1586 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 457 offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, and, though she had prudently refused, she sent an army to their aid, but neutralised the gift by placing the wretched Leicester at its head, and by giving him not a penny wherewith to pay his men. In 1586, after an attempt (after Alençon's fashion) to seize the government for himself, Leicester returned to England, having accomplished, nothing. What Elizabeth did not do was done by a crowd of young Englishmen who pressed over to the Netherlands to fight as volunteers for Dutch freedom. The best known of these was Sir Philip Sidney, whose head and heart alike seemed to qualify him for a foremost place amongst the new generation of Englishmen. Unhappily he was slain in battle near Zutphen. As he lay dying he handed a cup of water untasted to another wounded man. 'Thy necessity,' he said to him, 'is greater than mine.' Parma took Zutphen, and the territory of the Dutch Republic-the bulwark of England-was the smaller by its loss. By sea England more than held her own, and in 1586 Drake returned from a voyage to the West Indies laden with spoils. 24. Babington's Plot, and the Trial of Mary Stuart. 1586.The Spanish invasion being still delayed, a new plot for murdering Elizabeth was formed. A number of young Catholics (of whom Anthony Babington was the most prominent) had been allowed to remain at Court by Elizabeth, who was perfectly fearless. Acting under the instructions of a priest named Ballard, they now sought bisely to take advantage of their easy access to her person to assassinate her. They were detected and executed, and Walsingham, the Secretary of State who conducted the detective department of the government, discovered, or said that he had discovered, evidence of Mary Stuart's approving knowledge of the conspiracy. Elizabeth's servants felt that there was but one way of saving the life of the queen, and that was by taking the life of her whose existence made it worth while to assassinate Elizabeth. Mary was brought to trial and condemned to death on a charge of complicity in Babington's plot. When Parliament met it petitioned Elizabeth to execute the sentence. Elizabeth could not make up her mind. She knew that Mary's execution would save herself and the country from enormous danger, but she shrank from ordering the deed to be done. She signed the warrant for Mary's death, and then asked Mary's gaoler Paulet to save her from responsibility by murdering his prisoner. On Paulet's refusal she continued her vacillations, till the Council authorised Davison, Walsingham's colleague in the Secretaryship, to send off the warrant without further orders. 11. H H 25. Execution of Mary Stuart. 1587.-On February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart was beheaded at Fotheringhay. Elizabeth carried out to the last the part which she had assumed, threw the blame on Davison, dismissed him from her service, and fined him heavily. After Mary's death the attack on England would have to be conducted in open day. It would be no advantage to Philip and the Pope that Elizabeth should be murdered if her place was to be taken, not by Mary, but by Mary's Protestant son, James of Scotland. 1587.- After 1. The Singeing of the King of Spain's Beard. Mary's execution Philip claimed the crown of England for himself or his daughter the Infanta Isabella, on the plea that he was descended from a daughter of John of Gaunt, and prepared a great fleet in the Spanish and Portuguese harbours for the invasion of England. In attempting to overthrow Elizabeth he was eager not merely to suppress English Protestantism, but to put an end to Eng. lish smuggling and piracy in Spanish America, and to stop the assistance given by Englishmen to the Netherlanders who had rebelled against him. Before his fleet was ready to sail Drake appeared off his coast, running into his ports, burning his store-ships, and thus making an invasion impossible for that year (1587). Drake, as he said on his return, had singed the king of Spain's beard. 2. The Approach of the Armada. 1588.-The Invincible Armada,' as some foolish Spaniards called Philip's great fleet, set 1 Armada was the Spanish name for any armed fleet. 1588 THE SPANISH ARMADA 459 out at last in 1588. It was to sail up the Channel to Flanders, and to transport Parma and his army to England. Parma's soldiers were the best disciplined veterans in Europe, while Elizabeth's were raw militia, who had never seen a shot fired in actual war. If, therefore, Parma succeeded in landing, it would probably go Si: Martin Frobisher, died 1594: from a picture belonging to the hard with England. It was, therefore, in England's interest to fight the Armada at sea rather than on land. 3. The Equipment of the Armada. 1588. Even at sea the odds were in appearance against the English. The Spanish ships were not indeed so much larger than the largest English vessels as has often been said, but they were somewhat larger, and they were built so as to rise much higher out of the water, and to carry a greater number of men. In fact, the superiority was all on the English side. In great military or naval struggles the superiority of the victor is usually a superiority of intelligence, which shows itself in the preparation of weapons as much as in conduct in action. The Spanish ships were prepared for a mode of warfare which had hitherto been customary. In such ships the soldiers were more numerous than the sailors, and the decks were raised high above the water, in order that the soldiers might command with their muskets the decks of smaller vessels at close quarters. The Spaniards, trusting to this method of fighting, had not troubled themselves to improve their marine artillery. The cannon of their largest ships were few, and the shot which they were capable of firing was light. Philip's system of requiring absolute submission in Church and State had resulted in an uninventive frame of mind in those who carried out his orders. He had himself shown how little he cared for ability in his selection of an admiral for his fleet. That post having become vacant by the death of the best seaman in Spain, Philip ordered the Duke of Medina Sidonia to take his place. The Duke answered-with perfect truth-that he knew nothing about the sea and nothing about war; but l'hilip, in spite of his candour, bade him go, and go he did. 4. The Equipment of the English Fleet. 1588.-Very different was the equipment of the English fleet. Composed partly of the queen's ships, but mainly of volunteers from every port, it was commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham, a Catholic by conviction. The very presence of such a man was a token of a patriotic fervour of which Philip and the Jesuits had taken no account, but which made the great majority of Catholics draw their swords for their queen and country. With him were old sailors like Frobisher, who had made his way through the ice of Arctic seas, or like Drake, who had beaten Spaniards till they knew their own superiority. That superiority was based not merely on greater skill as sailors, but on the possession of better ships. English shipbuilders had adopted an improved style of naval architecture, having constructed vessels which would sail faster and be more easily handled than those of the older fashion, and -what was of still greater importance-had built them so as to carry more and heavier cannon. Hence, the English fleet, on board of which the number of sailors exceeded that of the soldiers, was in reality—if only it could avoid fighting at close quarters-far superior to that of the enemy. |