upon it, and woe then to all the Spanish
ships that dropped a little out of the half
moon, for the English took them instantly!
And it soon appeared that the great
Armada was anything but invincible, for,
on a summer night, bold Drake sent eight
blazing fire-ships right into the midst of
it. In terrible consternation the Spaniards
tried to get out to sea, and so became
dispersed; the English pursued them at a great
advantage; a storm came on, and drove the
Spaniards among rocks and shoals; and the
swift end of the Invincible fleet was that it
lost thirty great ships and ten thousand men,
and, defeated and disgraced, sailed home
again. Being afraid to go by the English
Channel, it sailed all round Scotland and
Ireland; and some of the ships getting cast
away on the latter coast in bad weather, the
Irish, who were a kind of savages, plundered
those vessels and killed their crews. So
ended this great attempt to invade and
conquer England; and I think it will be a
long time before any other invincible fleet
coming to England with the same object,
will fare much better than the Spanish
Armada.

Though the Spanish king had had this
bitter taste of English bravery, he was so
little the wiser for it as still to entertain
his old designs, and even to conceive the
absurd idea of placing his daughter on the
English throne. But the Earl of Essex, SIR
WALTER RALEIGH, SIR THOMAS HOWARD,
and some other distinguished leaders, putting
to sea from Plymouth, entered the port of
Cadiz once more, obtained a complete victory
over the shipping assembled there, and got
possession of the town. In obedience to
the Queen's express instructions, they
behaved with great humanity; and the
principal loss of the Spaniards was a vast
sum of money which they had to pay for
ransom. This was one of many gallant
achievements on the sea, effected in this
reign. Sir Walter Raleigh himself, after
marrying a maid of honour and giving
offence to the Maiden Queen thereby, had
already sailed to South America in search of
gold, and written an excellent account of his
voyage.

The Earl of Leicester was now dead, and
so was Sir Thomas Walsingham, whom Lord
Burleigh was soon to follow. The principal
favorite was the EARL OF ESSEX, a spirited
and handsome man, a favorite with the people
too as well as with the Queen, and possessed
of many admirable qualities. It was much
debated at Court whether there should be
peace with Spain or no, and he was very
urgent for war. He also tried hard to have
his own way in the appointment of a deputy
to govern in Ireland. One day, while this
question was in dispute, he hastily took
offence, and turned his back upon the
Queen; as a gentle reminder of which
impropriety, the Queen gave him a
tremendous box on the ear, and told him
to go to the devil. He went home instead,
and did not reappear at Court for half a
year or so, when he and the Queen were
reconciled, though never (as some suppose)
thoroughly.

From this time the fate of the Earl of
Essex and that of the Queen seemed to be
blended together. The Irish were still
perpetually quarrelling and fighting among
themselves, and he went over to Ireland as
Lord Lieutenant, to the great joy of his
enemies (Sir Walter Raleigh among the rest)
who were glad to have so dangerous a rival
far off. Not being by any means successful
there, and knowing that his enemies would
take advantage of that circumstance to injure
him with the Queen, he came home again
though against her orders. The Queen being
taken by surprise when he appeared before
her, gave him her hand to kiss, and he
was overjoyed—though it was not a very
lovely one by this time; but in the course
of the same day she ordered him to confine
himself to his room, and two or three days
afterwards had him taken into custody.
With the same sort of caprice—and as
capricious an old woman she now was
as ever wore a crown or a head either—
she sent him broth from her own table on
his falling ill from anxiety, and cried about
him.

He was a man who could find comfort and
occupation in his books, and he did so for a
time—not the least happy time, I dare say, of
his life. But it happened, unfortunately for
him, that he held a monopoly in sweet wines:
which means that nobody could sell them
without purchasing his permission. This
right, which was only for a term, expiring,
he applied to have it renewed. The Queen
refused, with the rather strong observation—
but she did make strong observations—that
an unruly beast must be stinted in his food.
Upon this, the angry Earl who had been
already deprived of many offices, thought
himself in danger of complete ruin, and turned
against the Queen, whom he called a vain old
woman who had grown as crooked in her
mind as she had in her figure. These
uncomplimentary expressions, the ladies of the
Court immediately snapped up and carried
to the Queen, whom they did not put in a
better temper, you may believe. The same
Court ladies, when they had beautiful dark
hair of their own, used to wear false red
hair, to be like the Queen. So they were
not very high-spirited ladies, however high in
rank.

The worst object of the Earl of Essex and
some friends of his who used to meet at LORD
SOUTHAMPTON'S house, was to obtain possession
of the Queen, and oblige her by force
to dismiss her ministers and change her
favorites. On Saturday the seventh of
February, one thousand six hundred and one,
the council suspecting this, summoned the