The rank and file of the
English army--not the commanders-needed strengthening. The soldiers
required shoes and stockings, bread and meat, and for these articles
there were not the necessary funds, nor would the title of
Lieutenant-General supply the deficiency. The little auxiliary force was,
in truth, in a condition most pitiable to behold: it was difficult to say
whether the soldiers who had been already for a considerable period in
the Netherlands, or those who had been recently levied in the purlieus of
London, were in the most unpromising plight. The beggarly state in which
Elizabeth had been willing that her troops should go forth to the wars
was a sin and a disgrace. Well might her Lieutenant-General say that her
"poor subjects were no better than abjects." There were few effective
companies remaining of the old force. "There is but a small number of the
first bands left," said Sir John Conway, "and those so pitiful and unable
ever to serve again, as I leave to speak further of theirs, to avoid
grief to your heart. A monstrous fault there hath been somewhere."

Leicester took a manful and sagacious course at starting. Those who had
no stomach for the fight were ordered to depart. The chaplain gave them
sermons; the Lieutenant-General, on St. Stephen's day, made them a "pithy
and honourable" oration, and those who had the wish or the means to buy
themselves out of the adventure, were allowed to do so: for the Earl was
much disgusted with the raw material out of which he was expected to
manufacture serviceable troops. Swaggering ruffians from the disreputable
haunts of London, cockney apprentices, brokendown tapsters, discarded
serving men; the Bardolphs and Pistols, Mouldys, Warts, and the
like--more at home in tavern-brawls or in dark lanes than on the
battle-field--were not the men to be entrusted with the honour of England
at a momentous crisis. He spoke with grief and shame of the worthless
character and condition of the English youths sent over to the
Netherlands. "Believe me," said he, "you will all repent the cockney kind
of bringing up at this day of young men. They be gone hence with shame
enough, and too many, that I will warrant, will make as many frays with
bludgeons and bucklers as any in London shall do; but such shall never
have credit with me again. Our simplest men in show have been our best
men, and your gallant blood and ruffian men the worst of all others."

Much winnowed, as it was, the smal