As the princess passed through the gates she was received with an outburst of applause from the Spanish army, with whom she had acquired a high reputation through her courage. Parma entered the city on November 30th.
In September, 1863, a statue was raised to Christine de Lalaing in the city, which, nearly three centuries before, she had so nobly defended.
In 1588 a panic flew from one end of England to the other on the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada. As it was supposed that the invaders would attempt to sail up the Thames, several thousand volunteers were assembled at Tilbury, under command of the Earl of Leicester. "Vnto the sayd army," says Richard Hackluyt, "came in proper person, the Queen's most roiall Maiestie, representing Tomyris, that Scythian princesse, or rather diuine Pallas her selfe."
On the 8th of August, Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a white charger, a marshal's bâton grasped in her hand, rode through the camp, where she was received with enthusiastic acclamations by both volunteers and regulars drawn up on a hill near Tilbury church. Forbidding any of her retinue to follow her, she was attended only by the Earls of Ormonde and Leicester, the latter bearing before her the Sword of State. She was also followed by a page, who had the honour of carrying her "white-plumed regal helmet." The queen's costume was a mixture of the military uniform and the fashionable ladies' attire of the period. Beneath a corslet of polished steel descended "a farthingale of such monstrous amplitude, that," observes Miss Strickland, "it is wonderful how her high-mettled war-horse submitted to carry a lady encumbered with a gabardine of so strange a fashion."
Riding bare-headed through the ranks, she addressed the warriors in an oration well calculated to inspire them with enthusiasm. It concluded amidst vociferous and long continued cheering.
After the dispersion of the Invincible Armada, Elizabeth celebrated a triumph, in imitation of the ancient Romans. She rode in a triumphal chariot from her palace to St. Paul's cathedral, where the "enseignes and colours of ye vanquished Spaniards," were displayed to the delighted gaze of the citizens.
During the Border Wars between England and Scotland women had frequent opportunities of local distinction. Holinshed, speaking of a skirmish which took place at Naworth, in 1570, between Lord Hursden and Leonard Dacres, says the latter had in his army "many desperate women, who there gave the adventure of their lives, and fought right stoutly."