ual battle. If Philip
should land, they would find their queen in the hottest of the conflict,
fighting by their sides. "I have," said she, "I know, only the body of a
weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king; and I am ready
for my God, my kingdom, and my people, to have that body laid down, even
in the dust. If the battle comes, therefore, I shall myself be in the
midst and front of it, to live or die with you."

These were, thus far, but words, it is true, and how far Elizabeth would
have vindicated their sincerity, if the entrance of the armada into the
Thames had put her to the test, we can not now know. Sir Francis Drake
saved her from the trial. One morning a small vessel came into the
harbor at Plymouth, where the English fleet was lying, with the news
that the armada was coming up the Channel under full sail. The anchors
of the fleet were immediately raised, and great exertions made to get it
out of the harbor, which was difficult, as the wind at the time was
blowing directly in. The squadron got out at last, as night was coming
on. The next morning the armada hove in sight, advancing from the
westward up the Channel, in a vast crescent, which extended for seven
miles from north to south, and seemed to sweep the whole sea.

[Illustration: THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA.]

It was a magnificent spectacle, and it was the ushering in of that far
grander spectacle still, of which the English Channel was the scene for
the ten days which followed, during which the enormous naval structures
of the armada, as they slowly made their way along, were followed, and
fired upon, and harassed by the smaller, and lighter, and more active
vessels of their English foes. The unwieldy monsters pressed on,
surrounded and worried by their nimbler enemies like hawks driven by
kingfishers through the sky. Day after day this most extraordinary
contest, half flight and half battle continued, every promontory on the
shores covered all the time with spectators, who listened to the distant
booming of the guns, and watched the smokes which arose from the
cannonading and the conflagrations. One great galleon after another fell
a prey. Some were burned, some taken as prizes, some driven ashore;
and finally, one dark night, the English sent a fleet of fire-ships, all
in flames, into the midst of the anchorage to which the Spaniards had
retired, which scattered them in terror and dismay, and completed the
discomfiture of the squadron.

Th