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Hostility bordering on open warfare was therefore the most frequent condition of English foreign relations. Especially was this true of the relations with Spain. The most serious contest with that country was the war which culminated in the battle of the Armada in 1588.

This was the result of the Battle of Gravelines, fought on Monday the 29th of July, 1588, just ten days after Captain Fleming had rushed on to the bowling green of Plymouth Hoe where Drake and Howard, their shore work done, were playing a game before embarking.

But it had scarcely put to sea when a gale in the Bay of Biscay drove its scattered vessels into Ferrol, and it was only on the nineteenth of July 1588 that the sails of the Armada were seen from the Lizard, and the English beacons flared out their alarm along the coast. The news found England ready.

Indeed, in the old times before the Union the nobles were often as strong as the King, and many a time the High Street was reddened by the blood of the noblest and bravest of the land. In 1588 there was a cry of "A Naesmyth," "A Scott," in the High Street. It was followed by a clash of arms, and two of Sir Michael Naesmyth's sons were killed in that bloody feud.

More than two centuries of repeated struggle, from the Armada in 1588 to Trafalgar in 1805, had given the British Empire a century of armed peace all round the Seven Seas, and its colonies a century's start ahead of every rival.

Carlyle's influence upon Froude, which happily never extended to his style, confirmed him in his attachment to Protestantism and his hatred of Rome. It also accounted for much of Froude's belief in despots. In democracy he had no faith. Manhood suffrage in England, would, he thought, even in the wonderful year 1588, the last of his History, have restored the Pope.

* In 1588, the lord mayor committed several citizens to prison, because they refused to pay the loan demanded of them. Murden, p. 632. Harrison, chap. 11. v Haynes, p 196. See further, La Boderie, vol. i. p. 211. There cannot be a stronger proof how lightly the rack was employed than the following story, told by Lord Bacon.

From 1576 to 1588, Henry III. had seen the difficulties of his government continuing and increasing. His attempt to maintain his own independence and the mastery of the situation between Catholics and Protestants, by making concessions and promises at one time to the former and at another to the latter, had not succeeded; and in 1584 it became still more difficult to practise.

It was not until 1590 that Raleigh was able to despatch vessels to the relief of the Hatorask colony, and then it was too late. White did, indeed, start out from Biddeford in April, 1588, with two vessels, but the temptation to chase prizes was too strong for him, and he went on a cruise of his own, and left the colony to its destruction. In March, 1589-90, Mr.

The events in the remainder of the year 1588, with those of 1589 although important in themselves were the immediate results of that history which has been so minutely detailed in these volumes, and can be indicated in a very few pages.