days.  The armament had not been changed.  The growth was in their own frightened imagination.  The Duke had other causes for uneasiness.  His own magazines were also giving out under the unexpected demands upon them.  One battle was the utmost which he had looked for.  He had fought three, and the end was no nearer than before.  With resolution he might still have made his way into St. Helen’s roads, for the English were evidently afraid to close with him.  But when St. Dominic, too, failed him he lost his head.  He lost his heart, and losing heart he lost all.  In the Solent he would have been comparatively safe, and he could easily have taken the Isle of Wight; but his one thought now was to find safety under Parma’s gaberdine and make for Calais or Dunkirk.  He supposed Parma to have already embarked, on hearing of his coming, with a second armed fleet, and in condition for immediate action.  He sent on another pinnace, pressing for help, pressing for ammunition, and fly-boats to protect the galleons; and Parma was himself looking to be supplied from the Armada, with no second fleet at all, only a flotilla of river barges which would need a week’s work to be prepared for the crossing.

Philip had provided a splendid fleet, a splendid army, and the finest sailors in the world except the English.  He had failed to realise that the grandest preparations are useless with a fool to command.  The poor Duke was less to blame than his master.  An office had been thrust upon him for which he knew that he had not a single qualification.  His one anxiety was to find Parma, lay the weight on Parma’s shoulders, and so have done with it.

On Friday he was left alone to make his way up Channel towards the French shore.  The English still followed, but he counted that in Calais roads he would be in French waters, where they would not dare to meddle with him.  They would then, he thought, go home and annoy him no further.  As he dropped anchor in the dusk outside Calais on Saturday evening he saw, to his disgust, that the endemoniada gente—­the infernal devils—­as he called them, had brought up at the same moment with himself, half a league astern of him.  His one trust was in the Prince of Parma, and Parma at any rate was now within touch.

LECTURE IX

DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA

In the gallery at Madrid there is a picture, painted by Titian, representing the Genius of Spain coming to the delivery of the afflicted Bride of Christ.  Titian was dead, but the temper of the age survived, and in the study of that great picture you will see the spirit in which the Spanish nation had set out for the conquest of England.  The scene is the seashore.  The Church a naked Andromeda, with dishevelled hair, fastened to the trunk of an ancient disbranched tree.  The cross lies at her feet, the cup overturned, the serpents of heresy biting at her from behind with uplifted crests.  Coming on before a leading breeze is the sea monster, the Moslem fleet, eager for their prey; while in front is Perseus, the Genius of Spain, banner in hand, with the legions of the faithful laying not raiment before him, but shield and helmet, the apparel of war for the Lady of Nations to clothe herself with strength and smite her foes.