As soon as he could, Drake hurried up to London to have an audience with the Queen, but he found all in woe and trouble owing to the execution of Queen Mary Stuart and the remorse of Elizabeth.
Drake, instead of being welcomed with smiles, was severely reprimanded for grossly exceeding his instructions, and Burghley was ordered to write despatches to assure Parma and Philip that Drake would be held in deep disgrace.
How the frank, brave seaman must have shrugged his shoulders and whistled, in disdain of all the diplomacy of courtiers!
However, he made a new friend in the young Earl of Essex, who was beginning to be in great favour with the Queen, and who aided Drake in his fresh projects to crush Spain, namely, by helping Don Antonio to his throne. But England was itself threatened from three quarters and could hardly venture to send troops away, for the Armada was collecting in Spain, Parma with thirty thousand trained soldiers was waiting in Flanders, and the Scots were restless across the border. However, in 1588 Philip found himself rich enough with the arrival of new convoys to attempt the invasion of England.
Lord Howard of Effingham was made Lord High Admiral, with Hawkins and Frobisher as flag officers. Drake, as Lieutenant to the Lord High Admiral, became President of the Naval Council of War, and hoisted his flag in the Revenge, having several vessels belonging to his own and his wife's relations attached to the thirty sail that formed his division. But the impatient hero had to wait for months doing nothing, while his ships grew foul, and his crews diminished. It was not until May that the Court was convinced that the Armada was really coming.
We need not follow the fortunes of Drake through the Armada fight, for that has been done in previous chapters. It is enough to say that Lord Howard in many ways sought his advice, and that the crowning victory of Gravelines was due to Drake. After the Armada had gone, he and Hawkins founded the "Chatham Chest" for disabled seamen, and Drake had the honour of furnishing Plymouth with water. But it was war that Drake ever yearned for, and in 1589 he and Sir John Norris led an expedition to Portugal, and the troops were landed in a bay near Corunna. They took the town, but the troops drank too freely of the wine, and were disorderly and cruel. The palm of courage should be given to a lady, Maria Pita, the wife of an official, who took sword and buckler and defended a convent so successfully that she was rewarded by her country with the full pay of an ensign for life. Many citizens were put to death and much damage was done by fire, but the English lost many men through sickness, and storms scattered the fleet.
Out of 12,500 men only 6000 returned, and the expedition was a failure, for Antonio's party did not co-operate as they had promised. Drake and Norris had taken and burnt two Spanish ports, had defeated the King's army, had insulted the gates of Lisbon, and had captured nearly a hundred sail; but for all that they were both brought before a court-martial at home, and suffered loss of prestige.
As the months wore on rumours came of a second Armada assembling at Ferrol, and Plymouth grew so panic-stricken that the inhabitants began to desert their homes. Drake, his wife and household, calmly took up their residence in the town by the Dowgate, and the plague of fear was stayed. So his prestige was not quite destroyed. But for many long months Drake remained in disgrace at Court; those who knew him in the west country upheld him as England's greatest admiral; but Drake was ambitious, and when Hawkins and Frobisher were sent out and he was overlooked, he could not but feel aggrieved in the stately house, Buckland Abbey, which Sir Richard Grenville had sold him when he took the Revenge out on her last voyage. At last, in the summer of 1594, the Queen consented to provide two-thirds of the capital for an expedition under Drake and Hawkins.
When the news arrived at Lisbon, Philip's recruits deserted by hundreds, and Lisbon was well-nigh left desolate. Sir Thomas Baskerville, hero of many a hard fight in the Netherlands, commanded the troops.
When they were ready to start, the Queen sent down orders to stay them, and two months were wasted and food consumed in idleness. In August, Penzance was burnt by a rapid raid from Spain. Then an order came: "Cruise off the Spanish coast, then capture the Plate fleet, and be home in six months."