r any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my
realms: To which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself
will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of
every one of your virtues in the field.

"I know already by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and
crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be
duly paid you. In the meantime, my lieutenant-general shall be in my
stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject;
not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the
camp, and your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous
victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people."

The extraordinary reliance placed by the queen in this emergency upon
the counsels of Leicester encouraged the insatiable favorite to grasp at
honor and authority still more exorbitant; and he ventured to urge her
majesty to invest him with the office of her lieutenant in England and
Ireland; a dignity paramount to all other commands. She had the weakness
to comply; and it is said that the patent was actually drawn out, when
the defeat of the armada, by taking away all pretext for the creation of
such an officer, gave her leisure to attend to the earnest
representations of Hatton and Burleigh on the imprudence of conferring
on any subject powers so excessive, and capable even in some instances
of controlling her own prerogative. On better consideration the project
therefore was dropped.

It is foreign from the business of this work to detail the particulars
of that signal victory obtained by English seamanship and English valor
against the boasted armament of Spain, prodigiously superior as it was
in every circumstance of force excepting the moral energies employed to
wield it. While the history of the year 1588 in all its details must
ever form a favorite chapter in the splendid tale of England's naval
glory, it will here suffice to mark the general results.

Not a single Spaniard set foot on English ground but as a prisoner; one
English vessel only, and that of smaller size, became the prize of the
invaders. The duke of Parma did not venture to embark a man. The king of
Scots, standing firm to his alliance with his illustrious kinswoman,
afforded not the slightest succour to the Spanish ships which the storms
and the English drove in shattered plight upon his rugged coasts; while
the lord-