ELIZABETH.—Continued.
How Queen Elizabeth refused to marry; how the ships and the sailors
were improved in her reign; how some great admirals made many voyages
and discoveries; how the King of Spain sent a great fleet and army to
conquer England, but could not succeed; and how the English did much
harm to Spain.
It is quite pleasant, my little friend, to have to write a chapter
for you, where I can tell you of all things going well for England,
that dear country where God allows us to live, which he has given us
to love, and to do all we can for.
When first Elizabeth became queen, her counsellors and the
Parliament, and the people, all asked her to marry, and promised
to receive kindly anybody she should choose. And the King of Spain
asked her to marry him, but she told him she would not marry him,
because he had been her sister’s husband; and she did not believe the
Pope had power to allow her to marry one who had been her sister’s
husband. Then the old Queen of France, Catherine of Medicis, who had
taught poor Mary Queen of Scots to be so foolish and cruel, wanted
Queen Elizabeth to marry one of her sons. But Elizabeth did not like
them any better than she did Philip, yet more than once she pretended
she was going to marry one of them, for she wanted to be friends with
France, and so make England strong and able to fight successfully
against Spain. Then some of the great English lords wanted to marry
her. But she knew that if she married one of them the others would
be jealous, and, may be, would make a civil war in England; so she
thanked the counsellors, and the Parliament, and the people, for
their kindness, but said she would rather live single, as she had
quite enough to do to govern the kingdom well, without being troubled
with marrying. And she kept her word, and never married, and is
always called the Maiden Queen.
I told you long ago, that the first great sea-fight in which the
English beat the French was in the reign of Edward the Third. Since
that time the English ships had been very much improved; instead of
only one mast, the largest had three, and instead of stones for the
sailors to throw at one another, there were large and small guns to
fight with. Then the sailors were as much improved as the ships.
Instead of only sailing along by the land, and only going to sea in
good weather, they made long voyages.
You know, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, I told
you that some bold sailors had sailed as far as America. Now Queen
Elizabeth, who knew very well that the kings of France and Spain
wanted to make war upon England, and drive her away, and oppress the
Protestants, thought, like wise King Alfred, that the best way to
defend England was to have plenty of ships and good seamen, and brave
admirals and captains to command them: and so meet her enemies on the
sea, and keep them from ever landing in England.
I must tell you something about one or two of Queen Elizabeth’s great
admirals.
Sir Francis Drake, the first man who ever sailed his ship round the
whole world, was born in Devonshire, and went to sea at first with
some other brave gentlemen, to carry on a war against some towns
which the Spaniards had built in South America. This was very wrong,
because private persons have no business to make war, and take towns,
and make prisoners of the townspeople. Such things should only be
done when there is a lawful war between two countries. Then, indeed,
every man must do his duty, and fight as well as he can for his own
country and king. If private gentlemen were to go and take towns
belonging to other countries, now, they would be called PIRATES, and
they would be hanged.
However, as Sir Francis Drake grew older, he left off making private
war, became one of the queen’s best admirals, and you will read more
about him near the end of this chapter.
When he made his grand voyage round the world, he sailed always from
the East to the West. He first went round Cape Horn, at the very
South end of South America, where he saw great islands of ice as high
as a large hill, and penguins and albatrosses swimming about them.
Then he sailed to the Spice Islands, where he saw cloves and nutmegs
grow, and birds of Paradise flying about in the air, and peacocks in
the fields, and monkeys skipping from tree to tree in the woods. Then
he passed by the Cape of Good Hope, which is in the South part of
Africa, where all the beautiful geraniums and heaths come from.
Queen Elizabeth spoke to him kindly when he set out, and when he came
back, after being three years at sea, she went and dined with him on
board his own ship, and saw all the beautiful and curious things he
had brought home with him.
Another great Admiral was Sir Martin Frobisher, who had been to the
furthest parts of North America, and first saw all the land about
Hudson’s Bay, and those countries to the south of that bay, where the
English not long afterwards built towns, and settled a great many
free states, that you will read a great deal about some day.
In many things, the next admiral I will tell you about was a greater
man than any of the rest. His name was Sir Walter Raleigh; he was
both a sailor and a soldier: sometimes he commanded a ship, and
sometimes he fought along with the army on shore.
The first time the queen took notice of him was one day that she was
walking in London, and came to a splashy place just as Sir Walter was
going by. As she was thinking how she could best step through the
mud, Sir Walter took off a nice new cloak that he had on, and spread
it on the dirt, so that the queen might walk over without wetting her
shoes. She was very much pleased, and desired him to go to see her at
her palace; and as she found that he was very clever and very brave,
she made him one of her chief admirals.
Queen Elizabeth used to behave to her brave admirals and generals,
and her wise counsellors, and even to her great merchants, like
a friend. She visited them in their houses, and talked to them
cheerfully of her affairs. She took notice of even the poorest
people, and she used to walk and ride about, so that all her subjects
knew her and loved her. And now I am going to tell you a part of her
history, which will show you how happy it was for her and for England
that the people did love their good queen.
The King of Spain had never loved Elizabeth; and he hated England,
because the people were Protestants: and I am sure you remember how
cruel he and his wife Queen Mary were to the English.
He made war against England, and thought that if he could land a
great army on the coast, he might conquer all the country and drive
away Elizabeth, and make the English all Papists again. He hoped this
would be easy, because he was the richest king in the world, and had
more ships and sailors and soldiers than any other. And he began to
build more ships and to collect more sailors and soldiers; and he
made so sure he should conquer England, that I have heard he even had
chains put on board the ships, to chain the English admirals when his
people should take them.
This fleet, that King Philip made ready to conquer England, was the
largest that any king had ever sent to sea, and he called it the
“Invincible Armada,”[3] because, he said, nobody could conquer it.
But Queen Elizabeth heard in time that Philip was making ready
this great navy, to bring as great an army to attack England. She
immediately told the Parliament and people of her danger. She rode
out herself to see her soldiers and her ships, and she said she
trusted herself entirely to her good people. The people soon showed
her they might be trusted: they came willingly to be sailors and
soldiers; and the great lords gave money to pay the soldiers; and
many gentlemen built ships, and bought guns, and gave them to the
queen. And she had soon a good fleet. It was not so large as King
Philip’s indeed, and the ships were quite small compared with his;
but the sailors belonging to it remembered that they were to fight
for their own dear England, and for a queen whom they loved.
[Illustration: The Spanish Armada.]
The chief admiral was Lord Howard of Effingham; under him were Lord
Seymour, Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins, Sir Martin Frobisher,
Sir Walter Raleigh, and several other lords and gentlemen.
[Illustration: Queen Elizabeth reviewing her army at Tilbury.]
The queen got herself ready to march to whatever place the Spaniards
might land at. She had a good army a little way from London, at
Tilbury Fort, and she went there on horseback, and spoke to the
soldiers, to give them courage.
Oh, how anxious everybody in England was, when the news came that the
great Armada was at sea, and sailing very near them! but it pleased
God to save England. Soon after the Spanish fleet set sail a great
storm arose, and many of the ships were so damaged that they could
not come to England at all.
When the others did come, Queen Elizabeth’s fleet sailed out and
followed them for a week up the English Channel, fighting and beating
them all the way. At last, in the Straits of Dover, the English
admirals sent fire ships into the middle of the Armada, and the
Spaniards sailed away in a fright; and not one ship got to England to
land Spanish soldiers. Twelve of them were taken or destroyed; and
another storm, greater than the first, sank a great many and wrecked
others, so that of all Philip’s great fleet and army, only one-third
could get back to Spain; and they were so tired and so hurt that he
never could get them together again to attack England.
Philip must have been very sorry that he began to make war against
England, for the war lasted as long as he lived, and every year the
English admirals used to take a good many of his ships; and one year
Lord Essex, who was a great favorite of Queen Elizabeth’s, landed in
Spain, and took Cadiz, one of Philip’s best towns, and burnt a great
many ships that were in its harbour.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Armada is the Spanish word for Navy.