By England's Aid

CHAPTER I

AN EXCURSION


"And we beseech Thee, 0 Lord, to give help and succour to Thy servants
the people of Holland, and to deliver them from the cruelties and
persecutions of their wicked oppressors; and grant Thy blessing,
we pray Thee, upon the arms of our soldiers now embarking to aid
them in their extremity."

These were the words with which the Rev. John Vickars, rector of
Hedingham, concluded the family prayers on the morning of December
6th, 1585.

For twenty years the first portion of this prayer had been repeated
daily by him, as it had been in tens of thousands of English
households; for since the people of the Netherlands first rose
against the Spanish yoke the hearts of the Protestants of England
had beat warmly in their cause, and they had by turns been moved
to admiration at the indomitable courage with which the Dutch
struggled for independence against the might of the greatest power
in Europe, and to horror and indignation at the pitiless cruelty
and wholesale massacres by which the Spaniards had striven to stamp
out resistance.

From the first the people of England would gladly have joined
in the fray, and made common cause with their co-religionists;
but the queen and her counsellors had been restrained by weighty
considerations from embarking in such a struggle. At the commencement
of the war the power of Spain overshadowed all Europe. Her infantry
were regarded as irresistible. Italy and Germany were virtually her
dependencies, and England was but a petty power beside her. Since
Agincourt was fought we had taken but little part in wars on the
Continent. The feudal system was extinct; we had neither army nor
military system; and the only Englishmen with the slightest experience
of war were those who had gone abroad to seek their fortunes, and
had fought in the armies of one or other of the continental powers.
Nor were we yet aware of our naval strength. Drake and Hawkins and
the other buccaneers had not yet commenced their private war with
Spain, on what was known as the Spanish Main -- the waters of
the West Indian Islands -- and no one dreamed that the time was
approaching when England would be able to hold her own against the
strength of Spain on the seas.

Thus, then, whatever the private sentiments of Elizabeth and her
counsellors, they shrank from engaging England in a life and death
struggle with the greatest power of the time; though as the struggle
went on the queen's sympathy with the people of the Netherlands
was more and more openly shown. In 1572 she was present at a parade
of three hundred volunteers who mustered at Greenwich under Thomas
Morgan and Roger Williams for service in the Netherlands. Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, half brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, went out a few months
later with 1500 men, and from that time numbers of English volunteers
continued to cross the seas and join in the struggle against the
Spaniards. Nor were the sympathies of the queen confined to allowing
her subjects to take part in the fighting; for she sent out large
sums of money to the Dutch, and as far as she could, without openly
joining them, gave them her aid.

Spain remonstrated continually against these breaches of neutrality,
while the Dutch on their part constantly implored her to join them
openly; but she continued to give evasive answers to both parties
until the assassination of William of Orange on 10th July, 1584,
sent a thrill of horror through England, and determined the queen
and her advisers to take a more decisive part in the struggle. In the
following June envoys from the States arrived in London, and were
received with great honour, and a treaty between the two countries
was agreed upon. Three months later the queen published a declaration
to her people and to Europe at large, setting forth the terrible
persecutions and cruelties to which "our next neighbours, the people
of the Low Countries," the special allies and friends of England,
had been exposed, and stating her determination to aid them to
recover their liberty. The proclamation concluded: "We mean not
hereby to make particular profit to ourself and our people, only
desiring to obtain, by God's favour, for the Countries, a deliverance
of them from war by the Spaniards and foreigners, with a restitution
of their ancient liberties and government.

Sir Thomas Cecil was sent out at once as governor of Brill, and
Sir Philip Sidney as governor of Flushing, these towns being handed
over to England as guarantees by the Dutch. These two officers,
with bodies of troops to serve as garrisons, took charge of their
respective fortresses in November.