CHAPTER XV.

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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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."

[Illustration: "THE SURRENDER:" AN INCIDENT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA.

(Don Pedro de Valdes, Commander of the Andalusian Squadron of the Spanish

Armada, delivering up his sword to Sir Francis Drake.)

FROM THE PAINTING BY SEYMOUR LUCAS, R.A.]

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.

[Illustration: PHILIP II. (_After Titian._)]

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.

[Illustration: BEAUCHAMP TOWER, WARDERS' HOUSES, AND YEOMAN GAOLERS'

LODGINGS: TOWER OF LONDON.]

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.

[Illustration: THE QUARREL BETWEEN ELIZABETH AND THE EARL OF ESSEX. (_See

p._ 332.)]

The rupture took place in June, and not till the 6th of November did

the haughty favourite and the offended queen become reconciled; and it

is not probable that the reconciliation was ever sincere on the part of

Elizabeth. Meanwhile, death had removed two persons of great consequence

in the history of Elizabeth--her aged minister Burleigh, and Philip of

Spain (1598). Sir Robert Cecil, Burleigh's son, succeeded him in the

councils of the queen, much to the disgust of Essex, and perpetuated his

father's cautious principles.

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.

[Illustration: THE EARL OF ESSEX.

(_From the Portrait by Isaac Oliver._)]

The most formidable Irish chieftain with whom the English had to

contend was Hugh, the son of the late Baron of Dungannon. This active

and ambitious chief, who had been rewarded for his services in the war

against the Earl of Desmond with the earldom of Tyrone, soon proclaimed

himself not merely the successor to the earldom of O'Neil, but the

genuine O'Neil himself. The natives of Ulster, in need of such a

champion, admitted his claims, and were ready to support him in all his

pretensions. As these were not admitted by the English, he became their

enemy, and by his military talents proved a terrible thorn in their

side. He demanded for the natives liberty of conscience and all their

old lands, rights, and privileges; and the successive deputies found

themselves engaged in a most harassing and destructive war with this

subtle chief and his followers, in which he wore them out by constant

skirmishes and surprises amongst the woods, bogs, and mountains of his

wild territories. Sir John Norris, who had served with so much honour

in the Netherlands and France, sank under it; and in August of 1598 Sir

Henry Bagenal was defeated and slain in a pitched battle at Blackwater,

in Tyrone, his baggage and artillery being lost, and 1,500 men killed.

The consequence of this victory was that nearly all Ireland rushed into

a state of open rebellion, and the great question in the English cabinet

was, who was the man capable of reducing the insurgents. It required no

common man; for the Irish everywhere proclaimed the Earl of Tyrone the

saviour of his country, and looked to him to drive the English wholly

out of Ireland. The Earl of Essex dwelt so much in the Council on the

necessary bravery and address of the man who should be appointed, that

the Cecils, anxious to remove him to a distance from the Court, declared

that he himself was by far the most fitting for the office. His friends

warned him of the dangers and difficulties of a Government which had been

the ruin of so many; but the queen, seconding the recommendations of the

Cecils, to induce him to accept the post, remitted him a debt of £8,000,

and made him a present of nearly three times that sum. He was furnished

with an army of 18,000 men, many of them veteran troops who had fought in

the Netherlands, and with the fullest powers that had ever been conferred

on any Irish Deputy. He had full authority to continue the war or to

make peace; to pardon all crimes and treasons at his pleasure, and to

determine all his own appointments.

Such were the terms of his commission; but in one particular the queen

had laid a strict injunction upon him, in conversation, which was,

that he should not give the command of the cavalry, as he wished, to

his friend and the friend of Shakespeare, the Earl of Southampton,

with whom Elizabeth had the old cause of quarrel, that of presuming to

marry without her consent. In March, 1599, Essex marched out of London,

surrounded by the flower of the young nobility, and followed by the

acclamations and good wishes of the populace, of whom he was the idol for

his military reputation and his frank and generous disposition.

No sooner did he arrive in Ireland than he set at defiance the orders of

the queen, and placed Southampton at the head of the horse. Elizabeth

sent an angry command for his removal, and Essex reminded her of the

terms of his commission, and wished to know whether she meant to revoke

it. Worse was to follow. Sickness, from the wretched and unwholesome

supplies of provisions--the worst enemy of the British soldier in all

ages being frequently the commissariat officers--soon decimated them; and

by the month of August his 18,000 men showed no more than 3,500 foot, and

300 horse. He was compelled to demand a reinforcement of 2,000 men before

he could march into Ulster, the chief seat of the rebellion. The queen

sent the soldiers, but accompanied the order by very bitter letters,

complaining of his waste of her troops, her money, and of her time, which

was so precious. Essex defended himself by representing the difficulties

of the task which he had to encounter, and which had mastered so many

before him. He assured her that he acted entirely by the advice of the

Lords of the Irish Council; but "these rebels," he said, "are far more

numerous than your Majesty's army, and have--though I do unwillingly

confess it--better bodies, and more perfect use of their arms, than those

men your Majesty sends over." He added, that for his part he received

nothing from home but "discomfort and soul-wounds."

When he came up with Tyrone on the 5th of September, encamped with his

whole army in the county of Louth, that chief demanded a parley, and

instead of a battle, as was expected, an armistice was agreed upon for

six weeks, which was to be renewed from six weeks to six weeks till the

following May, to give time for full inquiry. His enemies thereupon

insinuated that Essex was at heart a traitor, and was in collusion with

the Irish to betray his trust and make himself independent. Still worse,

they declared that he was waiting for a descent of the Spaniards on

the island to assist in the design. Certain that his destruction was

determined upon by his foes, and that no justice was to be expected

whilst he was at such a distance, he formed the sudden resolve to hasten

to London and defend his policy in person. His first idea was to take

with him such a body of troops as should overawe the adverse party, and

secure his own person; but Sir Christopher Blount, who had now married

the mother of Essex, convinced him of the fatality of such a proceeding.

He departed, therefore, with a small attendance; and arriving in London

on the 28th of September, 1599, and finding the queen was at Nonsuch, he

lost no time in hastening thither, to prevent any one from prejudicing

her against him. But he found that, quick as he had been, his enemies

had been quicker, and that one of the most hostile of them, Lord Grey of

Wilton, was on the way at full speed. Essex knew what the effect would be

if Cecil got the news before his arrival, that he had left his government

contrary to the positive order of the queen; and if time were allowed

to excite the queen's resentment, he would undoubtedly be arrested the

moment of his arrival. For this reason he rode like a madman, through mud

and mire, but hate travelled faster, and Grey had been closeted a good

quarter of a hour with Cecil when he reached the palace.

Without pausing to alter his dress, Essex rushed into the queen's privy

chamber, and not finding her there, did not hesitate to rush into her

bed-chamber, though it was only ten o'clock in the morning. The queen was

just up, and sat with her hair all about her face in the hands of her

tire-woman. She was naturally excessively astonished at this unexpected

apparition; but Essex threw himself on his knees before her, covered her

hands with kisses, and did not rise till she had given him evidence of

her good-will. He retired to make his toilet in such good humour at his

reception that he thanked God that after so many troublous storms abroad,

"he found a sweet calm at home." Within an hour he returned, and had a

long interview with her Majesty, who was so kind and gracious, that the

courtiers, who had carefully watched how this rude entrance would be

taken, persuaded themselves that love would carry the day against duty

with the queen; and they all, except the Cecil party, were very courteous

towards him. But by the evening the poison of the venomous minister had

been instilled and done its work. Essex was received by the queen with

a stern and distant air, and she began to demand of him why he had thus

left Ireland without her permission, affairs being in so disordered and

dangerous a state. He received an order at night to consider himself a

prisoner in his room; and the next day, at two o'clock in the afternoon,

he was summoned to give an account of himself to the Council. On entering

the Council the lords arose and saluted him, but reseated themselves,

leaving him standing at the end of the board. It was demanded why he had

left his charge in Ireland without leave; why he had made so many knights

there, contrary to the express desire of the queen; why he had written

such presumptuous letters to her Majesty; and how he had dared to enter

her Majesty's bedroom. After awhile he was allowed a certain amount of

freedom, but the queen never saw him again.

In June of 1600 she put Essex on his trial before a court of eighteen

commissioners, whom she empowered to pass "censure," but not judgment.

The result of this trial was that Essex was condemned to forfeit every

office which he held by patent from the Crown, and to remain a prisoner

at the royal pleasure. Elizabeth trusted that now she had broken the

proud spirit of the Lord Deputy, and that the sentence of the court would

bring him humbly to sue for forgiveness. But the great failing of Essex

was his high spirit, his indignant sense of wrong, and his obstinate

refusal to surrender his own will when he felt himself right, though

there was no other way of appeasing his equally self-willed sovereign. He

only begged to be dismissed, and that she "would let her servant depart

in peace." He declared that all the pleasures and ambitions of this world

had palled upon his mind; that he saw their vanity, and desired only

to live in retirement with his wife, his friends, and his books in the

country. Had that wish been real, few men were better qualified, by their

refined and elevated taste and their love of literature, to have adorned

such a life; but Essex, if he truly longed for private and domestic life,

did not know himself, for he was one of those restless and quick spirits

of whom the poet said "quiet is a hell." However, on the 26th of August

he was released from custody, but informed that he must not appear at

Court.

Essex, once at large, cast off his pretences of retirement and contempt

of the world, and petitioned the queen for a continuation of his patent

for a monopoly of sweet wines. Elizabeth replied that she would first

inquire into the value of this privilege, which she understood was

worth £50,000 per annum. She accompanied this message with an ominous

remark that when horses became unmanageable it was necessary to stint

them in their corn. Accordingly, she refused his request, and appointed

commissioners to manage the tax for herself.

Essex now became beside himself. Hitherto he had lived in privacy,

but now he came to Essex House, in the Strand, where he gave free

entertainment to all sorts of people. His secretary Cuffe and other

dangerous persons encouraged him in the belief that by his popularity

with the people it would be no difficult matter to force Cecil, Raleigh,

and his other enemies from office; and that once removed from the queen,

all would be right. He therefore kept open house, and was soon surrounded

by crowds of military men and adventurers, by Roman Catholics and

Puritans. His military friends formed themselves into a sort of guard;

and it was remarked that many of the nobility also visited him, as the

Earls of Worcester, Southampton, Sussex, Rutland, and Bedford. There were

daily preachings in his house, and he proposed to some of the theologians

the question whether it were not lawful, in case of mal-administration,

to compel a sovereign to govern according to law. He moreover sent to

the king of Scotland, assuring him that there was a design at Court

to exclude him in favour of the Infanta of Spain, and urged James to

send an ambassador to demand a distinct declaration of his right to the

succession. James, who was in great anxiety on this head already, appears

to have listened to the advice of Essex, and to have taken measures to

act upon it.

Essex was now stimulated by his passions into a most perilous position.

He was actively engaged in dangerous courses; and though some pains

were taken to conceal his real designs, by the chief coadjutors in the

conspiracy meeting at the Earl of Southampton's, and communicating

privately by letter with Essex, the proceedings could not escape the

ever-open ears of Cecil and his party. The conspirators had concluded

that the safest thing to do in the first instance was for Sir Christopher

Blount, Sir John Davis, and Sir Charles Davers to head three parties,

and to take possession of the gate of Westminster palace, the guard, and

the presence chamber, whilst Essex threw himself on his knees before the

queen, and refused to rise till she had complied with his petition, and

dismissed the obnoxious ministers. But while they were planning, Cecil

and his friends acted. The secretary Herbert arrived with a summons for

Essex to appear before the Council. He replied that he was too unwell

to attend; and while he was thus evading the summons, he received an

anonymous note warning him to escape as he valued his life; and this

was immediately followed by the intelligence that the guard had been

doubled at the palace. It was high time now to act, as his arrest was

certain. In the night he despatched messages to collect his friends;

and it was resolved that the next morning, which was Sunday, the 8th of

February, 1601, the Earls of Southampton and Rutland, the Lords Sandys

and Mounteagle, and about 600 gentlemen, should enter the City with Essex

during sermon time, and assembling at St. Paul's Cross, where the Lord

Mayor, Aldermen, and Companies were wont to attend, to call upon them to

accompany them to the palace to assist in obtaining the removal of the

pernicious advisers of the Crown.

When they were on the point of executing this plan they were interrupted

by a visit from the Lord Keeper Egerton, the Earl of Worcester, Knollys,

the comptroller of the household, and the Lord Chief Justice. Essex

ordered them to be admitted through the wicket, but without any of their

attendants, except the purse-bearer. When the officers of the Crown found

themselves in the midst of an armed company, Egerton demanded what was

the meaning of it; on which Essex replied in a loud and excited tone,

"There is a plot laid for my life. Letters have been counterfeited in my

name; men have been hired to murder me in my bed. We are met to defend

our lives, since my enemies cannot be satisfied without sucking my blood."

"If such be the case," said the Lord Chief Justice Popham, "let it

be proved. We will relate it fairly, and the queen will do impartial

justice." "Impartial justice!" said the Earl of Southampton; "then

why is it not done on Lord Grey?" Grey had attacked Southampton in

the Strand with a number of followers on account of an old grudge,

Southampton having only a foot-boy with him, whose hand was struck off,

and Southampton himself was in great danger, till a number of people with

clubs came to his help. Popham replied that Grey was imprisoned for the

offence; and Egerton desired Essex to explain his grievances in private,

when there was a cry of "They abuse you, my lord; they are undoing you;

you lose your time!" Egerton put on his cap, and commanded every man,

in the queen's name, to lay down his arms and depart. The crowd outside

continued to shout, "Kill them, kill them! Keep them for hostages! Throw

the great seal out of the window!" The queen's officers, being shown into

a back room guarded by musketeers, Essex begged them to have patience

for half an hour and locking the door upon them, left them. Sir John

Davis, Sir Gilly Merrick, Francis Tresham, and Owen Salisbury were left

in charge of them.

[Illustration: LORD GREY AND HIS FOLLOWERS ATTACKING THE EARL OF

SOUTHAMPTON. (_See p._ 336.)]

Then Essex, rushing into the street, drew his sword, and followed by

Southampton, Rutland, Sandys, Mounteagle, and most of the knights and

gentlemen, he made for the City. They were joined on the way by the

Earl of Bedford and Lord Cromwell, with 200 others. At Ludgate the

guard suffered them to pass, Essex declaring that he was endeavouring

to save his life from Raleigh, Cobham, and their accomplices. To their

great disappointment they found nobody at St. Paul's Cross, the queen

having warned the Corporation to keep away, and to see that the people

remained within their houses. Essex rode along shouting, "For the

queen, my mistress! a plot is laid for my life!" and called upon the

citizens to come and follow him. He had relied on his popularity with the

masses; but he now found himself miserably deceived. The common people

shouted "God bless your honour!" but no man joined him. He returned

crestfallen to his house; but it was presently surrounded by a military

force with a battering train, and not a soul rose in his defence. The

case was hopeless, and about ten o'clock at night Essex and Southampton

held a parley from the top of the house with Sir Robert Sidney, and

surrendered on promise of a fair trial. They were conveyed for the night

to Lambeth Palace. The next day Essex and Southampton were committed

to the Tower, and the other prisoners to different gaols in London and

Westminster. Essex was tried, and on the whole fairly, for his technical

guilt was obvious; and, after the usual hesitation on the part of

Elizabeth, suffered the penalty of the law on the 25th of February, 1601.

Southampton was imprisoned for life.

Lord Mountjoy, the friend of Essex, though advanced to the deputyship of

Ireland in his room, knew that Elizabeth had become aware of his offer

to attempt a release of Essex from his confinement before his last rash

outbreak, and he was prepared to escape to the Continent on the first

symptom of an attempt to arrest him; but to his agreeable surprise he

received a very gracious letter from Elizabeth, in which she stated that

the defection and death of Essex had caused her deep grief, but his,

Mountjoy's, loyalty and success in Ireland had been a comfort to her.

This had been done at the suggestion of Cecil, who represented to her

that Mountjoy's loyalty might be secured by not seeming to doubt it, and

it was a great consequence to have so able a general in Ireland, as the

Spaniards were now meditating a descent on the coast of that island.

Indeed, in September, 4,000 Spaniards landed at Kinsale, under Don Juan

D'Aguilar, fortified the town, and called on the people to join them

against the heretic and excommunicated Queen of England, their oppressor.

Whilst Mountjoy marched his forces to Kinsale and shut up the Spaniards

in their own lines, Elizabeth summoned her last Parliament. She opened

it in person on the 27th of October, 1601, but she was now so enfeebled

that she was actually sinking under the weight of the robes of State,

when the nobleman who stood nearest to her caught her in his arms and

supported her. Notwithstanding this exhibition of her weakness, her

determined will enabled her to rally and to go through the ceremony. The

Session was a very stormy one. The great object of calling it together

was to obtain money. Money the House of Commons expressed its willingness

to grant, but at the same time called for the abolition of a number

of monopolies which were sapping the very vitals of the nation. These

monopolies were patents granted to her courtiers, for the exclusive sale

of some article of commerce. It was a custom which had commenced in the

seventeenth year of her reign, and by the greediness of her favourites

had grown into a monstrous abuse. Scarcely a man about her but had one or

more of these monopolies in his hand, by which the price of all sorts of

the necessities of life was doubled, or more than doubled. Sometimes the

patentee exercised the monopoly himself, sometimes he farmed it out to

others, whose only object was to screw as much as possible out of it. The

members for counties and boroughs had been repeatedly called on by their

constituents to demand the abolition of these detestable abuses; but they

had always been silenced by Ministers, on the ground that the queen would

highly resent any interference with her prerogatives.

On the 18th of November a motion to put an end to these monopolies was

made, which received the regular Ministerial answer, with the addition

that it was useless to endeavour to tie the Royal hands, because, even if

it were done by both Houses, the queen could loose them at her pleasure.

Cecil said that the Speaker was very much to blame to admit of such a

motion at the commencement of a Session, knowing that it was contrary

to the Royal command. But, nothing daunted, the members of the Commons

replied that they had found, however useless it was to petition for the

removal of these grievances, that the remedy lay in their own hands,

and the patentees were such blood-suckers of the commonwealth, that the

people would no longer bear the burden of them. When the list of the

monopolies was read over, a member asked if bread were not amongst them.

The House appeared amazed at the question. "Nay," said he, "if no remedy

be found for these, bread will be there before next Parliament." Bacon

and Cecil still talked loudly of prerogative, but the House went on with

so much resolution that the favourites began to tremble, and Raleigh, who

had monopolies of tar and various other commodities, saw such a storm

brewing that he offered to give them all up. For four days the debate

continued with such an agitation as had not been witnessed through the

whole reign; and Cecil found it necessary to give way, and the monopolies

were withdrawn. On the 25th the queen sent for the Speaker, and in the

presence of the Council, addressed him in a truly noble speech, saying

that she had rather her heart and hand should perish than that either

heart or hand should allow such privileges to monopolists as might injure

her people.

While these events had been taking place in Parliament, Mountjoy had

defeated the queen's enemies in Ireland. He had united his forces with

those of the President of Munster, and kept the Spaniards shut up in

Kinsale. On Christmas Eve the Earl of Tyrone advanced to the assistance

of the besieged, with 6,000 Irish and 200 fresh Spaniards, who had landed

at Castlehaven under the command of Ocampo. His plan was to surprise

the English before daylight, and to have a second division of his army

ready with a supply oprovisions to throw into the town. But Mountjoy

was already aware of his approach, which was delayed by the fears of

Ocampo--only too well founded--of the fatal want of discipline amongst

the natives, and by his endeavours to bring them into some regularity.

Mountjoy surprised these wild hordes as they were crossing a stream,

and thoroughly routed them. The Spaniards, left on the field alone,

surrendered, and Tyrone retreated northwards with the remnant of his

army. About 500 Irish were killed.

[Illustration: A STORY OF THE SPANISH MAIN

FROM THE PICTURE BY SEYMOUR LUCAS, R.A.]

The Spaniards in Kinsale yielded the place on this defeat of their

allies, on condition of being allowed to return home with their arms

and ammunition. Tyrone was then pursued by Mountjoy with great vigour,

and after a number of defeats retired still more northward. Munster was

reduced, and Tyrone offered to submit on favourable terms; but Mountjoy

could obtain no such terms from the queen; she insisted on unconditional

surrender. Her ministers strongly advised her to concede and settle the

state of Ireland, which was now costing her £300,000 a year to defend

it against the natives. Sometimes she appeared disposed to comply,

and then again was as obstinate as ever; and matters remained in this

position till 1603, when Mountjoy, hearing that the queen was not likely

to live long, agreed to receive Tyrone's submission, to grant him and

his followers a full pardon, and restore the whole of his territories,

with some few exceptions. Tyrone then accompanied Mountjoy to Dublin,

where they heard of the death of Elizabeth; and Tyrone burst into tears

and regretted his too hasty surrender. The deed, however, was done, and

tranquillity ensured to Ireland for a short time.

The last warlike demonstration of the reign of Elizabeth was an

expedition to the coast of Spain to prevent the passage of fresh fleets

to Ireland. Admirals Levison and Monson proceeded thither with a fleet;

but, tempted by a carrack of immense value in the harbour of Sesimbria,

they seized it and returned home. This desertion of their duty to satisfy

their greed of prize-money, would, in Elizabeth's days of vigour, have

cost the commanders dearly. While they were guarding their treasure

homewards the Spanish fleet might have made sail. Therefore no time

was lost in sending back the fleet under Monson, who found six Spanish

galleys out, and stealing along the French coast. Before he could pursue

them they were met by a squadron of Dutch and English ships, and after

some hard fighting three of them were sunk, and three escaped into Sluys.

The reign of Queen Elizabeth was now drawing to a close. She was

approaching her seventieth year, and till lately had still listened to

the voice of flattery as if she were yet in the glory of her youth. But

nature had begun to give her stern warnings, and the failing of her

strength brought deep melancholy. At one time she affected an unnatural

gaiety; at another she withdrew into solitude, and was often found in

tears. One of her household says in a letter--"She sleepeth not so much

by day as she used, neither taketh rest by night. Her delight is to sit

in the dark, and sometimes with shedding tears to bewail Essex."

Yet she still strove against the advancing infirmities of age. She would

insist to the last on making her annual progress and on hunting. Only

five months before her death Lord Henry Howard wrote to the Earl of

Mar--"The queen our sovereign was never so gallant many years, nor so

set upon jollity." A letter of April 7th, 1602, says--"The queen walks

often on Richmond Green with greater show of ability than can well stand

with her years. Mr. Secretary sways all of importance, albeit of late

much absent from the Court and about London, but not omitting in his

absence daily to present Her Majesty with some jewel or toy that may be

acceptable. The other of the Council or nobility estrange themselves

from Court by all occasions, so as, besides the master of the horse,

vice-chamberlain, and comptroller, few of account appear there."

When Cecil was present it required all his art to conceal his

correspondence with the King of Scotland. One day a packet was delivered

to him from James in the queen's presence. She ordered him instantly to

open it, and show its contents to her. It was a critical moment, and none

but a long-practised diplomatist could have escaped the exposure which it

would probably occasion; but recollecting her excessive dislike of bad

smells and terror of contagion, he observed as he was cutting the string

that "it had a strange and evil smell," and hinted that it might have

been in contact with infected persons or goods. Elizabeth immediately

ordered the cunning Minister to take it away and have it purified, and no

doubt he did purify it of any dangerous contents before displaying them

to Her Majesty.

Meanwhile, not only Cecil and Howard, but another clique, was busy

paying court to James. These were Raleigh, Cobham, and the Earl

of Northumberland. They met at Durham House, and kept up a warm

correspondence with James; but they were as zealously counteracted by

Cecil and Howard, who warned James of all things not to trust to them,

Howard declaring that as for Raleigh and Cobham, "hell did never spew up

such a couple when it cast up Cerberus and Phlegethon."

[Illustration: ELIZABETH'S PROMENADE ON RICHMOND GREEN. (_See p._ 339.)]

While these self-seeking courtiers were thus anxiously labouring to stand

first with the heir, Elizabeth was sinking fast into a most pitiable

condition. She was weighed down by a complication of complaints, and her

mind was affrighted by strange spectres. When the Lord Admiral urged her

to go to bed, she said, "No, no; there were spirits there that troubled

her;" and added that, "if he were in the habit of seeing such things

in his bed as she did in hers, he would not try to persuade her to go

there." Cecil hearing this, asked if Her Majesty had seen any spirits.

At this she cast one of her old lightning flashes at him, and said, "I

shall not answer _you_ such a question." Cecil then said she must go to

bed to content the people. "Must," she said, smiling scornfully; "_must_

is a word not to be used to princes;" adding, "Little man! little man! if

your father had lived you durst not have said so much, but you know I

must die, and that makes you so presumptuous." She now saw Cecil's real

character, and ordering him and all the rest except the Lord Admiral out

of her chamber, she said, "My lord, I am tied with a chain of iron round

my neck." He endeavoured to dissipate the idea, but she only said, "I am

tied! I am tied! and the case is altered with me."

[Illustration: RICHMOND PALACE. (_See p._ 382.)]

"The queen," says Lady Southwell, "kept her bed fifteen days, besides

the three days she sat upon a stool, and one day, when, being pulled up

by force, she obstinately stood upon her feet for fifteen hours." What

a most miserable scene was the death-bed of this glorious woman! Surely

nothing was ever more melancholy and terrible in its mixture of mental

decay, dark remorse, and indomitable hardiness and self-will. At one and

the same time around her bed were men urging her to take broth, to name

her successor, and to hear prayers. The kings of France and Scotland were

mentioned to her, but without eliciting the slightest notice; but when

they named Beauchamp, the son of the Earl of Hertford and Catherine Grey,

one of Elizabeth's victims, she fired up and exclaimed, "I will have no

rascal's son in my nest, but one worthy to be a king!"

At length they persuaded her to listen to a prayer by the Archbishop of

Canterbury, and when he had once begun she appeared unwilling to let him

leave off; half-hour after half-hour she kept the primate on his knees.

She then sank into a state of insensibility, and died at three o'clock

in the morning of the 24th of March, 1603, in the seventieth year of her

age, and the forty-fifth of her reign. Robert Carey, afterwards Earl of

Monmouth, was anxiously waiting under the window of Elizabeth's room at

Richmond Palace for the first news of her death, which Lady Scrope, his

sister, communicated to him by silently letting fall, as a signal, a

sapphire ring, afterwards celebrated as "the blue ring," which he caught,

and the moment after was galloping off towards Scotland to be the first

herald of the mighty event to the expecting James. Three hours later

Cecil, the Lord Keeper, and the Lord Admiral were with the Council in

London, and it was resolved to proclaim James VI. of Scotland James I. of

England.