ed, provided that they gave their word of honour not to
remain away longer than four days at a time. King Edward and his son,
knowing how honourable their father was, trusted in the honour of these
young princes.

One day, however, one of the princes yielded to temptation, rode away,
and never came back to Calais at all. Upon hearing the news the French
king was so shocked that he returned to England and yielded himself up
a prisoner once more.

'If honour is to be found nowhere else,' he said, 'it should find a
refuge in the breast of kings.'

King Edward gave him a palace to live in, and he and his people did all
they could to show the imprisoned king how much they loved and admired
him for his noble conduct.

But King John never returned to his own country. Three months after
his arrival in England he died, his end hastened by sorrow at the base
and thoughtless conduct of his son.

CHAPTER VI

SINGEING THE KING OF SPAIN'S BEARD

Queen Elizabeth was seated in her private apartment, her white forehead
puckered in anxious lines.

The trouble between herself and her great rival the King of Spain had
reached its height.

Throughout her reign English and Spaniards had been contending for the
mastery of the new countries which had been discovered on the other
side of the ocean, and for supremacy upon the seas. In South America
the Spanish king possessed rich mines of silver and precious stones:
and Queen Elizabeth's adventurers, half explorers, half pirates,
gloried in making descents upon the coast towns, waiting there until
the convoys came down from the mountains, and then seizing the
treasure, burning the town, and departing.

Another frolicsome adventure of the English sailors was to hang about
the rear of the Spanish 'silver fleet' on its way from America to
Spain, and when any vessel became separated from her fellows, to fall
upon her, remove the precious cargo to their own vessel, and then set
fire to the Spanish ship and send her adrift upon the high seas.

No wonder that after several years of these proceedings the Spanish
king had made up his mind that the pride of the audacious islanders
must be lowered, and a clean sweep made of the English pirates.

And it was no wonder that Queen Elizabeth was uneasy, for she had
received tidings that even then the Spaniards had a great fleet in the
harbour of Cadiz, ready for the invasion of England. At that time the
Spanish navy was the greatest i