devise how, with a power of men, partly to come out of Spain,
partly out of the Low Countries (whereof he gave them great
comfort in the king's name), an invasion might be made into
our realm ; setting down in writing the manner how the same
should be done, with what number of men and ships, and upon
what coasts, ports, and places of our realm, and who the
persons should be, therein of no small account, that should
favour this invasion, and take part with the invaders : facts
which have been most clearly proved, and confessed by such
as were in that confederacy with him ; yet when he had been
charged with these practices, and it had been made patent
to him how and by whom, with many other circumstances, we
knew it, he was caused, in very gentle sort, to depart out of
our realm, the rather for his own safety, as one in very deed
mortally hated of our people ".

The declaration proceeded to state what the queen had
done for delivering Scotland from the servitude into which
the house of Guise meant to have brought it, and that by her
means only it had been restored to its ancient freedom, and
was so possessed by the present king, whereby Scotland had
remained in better amity and peace with England than could
be remembered for many hundred years before. It concluded
by saying how, upon the continued and lamentable requests
of the States of Holland, Zeeland, Gueldres, and other pro-
vinces with them united, the queen had, with good advice,
and after long deliberation, determined to aid them, " only to
defend them and their towns from sacking and desolation,
and to procure them safety, to the honour of God, whom they
desire to serve sincerely as Christian people, according to His
holy word, and to enjoy their ancient liberties, for them and
their posterity, and so, consequently, to preserve the lawful
and ancient commerce betwixt those countries and ours. And



LORD HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM 39

so," said this magnanimous queen, "we hope our intentions
herein, and our subsequent actions, will be, by God's favour,
honourably interpreted of all persons (saving of the oppressors
themselves and their partisans), in that we mean not hereby
either for ambition or malice, the two roots of all injustice,
to make any particular profit hereof to ourself or to our
people ; only desiring at this time to obtain, by God's favour,
for these countries a deliverance of them from war by the
Spaniards and foreigners, a restitution of their ancient liberties,
and government by some Christian peace, and thereby a surety
for ourselves and our realm to be free from invading neigh-
bours, and our people to enjoy their lawful intercourse of
friendship and merchandise, according to the ancient usage
and treaties of intercourse made betwixt our progenitors and
the lords and earls of those countries, and betwixt our people
and theirs. And though our further intention also is, or may
be, to take into our guard some few towns upon the sea-side,
next opposite to our realm, which otherwise might be in
danger to be taken by the strangers, enemies of the country ;
yet therein considering we have no meaning at this time to
take and retain the same to our own proper use, we hope all
persons will think it agreeable with good reason and princely
policy that we should have the guard and use of some such
places, for sure access and recess of our people and soldiers
in safety, and for furniture of them with victuals and other
things requisite and necessary, whilst it shall be needful for
them to continue in those countries, for the aiding thereof in
these their great calamities, miseries, and imminent danger,
and until the countries may be delivered of such strange forces
as do now oppress them, and recover their ancient lawful
liberties and manner of government, to live in peace as they
have heretofore done, and do now most earnestly in lament-
able manner desire to do, which are the very only true ends
of all our actions now intended."

At the conclusion, the queen alluded to the " cankered con-



40 ENGLISH SEAMEN

ceits/' uttered by malicious tongues, and blasphemous reports,
in such infamous libels, that in no age had the devil employed
more spirits replenished with all wickedness to utter his rage.
An appendix was added to this declaration, in consequence of
an account of the siege of Antwerp, printed at Milan, in which
said she : " We found ourselves most maliciously charged with
two notable crimes, no less hateful to the world than most
repugnant and contrary to our own natural inclination. The
one with ingratitude towards the King of Spain, who, as the
author saith, saved our life, being justly by sentence adjudged
to death in our sister's time ; the other, that there were
persons corrupted with great promises, and that with our
intelligence, to take away the Prince of Parma's life. Now,
knowing how men are maliciously bent, in this declining age
of the world, both to judge, speak, and write maliciously,
falsely, and unreverently of princes, and holding nothing so
dear unto us as the conservation of our reputation and honour
to be blameless, we found it very expedient not to suffer two
such horrible imputations to pass under silence. And for
answer of the first point, touching our ingratitude towards the
King of Spain, as we do most willingly acknowledge that we
were beholden unto him in the time of our late sister, which
we then did acknowledge very thankfully, and have sought
many ways since in like sort to requite, so do we utterly deny
as a most manifest untruth, that ever he was the cause of the
saving of our life, as a person by course of justice sentenced
unto death, who ever carried ourself towards our said sister in
such dutiful sort, as our loyalty was never called in question,
much less any sentence of death * pronounced against us : a

* This accusation was not made by pamphleteers and mere libellers
only. Herrera, the royal chronicler, in his Historia General del Mundo
for the first seventeen years of Philip's reign, asserts that Elizabeth was
on three several occasions condemned to death for treason against her
sister, and as often pardoned through the king's intercession : " Y el
librarla los Espanoles con tanto cuydado de la muerte, dezian los Fran-



LORD HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM 41

matter such as in respect of the ordinary course of proceeding,
as by process in law, by place of trial, by the judge that
should pronounce such sentence, and other necessary circum-
stances in like cases usual, especially against one of our
quality, as it could not but have been publicly known, if any
such thing had been put in execution. This, then, being true,
we leave to the world to judge how maliciously and in-
juriously the author of the said pamphlet dealeth with us in
charging us with a vice that of all others we do most hate and
abhor. And by the manifest untruth of this imputation, men,
not transported with passion, may easily discern what untruth
is contained in the second, by which we are charged with an
intended attempt against the life of the Prince of Parma. He
is one of whom we have ever had an honourable conceit, in
respect of those singular rare parts we always have noted in
him, which hath won unto him as great a reputation as any
man this day living carrieth of his degree and quality ; and so
have we always delivered out by speech unto the world, when
any occasion hath been offered to make mention of him. And
touching the prosecution, committed unto him, of the wars in
the Low Countries, as all men of judgment know, that the



ceses que se hazia porque no sucediesse en la corona de Inglaterra Maria
reyna de Escocia, casada con Francisco delfin de Francia ; y los Espa-
noles dezian contra los Franceses que procuravan de enganar a Ysabel,
metiendola en estos trabajos, para que muriendo por ellos, quedasse de-
sembarazada la sucession a la reyna de Escocia " (Let. vi., c. xiii., p. 399).
Herrera probably believed what he asswted, if what Strada affirms be
true, that the statement was made by Pnk'p himself! That king, the
Jesuit says, was incensed against Elizabeth, * "antoquidem acriore sensu,
quanto pro beneficiis, proque vita ipsa, quam ei bis terque se dedisse rex
affirmabat, dum conspirationum insimulatam, e carcere, capitalique
judicio liberaverat ; pro his aliisque promeritis alias super alias accepisse
se indesinenter injurias agnoscebat " (p. 526). The chronicler adds that
Calais was betrayed, with Elizabeth's consent, she hoping thereby to
break her sister's heart, " para acabar con estos enojos tanto mas presto
la vida de su hermana ".



42 ENGLISH SEAMEN

taking away of his life carrieth no likelihood that the same
shall work any end of the said prosecution, so is it manifestly
known that no man hath dealt more honourably than the
said prince, either in duly observing of his promise, or extend-
ing grace and mercy where merit and desert hath craved the
same ; and, therefore, no greater impiety by any could be
wrought, nor nothing more prejudicial to ourself (so long as
the king shall continue the prosecution of the cause in that
forcible sort he now doth), than to be an instrument to take
him away from thence by such violent means, that hath dealt
in a more honourable and gracious sort in the charge com-
mitted unto him, than any other that hath ever gone before
him, or is likely to succeed after him. Now, therefore, how
unlikely it is that we should be either author, or any way
assenting to so horrible a fact, we refer to the judgment of
such as look into causes, not with the eyes of their affection,
but do measure and weigh things according to honour and
reason. The best course, therefore, that both we and all
other princes can hold, in this unfortunate age, that over-
floweth with malignant spirits, is, through the grace and
goodness of Almighty God, to direct our course in such sort,
as they may rather show their wills through malice, than with
just cause by desert to say ill either by speech or writing ;
assuring ourselves, that besides the punishment that such
wicked libellers shall receive at the hands of the Almighty
for depraving of princes and lawful magistrates, who are God's
ministers, they both are and always shall be thought by all
good men unworthy to live upon the face of the earth." *

When Elizabeth thus openly allied herself with the united
States, which were, in fact, declaring war against Spain, the
other Christian princes " admired such manly fortitude in a
woman ; and the King of Sweden said, she had taken the
crown from her head and adventured it upon the chance of

* Holinshed, 621-630.



LORD HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM 43

war ". * But no new or additional danger was drawn upon
her by this declaration. The plan of invasion which Se-
bastian's expedition to Africa had frustrated, and which had
been suspended in consequence of the subsequent events in
Portugal, had been resumed two years before this treaty with
the States was concluded. The Prince of Parma had at that
time been ordered to obtain accurate information respecting
the English ports and their means of defence : the Milanese
engineer, Battista Piatti, who constructed the bridge over
the Scheldt during the siege of Antwerp, was one of the
persons thus employed ; he had drawn up a report accordingly,
and proceeded to Spain to give what further information might
be required, f A negotiation pending with the Queen of
Scots, for her release, upon her engagement that her agents
should attempt nothing to the injury of Elizabeth or of Eng-
land, was broken off, partly, says Camden, because of certain
fears cast in the way by those who knew how to increase
suspicions between women already displeased with one
another ; but chiefly in consequence of certain papers, which
a Scotch Jesuit, on his passage to Scotland, when captured by
some Netherlander, tore in pieces and cast overboard : the
wind blew them back into the ship, and from these fragments
the designs of the Pope, the Spaniard, and the Guises, for
invading England, were discovered.^ The detection of a
nearer treason led to the death of the Queen of Scots, an act
by which Elizabeth, if she lessened her own immediate danger
and that of the nation (which may well be doubted), brought
upon herself an ineffaceable stain,;; purchasing self-preservation

* Camden, 321. fStrada, 526. Camden, 299.

Parry in a letter to the queen, after his condemnation, says : " The
Queen of Scots is your prisoner. Let her be honourably entreated, but
yet surely guarded. She may do you good ; she will do you no harm, if
the fault be not English. It importeth you much ; so long as it is well
with her, it is safe with you. When she is in fear, you are not without
peril. Cherish and love her. She is of your blood, and your undoubted
heir in succession. It is so taken abroad, and will be found so at home "
(Strype's Annals, App. No. 46).



44 ENGLISH SEAMEN

at a greater price than it is worth. But it is not upon Eliza-
beth that the blackest stigma should be affixed. The English
Parliament called upon her for blood. Not a voice in either
House was raised against the popular cry. The Commons came
to a resolution, " that no other way, device, or means whatso-
ever could possibly be found or imagined, that safety could in
any wise be had as long as the Queen of Scots were living.*
To spare her," they said, " were nothing else but to spill the
people, who would take all impunity in this case very much to
heart, and would not think themselves discharged of their
oath of association, unless she were punished according to her
deserts. And they called upon Elizabeth to remember the
fearful examples of God's vengeance upon King Saul for
sparing Agag, and upon King Ahab for sparing Benhadad." I
To such purposes can public feeling be directed, and Scripture
perverted ! Some of those great personages who had corre-
sponded with the royal prisoner, and were implicated more or
less in the treasonable practices which under her name and
with her concurrence were continually carried on, began now
to act as her deadly enemies, thereby the better to conceal
their own guilt.J The Spanish party thrust her forward to
her own danger, that by her destruction the way might be
cleared for the pretended title of the King of Spain. They
had persuaded themselves that nothing but an absolute con-
quest of the island, like that by William of Normandy, could
establish a Catholic prince here, and reinstate the Romish
religion in its full powers. And when the French king,
Henry III.,|| sent a special ambassador publicly to speak in the

* Parliamentary History, 844. t Camden, 363.

llbid., 344. Ibid., 331.

|| Parry says of him, in the remarkable letter above quoted, in which
he speaks with the freedom as well as the sincerity of a dying man : " The
French king is French ; you know that well enough. You will find him
occupied when he should do you good. He will not lose a pilgrimage to
save vour crown."



LORD HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM 45

Queen of Scots behalf, that ambassador was charged with
secret instructions to press upon Elizabeth the necessity of
putting her to death as an enemy, who, if she succeeded to
the English throne, would, through her connection with the
Guises, be as dangerous to him as she now was to the Queen of
England ! *

The death of Mary may have preserved England from the
religious struggle which would have ensued upon her succes-
sion to the throne, but it delivered Elizabeth from only one,
and that the weakest, of her enemies ; and it exposed her to
a charge of injustice and cruelty, which, being itself well
founded, obtained belief for any other accusation, however
extravagantly false. It was not Philip alone who prepared
for making war upon her with a feeling of personal hatred :
throughout Romish Christendom she was represented as a
monster of iniquity ; that representation was assiduously set
forth, not only in ephemeral libels, but in histories, in dramas,
in poems and in hawkers' pamphlets ; f and when the King
of Spain equipped an armament for the invasion of England,
volunteers entered it with a passionate persuasion that they
were about to bear apart in a holy war against the wickedest and
most inhuman of tyrants. The Pope exhorted Philip to engage
in this great enterprise for the sake of the Roman Catholic
and Apostolic Church, which could not be more effectually
nor more meritoriously extended than by the conquest of
England ; so should he avenge his own private and public
wrongs ; so should he indeed prove himself most worthy of the
glorious title of Most Catholic King. And he promised, as
soon as his troops should have set foot in that island, to supply
him with a million of crowns of gold | towards the expenses

* Turner, 643. Bayle's critique on Maimbourg's Hist, of Calvinism
there quoted.

t They are circulated to this day in Spain and Portugal.

The money, however, was not forthcoming. Strada, when he relates
the offer, adds : "Quod magis Xysti magnanimitatem ostendit, quam belli



46 ENGLISH SEAMEN

of the expedition. Opportunity could never be more favour-
able : he had concluded a truce with the Turk ; the French
were embroiled in civil war, and could offer to him no opposi-
tion. England was without forts or defences : long peace had
left it unprovided of commanders or soldiers ; and it was full
of Catholics, who would joyfully flock to his standard. The
conquest of Portugal had not been easier than that of
England would be found ; and when England was once con-
quered, the Low Countries would presently be reduced to
obedience.

Such exhortations accorded with the ambition, the passions,
and the rooted principles of the King of Spain. The under-
taking was resolved on ; and while preparations were making
upon the most formidable scale, it was deliberated on what
plan to proceed. Sir William Stanley, the most noted of
those persons who for conscience' sake betrayed their trust,
deserted to the enemy, and bore arms against this country,
advised that Ireland should be the first point of attack. He
knew that country well, having served in it fifteen years ;
and if Waterford, he said, were once taken and fortified, the
Spaniards might from thence reduce the one island and invade
the other. Piatti was of opinion that it were better to begin
with Scotland, where he was led to believe the king might
be induced to join with them for the sake of revenging
his mother's death. Having established a footing there, he
thought the Isle of Wight should next be occupied. A noble
inhabitant of that island had promised the Prince of Parma to
show him a place known only to himself, by Avhich ships could
approach, and in four and twenty hours obtain possession of
it; and he laid before Philip a plan of the island, and a
memoir concerning it, which had been drawn up at the Prince

subsidium fuit : quippe, ut partem hujus summas aliquam pontifex elargi-
retur ante praefinitum hoc tempus, nullis adduci potuit aut Hispani legati,
aut Caesii comitis a Parmensi duce propterea Romam missi, persuasioni-
bus" (p. 527).



LORD HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM 47

of Parma's desire. The Marquis of Santa Cruz, who was to
be commander-in-chief, objected to neither of these plans,
but he urged the necessity of perpending all things well
before an expedition should be sent out, in which Spain put
forth all her strength : and he advised that a port should
previously be secured, either in Ireland, or, which he thought
more desirable, in Holland or Zeeland. The enterprise might
safely be undertaken, if the fleet were thus rendered secure
on that side. This was the opinion which the Prince of
Parma supported in his letters. He represented the danger
of venturing such a fleet in the British seas without providing
a harbour into which it might retreat ; and Flushing, he said,
was the only one in the Low Countries capacious enough for
so great a force. Now that he had taken Sluys, Flushing
might more easily be captured ; and he strongly advised that
the capture of this place should be effected before the Armada
ventured into those seas. It was a conquest which, with
God's help, he undertook to make. But, in thus advising,
the prince had a further object ; he was not willing that
Spain should divert its attention from the Low Countries,
which he had no doubt of subjugating, if only a part of the
force designed for England were employed for that purpose.
Those countries once subdued, England would be open to
invasion ; and of this, which he saw clearly himself, he hoped
to convince the king, if he could first persuade him to let the
siege of Flushing be undertaken.*

But Philip would hear of no delay. The troubles in France
and the treaty with the Turks allowed him at this time to
direct his whole attention towards England : it was even less
costly to punish that country by an invasion than to defend
the coasts of his own empire against her piratical enterprises ;
and he felt himself bound to exact vengeance for the death of
the Queen of Scots, in which cause all sovereign princes were

* Strada, 528-531.



48 ENGLISH SEAMEN

concerned. Objecting, therefore, to any attempt upon
Ireland, which would be opening a new theatre of war, or to
any delay, which would allow the enemy time to prepare for
defence, he directed the prince to take what measures he
thought best for exciting the Scotch to arms ; but meantime
to make ready with all speed for co-operating with the expedi-
tion, which would set sail as soon as he should be in readi-
ness.* Upon another point, also, there had been a difference
of opinion among Philip's advisers : some of whom thought
that war should be proclaimed against England, both to
remove suspicion from other powers, and to alarm Elizabeth,
who might then be induced to levy foreign troops for her
defence ; which, if she did, it was to be expected that those
troops, according to the usual insolence of mercenaries, would
so demean themselves, as to excite discontent among the
English people, and consequent confusion. f The formality of
declaring war was however disregarded as a mere form on
both sides ; and on the part of the Spaniards it was deemed
more politic to disturb the English with apprehensions of some
great but indefinite danger, and at the same time divert them
from making any effectual preparation for defence, by carrying
on negotiations in the Low Countries, without the slightest
intention of assenting to any terms of reconciliation that
could be proposed.

The Prince of Parma, therefore, while he prepared for the
invasion with his characteristic diligence, which left nothing
undone, opened a negotiation with England, to which Eliza-
beth, notwithstanding the urgent remonstrances of the States,
gave ear, yet with a just suspicion that the proposal was
insincerely made. Leicester, who had unwisely been
entrusted with the command of the English auxiliaries, had
conducted himself neither to the satisfaction of the States nor
of his own Government : the English and Dutch had not been

* Strada, 582. t Camden, 404.



LORD HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM 49

found to agree when they came to act together, under circum-
stances that brought their national qualities into close and
unamiable contrast : * the Dutch, too, were divided among
themselves ; so that there seemed little hope that England
could afford them any such assistance as might enable them
to obtain the objects for which they had taken up arms,
and still less of any such happy termination, if they were left
to themselves. With regard to England, it was the opinion
of her greatest statesman, Cecil, that a peace was not only
desirable, but most necessary ; but it must be such a peace as
should be clear and assured, leaving no such occasion of
quarrel as had hitherto existed ; the queen's subjects must
be free from the Inquisition ; and the people of the Low
Countries not impeached for anything which had passed ; but
allowed to enjoy their liberties and franchises, and to have
the use of their religion, now openly professed in their
churches, for which they had so long stood to their defence. t
The Dutch were well convinced that all negotiation was
useless, and therefore refused to take any part : the English
commissioners, however, met those of the King of Spain at
Ostend : they first proposed a suspension of arms, " thereby
to stay the coming of the Spanish fleet " ; and to this the
Spanish commissioners seemed to incline, craftily thereby
seeking to persuade them that it was not intended against
England. They asked for the renewal of old treaties and
intercourse ; the repayment of such sums as the queen had