rmy.

But Philip went his own silly way; and Elizabeth, his deadly enemy,
nearly helped him by having some silly plans of her own. She and her
Council (all landsmen, and no great soldier among them) wanted to
divide the English fleet so as to defend the different places they
thought the Armada might attack. This would also please the people;
for most people do like to see ships and soldiers close in front of
them, even when that is quite the wrong place for the ships and
soldiers to be. Of course this plan could never have worked, except in
favour of the Spaniards, who might have crushed, first, one bit of the
English fleet, and then another, and another, though they had no chance
whatever against the united whole.

Drake's own perfect plan was to take the whole fleet straight to Lisbon
and beat the Armada as it tried to get out. This would have given him
an enormous advantage; first, because he would have found the Armada at
once, instead of having to search for it after it had sailed; secondly,
because he could have crushed it ship by ship as it came out of the
Tagus; and, thirdly, because this defeat of the Armada off the coast of
Portugal would certainly prevent Parma from taking his army from
Flanders into England. On the 30th of March, 1588, a day to be forever
remembered in the history of sea-power, Drake wrote all this from
Plymouth to the Queen and her Councillors. One civilian, Sir Francis
Walsingham, saw at once that Drake was right. But the others shook
their heads; while even those who thought Drake knew better than they
did were afraid to let the fleet go so far away, because the people
liked the comfort of seeing it close beside the coast. Drake's way was
the way of Nelson, Jellicoe, Beatty, and all the greatest seamen. But
he was not allowed to try it till the 7th of July, when the Armada had
left Lisbon and was in the harbour of Corunna at the northwest corner
of the Spanish coast. And even then the Queen kept him so short of
stores that he could not have waited there to take the best chance.

When almost in sight of Spain a roaring sou'wester blew up; so, being
unable to wait, he had to come back to Plymouth on the 12th. Then for
a week the English fleet was taking in stores as hard as it could.
Lord Howard of Effingham, the Lord High Admiral of England, was in
command as the Great Officer of State who represented the Queen. But
he was a very sensible man, who, knowing that Drake was the