unanimous opinion of the most experienced commanders that Spain should be attacked on her own coast, not waited for on the narrow seas/ Drake again and again urged this upon the queen and her council; they were only eager to follow his advice, but their hands were tied. Elizabeth meddled, delayed, hesitated. It really looked as if England could only be saved in spite of her. In the third week of July, when a Spanish fleet was reported off the Lizard, Lord Howard 'begs for the love of God' to have some powder and shot sent to him, and this while a running fire was being kept up actually within sight of Plymouth. There were but three weeks' supplies provided, and some of the ships engaged had provisions only for a few days. It was just as bad with the land forces. The army which had been called out specially for the defence of the queen's person had as yet had no commander appointed over it. The fortifications at Gravesend were said to be in a fair condition. Tilbury might be made impregnable, but there was neither powder nor guns, nor any other adequate supplies. On 26 July Leicester writes that four thousand men had assembled at West Tilbury, all animated by a spirit of enthusiastic loyalty, yet again 'great want of victuals; not a barrel of beer nor loaf of bread after twenty miles march.' On the 27th Leicester took the command of the forces on the Thames. It was on 8 Aug. that Elizabeth arrived at the camp at Tilbury from St. James's, and rode along the lines, sowing the seed of brave and kindly words to the soldiers. But by this time the danger was past, and the Armada had disappeared. From the very first the Spanish ships had done little else than try to get away from their determined assailants. When it was all over one of the captains, writing to Walsingham, exclaims, in the bitterness of his disappointment, 'Her parsimony at home hath bereaved us of the famousest victory that ever our nation had at sea.' The gain to England had been astoniahingly small; the loss of life among the starved and neglected sailors was frightful. On 10 Aug. Lord Howard declares to Burghley that 'the Elizabeth Jonas had lost half her crew,' and that 'of all the men brought out by Sir Ric. [Roger?] Townsend, he has but one man alive. Well might the admiral say, 'It is a pitiful sight to see the men die in the streets of Margate.' But the victory was won and the country was safe, and on 20 Aug. Dean Nowell preached a sermon of thanksgiving at St. Paul's, the lord mayor and all the city magnates attending with the usual civic pomp. On 24 Nov. Elizabeth herself went to St. Paul's in state to give thanks for her deliverance (Nichols, Proffresses, ii. 538). Little more than three weeks after her review of the troops at Tilbury Leicester died at Cornbury, Oxfordshire, on his way to Kenilworth (4 Sept.) No sooner was his death known than the queen seized upon his estate, and sold his effects by public auction in discharge of a debt he owed to the exchequer. It may be that her bitter hate of Leicester's widow furnishes us with some excuse or some explanation of this step.
The romance of Elizabeth's life ends with this year, 1588. She was now fifty-five. There could be no more talk of love and marriage. Death had played sad havoc with her old suitors; Eric of Sweden, Adolphus of Holstein, the Valois princes had all passed away, and now Leicester was dead. Yet if at times the conviction of her loneliness came upon her, or she was brought face to face with the fact that her youth had fled, she put these thoughts from her, and with a haughty vehemence she refused to look forward. If there was a finality about her position which her ministers were for ever trying to provide against, to the very end she declined to concern herself with what might come. Her successor she would never name. Yet the loss of Leicester, her 'sweet Robin,' must have come upon her as a real personal loss from time to time. She and he understood one another; he never presumed too far upon the intimate relations that existed between them.
The exchequer was empty; the cost of keeping up the forces by land and sea had been very heavy; the nation was ready to pay the bill of the past year, and ready too to incur a new one if Spain could be humbled, and danger from that quarter be effectually put a stop to Parliament met on 4 Feb. 1589, and voted liberal supplies. The payment of the subsidies, tenths, and fifteenths was spread over four years, the people would feel the weight of the taxation very little, they were quite prepared to support the queen in a war or reprisal. Nevertheless Elizabeth would by no means consent to protract the conflict, or to carry it on as her father would have done. If her people entertained towards her person that passionate loyalty which almost rose to the point of blind worship, then it was for them to defend her at their own charges. Elizabeth seems never to have been able to take any other than this narrow view. When the great expedition of Norris and Drake set sail in April 1589, it assumed the character of a mere joint-stock speculation, a huge piratical venture, to which the queen contributed 20,000l. and six ships (Cal. Dom. Addl. 1580-1603, p. 273). A flimsy excuse was offered for it which could deceive no one. Don Antonio, the claimant
