sage advice (being acted on, and some deer sent over and above) was so successful that the pious mourner, having run off (Randolph says, like a baby to see the deer in their cart), returned for answer that he would "thereafter depend wholly upon her Majesty, and serve her fortune against all the world; and that he only wanted now two of her Majesty's yeoman prickers, and a couple of her grooms of the deer." The Spaniard was not sorry on the whole for the catastrophe; for all that had kept him from conquering England long ago was the fear lest, after it was done, he might have had to put the crown thereof on Mary's head, instead of his own. But Mary's death was as convenient a stalking-horse to him as to the pope; and now the Armada was coming in earnest.
Elizabeth began negotiating; but fancy not that she does nothing more, as the following letter testifies, written about Midsummer, 1587.
F. Drake to Captain Amyas Leigh. This with haste.
"Dear Lad,
" As I said to her most glorious Majesty, I say to you now. There are two ways of facing an enemy. The one to stand off, and cry, 'Try that again and I'll strike thee'; the other to strike him first, and then, 'Try that at all, and I'll strike thee again.' Of which latter counsel her Majesty so far approves, that I go forthwith (tell it not in Gath) down the coast, to singe the king of Spain's beard (so I termed it to her Majesty, she laughing), in which if I leave so much as a fishing-boat afloat from the Groyne unto Cadiz, it will not be with my good will, who intend that if he come this year, he shall come by swimming and not by sailing. So if you are still the man I have known you, bring a good ship round to Plymouth within the month, and away with me for hard blows and hard money, the feel of both of which you know pretty well by now."Thine lovingly,"F. Drake."
Amyas clutched his locks over this letter, and smoked more tobacco the day he got it than had ever before been consumed at once in England But he kept true to his promise; and this was his reply:—
"Amyas Leigh to the Worshipful Sir F. Drake, Admiral of her Majesty's Fleet in Plymouth.
"Most honored Sir,
"A magician keeps me here, in bilboes for which you have no picklock; namely, a mother who forbids. The loss is mine: but Antichrist I can fight any year (for he will not die this bout, nor
