progress for two days before his arrival. But many private gentlemen joined the fleet in craft hastily equipped for warfare, and it would be a thing to wonder at if Ralegh was behindhand when such doings were happening. No positive information is, however, forthcoming. Only it is known that the Lord High Admiral's ship was built from designs which Ralegh had matured, and that he agreed completely with the plan of the Lord High Admiral's attack. Many an evening Drake and Effingham and Ralegh would have spent in discussing the tactics of sea-battles, proud, as they well might be, of the swiftness and ease with which an English ship could be manœuvred in comparison with the large unwieldiness of the carracks of Spain, who still considered herself (God help her) mistress of the sea.

In his "History of the World" occurs a passage about the tactics employed by the English against the Armada. There is a strong element of pathos in the idea of the man shut up in the little room in the Tower of London (he could watch the ships making their way down the Thames) writing of this great action, which he had seen, and writing with ardour, which nothing could extinguish. He had been recounting a fight between Roman vessels, heavy and slow, and the swift African galleys. Then he bursts out into this great paragraph of reminiscence, as though once again he were convincing some obstinate fellow of the patent rightness of the plan of attack.

"Certainly, hee that will happily perform a fight at sea must be skilful in making choice of vessels to fight in: he must beleeve that there is more belonging to a good man of war upon the waters, than great during; and must know that there is a great deale of difference betweene fighting loose or at large, and grapling. The guns of a slow ship pierce as well, and make as great

RALEGH'S OPINIONS OF TACTICS 103

holes, as those in a swift. To clap ships together without consideration, belongs rather to a madman than to a man of warre: for by such an ignorant braverie was Peter Strozzi lost at the Azores when he fought against the Marquesse of Santa Cruz. In like sort had the Lord Charles Howard, Admirall of England beene lost in the year 1588, if he had not been better advised than a great many malignant fooles were, that found fault with his demeanour. The Spaniards had an armie aboord them; and he had none; they had more ships than he had and of higher building and charging; so that had he intangled himself with those great and powerfull Vessels, he had greatly endangered this Kingdom of England. . . . But our Admiral knew his advantage, and held it which had he not done, he had not beene worthy to have held his head. Heere to speake in generall of sea-fight (for particulars are fitter for private hands than for the Presse) I say, That a fleete of twentie ships all good sailers and goode ships have the advantage on the open Sea, of an hundred as good ships, and of slower sayling. For if the fleete of an hundred saile keep themselves neere together in a grosse squadron: the twentie ships charging them upon any angle, shall force them to give ground and to fall back upon their owne next fellowes: of which so many as intangle, are made unserviceable or lost. Force them they may easily, because the twentie ships, which give themselves scope, after they have given one broad side of Artillerie, by clapping into the winde, and staying, they may give them the other: and so the twentie ships batter them in pieces with a perpetuall vollie; whereas those, that fight in a troop, have no roome to turn and can alwaies use but one and the same beaten side."

And this is precisely what had taken place in the

Armada. It is interesting to know that there was divergency of opinion about the proper tactics to follow, and it would be still more interesting to know who the "malignant fools" were, to whom Ralegh refers. Men who confuse the strategy of war with their own idea of manliness, are common to all times, and must indeed be the most desperate fellows for a proper soldier to convince. You can hear them saying, with that dreadful assumption of finality with which the pompous imbecile seems gifted, those runaway tactics may be very well for buccaneers, but are they seemly for the ships of the navy of England? Small wonder the memory of them once more exasperated Ralegh in his prison-room to renewed anger.

Before the Armada there had been many privateering expeditions against Spain on different waters; after the Armada these expeditions naturally became even more numerous, when they possessed the prestige of the Crown's authority.

Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norreys were sent with a small fleet to reinstate Don Antonio on the throne of Portugal which had lapsed into the possession of Philip of Spain. Ralegh went on that expedition, which failed to attain its object but captured sixty Hanseatic vessels, laden with victual and ammunition, which report said, were intended to provision a new Armada.

Reprisals against Spain became the vogue, into which Ralegh threw himself with spirit. Every man whom money and opportunity favoured, fitted out his ship to spoil the Egyptian. The Queen's person, forsooth, was not to be harmed: she was to be conveyed to his Holiness the Pope at Rome? Such things, men knew, were said with happy confidence before the Armada, and

THE PRIVATEERS

105

such things, remembered and repeated, spurred Englishmen on to activity in which the hope of personal gain was small in comparison with the fury of personal resentment that their Queen should be so lightly valued and thought to be so sorrily championed. Nor did they always discriminate nicely between the nationality of ships which they waylaid. Ralegh, as Vice-Admiral of Devon, often received instructions to see to the restitution of ships to subjects of the French King; and a ship of his own had taken "two barks of Cherbourg from two of the French King's subjects." There is a wild recklessness in the exploits of these years; these gentlemen of England, whose names sound through history, exulted: and there is much in their exultation that resembles the behaviour of schoolboys rejoicing in an unexpected halfholiday in spring. The grave way in which their doings are recorded heightens by contrast the similarity. Ralegh and his men are bidden be careful "to minister no cause of grief unto any of the (French) King's subjects, in respect of the good amity and correspondence between Her Majesty and the French King, their realm and subjects." Austerely the records run; austerely, too, is related her Majesty's desire that a certain perfect waistcoat, the fame of which had reached her ears, should be put on one side for her Majesty's personal use.

They had the godlike capacity of remaining young, these Elizabethans; they did not outgrow their taste for splendid waistcoats. And the world found them irresistible.

CHAPTER IX

RALEGH AND SPENSER

Rise of Essex-Ralegh retires to Ireland-At Kilcolman-At Youghal-Friendship with Spenser-Brings Spenser to CourtTheir dreams.

IN 1588 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, died,

influence with the Queen had for some years been decreasing, and there is a report, which bears the likelihood of truth, that he had summoned to Court his stepson Robert, the young Earl of Essex, in order that he might counteract the growing influence of Ralegh. Be that report true or false, young Essex came to Court about the year 1587, and his youth and spirit took the Queen's fancy mightily. Essex was as arrogant as his stepfather. Elizabeth was now an old woman in years and in appearance. She felt that her power as a woman was leaving her, and that drove her to make a last effort to regain it, defying age then as she defied death later. She cared for decorum less than she cared for life. That is the pathetic side of her immense vitality, if the word pathetic can ever be used of such a woman. She felt that she could take something of the youth which had left her, from the boy: he was little more than a boy. To his natural arrogance was added the arrogance of youth. He, too, was capricious and wilful, even as the old Queen was capricious; but he gained charm, and the Queen lost dignity thereby.

There was rivalry between Essex and Ralegh, who