h impunity. The Queen, after thirty years of wonderful, if
tortuous, diplomacy, was still disinclined to drop the art in which she
was supreme for that in which she counted for so much less and by which
she was obliged to spend so very much more. There was still a little
peace party also bent on diplomacy instead of war. Negotiations were
opened with Parma at Flushing and diplomatic 'feelers' went out towards
Philip, who sent back some of his own. But the time had come for war.
The stream was now too strong for either Elizabeth or Philip to stem or
even divert into minor channels.

Lord Howard of Effingham, as Lord High Admiral of England, was charged
with the defence at sea. It was impossible in those days to have any
great force without some great nobleman in charge of it, because the
people still looked on such men as their natural viceroys and
commanders. But just as Sir John Norreys, the most expert professional
soldier in England, was made Chief of the Staff to the Earl of Leicester
ashore, so Drake was made Chief of the Staff to Howard afloat, which
meant that he was the brain of the fleet.

A directing brain was sadly needed--not that brains were lacking, but
that some one man of original and creative genius was required to bring
the modern naval system into triumphant being. Like all political heads,
Elizabeth was sensitive to public opinion; and public opinion was
ignorant enough to clamor for protection by something that a man could
see; besides which there were all those weaklings who have been
described as the old women of both sexes and all ages, and who have
always been the nuisance they are still. Adding together the old views
of warfare, which nearly everybody held, and the human weaknesses we
have always with us, there was a most dangerously strong public opinion
in favor of dividing up the navy so as to let enough different places
actually see that they had some visible means of divided defence.

The 30th of March, 1588, is the day of days to be remembered in the
history of sea power because it was then that Drake, writing from
Plymouth to the Queen-in-Council, first formulated the true doctrine of
modern naval warfare, especially the cardinal principle that the best of
all defence is to attack your enemy's main fleet as it issues from its
ports. This marked the birth of the system perfected by Nelson and
thence passed on, with many new developments, to the British Grand
Fleet in the Great War of to