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which time the duke of Medina gathered together his fleet scattered here and there, and hoisting more sail, held on his intended course.' Forty of the lord admiral's ships were hardly yet out of the haven. The night was dark and the sea troubled. A huge Biscayan vessel took fire; and in the confusion the galleon of Don Pedro de Valdez got foul of another ship, and was left behind. Drake had gone after five vessels that proved to be merchantmen of Germany; and this had deranged the movements of the squadron that was to have followed his lantern. Howard, with two ships, had held on through the night after the Spaniards. Drake coming back from his bootless chase fell in with the great galleon abandoned by her companions; and Valdez became his prisoner, with a booty of 55,000 ducats, which were distributed amongst the crews. At nightfall of that second day the active vice-admiral was again with his commander. The next morning the remainder of the fleet had come out of Plymouth, and Raleigh had come with them, to take his share in that sea-fight, rather than remain with his inactive army on land. The Armada on this morning of the 23rd of July was off Portland. And now, says Stow, "the English navy being well increased, gave charge and chase upon the enemy, squadron after squadron seconding each other like swift horsemen that could nimbly come and go, and fetch the wind with most advantage. The English chieftains ever sought to single out the great commanders of the Spanish host, whose lofty castles held great scorn of their encounter." The English ran in under the great galleons, and having delivered their broadsides, sheered out of the range of the Spanish guns, which were high above the water-line. In this furious skirmish there was alternate success. One English commander only fell—“Cook, an Englishman, who died with honour in the midst of the enemies in a small ship of his." From morning till night this fight continued; the Spaniards sometimes bearing down upon their pursuers, and then going before the west wind towards St. Alban's Head. The 24th was a day of rest. The fleets were becalmed, with the Needles in distant view. From every port of Dorsetshire and Hampshire fresh ships had come forth, hired and armed by the gentlemen of England to aid in this great defence. On the 25th, Hawkins, in the Victory, was towed to take possession of a great galleon, disabled in the fight of the 23rd, which had dropped astern. There was no resistance from the galleon. But three of the great galeasses came to rescue her and to punish her daring captor. But the Lion and the Bear, the Triumph, and the Elizabeth Jonas were quickly about them, with their sixty pounders, and their thirty-three pounders, known as cannon and demi-cannon, “sending their dole until the Spaniards blood ran out at scupper-hole." The battle, for a breeze had sprung up, again became general. Medina's ship, the San Marten, had her mainmast shot away, and was about to strike to Frobisher. Medina was saved by his generals, Mexia and Recalde. Howard joined in the struggle. The issue was long doubtful. But the English powder was exhausted; and there was no more fighting on that summer afternoon. The next day, lord Sheffield, and lord Thomas Howard, Frobisher, Townsend, and Hawkins were knighted "for their valour." It was resolved to defer

* Camden.

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any further attack till the Spaniard was in the narrow sea. On the 26th and 27th, the vast navies were seen, as they coasted along, from Selsea Bill, and from the downs of Brighton, from Hastings, and from Dungeness. For seven days had the Spaniard been fighting his way through the Channel, and at length he was at anchor before Calais on the Saturday night of that week of memorable conflict. But when the morning of Sunday dawned, the English fleet of a hundred and forty sail was riding in Calais Roads within cannon-shot of the exceeding great ships, whose greatest stil! kept the outer line against their enemy. On that Sunday the heart of England sent up to Heaven the simple but solemn prayer, "Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech Thee, from the hands of our enemies." In this time of need the queen had herself composed a prayer, which had been sent to "the general of her highness' army at Plymouth," as her majesty's private meditation.

The duke of Medina had dispatched messenger after messenger to the duke of Parma, to bid him send "light vessels," without which the Spaniard could not well fight with the English; and to urge him to put to sea with his army, which the Spanish fleet would protect till the landing upon the hated shore was accomplished. Parma's boats were leaky; his provisions were exhausted; his sailors had deserted; he was kept in port by the vigilant Dutch. But nevertheless a junction might have been fatal ; and the Spaniard must be crippled before he again weighed anchor. At two o'clock on Monday morning, eight small vessels were towed from the main body of the English fleet, and were bearing with the wind upon the Spanish anchorage. Suddenly a strong light burst out from each vessel. The tow-boats left them, and they drifted with the breeze right into the centre of the Armada. Then vast volumes of flame and smoke rolled out from the burning hulks, with fearful explosions and sulphury stenches. Young and Prowse, who led these fire-ships into the heart of the enemy's fleet, had done their duty well. The bold stroke, devised by Elizabeth herself, as contemporaries say, was successful beyond hope. One of the largest of the galeasses was stranded near the town of Calais, and was taken, after a fierce engagement, in which many English were slain, and the Spaniards lost four hundred men. Medina conducted himself with courage and coolness, and his ship, with a few others, resumed their stations. But the bulk of the fleet was running up Channel in wild confusion. Some went ashore on the Flemish coast; others stood out to sea; many got together as well as they could near Gravelines. But Drake and Fenner were fighting them from the first peep of the dawning; and now there came up Hawkins and Fenton, Seymour and Cumberland, Southwell and Frobisher, and there was again a general battle under the castle of Gravelines; for Howard himself was up at his post. The Spanish castles had fearful difficulty in avoiding the shallows. They were hemmed in with danger. They must keep together; or be made prize if they ran out to sea. The last great fight was on the 29th of July. The scattered remnant of the Armada held on its perilous course, past Dunkirk, past the mouth of the Scheldt, full into the North Sea. Drake was in the wake of the flying squadrons. The prince of Parma had failed the Spaniards. They had received a message from him, as they lay before Calais on Sunday the 28th, that he could not

T

be ready for them till the Friday following. On that Friday they were far away to the north, the English pursuing. After the fight off Gravelines there were a hundred and ten (some state a hundred and twenty) sail left of the whole Spanish navy. Coming to an island at the north of Scotland, the general gave orders that they should make the best of their way to any part of the Portuguese or Spanish coast. Ships, having lost their anchors, their masts shot through, their hulls riddled with shot-holes, had sunk on the coast of Scotland and in the open North Sea, or were cast on the shores of the Western Isles. About the 20th of August there came on a great storm which divided the fleet; and, ten days after, another storm scattered them around the shores of Connaught and Kerry. The duke of Medina kept out in the open sea, and entered the Bay of Biscay about the end of September. A few ships reached Spain, under the command of Recalde, in a shattered condition. Some of the wretched men who were shipwrecked were murdered by the wild Irish; and some, more disgracefully, were put to the sword by order of the lord deputy. The Spaniards lost eighty-one ships in this expedition, and upwards of thirteen thousand five hundred soldiers.

In the midst of the English triumph Leicester died, and the private sorrow of the queen retarded her participation in the public joy. But on Sunday the 24th of November, Elizabeth rode in triumphant state to St. Paul's. On that day there were also given in every church of the land "public and general thanks unto God, with all devotion and inward affection of heart and humbleness, for his gracious favour extended towards us in our deliverance and defence, in the wonderful overthrow and destruction showed by his mighty hand on our malicious enemies the Spaniards, who had thought to invade and make a conquest of the realm."

The parliament which met in February, 1589, was naturally warlike; exulting in the past success, and resolved upon supporting the queen in the contest which was so truly a battle for national existence. Sir Christopher Hatton, the lord chancellor, told the Peers and Commons not to be deceived into a belief that England was secure, through the Divine mercy which had rendered the vast armada vain and useless. This was preparatory to asking for a subsidy; and, although there was no precedent for such a mark of confidence, two subsidies were granted in one supply, payable in four years. Philip had said that he would persevere, even if he sold the silver candlesticks which stood on his table. He resolved to build smaller vessels, and to sail direct to the English coast from his harbours in the Peninsula. The Anglo-Saxon spirit was now thoroughly roused; and any scheme for attacking Spain was sure to receive the heartiest encouragement. The government of Elizabeth was economical in the extreme; and it was indisposed to undertake any war, except a war of defence, upon a large scale. The people, therefore, were encouraged to fit out expeditions at their own cost, to which the queen lent assistance. Sir Francis Drake and sir John Norris undertook to lead a great armament for winning Portugal from the Castilians,-whom the Portuguese hated,— to place the crown upon the head of Don Antonio, an illegitimate branch of the royal line of that country which Philip had added to Spain. A great body of adventurers joined the expedition. They did not, however, sail

A.D. 1567-1593.

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direct to Portugal, but attacked Corunna; burnt some ships; defeated a Spanish army; and took the lower town. At last they went on the real purpose for which the armament was fitted out. But Philip was now prepared. Every attempt at insurrection was promptly suppressed. Lisbon was defended by a large force. When the English army under Norris advanced from Peniche, their landing-place, and Drake sailed up the Tagus, they could only obtain possession of the suburbs of Lisbon; and were speedily forced to re-embark for want of ammunition and provisions. On their return they took and burned Vigo. The earl of Cumberland also fitted out seven ships at his own charge to attack the Spanish coasts. Á fearful mortality amongst the men of this expedition crippled their exertions; and, though many prizes were made, the prosperous issue of the great contest was little advanced by such detached enterprises.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE Established Church had opened its arms widely, to embrace many who conscientiously differed as to doctrine and discipline. The majority accepted the invitation to abide by the religion of the State,-to form contented if not zealous members of a Church which was expressly calculated to reconcile differences. The Romanists had, after the contests of a quarter of a century, been absorbed into the ranks of the conformists, or held their own opinions in secret, or had been crushed. But in the second half of the reign of Elizabeth the power which had largely contributed to put down the more dangerous of the enemies of the reformed doctrines had, in its turn, become troublesome, if not dangerous. When the immediate fear of invasion had passed away, the Puritans went with redoubled zeal about the work which they called a Re-reformation. The age of pamphlets had now fully come. Little books that bore the title of Martin Marprelate were secretly printed and circulated in despite of authority. The clergy who returned from their seven years' exile during the time of persecution, were put in possession of many of the livings from which the Romish priests had been in their turn ejected. They very soon ceased to regard the Act of Uniformity as imperatively binding; and great irregularities in the performance of ceremonies crept in, and were for some time tolerated. But at length a rigid observance of the rubric was enforced; and the ministers who would not conform were thrust out from their benefices. They had their admirers and their followers; and their course was to form separate assemblies. In 1567 a congregation of dissenters were seized at Plumbers' Hall, and some were committed to prison. As yet, the contest had been about what the Puritans held as superstitious ceremonies. The resistance with which they were encountered upon minor points ultimately led them to condemn the episcopal constitution of the Anglican Church, and to proclaim the superiority of the Genevan model. They had a covert support amongst the

most influential of Elizabeth's ministers; but the queen herself was opposed to an abolition of forms to which the only serious objection was that they belonged to the rites of the earlier Church. The queen and the ecclesiastical commissioners were ultimately too strong for the moderate party of the Council. Archbishop Whitgift, who succeeded to the primacy in 1583, was determined to put down rather than conciliate the party of the Puritans. The result was, first a furious attack against episcopacy in the pamphlets of Martin Marprelate; and then severe laws against the Puritans, which had no ultimate effect but that of fortifying their opinions, and of making their cause the rallying point of civil and religious liberty. There was now little distinction between the non-conforming Protestant and the recusant Romanist in the eyes of the dominant Church. The Ecclesiastical Commission ejected ministers; the government hanged libellers; and Penry, the supposed author of the Marprelate tracts, was hastily and cruelly executed, under the statute of 1581, for seditious words and rumours against the queen. These severities were chiefly directed against the separatists from the Church who were then denominated Brownists, and afterwards Independents. In their social relations these dissenters certainly did not present an amiable aspect to the rest of the community. They made themselves obnoxious as the enemies of all innocent amusements; and, affecting "to cross the ordinary custom in everything," equally denounced the general habits of society, however harmless or indifferent, as well as its exceptional vices. In "The Anatomie of Abuses" of Philip Stubbes--a most rigid Calvinist-we are told that "reformation of manners, and amendment of life, was never more needful; for was pride, the chiefest argument of this book, ever so ripe?" By "pride" we understand him to mean what is the accompaniment of every period of general prosperity—a love of luxury and of luxurious display, not confined to the superior classes, but spread by the force of the imitative principle very widely through many inferior degrees of station. The sumptuary laws of Henry VIII. had ceased to be regarded; and the statesmen of Elizabeth meddled little with these matters. The queen herself carried her love of costly dress almost into a mania. It was the only expenditure in which she was profuse. In the more general diffusion of wealth at this time, gluttony and drunkenness assumed those forms of ostentatious display which are amongst the worst evils of social refinement. There were punishments for low debauchery, such as the drunkard's cloak. Against this growing sin, which was creeping up from the peasant and the mechanic to the yeoman and the courtier, the preachers lifted up their voices in the pulpit, and not always in vain. But we may be sure that these earnest preachers in some degree injured the good effect of their religious exhortations against real vices, by denouncing those harmless recreations which to the greater number supplied the place of grosser excitements. The court of Elizabeth was a dancing court. In 1589, at her palace of Richmond, her "ordinary exercise" was "six or seven galliards in a morning, besides music and singing.” The Puritans denounced all dancing in mixed companies of the sexes. They held that "men by themselves and women by themselves" might

Lodge, vol. ii., p. 411,

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