hivalrous son, James of Scotland. True, he had promised faith to
Elizabeth: but that was no reason why he should keep it. He had been
hankering and dabbling after Spain for years past, for its absolution
was dear to his inmost soul; and Queen Elizabeth had had to warn him,
scold him, call him a liar, for so doing; so the Armada might still find
shelter and provision in the Firth of Forth. But whether Lord Howard
knew or not, Medina did not know, that Elizabeth had played her card
cunningly, in the shape of one of those appeals to the purse, which, to
James's dying day, overweighed all others save appeals to his vanity.
"The title of a dukedom in England, a yearly pension of 5000 pounds, a
guard at the queen's charge, and other matters" (probably more hounds
and deer), had steeled the heart of the King of Scots, and sealed the
Firth of Forth. Nevertheless, as I say, Lord Howard, like the rest of
Elizabeth's heroes, trusted James just as much as James trusted others;
and therefore thought good to escort the Armada until it was safely past
the domains of that most chivalrous and truthful Solomon. But on the
4th of August, his fears, such as they were, were laid to rest. The
Spaniards left the Scottish coast and sailed away for Norway; and the
game was played out, and the end was come, as the end of such matters
generally comes, by gradual decay, petty disaster, and mistake; till
the snow-mountain, instead of being blown tragically and heroically to
atoms, melts helplessly and pitiably away.

CHAPTER XXXII

HOW AMYAS THREW HIS SWORD INTO THE SEA

"Full fathom deep thy father lies;
Of his bones are corals made;
Those are pearls which were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange;
Fairies hourly ring his knell,
Hark! I hear them. Ding dong bell."

The Tempest.

Yes, it is over; and the great Armada is vanquished. It is lulled for
awhile, the everlasting war which is in heaven, the battle of Iran and
Turan, of the children of light and of darkness, of Michael and his
angels against Satan and his fiends; the battle which slowly and seldom,
once in the course of many centuries, culminates and ripens into a
day of judgment, and becomes palpable and incarnate; no longer a mere
spiritual fight, but one of flesh and blood, wherein simple men may
choose their sides without mistake, and