Clare Avery Part 12

"Then pray you, let Lysken Barnevelt go!" said Jack soberly. "I warrant you she'll stand fire, and never so much as ruffle her hair."

"Well, I heard say Dame Mary Cholmondeley of Vale Royal, that an' the men beat not back the Spaniards, the women should fight them with their bodkins; wherewith Her Highness was so well pleased that she dubbed the dame a knight then and there. My wife saith, an' it come to that, she will be colonel of a company of archers of Lancashire. We will have Mistress Barnevelt a lieutenant in her company."

"My sister Margaret would make a good lieutenant, my Lord," suggested Jack. "We'll send Aunt Rachel to the front, with a major's commission, and Clare shall be her adjutant. As for Blanche, she may stand behind the baggage and screech. She is good for nought else, but she'll do that right well."

"For shame, lad!" said Sir Thomas, laughing.

"I heard her yesterday, Sir,--the occasion, a spider but half the size of a pin head."

"What place hast thou for me?" inquired Lady Enville, delicately applying a scented handkerchief to her fastidious hose.

"My dear Madam!" said Jack, bowing low, "you shall be the trumpeter sent to give challenge unto the Spanish commandant. If he strike not his colours in hot haste upon sight of you, then is he no gentleman."

Lady Enville sat fanning herself in smiling complacency, No flattery could be too transparent to please her.

"I pray your Lordship, is any news come touching Sir Richard Grenville, and the plantation which he strave to make in the Queen's Highness'

country of Virginia?" asked Sir Thomas.

Barbara listened again with interest. Sir Richard Grenville was a Devonshire knight, and a kinsman of Sir Arthur Ba.s.set.

"Ay,--Roanoke, he called it, after the Indian name. Why, it did well but for a time, and then went to wrack. But I do hear that he purposeth for to go forth yet again, trusting this time to speed better."

"What good in making plantations in Virginia?" demanded Jack, loftily.

"A wild waste, undwelt in save by savages, and many weeks' voyage from this country,--what gentleman would ever go to dwell there?"

"May-be," said Lord Strange thoughtfully, "when the husbandmen that shall go first have made it somewhat less rough, gentlemen may be found to go and dwell there."

"Why, Jack, lad! This country is not all the world," observed his father.

"'Tis all of it worth anything, Sir," returned insular Jack.

"Thy broom sweepeth clean, Jack," responded Lord Strange. "What, is nought worth in France, nor in Holland,--let be the Emperor's dominions, and Spain, and Italy?"

"They be all foreigners, my Lord. And what better are foreigners than savages? They be all Papists, to boot."

"Not in Almayne, Jack,--nor in Holland."

"Well, they speak no English," said prejudiced Jack.

"That is a woeful lack," gravely replied Lord Strange. "Specially when you do consider that English was the tongue that Noah spake afore the flood, and the confusion of tongues at Babel."

Jack knew just enough to have a dim perception that Lord Strange was laughing at him. He got out of the difficulty by turning the conversation.

"Well, thus much say I: let the King of Spain come when he will, and where, at every point of the coast there shall be an Englishman awaiting--and we will drive him home thrice faster than he came at the first."

Note 1. He was fined 10,000 pounds for contempt of court. What his real offences were remains doubtful, beyond the fact that he was a Papist, and had married against the will of the Queen.

Note 2. The state of the gaols at this time, and for long afterwards, until John Howard effected his reformation of them, was simply horrible.

The Black a.s.size at Exeter was by no means the only instance of its land.

Note 3. I stated in _Robin Tremayne_ that I had not been able to discover the burial-place of Honor Viscountess Lisle. Since that time, owing to the kindness of correspondents, personally unknown to me, I have ascertained that she was probably buried at Atherington, with her first husband, Sir John Ba.s.set. In that church his bra.s.s still remains--a knight between two ladies--the coats of arms plainly showing that the latter are Anne Dennis of Oxleigh and Honor Granville of Stow.

But the Register contains no entry of burial previous to 1570.

Note 4. In the custody of the (Popish) Bishop of Southwark is a quarto volume, containing, under date of Rome, April 28, 1588,--"An admonition to the n.o.bility and people of England and Ireland, concerning the present warres made _for the execution of His Holiness' sentence_, by the highe and mightie King Catholicke of Spaine: by the Cardinal of England." [Cardinal Allen.]--(Third Report of Royal Commission of Historical Ma.n.u.scripts, page 233).

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA.

"His power secured thee, when presumptuous Spain Baptised her fleet Invincible in vain; Her gloomy monarch, doubtful and resigned To every pang that racks an anxious mind, Asked of the waves that broke upon his coast, 'What tidings?'--and the surge replied,--'All lost!'"

_Cowper_.

King Philip of Spain was coming at last. Every Englishman--ay, and every woman and child in England--knew that now.

When Drake returned home from "singeing the Don's whiskers," he told his royal mistress that he believed the Spaniards would attempt serious invasion ere long. But Elizabeth then laughed the idea to scorn.

"They are not so ill-advised. But if they do come"--and Her Majesty added her favourite oath--"I and my people will send them packing!"

The Queen took measures to prepare her subjects accordingly, whether she thought the invasion likely or not. All the clergy in the kingdom were ordered to "manifest unto their congregations the furious purpose of the Spanish King." There was abundant tinder ready for this match: for the commonalty were wider awake to the danger than either Queen or Council.

The danger is equal now, and more insidious--from Rome, though not from Spain--but alas! the commonalty are sleeping.

Lord Henry Seymour was sent off to guard the seas, and to intercept intercourse between Spain and her Flemish ports. The Earl of Leicester was appointed honorary commander-in-chief, with an army of 23,000 foot and 2352 horse, for the defence of the royal person: Lord Hunsdon, with 11,000 foot more, and 15,000 horse, was sent to keep guard over the metropolis; and Charles Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England, was appointed to conduct the naval defence.

It is the popular belief that Lord Howard was a Papist. He certainly was a Protestant at a later period of his life; and though it is doubtful whether positive evidence can be found to show his religious views at the time of the invasion, yet there is reason to believe that the popular idea is supported only by tradition. [See Appendix.]

Tilbury, on the Thames, was chosen as the rendezvous for the land forces. The Queen removed to Havering, which lay midway between her two armies. It was almost, if not quite, the last time that an English sovereign ever inhabited the old Saxon palace of Havering-atte-Bower.

The ground around Tilbury was surveyed, trenches cut, Gravesend fortified, and (taking pattern from Antwerp) a bridge of boats was laid across the Thames, to stop the pa.s.sage of the river. Calculations were made as to the amount requisite to meet the Armada, and five thousand men, with fifteen ships, were demanded from the city of London. The Lord Mayor asked two days for consideration, and then requested that the Queen would accept ten thousand men and thirty ships. The Dutch came into the Thames with sixty sail--generous friends, who forgot in England's hour of need that she had, only sixteen years before, refused even bread and shelter in her harbours to their "Beggars of the Sea."

n.o.blemen joined the army and navy as volunteers, and in the ranks there were no pressed men. There was one heart in all the land, from Berwick to the Lizard.

Lastly, a prayer was issued, to be used in all churches throughout the kingdom, every Wednesday and Friday. But ecclesiastical dignitaries were not called upon to write it. The Defender of the Faith herself drew up the form, in a plain, decided style, which shows that she could write lucidly when she liked it. This was Elizabeth's prayer.

"We do instantly beseech Thee of Thy gracious goodness to be merciful to the Church militant here upon earth, and at this time compa.s.sed about with most strong and subtle adversaries. Oh let Thine enemies know that Thou hast received England, which they most of all for Thy Gospel's sake do malign, into Thine own protection. Set a wall about it, O Lord, and evermore mightily defend it. Let it be a comfort to the afflicted, a help to the oppressed, and a defence to Thy Church and people, persecuted abroad. And forasmuch as this cause is new in hand, direct and go before our armies both by sea and land. Bless them, and prosper them, and grant unto them Thine honourable success and victory. Thou art our help and shield. Oh give good and prosperous success to all those that fight this battle against the enemies of Thy Gospel."

[Strype.]

So England was ready.

But Philip was ready too. He also, in his fashion, had been preparing his subjects for work. Still maintaining an outward appearance of friendship with Elizabeth, he quietly spread among his own people copies of his pedigree, wherein he represented himself as the true heir to the crown of England, by descent from his ancestresses Philippa and Katherine of Lancaster: ignoring the facts--that, though the heir general of Katherine, he was not so of her elder sister Philippa; and that if he had been, the law which would have made these two sisters heiresses presumptive had been altered while they were children. Beyond this piece of subtlety, Philip allied himself with the Duke of Parma in Italy, and the Duke of Guise [Note 1] in France; the plot being that the Duke of Medina Sidonia, Commander-in-chief of the Armada, was to sail first for Flanders, and take his orders from Parma: Guise was to land in the west of England: some other leader, with 12,000 men, in Yorkshire: while Philip himself, under shelter of the Armada, was to effect his landing in Kent or Ess.e.x. Ireland was looked upon as certain to revolt and a.s.sist. Parma harangued the troops destined to join the invading force from Flanders, informing them that the current coin in England was gold, only the very poorest using silver; the houses were full of money, plate, jewellery, and wealth in all shapes.

It is well to remember that England was no strange, unexplored land, at least to the higher officers of the Armada. Philip himself had been King of England for four years: the courtiers in his suite had lived there for months together. Their exclamation on first journeying from the coast to Winchester, twenty-three years before, had been that "the poor of this land dwelt in hovels, and fared like princes!" They had not forgotten it now.

Lord Howard took up his station at Plymouth, whence he purposed to intercept the Armada as it came; Sir Francis Drake was sent to the west with sixty-five vessels. But time pa.s.sed on, and no Armada came. The English grew secure and careless. Many ships left the fleet, some making for the Irish coast, some harbouring in Wales. The Queen herself, annoyed at the needless cost, sent word to Lord Howard to disband four of the largest vessels of the royal navy. The Admiral disobeyed, and paid the expenses out of his own purse. England ought to bless the memory of Charles Howard of Effingham.

It was almost a shock when--suddenly, at last--Philip's ultimatum came.