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Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) and his eldest son Walter, at the age of eight : from a picture, dated 1602, belonging to Sir J. F. Lennard, Bart.

part, but the victory was mainly due to the seamanship of English mariners and the skill of English shipwrights.

7. Philip II. and France. 1588-1593.-Philip's hopes of controlling France were before long baffled as completely as his hopes of controlling England. In 1588 Guise, the partisan of Spain, was murdered at Blois by the order of the king in his very presence. In 1589 Henry III. was murdered in revenge by a fanatic, and the Huguenot king of Navarre claimed the crown as Henry IV. The League declared that no Huguenot should reign in France. A struggle ensued, and twice when Henry seemed to be gaining the upper hand Philip sent Parma to aid the League. The feeling of the French people was against a Huguenot king, but it was also against Spanish interference. When in 1593 Henry IV. declared himself a Catholic, Paris cheerfully submitted to him, and its example was speedily followed by the rest of France. Elizabeth saw in Henry IV. a king whose position as a national sovereign resisting Spanish interference much resembled her own, and in 1589 and again in 1591 she sent him men and money. A close alliance against Spain sprang up between France and England.

8. Maritime Enterprises. 1589-1596.—It was chiefly at sea, however, that Englishmen revenged themselves for the attack of

the Armada. In 1592 Drake and Sir John Norris sacked Corunna but failed to take Lisbon. Other less notable sailors plundered and destroyed in the West Indies. In 1595 Drake died at sea. In the same year Sir Walter Raleigh, who was alike distinguished as a courtier, a soldier, and a sailor, sailed up the Orinoco in search of wealth. In 1596 Raleigh, together with Lord Howard of Effingham and the young Earl of Essex, who was in high favour with the Queen, took and sacked Cadiz. Essex was generous and impetuous, but intensely vain, and the victory was followed by a squabble between the commanders as to their respective merits.

9. Increasing Prosperity.-It was not so much the victories as the energy which made the victories possible that diffused wealth and prosperity over England. Trade grew together with piracy and war. Manufactures increased, and the manufacturers growing in numbers needed to be fed. Landed proprietors, in consequence, found it profitable to grow corn instead of turning their arable lands into pasture, as they had done at the beginning of the century. The complaints about inclosures (see pp. 368, 415) died away. The results of wealth appeared in the show and splendour of the court, where men decked themselves in gorgeous attire, but still more in the gradual rise of the general standard of comfort.

1588-1596

INCREASE OF COMFORT

465

10. Buildings. Even in Mary's days the good food of Englishmen had been the wonder of foreigners. "These English," said a Spaniard, "have their houses of sticks and dirt, but they fare commonly as well as the king." In Elizabeth's time the houses were improved. Many windows, which had, except in the houses of the great, been guarded with horn or lattice, were now glazed, and even in the mansions of the nobility large windows stood in striking contrast with the narrow openings of the buildings of the middle ages. Glass was welcome, because men no longer lived-as they had lived in the days when internal wars were frequent -in fortified castles, where, for the sake of defence, the openings were narrow and infrequent. Elizabethan manor-houses, as they are now termed, sometimes built in the shape of the letter E, in honour, as is sometimes supposed, of the Queen's name, rose all over the

A mounted soldier at the end of the sixteenth century: from a broadside printed in 1596.

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country to take the place of the old castles. They had chimneys to carry off the smoke, which, in former days, had, in all but the largest houses, been allowed to escape through a hole in the roof. See pp. 466, 467, 469-471.

II. Furniture.-The furniture within the houses underwent a change as great as the houses themselves. When Elizabeth came to the throne people of the middle class were content to lie on a straw pallet, with a log of wood, or at the best a bag of chaff, under their heads. It was a common saying that pillows were fit only

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Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire; built by Thorpe for Sir Francis Willoughby about 1580-1588.

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Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire; built by Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, about 1597.

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