and a number of small merchant vessels, which were ready to fight as well as the Queen's ships. Drake was there too. When the Spanish ships came in sight, the captains were playing a game of bowls. Drake would not hear of stopping the game. 'There is time enough,' he said, 'to finish our game and to beat the Spaniards too.' The huge Spanish ships,

towering above the waves, swept by in the form of a half moon. When they had passed, the active little English vessels put out, sailing two feet to their one, getting rapidly out of their way, and coming back again as they pleased. The Spanish ships could neither sail away from them nor catch them. Up the Channel sailed the ships of the Armada, firing

and being fired at as they went. So high were they that their shot often passed over the heads of the English sailors. One of the Spanish ships blew up, and two or three others were taken. The rest sailed on as they best could, unable to shake off their assailants, like a bear pursued by a swarm of wasps. At last the Spaniards reached the friendly French port of Calais. They had found out that the conquest of England was no child's play.

9. The Armada in the North Sea.-Lord Howard and his captains knew that it would not be safe to leave the Armada long at Calais. Parma and his soldiers were waiting for it in Flanders, prevented from stirring by the Dutch ships which were off the coast, but ready to embark in some large boats which they had got ready, as soon as the Armada came to beat off the Dutch. The English captains determined to drive the Armada out to sea again. They took eight of their own vessels, smeared them with pitch, and let them drift with the tide at night time amongst the enemy's fleet. When these vessels were close to the Spaniards, the few men who had been left on board set them on fire, and, jumping into their boats, rowed away. The sudden blaze in the dark night terrified the Spaniards. The Spanish commander, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, gave the signal of flight. His men cut the cables by which they were anchored, and sailed away. The wind now rose to a storm. The English fleet followed, hastening their foemen's pace with showers of shot. The Spaniards found it impossible to stop, and the great ships were soon driven past the long low coast on

which Parma's army was waiting for their protection in vain. If the wind had not changed a little, they Iwould have been wrecked on the coast of Holland. Every day one or other of their floating castles was either driven on shore or pierced with English shots. Drake was in high spirits. There was never anything pleased me better,' he wrote to a comrade, 'than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northwards. God grant ye have a good eye to the Duke of Parma; for with the grace of God, if we live, I doubt not ere it be long so to handle the matter with the Duke of Sidonia as he shall wish himself at St. Mary Port among his orange-trees.' After a few days more even Drake had had enough. He had shot away all his powder, and as he heard the wind howling through his rigging, he knew that no Spaniard would venture back to try what more English sailors might have to offer them.

10. The Destruction of the Armada.-The Armada perished by a mightier power than that of man. The storm swept it far to the north. Of the hundred and fifty sail which had put out from Spain, a hundred and twenty were still afloat when they were left by their English pursuers. But they were in a bad case. Provisions were running short, and large numbers of the men were sick and dying. Masts were split and sails were torn by shot and storm.

At last they

rounded the Orkneys, and tried to make their way home round Scotland and Ireland. One great ship was wrecked on the Isle of Mull. The natives,

savage as they then were, set fire to it and burnt it with its crew. The rest made their way along the

west coast of Ireland. Not a few were driven on shore on the high cliffs against which the Atlantic ocean rolls its waves without a break on this side of America. Most of the Spaniards who reached the shore and fell into the hands of the English were put to death. Those who fell into the hands of the Irish were also butchered for the sake of plunder. The greater part were swallowed up by the sea. 'When I was at Sligo,' wrote an Englishman, ‘I numbered on one strand of less than five miles in length, eleven hundred dead bodies of men, which the sea had driven upon the shore. The country people told me the like was in other places, though not to the like number.' Fifty-four vessels, with nine or ten thousand sick and suffering men on board, were all that succeeded in struggling home to Spain. Philip was struck to the heart at his failure, shut himself up in his room, and for a time would speak to no one. Yet when the beaten Admiral arrived, he did not reproach him. I sent you to fight against men,' he said, and not with the winds.' Elizabeth, too, acknowledged that her triumph was not owing to herself, or even to her sailors. She went in state to St. Paul's, to return thanks for the victory which had been gained, and she struck a medal which bore the motto, God blew with His wind, and they were scattered.'

CHAPTER XXII.

THE LAST YEARS OF ELIZABETH.

(1588-1603.)

1. Continuance of War with Spain.-Elizabeth reigned for fifteen more years after the defeat of the Armada. Spain was unable to protect its trade and its colonies in America. Spanish towns were sacked, and Spanish wealth was carried off to England. The Spaniards were brave men, and fought hard. Drake died in the West Indies, on one of his plundering expeditions.

2. Death of Sir Richard Grenville.-The most heroic death in the whole war was that of Sir Richard Grenville. His little ship, the 'Revenge,' was one of six which were overtaken at the Azores by fiftythree Spanish ships, some of them of enormous size. Five of his comrades fled, as they well might, before such odds. Grenville refused to fly. The little 'Revenge' fought all alone through the whole of the afternoon. Our own living poet has told the story, speaking as if he had been one of that valiant crew.

And the sun went down, and the stars came out, far over the summer sea,

But never for a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.

3hip after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons

came;

Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame.