the first occupant,
made way for the pretensions of Philip, who claimed it as the true heir
of the house of Lancaster.

But Elizabeth was not of a temper so timid or so supine as to suffer
these preparations to advance without interruption. She ordered Drake
to sail immediately for the coast of Spain, and put in practice against
her enemy every possible mode of injury and annoyance. To the four great
ships which she allotted to him for this service, the English merchants,
instigated by the hopes of plunder, cheerfully added twenty-six more of
different sizes; and with this force the daring leader steered for the
port of Cadiz, where a richly-laden fleet lay ready to sail for Lisbon,
the final rendezvous for the whole armada. By the impetuosity of his
attack, he compelled six galleys which defended the mouth of the harbour
to seek shelter under its batteries; and having thus forced an entrance,
he took, burned and destroyed about a hundred store-ships and two
galleons of superior size. This done, he returned to Cape St. Vincent;
then took three castles; and destroying as he proceeded every thing that
came in his way, even to the fishing-boats and nets, he endeavoured to
provoke the Spanish admiral to come out and give him battle off the
mouth of the Tagus. But the marquis of Santa Croce deemed it prudent to
suffer him to pillage the coast without molestation. Having fully
effected this object, he made sail for the Azores, where the capture of
a bulky carrack returning from India amply indemnified the merchants for
all the expenses of the expedition, and enriched the admiral and his
crews. Drake returned to England in a kind of triumph, boasting that he
had "singed the whiskers" of the king of Spain: nor was his vaunt
unfounded; the destruction of the store-ships, and the havoc committed
by him on the magazines of every kind, was a mischief so great, and for
the present so irreparable, that it crippled the whole design, and
compelled Philip to defer, for no less than a year, the sailing of his
invincible armada.

The respite thus procured was diligently improved by Elizabeth for the
completion of her plans of defence against the hour of trial, which she
still anticipated.--The interval seems to afford a fit occasion for the
relation of some incidents of a more private nature, but interesting as
illustrative of the manners and practices of the age.

It has been already mentioned, that the secret marriage of the earl of