he Prince of
Melito, the Marquess of Burgrave, Vespasian Gonzaga, John Medicis,
Amadas of Savoy, in short, the illegitimate sons of all the southern
princes, having no lands of their own, were coming to find that
necessary of life in this pleasant little wheat-garden. Nay, the Duke of
Medina Sidonia had already engaged Mount-Edgecombe for himself, as the
fairest jewel of the south; which when good old Sir Richard Edgecombe
heard, he observed quietly, that in 1555 he had the pleasure of
receiving at his table at one time the admirals of England, Spain, and
the Netherlands, and therefore had experience in entertaining Dons; and
made preparations for the visit by filling his cellars with gunpowder,
with a view to a house-warming and feu-de-joie on the occasion. But as
old Fuller says, "The bear was not yet killed, and Medina Sidonia might
have catched a great cold, had he no other clothes to wear than the skin
thereof."

So flew rumor, false and true, till poor John Bull's wits were well-nigh
turned: but to the very last, after his lazy fashion, he persuaded
himself that it would all come right somehow; that it was too great news
to be true; that if it was true, the expedition was only meant for the
Netherlands; and, in short, sat quietly over his beef and beer for many
a day after the French king had sent him fair warning, and the queen,
the ministry, and the admirals had been assuring him again and again
that he, and not the Dutchman, was the destined prey of this great
flight of ravenous birds.

At last the Spaniard, in order that there should be no mistake about the
matter, kindly printed a complete bill of the play, to be seen still in
Van Meteran, for the comfort of all true Catholics, and confusion of all
pestilent heretics; which document, of course, the seminary priests used
to enforce the duty of helping the invaders, and the certainty of their
success; and from their hands it soon passed into those of the devout
ladies, who were not very likely to keep it to themselves; till John
Bull himself found his daughters buzzing over it with very pale faces
(as young ladies well might who had no wish to follow the fate of
the damsels of Antwerp), and condescending to run his eye through it,
discovered, what all the rest of Europe had known for months past, that
he was in a very great scrape.

Well it was for England, then, that her Tudor sovereigns had compelled
every man (though they kept up no standing army) to be a