ever wrought by wand of fabled enchanter. The coif fell off, and the false plaits. The labored illusion vanished. The lady who had knelt before the block was in the maturity of grace and loveliness. The executioner, when he raised the head, as usual, to show it to the crowd, exposed the withered features of a grizzled, wrinkled old woman.

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So perish all enemies of the queen ! Isaid the dean of Peterborough. A loud "Amen!" rose over the hall. Such end," said the earl of Kent, rising and standing over the body, "to the queen's and the Gospel's enemies!"

Orders had been given that every thing which she had worn should be immediately destroyed, that no relics should be carried off to work imaginary miracles. Sentinels stood at the doors, who allowed no one to pass out without permission; and after the first pause, the earls still keeping their places, the body was stripped. It then appeared that a favorite lap-dog had followed its mistress un perceived, and was concealed under her clothes. When discovered it gave a short cry, and seated itself between the head and the neck, from which the blood was still flowing. It was carried away and carefully washed, and then beads, paternoster, handkerchief-each particle of dress which the blood had touched-with the cloth on the block and on the scaffold, was burnt in the hall-fire in the presence of the crowd. The scaffold itself was next removed; a brief account of the execution was drawn up, with which Henry Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury's son, was sent to London, and then every one was dismissed. Silence settled down on Fotheringay, and the last scene of the life of Mary Stuart, in which tragedy and melodrama were so strangly intermingled, was over.

XXXV.

ARRIVAL OF THE ARMADA.-EWALD.

[The great effort of Spain and Philip II. to subjugate England was to have been made in favor of Mary Stuart. But Mary was destroyed before the preparations for the expedition could be completed. The attempt, therefore, when it was made, the year after Mary's death, appeared as a bald design to crush England under a foreign yoke, and the result was that every Englishman, old and young, Catholic and Protestant, rallied under the banner of the queen.]

THE summer sun was casting its lengthening shadows upon the bowling-green behind that hotel well known to all officers of her majesty's navy, the Pelican Inn, Plymouth. It was the evening of July 19, 1588. An exciting game of bowls was about to be interrupted. Standing around the bowlingalley watching the play was a little throng whose names naval warfare and the story of adventure will not easily let die. There on that memorable occasion stood Lord Howard, of Effingham, the lord high admiral of England; Sir Robert Southwell, his son-in-law, the captain of the Elizabeth Jorcas; Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Richard Grenville; Martin Frobisher and John Davis; and last, but far from least, Sir John Hawkins, "the patriarch of Plymouth seamen," lazily watching the movements of his pupil, Sir Francis Drake, vice-admiral of the fleet. Raising his form to his full height, then slowly bending forward, the better to give impetus to the swing of his right arm, Sir Francis was about to send the bowl speeding along the alley, when he suddenly stayed his hand and gazed open-mouthed at an old sailor who, with the news-fever burning hot within him, had rushed into their midst. "My lord, my lord!" cried the weatherbeaten old salt to the lord high admiral, "they're coming -I saw 'em off the Lizard last night; they're coming full sail, hundreds of 'em a darkening the waters!" The cool

vice-admiral turned to his chief, as he hurled the bowl along the smooth, worn planks, and said, "There will be time. enough to finish the game, and then we'll go out and give the dons a thrashing!"

It was the first intimation of the arrival of the long-expected "dons." The opal even-tide was fast deepening into night when the towering hulls of the Armada were seen rounding the Lizard. At last the shores of England were before the Spaniards, and the object of their ambition was about to be attained. The weary months passed in busy preparation, the anxious nights spent amid the storms of the Atlantic, the fatigues and privations that had been endured, were now to receive their reward. The spirits of the men on board the galleons rose high, for all were convinced that success was about to crown their efforts. The moment had arrived when vengeance was to be theirs. Within sight was the England who had shown herself, on every occasion, the enemy of Spain, who had encouraged the Protestant revolt in the Low Countries, who had robbed the West Indies of their treasures, who had captured wealthy galleons bound for Cadiz or Lisbon, and brought them in triumph to the mouth of the Thames; whose famous mariners had, within the very fortifications which commmanded the Spanish forts, fallen upon the fleets of the most Catholic king, plundered them of their goods, and then left them a mass of wrecked timber. But the hour of revenge was at hand, and haughty England, who styled herself the mistress of the seas, was to be humbled on her own element, or yield her lands to the foreigners. Forming his ships in the shape of a crescent, which stretched some seven miles from horn to horn, Medina Sidonia came full sail toward Plymouth. Hastily weighing anchor, Lord Howard hurried out of the harbor to give battle to the enemy in the Channel.

Meanwhile the beacon - lights had flashed through the country the news of the arrival of the Armada. In every

shire men were looking up their arms and saddling their horses, ready for any emergency. Shipping was placed at the Nore to protect both Sheppey and the Thames. A camp was formed at Tilbury to cover London; and the earl of Leicester, who had shown himself both incompetent and improvident in the Low Countries, and who owed all his advancement to the favor in which he was held by the queen, was appointed commander-in-chief. The hour of danger, however, stimulated him to unwonted activity. "Nothing must be neglected," he wrote to the Council, “to oppose this mighty enemy now knocking at our gates." The queen herself came down to the camp, rode along the lines, and exhorted her troops to remember their duty to their country and their religion. "She had come among them at this time," she cried, amid the enthusiastic cheers of the troops, "not for her sport or recreation, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die among her people-to lay down, for her God and for her kingdom, her honor and her blood even in the dust. She knew she had but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but she had the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and thought foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of her realm. Rather," she exclaimed, with all the fire of her Tudor blood, "than any dishonor should grow by her, she herself would take up arms, she herself would be their general, their judge and rewarder of every one of their virtues in the field!"

Her soldiers, however, required little pressing to go forth and attack the enemy. They burned to meet the foe who had the audacity to attempt the invasion of their country, or to dream of forcing upon Protestant England the hated creed of Rome. Stories of the terrors of the Inquisition, of the cruelties that had been practiced by Alva in the Low Countries, and of the fate that was to be in store for Englishmen, should the forces of Medina and Parma win the day, were

freely circulated. It was said that the houses and parks of the English nobles were to be parceled out among the Spanish grandees, and that a list had been drawn up to that effect, which was in the pocket of every Spaniard. English women were to be spared only to be consigned to a fate worse than death. The houses of the wealthy merchants in London had been inserted in a Spanish register, and were to be divided among the squadrons of the navy for their spoil. Every galleon had hundreds of halters on board wherewith to hang the English people, while children under seven years of age were to be branded upon their faces, so as to be known hereafter as the offspring of the conquered nation. Such tales were fully credited, and goaded the patriotism of the country into a perfect frenzy of wild and vindictive hate.

On issuing from Plymouth harbor into the open Channel, Lord Howard gave orders to his men not to come to close quarters with the towering unwieldly galleons, but to pour broadside after broadside into them at a distance, and to bide their opportunity to fall upon them. They had not long to wait. One of the galleons, the Capitana, carrying the flag of Pedro de Valdez, ran foul of the Santa Catalina, and broke her bowsprit. She was disabled; it was in vain that the Spaniards tried to take her in tow, and Drake timely coming up, she struck her flag, and was tugged at the stern of the Revenge, a prize into Torbay. Among the prisoners was De Valdez, "the third in command of the fleet," and Juan Martinez de Recaldo, vice-admiral. As the Armada advanced up the Channel the English hung upon its rear, firing shot after shot into the lofty hulls of the galleons and galleasses, yet all the while taking excellent care to give them a wide berth. "The enemy pursue me," moans Medina Sidonia; "they fire upon me most days from morning till nightfall; but they will not close and grapple. I have purposely left ships exposed to tempt them to board, but they decline