to have been put off. Ralegh took the opportunity to visit CHAP. VII. Ireland. There he had both public and private duties. He retained his commission in the army. Moreover, he was answerable, as a Crown tenant, for twenty horsemen, though his charges for them were refunded. Thus, in March, 1588, an order was made for the payment to him of £244 for the previous half year. Always he had his estate to put in order, and functions connected with it to perform. According to the local records, he served this year the office of Mayor of Youghal. During a considerable portion of the term he must have been an absentee. In Ireland the news reached him that the Armada The Armada. had started or was starting. Hastening back he commenced by mustering troops in the West, and strengthening Portland Castle. But his own trust was in the fleet. In his History of the World he propounds the question whether England without its fleet would be able to debar an enemy from landing. He answers by showing how easily ships, without putting themselves out of breath, will outrun soldiers marching along the coast. The Spaniards in July, 1588, could, in his opinion, but for the English ships, have chosen a landing-place with no sufficient army at hand to resist them. The Armada might have failed, he admits, against the choice troops gathered about the Queen. He did not believe in the ability of the remainder round the coast to encounter an army like that which the Prince of Parma could have landed in England. His advice had its weight in inducing Elizabeth to fit out the fleet, which did noble service under Howard of Effingham.

He acted upon his own doctrine. On July 21 the Defiance assailed a Spanish ship near the Eddystone. On the 23rd the Spaniards were over against Portland. Thereupon Ralegh gave over his land charge to others. With a body of gentlemen volunteers he embarked, and joined in the universal rush at and about the enemy. All day the battle raged. Ships started out of every haven, to the number of a hundred. All hurried to Portland, 'as unto a sea-field where immortal fame and glory was to be attained, and faithful service to be performed unto

F

CHAP. VII. their prince and country.' It was for the Englishmen 'a morris dance upon the waters.' We may be sure he applied his principle Against 'Grappling of the worse armed but handier fleet, not 'grappling,' as 'a great many malignant fools' contended Lord Howard ought, but fighting loose or at large.' 'The guns of a slow ship,' he observes, 'make as great holes as those of a swift. The Spaniards had an army aboard them, and Howard had none; they had more ships than he had, and of higher building and charging; so that had he entangled himself with those great and powerful vessels he had greatly endangered this Kingdom of England. But our admiral knew his advantage, and held it; which had he not done he had not been worthy to have held his head.' Camden reports advice given to Howard by one of his officers to grapple on July 23. It has been surmised that Ralegh dissuaded him. It may be so; and Ralegh can be construed as wishing it to be so understood.

Next day the Spaniards lay by to breathe. The English had leisure to send ashore for powder and shot. These for the great guns had, he has recorded, been unduly stinted. On July 25 the battle was resumed, as the enemy sailed towards the Isle of Wight. A Portuguese galleon was captured. On moved both fleets to the Straits of Dover. Many fresh English volunteer ships kept streaming in till the English fleet numbered 140 sail. Here Camden alludes to Ralegh by name. So does a correspondent of Mendoza, describing him as 'a gentleman of the Queen's Privy Chamber.' He must have been at the decisive struggle before Calais; 'Never was seen by any man living such a battery.' He was present at the desperate stand of the Spaniards opposite Gravelines. He helped to hunt the enemy into the northern

seas.

In a passage, attributed by Strype to Drake, of his Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of the Azores, he writes: The navy of 140 sail, was by thirty of the Queen's ships of war and a few merchantmen, beaten and shuffled together, even from the Lizard Point, in Cornwall, to Portland, where they shamefully left Don Pedro de Valdez with his

mighty ship; from Portland to Calais, where they lost Hugo CHAP. VII. de Monçada, with the galleys of which he was captain; and from Calais, driven with squibs from their anchors, were chased out of the sight of England round about Scotland and Ireland; where, for the sympathy of their barbarous religion, hoping to find succour and assistance, a great part of them were crushed against the rocks; and those others who landed, being very many in number, were, notwithstanding, broken, slain, and taken, and so sent from village to village, coupled with halters, to be shipped into England; where her Majesty, of her princely and "invincible" disposition, disdaining to put them to death, and scorning either to retain or entertain them, they were all sent back again to their own country, to witness and recount the worthy achievements of their "invincible navy".

Ralegh had much to do with the preliminary arrangements for the repulse of the Armada. He advised on the manner in which the victory might be improved. Several of the noble Spanish prisoners were committed to his charge. A plan was formed, which the completeness of the Spanish overthrow rendered unnecessary, for the despatch of Sir Richard Grenville and him to Ireland for the suppression of any armed body of Spanish fugitives. His part in the actual Channel fighting had been that simply of one among many gallant captains. When next the State made a naval demonstration he continued to play a secondary character. In April, 1589, an expedition, Retaliation under Drake and Norris, of six Queen's men-of-war and 120 volunteer sail, started to restore Don Antonio to the throne of Portugal. It was retaliation for the Armada. Ralegh sailed in a ship of his own, as a volunteer without a command. Lisbon was assailed and Vigo burnt. Otherwise the chief result of the attempt was spoil. In the Tagus 200 vessels were burnt. Many of them were easterling hulks laden with stores for a new invasion of England. Disease, arising from intemperate indulgence in new wine, crippled the fleet, and led to a quarrel between Ralegh and another Adventurer. Colonel Roger Williams had lent men to bring home one of Ralegh's

on Spain.

CHAP. VII. prizes.

Williams treated ship and cargo as therefore his in virtue of salvage. Ralegh, always tenacious of his rights, resisted, and the Privy Council upheld him. The expedition, which ended in June, though it did not gain much glory, was profitable. He, for example, effected some lucrative captures, and was paid £4000 as his share of the general booty.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE POET. (1589-1593.)

RALEGH would have been happier if he could have gone CH. VIII. on fighting Spain instead of returning to the discord of Court rivalries. Before the summer was over he was again immersed in bickerings with Essex. The Earl was prone to take offence. After the defeat of the Armada he had challenged Ralegh to mortal combat. The unknown grievance was probably not more serious than the title to a ribbon of the Queen's, for which, a little later, he provoked a duel with Blount, Lord Mountjoy. Between him and Ralegh the Council interposed. It averted a combat, and endeavoured to suppress the fact of the challenge. The two could be bound over to keep the peace. They could not be reconciled. Too many indiscreet or malignant partisans were interested in inflaming the conflict. Elizabeth tried with more or less success to adjust the balance by a rebuff to each. She rejected Ralegh's solicitation of the rangership of the New Forest for Lord Pembroke. She gave the post to Blount, Essex's recent antagonist. Still, on the whole, there appears to have been some foundation for the gossip of courtiers that Ralegh was more really in the shade. Out of FaSoon after his return from Portugal he had quitted the Court, first, for the West, and then for Ireland. Captain Francis Allen wrote, on August 17, 1589, to Francis Bacon's elder brother, Anthony, who subsequently conducted Essex's foreign correspondence: My Lord of Essex hath chased Mr. Ralegh from the Court, and hath confined him into Ireland.' The statement was not accurate. Ralegh was able practically to

vour.