XLIII. CHAP. the French at Dieppe. Strengthened by these supplies, Henry marched directly to Paris; and, having 1590. taken the suburbs sword in hand, he abandoned them to be pillaged by his soldiers. He employed this body of English in many other enterprises; and still found reason to praise their courage and fidelity. The time of their service being elapsed, he dismissed them with many high commendations. Sir William Drury, Sir Thomas Baskerville, and sir John Boroughs, acquired reputation in this campaign, and revived in France the ancient fame of English valour. fourth. Progress of THE army, which Henry, next campaign, led into Henry the the field, was much inferior to that of the league; but as it was composed of the chief nobility of France, he feared not to encounter his enemies in a pitched battle at Yvrée, and he gained a complete victory over them. This success enabled him to blockade Paris, and he reduced that capital to the last extremity of famine; when the duke of Parma, in consequence of orders from Philip, marched to the relief of the league, and obliged Henry to raise the blockade. Having performed this important service, he retreated to the low countries; and, by his consummate skill in the art of war, performed these long marches in the face of the enemy, without affording the French monarch that opportunity which he sought, of giving him battle, or so much as once putting his army in disorder. The only loss which he sustained was in the Low Countries; where prince Maurice took advantage of his absence, and recovered some places which the duke of Parma had formerly conquered from the States.d 1591. THE situation of Henry's affairs, though promising, was not so well advanced or established as to make the queen discontinue her succours; and she was still more confirmed in the resolution of supporting d See note [FF] at the end of the volume, XLIII. 1591. supporting him by some advantages gained by the CHA P. king of Spain. The duke of Mercœur, governor of Britanny, a prince of the house of Lorraine, had declared for the league; and, finding himself hard pressed by Henry's forces, he had been obliged, in order to secure himself, to introduce some Spanish troops into the sea-port towns of that province. Elizabeth was alarmed at the danger; and foresaw that the Spaniards, besides infesting the English commerce by privateers, might employ these harbours as the seat of their naval preparations, and might more easily from that vicinity, than from Spain or Portugal, project an invasion of England. She concluded, therefore, a new treaty with Henry, in which she engaged to send over three thousand men, to be employed in the reduction of Britanny; and she stipulated that her charges should, in a twelvemonth, or as soon as the enemy was expelled, be refunded her. These forces were commanded by sir John Norris, and under him by his brother Henry, and by Anthony Shirley. Sir Roger Williams was at the head of a small body which garrisoned Dieppe: And a squadron of ships, under the command of sir Henry Palmer, lay upon the coast of France, and intercepted all the vessels belonging to the Spaniards or the leaguers. THE operations of war can very little be regulated beforehand by any treaty or agreement; and Henry, who found it necessary to lay aside the projected enterprise against Britanny, persuaded the English commanders to join his army, and to take a share in the hostilities which he carried into Picardy. Notwithstanding the disgust which Elizabeth received from this disappointment, he laid before her a plan for expelling the leaguers from Normandy, and persauded her to send over a new body of four thousand men to assist him in that enterprise. eCamden, p. 561. f Rymer, tom. xiv. P. 116. 1591. CHAP. prise. The earl of Essex was appointed general of XLIII. these forces; a young nobleman, who, by many exterior accomplishments, and still more real merit, was daily advancing in favour with Elizabeth, and seemed to occupy that place in her affections which Leicester, now deceased, had so long enjoyed. Essex, impatient for military fame, was extremely uneasy to lie some time at Dieppe unemployed; and, had not the orders which he received from his mistress been so positive, he would gladly have accepted of Henry's invitation, and have marched to join the French army now in Champagne. This plan of operations was also proposed to Elizabeth by the French ambassador, but she rejected it with great displeasure; and she threatened immediately to recall her troops, if Henry should persevere any longer in his present practice, of breaking all concert with her, and attending to nothing but his own interests. Urged by these motives, the French king at last led his army into Normandy, and laid siege to Rouen, which he reduced to great difficulties. But the league, unable of themselves to take the field against him, had again recourse to the duke of Parma, who received orders to march to their relief. He executed this enterprise with his usual abilities and success; and, for the present, frustrated all the projects of Henry and Elizabeth. This princess, who kept still in view the interests of her own kingdom in all her foreign transactions, was impatient under these disappointments, blamed Henry for his negligence in the execution of treaties, and complained, that the English forces were thrust foremost in every hazardous enterprise." It is probable, however, that their own ardent courage, and their desire of distinguishing themselves in so celebrated a theatre of war, were the causes why they so often enjoyed this perilous honour. NOTWITHSTANDING Birch's Negotiations, p. 5. Rymer, tom. xiv. p. 123. 140. h Camden, p. 562. XLIII. NOTWITHSTANDING the indifferent success of C H A P. former enterprises, the queen was sensible how necessary it was to support Henry against the league 1591. and the Spaniards; and she formed a new treaty with him, in which they agreed never to make peace with Philip but by common consent; she promised to send him a new supply of four thousand men ; and he stipulated to repay her charges in a twelvemonth, to employ these forces, joined to a body of French troops, in an expedition against Britanny, and to consign into her hands a sea-port town of that province, for a retreat to the English. Henry knew the impossibility of executing some of these articles, and the imprudence of fulfilling others; but, finding them rigidly insisted on by Elizabeth, he accepted of her succours, and trusted that he might easily, on some pretence, be able to excuse his failure in executing his part of the treaty. This campaign was the least successful of all those which he had yet carried on against the league. against DURING these military operations in France, Naval enElizabeth employed her naval power against Philip, terprises and endeavoured to intercept his West-Indian trea- Spain. sures, the source of that greatness which rendered him so formidable to all his neighbours. She sent a squadron of seven ships, under the command of lord Thomas Howard, for his service; but the king of Spain, informed of her purpose, fitted out a great force of fifty-five sail, and dispatched them to escort the Indian fleet. They fell in with the English squadron; and, by the courageous obstinacy of sir Richard Grenville, the vice-admiral, who refused to make his escape by flight, they took one vessel, the first English ship of war that had yet fallen into the hands of the Spaniards. The rest of the squadron returned safely into England, frustrated i Rymer, vol. xvi. p. 151. 168. 171. 173. of CHAP. of their expectations, but pleasing themselves with XLIII. the idea that their attempt had not been altogether 1591. fruitless in hurting the enemy. The Indian fleet had been so long detained in the Havanna from the fear of the English, that they were obliged at last to set sail in an improper season, and most of them perished by shipwreck ere they reached the Spanish harbours. The earl of Cumberland made a like unsuccessful enterprise against the Spanish trade. He carried out one ship of the queen's and seven others equipped at his own expence: but the prizes which he made did not compensate the charges." THE spirit of these expensive and hazardous adventures was very prevalent in England. Sir Walter Raleigh, who had enjoyed great favour with the queen, finding his interest to decline, determined to recover her good graces by some important undertaking; and as his reputation was high among his countrymen, he persuaded great numbers to engage with him as volunteers in an attempt on the West Indies. The fleet was detained so long in the Channel by contrary winds, that the season was lost: Raleigh was recalled by the queen: Sir Martin Frobisher succeeded to the command, and made a privateering voyage against the Spaniards. He took one rich carrack near the island of Flores, and 1592. destroyed another." About the same time Thomas White, a Londoner, took two Spanish ships, which, besides fourteen hundred chests of quicksilver, contained about two millions of bulls for indulgences; a commodity useless to the English, but which had cost the king of Spain three hundred thousand florins, and would have been sold by him in the Indies for five millions. THIS war did great damage to Spain: but it was attended with considerable expence to England; 1 Monson, p. 163. n Ibid. p. 165. Camden, p. 569. m Ibid. p. 169. and |