay ready for the royal signature, when the remonstrances of Burleigh and Hatton delayed, and the sudden death of the favourite put an end to it. In ten days after the queen's visit to the camp he had disbanded the army, and was on his way to his castle of Kenilworth, when he was seized with sickness at Cornbury Park, in Oxfordshire, and died on the 4th of September, of a fever. His enemies declared he had been poisoned, and invented the following story:—He had discovered or suspected a criminal connection between his wife, the Countess of Essex, and Sir Christopher Blount. He had attempted to assassinate Blount, but failed; and his countess, profiting by his own instructions in getting rid of her former husband, administered the fatal dose. This and other stories against Leicester are now discredited.

The first use which Elizabeth made of her victory was to take vengeance on the Papists—not because they had done anything disloyal, but because they were of the same religion as the detested Spaniards. All their demonstrations of devotion to the cause of their country and their queen during the attempted invasion went for nothing. A commission was appointed to try those already in prison; and six priests, four laymen, and a lady of the name of Ward, for having harboured priests, other four laymen, for having been reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church, and fifteen persons, charged with being connected with them, in all thirty individuals, were, within a period of three months, condemned as traitors, and executed with all the disembowelling and other atrocities attending that sentence. Their only crime was the practice of their religion, or the succouring their clergymen. Elizabeth, however, treated their proceedings as political offences, and her efforts to dragoon the nation into conformity continued the greater part of her life; old age alone appearing to abate her virulence, as it dimmed her faculties and subdued her spirits. Sixty-one Roman Catholic clergymen, forty-seven laymen, and two ladies suffered death for their religion. The fines for recusancy were levied with the utmost rigour, £20 per lunar month being the legal sum, so that many gentlemen were fleeced of their entire income. Besides this, they were liable to a year's imprisonment and a fine of 100 marks every time they heard Mass. The search for concealed priests was carried on with great avidity, because it gave occasion for plunder, and on conviction of such concealment, forfeiture of the whole of their property followed, with ample gleaning to the informers. The poorer recusants were for some time imprisoned; but the prisons becoming full, officers were sent through the country, visiting all villages and remote places, and extorting what they could.

As Elizabeth grew in years she more and more resembled her father, and persecuted the Puritans as zealously as the Papists, and for similar reasons. In these Reformers, however, she found a sturdy class of men, who would not endure so quietly her oppressions. Hume blames the Nonconformists for not setting up separate congregations of their own; but he forgot the £20 a month, which would have been levied on every individual that could pay, and the imprisonments and harassing of others. Where, however, the Nonconformists could not preach, they printed. Books and pamphlets flew in all directions; and there was set up a sort of ambulatory press, which was conveyed from place to place, till at length it was hunted down and destroyed near Manchester. In 1590, Sir Richard Knightley, Hooles, of Coventry, and Wigmore and his wife, of Warwick, were fined, in the Star Chamber, as promulgators of a book called "Martin Marprelate," the first £2,000, the second 1,000 marks, the third 500, the fourth 100, and to be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure.

In 1591 Udal, a Nonconformist minister, was condemned to death for publishing a book called "A Demonstration of Discipline," but died in prison. Mr. Cartwright, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, for pointing out defects in the system of the Church, was deprived of his fellowship, expelled the university, and in 1591 was summoned before the ecclesiastical commission with some of his friends, and committed to prison because they would not answer interrogatories on oath—a practice clearly contrary to law. In 1593 Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry, Independent ministers, or Brownists, were put to death for writings said to reflect on the queen. But no suppression produced the desired effect.

In the spring of 1589 Parliament and Convocation assembled, and Elizabeth laid before them a statement of the heavy expenses incurred in beating off the Spaniards. She had already levied a forced loan, to which the recusants had been made to contribute heavily, and she now received most liberal grants from both Parliament and Convocation. Having given this freely, the House of Commons prayed the queen to send out a strong force and take vengeance on the Spaniards for their attack on this country. Elizabeth was perfectly agreeable that they should punish Philip to their hearts' content, but not out of the supplies they had granted. She said there were great demands on her exchequer; that she could only furnish ships and soldiers, and they must pay the cost. The proposal of retaliation was so much to the taste of the public that an association was formed under the auspices of Drake and Norris, and very soon they had a fleet of 100 sail at Plymouth, carrying 21,000 men. Elizabeth had long been patronising Don Antonio, prior of Crato, an illegitimate branch of the Royal family of Portugal. This pretender was now sent out in this fleet in royal state, and the expedition was directed to land in Portugal, and call on the people to throw off the Spanish yoke, and restore their government under a native, and, as Elizabeth boldly asserted, legitimate prince. If the Portuguese would not receive Don Antonio, the fleet was then to scour the roads of Spain, and inflict on the territory of Philip all the damage possible.

The fascination of this expedition under so renowned a commander as Drake, seized on the fancy of a young noble, who had now become Elizabeth's prime favourite—the Earl of Essex. This was the son of the Countess of Essex whom Leicester had secretly married, much to Elizabeth's indignation, in 1578. Leicester introduced the young earl to Elizabeth, who, for a time, hated him on account of his mother, for the queen, in spite of her numerous quarrels with Leicester, was never able to free herself wholly from her early attachment to him. However, some time before Leicester's death, the graces and lively disposition of the young earl had made a strong impression on her heart or head, and she lavished blandishments on the handsome boy in public, even in the face of the camp at Tilbury, which must have been eminently ludicrous. After Leicester's death he was installed as the chief favourite, and she could scarcely bear him out of her sight. Her consternation was great when she found that he had slyly eloped, and had set off after the fleet bound for Spain.

Drake made first for Corunna, where he seized a number of merchantmen and ships of war, made himself master of the suburbs or marine part of the town, with large stores of oil and wine, but failed to take the town itself, though he succeeded in making a breach in the wall, at the cost of many lives. Norris, meantime, attacked the forces of the CondÉ d'Andrada, posted at the Puente de Burgos, and drove them before him for some miles; but sickness and shortness of powder compelled them to embark again. Drake and Norris, as famous for their bulletins as Napoleon in our day, wrote home that they had killed 1,000 of the enemy, with the loss of only three men! but Lord Talbot, writing at the same time to his father, said that they had lost a great number of men, quite as many as the Spaniards. From Corunna they coasted to Peniche, about thirty miles north of Lisbon. At Peniche the young Earl of Essex, who kept out at sea till the commanders could say in their dispatches that they had heard nothing of him, was the first to spring on shore, and showed great gallantry. They quickly took the castle, and the fleet then proceeded along the shore to the Tagus, while the army marched by land to Lisbon through Torres Vedras and St. Sebastian.

The garrison in Lisbon was but weak, and Essex knocked at the gates, and summoned the commander to surrender; but the Spaniards had taken the precaution to lay waste the neighbourhood and destroy all the provisions, or carry them into the city, so that famine, fever, and want of powder soon compelled the English to retire. They found that their pretender, Don Antonio, was everywhere treated as a pretender—not a man would own him; and they marched to Cascaes, which they found already plundered by Drake and his squadron. They there embarked for England, but were soon dispersed by a storm, and reached Plymouth in straggling disorder, one of the sections of the fleet having, before leaving Spain, plundered the town of Vigo. It was found that out of their 21,000 men, they had lost one-half. Out of the 1,100 gentlemen who accompanied the expedition one-third had perished. Elizabeth secretly grumbled at the expense and loss, but publicly boasted of the chastisement she had given to Philip.

On the death of Henry III. of France by assassination, as we have previously related, Henry of Navarre, a lineal descendant of St. Louis, by his youngest son Robert, Count of Clermont, assumed the crown as Henry IV. But Henry's known Protestantism placed him in extreme difficulty, even with those who had hitherto supported himself or the late king. The Papist followers of that monarch insisted that he should sign an engagement to maintain their worship, and that to the exclusion of every other, except in the places in which the Protestant form was already established. They bound Henry to hunt out and punish the murderers of the late king; to give no offices in the State, in cities or corporations, except to Papists, and to permit the nobles of the Roman Catholic league to defend to the Pope their proceedings. But by conceding these conditions, he mortally offended the Protestants, who had hitherto faithfully adhered to him, and who refused any longer to fight under the banners of a prince who had thus, as they deemed it, abandoned their cause. Nine regiments deserted his standard, whilst a regiment of Papists on the other side, not sufficiently satisfied with the concessions thus dearly purchased, also marched out of his camp.

Such was the extent of the disaffection, that instead of being able to take Paris, he was compelled to raise the siege and retreat into Normandy. Thither the Duke of Mayenne, the leader of the Guise party, and his fanatic rabble pursued him, but Henry, advantageously encamping his little army, which did not amount to a fourth of the enemy, on a slope opposite to the castle and village of Arques, a few miles from Dieppe, defeated his assailants with great slaughter. The battle was fought on the 21st of September, 1589, and the spot is now marked by a lofty column.

On the heels of this victory came a most timely aid from Elizabeth of England, of £20,000 in gold and 4,000 troops under Lord Willoughby. Henry now retraced his steps to Paris, where he made himself master of the suburbs on the left bank of the Seine, and continued to act on the offensive during the remainder of the year. At the commencement of 1591 the English army was dismissed, having suffered heavy losses, and displayed marked bravery.

But they only returned home for Henry to solicit fresh assistance; the Spaniards and the Duke of Mercoeur put in claims for the province of Brittany, and united their forces to obtain it. Elizabeth, who professed to desire the Protestant ascendency in France, sorely rued the expense of supporting that interest, and her old and cunning minister Burleigh, threw his weight into the scale of parsimony, because he delighted to see France depressed. But now that the hated Spaniards had actually landed in that country over against her very coasts, she was roused to do something. She advanced a fresh loan and sent over a small reinforcement of 3,000 men. Essex was impatient to have the command of this force, but the queen, listening to Burleigh, gave it to Sir John Norris, and Essex quitted the Court in a pet. Fresh forces were, however, solicited, and Essex, to his great delight, received the appointment. In August he landed at Dieppe, and finding Henry engaged in the distant Champagne, he pitched his tent at Arques, near the scene of Henry's triumph, and remained there for two months doing nothing but knighting his officers to keep them contented. His whole force consisted only of 300 horse, 300 gentlemen volunteers, and 3,000 infantry. On the king's arrival the siege of Rouen was begun, where the English army suffered terrible hardships, and in the spring of 1592, the siege having been raised on the approach of the Prince of Parma, Essex left his troops with Sir Roger Williams, having lost his brother, Walter Devereux, in the campaign.

This unsatisfactory state of things in France continued till the midsummer of 1593. Henry was continually demanding fresh aid, fresh advances of money, fresh troops, which he did not employ, as was stipulated with Elizabeth, solely against the Spaniards, but against his rebellious subjects. Elizabeth was greatly enraged at his breach of faith, but still found it impossible to refuse him, lest the Spaniards should get the upper hand, and Henry, calculating on this, went on doing with her troops just what he pleased. Elizabeth was further incensed, and went into the worst of tempers on this account, and for this cause not only dealt sharp words, but heavy blows about her on her attendants. But worst of all came the news that Henry IV. was about to embrace the Roman Catholic faith. The fact was he saw that it was impossible otherwise to maintain himself on the throne. She sent off a strong remonstrance composed by Burleigh, but before its arrival the deed was done, nor is it to be supposed that its arrival would have prevented it. Elizabeth's limited aid could not enable him to overcome the tremendous opposition arrayed against him. On the 15th of July, 1593, Henry publicly abjured the Protestant and embraced, if not the Roman Catholic faith, the profession of it. On hearing that this was done, Elizabeth burst into one of her violent passions, and heaped on him her choicest terms of abuse. She wrote to him after four months had somewhat abated her fury, but still in a strain of high remonstrance.

Elizabeth, after getting over her resentment against Henry IV. on account of his lapse of faith, found it convenient to make a league offensive and defensive with him against Philip. The consequence was that the Spaniards speedily poured into France from the Netherlands. Velasco, the constable of Castile, penetrated into Champagne, and directed his attack against Franche-ComtÉ. Fuentes marched into Picardy, defeated Henry's army, took Dourlens and Cambray, and threw the King of France into the greatest alarm. In vain he sent to demand aid of Elizabeth: she had heard of preparations in the Spanish ports for a second invasion of her kingdom; and so far from aiding Henry, she withdrew her troops from Brittany, complaining dreadfully of all the money and men which she had foolishly wasted on the apostate monarch of France. In March, 1596, the Archduke Albert, who had become Governor of the Netherlands, suddenly marched on Calais, pretending that his object was to raise the siege of La Fere. By this ruse he was already under the walls of Calais with 15,000 men. The outstanding forts were soon won, and as Elizabeth was one Sunday at church at Greenwich, the distant report of the Archduke's cannonade on the walls of Calais was plainly heard. Elizabeth sprang up in the midst of the service, and vowed that she would rescue that ancient town. She sent off post-haste to order the Lord Mayor of London to immediately impress 1,000 men, and send them on to Calais; but the fit of enthusiasm was soon over, and the next morning she countermanded the order. When Henry's ambassadors urged her for assistance, she coolly proffered it on condition that she should garrison Calais with an English army. When the proposal was made to Henry, he was so incensed that he actually turned his back on her ambassador, Sir Robert Sidney, saying he would rather receive a box on the ear from a man than a fillip from a woman. In a few days—namely, on the 14th of April—the town was carried by storm, and Elizabeth had the mortification of seeing the Spaniards in possession of a port so calculated to enable them to invade England. Henry, on his part, was excessively enraged at her duplicity and selfishness, and spoke in no sparing terms of her. Nevertheless, his necessities soon compelled him to lower his tone, and even to condescend to flatter her in the most extravagant manner of the age, with the result that 2,000 troops were sent to garrison Boulogne.

The hostile preparations in the ports of Spain at this time occupied all the attention of Elizabeth and her Government, and the more so as during the past years she had lost her two famous commanders, Drake and Hawkins. They had been sent out on one of their predatory expeditions against the Spanish settlements in South America and the West Indies. But circumstances in these quarters had become greatly changed. The colonies had acquired population and strength: the former ravages of these commanders had put the people and the Government on their guard. Wherever the English fleet appeared, it found the ports and coasts well guarded and defended. Their attacks were repulsed, and such was the deplorable failure of the expedition, and the contrast of their former profitable and splendid exploits, that both commanders sank under their mortification. Hawkins died in 1595, and Drake in the following year. The survivors only returned to experience the anger of the queen, who felt with equal sensibility the loss of reputation and of the accustomed booty.

The Lord Howard of Effingham, the brave High Admiral who had so successfully commanded the fleet against the Armada, recommended at this crisis that the English Government should adopt the advice which he had given on the former occasion, to anticipate the intentions of Spain, and attack and destroy the menacing fleet ere it left the port. In this counsel he was ardently seconded by Essex, who loved above all things an expedition of a bold and romantic character, and the more so, because it was directly opposed to the cold and cautious policy of his enemies, the Cecils. He prevailed, and a fleet of 130 sail was fitted out to carry over an army of 14,000 land forces. The fleet was confided to the command of Lord Howard, the army to Essex; but to put some check on his fiery enthusiasm he was required to take, on all great occasions, the advice of a council of war consisting of the Lord Admiral, Lord Thomas Howard, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Vere, Sir George Carew, and Sir Coniers Clifford.

On the 1st of June, 1596, the fleet issued from Plymouth, and being joined by twenty-two ships from Holland, it amounted to 150 sail, carrying 14,000 men. On the 20th the fleet cast anchor at the mouth of the harbour of Cadiz, and there discovered fifteen men-of-war, and about forty merchantmen. The next morning a fierce battle took place, which lasted from seven in the morning till one o'clock at noon. The English sailed right into the harbour, despite the fire from the ships and forts, and the Spaniards, finding the contest going against them, attempted to run their vessels ashore and burn them. The galleons got out to sea, while the merchantmen having reached Puerto Real, discharged their cargo and were burnt by order of the Duke of Medina. Two large ships with an argosy were taken, and much booty fell to the captors. The Earl of Essex displayed the utmost gallantry. Instead of remaining with the army, he went on board and fought in the thick of the danger. The sea-fight over, he landed 3,000 men and marched into Cadiz. A body of horse and foot was posted to oppose his progress, but fled at his approach; and, finding that the inhabitants in their terror had closed the gates, they made their way over a ruinous wall, and the English without delay followed them. In spite of the fire kept up from the tops of the houses, Essex led his men to the market-place, where they were speedily joined by the Lord Admiral, who had found his way through a portal. The city capitulated, paying 120,000 crowns for the lives of the people, the town and all its wealth being abandoned to the plunder of the troops.

Essex proposed to strike a great blow while the panic of their victory paralysed the country. He recommended that they should march into the heart of Andalusia; and such was the destitution of disciplined troops from the drain which the wars of France and the Netherlands had occasioned, such were the discontent of the nobles and the disaffection of the Moriscoes, that much mischief might have been done before they could have been successfully opposed. The plan, however, was resisted by the other commanders, and Essex then offered to remain in the Isla de Leon with 4,000 men, and defend it against the whole force of the enemy. But the other leaders would hear of nothing but hastening home. They had laid the town in ruins, with the exception of two or three churches; they had nearly annihilated the fleet, had collected a vast booty, and inflicted on the Spaniards a loss of 20,000,000 ducats.

The conquerors returned home, having dealt the severest blow at Spain that it had received for generations. They had raised the prestige of the English arms, amply avenged the attempt at the invasion of their country, and sunk the reputation of Spain in no ordinary degree. Foreigners regarded the exploit with wonder, and the people raised thunders of acclamations as the victorious vessels sailed into port. But the gallant and magnanimous deeds of Essex had been gall and wormwood to the Cecils, and they had neglected no means of injuring him in his absence. Essex had succeeded ever since the death of Walsingham—that is, for six years—in preventing the dearest wish of Burleigh's heart, to see his son, Sir Robert, established in his post. While Essex was away he carried this point with the queen; and the courtiers, now auguring the ascendency of the Cecils, united in defaming Essex to win favour with them. They talked freely of his vainglory, rashness, extravagance, and dissipation.

Day after day the queen subjected Essex to the scrutiny and cross-questioning of his enemies in the Council, till, luckily for him, there came the news that the Spanish treasures from the New World had just arrived safely in port with 20,000,000 of dollars. This put the climax to Elizabeth's exasperation; and Essex, who, since his return from the expedition, as if to take away every ground for the censure of the courtiers, had assumed a totally new character, and was no longer the gay and pleasure-seeking young nobleman, but the grave and religious man; who lived at home with his countess, attended her to church, and exhibited the most pious demeanour; who, instead of his haughty and irritable temper, had displayed the utmost patience and forbearance under the galling examination of the Council, now broke out at once with the declaration that he had done everything in his power to persuade his colleagues to permit him to sail to Terceira to intercept this very fleet; that the creatures of the Cecils had opposed him resolutely, defeated the enterprise, and robbed the queen of this princely treasure.

Instantly the whole current of Elizabeth's feelings underwent a change. It was deemed necessary to send out an expedition to Spain to hunt up the hostile fleet and destroy it as before. Essex stood undoubted in the queen's confidence, and she gave him the command of the fleet for this purpose, with Lord Thomas Howard and Sir Walter Raleigh under him. This time there was no subjection to a council of war. On the 11th of July, 1597, the fleet set sail; but had not sailed more than forty leagues when it was driven back by a tempest, which raged for four days. Essex himself disdained to turn back, but, with his utter contempt of danger and dogged obstinacy, he, to use his own words, beat up his ship in the teeth of the storm, till it was actually falling asunder, having a leak which obliged them to pump eight tons of water per day out of her; her main and foremast being cracked, and most of her beams broken and reft. The gentlemen volunteers were so completely satisfied with sailing with such a man, that on reaching land at Falmouth they all stole away home. But Essex himself was as resolved as ever to prosecute the voyage, though the queen would advance nothing more for refitting the fleet. He got as many of his ships into order as he could, and on the 17th of August was enabled to sail again, though the men by this time had consumed most of their provisions. He made now, not for the coast of Spain, but the Azores, where they took Fayal, Graciosa, and Flores—useless conquests, as they could not keep them, and which led to immediate quarrels, for Raleigh, with his indomitable ambition, took Fayal himself without orders, which Essex deeming an honour stolen from him, resented greatly. He ordered several of the officers concerned to be arrested; but when he was advised to try Raleigh by a court-martial, he replied, "So I would had he been one of my friends." What was worse than this dispute, however, was that the Spanish treasure vessels returning from America, which Elizabeth had expressly ordered them to lay wait for, had escaped into Terceira, and they were obliged to return with the capture of three Spanish ships and other plunder, valued at £100,000.

Essex, on landing, hastened to Court, but the queen was in the worst of humours at the missing of the treasure ships, and complained that he had done nothing to discharge the expenses of the expedition. She laid all the blame of failure on him, and gave all the credit to Sir Walter Raleigh, whom she accused him of oppressing and insulting. With his usual choleric petulance, he hastily left the Court and retired to his own house at Wanstead. He was so far from admitting that he was in the wrong, that he demanded satisfaction for the injuries which he considered had been done him in his absence. The Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, which he had asked for a dependent, had been conferred on Cecil, and the Lord Admiral Howard had been created Earl of Nottingham, and thus had obtained an official precedency over him. Worse still, and more unjust, the honour of the capture of Cadiz was allowed to be usurped by Lord Howard in his new patent, though it really belonged to Essex. The passionate favourite was so enraged that he offered to fight Nottingham in vindication of his claim, or one of his sons, or any gentleman of the name of Howard. However, he bridled his resentment, and on the 18th of December all was made smooth, and Essex again appeared at Court, being created Earl Marshal, by which he regained precedency over the new Earl of Nottingham.

The King of France, in the commencement of the year 1598, announced to the Queen of England his intention to seek peace with Spain. This was news by no means agreeable to Elizabeth, as such a peace would leave Philip at liberty to pursue his designs against her; and she endeavoured by her ambassador to dissuade Henry from such a measure. But Henry had now for thirteen years been harassed by the cares of a kingdom involved on two sides in war with Philip, and rent in every quarter by religious dissension. The death of the Guises had broken up, in a great measure, the Roman Catholic League, but the spirit of opposition was still as much alive as ever, and was fanned into flame by a Protestant League, formed on the same principles. He longed intensely for peace, that he might more fully exert himself to abate this religious discord. His anxiety for it had been doubled by the capture of Amiens by the Spaniards in February, 1597; and his recovery of it in the following September only rendered him the more willing to treat, because he could do it on better terms. It was necessary to send over Sir Robert Cecil as ambassador extraordinary, to attend the negotiations: and fearing the influence of Essex in his absence, the cunning minister had been induced to favour his advancement to the post of Earl Marshal, and he sought to win the Earl over more completely by moving the queen to present Essex with a cargo of cochineal worth £7,000, and a contract for the sale of a much larger amount out of the royal stores. Greatly pleased by these instances of Cecil's friendship, as he deemed it, Essex transacted the business of the Secretaryship for Sir Robert in his absence, and that politic gentleman took his departure for France on the 10th of February, 1598.

At the conference both Cecil and the Dutch deputies did everything in their power to prevent the peace, but in vain. Henry was resolved on giving tranquillity to his kingdom; and when reproached by Cecil for deserting Elizabeth, he replied that in aiding him she had served her own interests. On the 20th of April he published the edict of Nantes, giving security and toleration to the Protestants; and on May the 2nd he signed, at Vervins, the treaty with Spain, which was so advantageous that he recovered Calais and all places which had been taken during the war. Elizabeth was in reality a gainer, for she thus became free from a charge of £126,000 per annum in holding the cautionary towns; and the States gave an acknowledgment of a debt of £800,000, which they engaged to pay by instalments.

On the return of Cecil he submitted to the queen the proposals which Philip had made for the extension of the peace to England, and Burleigh and Sir Robert contended that Spain having made peace with France, it was wise for this kingdom to do the same. Essex, on the contrary, contended for war, and for still punishing the Spaniards for their attempt at invasion. In the midst of one of the debates in the Council, Burleigh put his pocket Bible gently before him, open at these words in the Psalms:—"Blood-thirsty men shall not live out half their days." Essex took no apparent notice of it, but after his death the circumstance came to be looked on as prophetic. The Council was in favour of peace. The nation sympathised with Essex, and especially the army and navy, who hated the Spaniards, and thought Essex stood up for the honour of the country. But if Essex's favour rose with the people, it was in utmost peril at Court.

A scene soon occurred in the Council chamber which hastened the rupture. There was a warm debate on the appointment of a new Lord Deputy for Ireland. That country was in such a cruelly distracted state, and the population, both English and Irish, so hostile to the English Government, that no one would willingly accept the office. At this moment the Cecils were warmly recommending Sir William Knollys to that unenviable post, Essex still more vehemently urging the appointment on Sir George Carew. But each party was not striving to confer the post as a favour, but as an annoyance. Sir William Knollys was the uncle of Essex, and, therefore, when the queen named him, the Cecils supported the nomination; and Essex, on the contrary, named Sir George Carew as a partisan of the Cecils. The debate grew vehement, and Essex, without regard to the wishes of the queen, spoke violently against the appointment of Sir William. The queen made a sarcastic observation on Essex's advocacy, and the petted favourite turned his back upon her with an expression neither respectful nor prudent. The soul of the great queen rose in all its Tudor fury, and she fetched the rash and forgetful youth a sound buffet on the ear. Instead of being called to his senses by this action, the fiery Earl started to his feet and clapped his hand on his sword; but the Lord Admiral threw himself between the ungallant Earl and the queen; and Essex exclaiming that "it was an insult which he would not have taken from her father, much less from a king in petticoats," rushed out of the room.

Ireland was now at such a pitch of confusion that the English Government was at its wit's end about it, and no one liked to undertake its vice-royalty. It was come to such a pass that it was even worse than when Walsingham wished it four-and-twenty hours under water. The Lord Grey, though eulogised by Spenser, had left it with the character of a cruel and rapacious tyrant. Sir John Perrot, reputed to be an illegitimate brother of Elizabeth, succeeded him, and dispensed justice with a stern hand. He was as ready to punish the English for their excesses as to do justice to the Irish under their wrongs; and the enmity of his own domineering and avaricious countrymen became much more effective than the respect of the natives. In 1592 the clamours and intrigues of his enemies occasioned his recall. At home, however, he suffered himself to speak incautiously of the queen and of Chancellor Hatton, and a secret inquiry was instituted into his late administration of Ireland. All sorts of charges of a treasonable nature were advanced against him by those whose rapacity he had punished during his deputyship—such as favouring the Roman Catholic clergy, plotting with Parma and the Spaniards, and encouraging the insurrections of the O'Rourkes and the Burkes. They could establish none of these, but they managed to touch him in a still more dangerous quarter. They proved that in his irritation at the obstructions thrown in his way by the Court, he had spoken sometimes freely of the queen and her ministers. Essex, whose sister Perrot's son had married, exerted all his influence in his favour; but where Elizabeth's vanity was wounded she was unforgiving. Sir John was condemned to death, and soon after died in the Tower from chagrin at his unjust treatment, or, as was suspected, from poison.

THE EARL OF ESSEX.

(From the Portrait by Isaac Oliver.)