6. The Destruction of the Armada. 1588.—The Spanish fleet was driven northwards without hope of return, and narrowly escaped wreck on the flats of Holland. "There was never anything pleased me better," wrote Drake, as he followed hard, "than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northwards.... 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[19] amongst his orange trees." Before long even Drake had had enough. Elizabeth, having with her usual economy kept the ships short of powder, they were forced to come back. The Spaniards had been too roughly handled to return home by the way they came. Round the north of Scotland and the west of Ireland they went, strewing the coast with wrecks. About 120 of their ships had entered the Channel, but only 54 returned. "I sent you," said Philip to his admiral, "to fight against men, and not with the winds." Elizabeth, too, credited the storms with her success. She struck a medal with the inscription, "God blew with his wind and they were scattered." The winds had done their part, but the victory was mainly due to the seamanship of English mariners and the skill of English shipwrights.
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) and his eldest son Walter, at the age of eight: from a picture, dated 1602, belonging to Sir J. F. Lennard, Bart.
7. Philip II. and France. 1588-1593.—Philip's hopes of controlling France were before long baffled as completely as his hopes of controlling England. In 1588 Guise, the partisan of Spain, was murdered at Blois by the order of the king in his very presence. In 1589 Henry III. was murdered in revenge by a fanatic, and the Huguenot king of Navarre claimed the crown as Henry IV. The League declared that no Huguenot should reign in France. A struggle ensued, and twice when Henry seemed to be gaining the upper hand Philip sent Parma to aid the League. The feeling of the French people was against a Huguenot king, but it was also against Spanish interference. When in 1593 Henry IV. declared himself a Catholic, Paris cheerfully submitted to him, and its example was speedily followed by the rest of France. Elizabeth saw in Henry IV. a king whose position as a national sovereign resisting Spanish interference much resembled her own, and in 1589 and again in 1591 she sent him men and money. A close alliance against Spain sprang up between France and England.
8. Maritime Enterprises. 1589-1596.—It was chiefly at sea, however, that Englishmen revenged themselves for the attack of the Armada. In 1592 Drake and Sir John Norris sacked Corunna but failed to take Lisbon. Other less notable sailors plundered and destroyed in the West Indies. In 1595 Drake died at sea. In the same year Sir Walter Raleigh, who was alike distinguished as a courtier, a soldier, and a sailor, sailed up the Orinoco in search of wealth. In 1596 Raleigh, together with Lord Howard of Effingham and the young Earl of Essex, who was in high favour with the Queen, took and sacked Cadiz. Essex was generous and impetuous, but intensely vain, and the victory was followed by a squabble between the commanders as to their respective merits.
9. Increasing Prosperity.—It was not so much the victories as the energy which made the victories possible that diffused wealth and prosperity over England. Trade grew together with piracy and war. Manufactures increased, and the manufacturers growing in numbers needed to be fed. Landed proprietors, in consequence, found it profitable to grow corn instead of turning their arable lands into pasture, as they had done at the beginning of the century. The complaints about inclosures (see pp. [368], [415]) died away. The results of wealth appeared in the show and splendour of the court, where men decked themselves in gorgeous attire, but still more in the gradual rise of the general standard of comfort.