nough was the Lord-Admiral with his sailors perishing by
pestilence, with many of his ships so weakly manned that as Lord Henry
Seymour declared there were not mariners enough to weigh the anchors, and
with the great naval heroes, on whose efforts the safety of the realm
depended, wrangling like fisherwomen among themselves, when rumours came,
as they did almost daily, of the return of the Spanish Armada, and of new
demonstrations on the part of Farnese. He was naturally unwilling that
the fruits of English valour on the seas should now be sacrificed by the
false economy of the government. He felt that, after all that had been
endured and accomplished, the Queen and her counsellors were still
capable of leaving England at the mercy of a renewed attempt, "I know not
what you think at the court," said he; "but I think, and so do all here,
that there cannot be too great forces maintained for the next five or six
weeks. God knoweth whether the Spanish fleet will not, after refreshing
themselves in Norway; Denmark, and the Orkneys, return. I think they dare
not go back to Sprain with this, dishonour, to their King and overthrow
of the Pope's credit. Sir, sure bind, sure find. A kingdom is a grand
wager. Security is dangerous; and, if God had not been our best friend;
we should have found it so."

[Howard to Walsingham, Aug.8/18 1588. (S. P. Office MS.)]

["Some haply may say that winter cometh on apace," said Drake, "but
my poor opinion is that I dare not advise her Majesty to hazard a
kingdom with the saving of a little charge." (Drake to Walsingham,
Aug. 8/18 1588.)]

Nothing could be more replete, with sound common sense than this simple
advice, given as it was in utter ignorance of the fate of the Armada;
after it had been lost sight of by the English vessels off the Firth of
Forth, and of the cold refreshment which: it had found in Norway and the
Orkneys. But, Burghley had a store of pithy apophthegms, for which--he
knew he could always find sympathy in the Queen's breast, and with which
he could answer these demands of admirals and generals. "To spend in time
convenient is wisdom;" he observed--"to continue charges without needful
cause bringeth, repentance;"--"to hold on charges without knowledge of
the certainty thereof and of means how to support them, is lack of
wisdom;" and so on.

Yet the Spanish fleet might have returned into the Channel for ought the
Lord-Treasurer on the 22nd August knew--or