Elizabeth I by Margaret George Read Free Book Online Page A

the Spanish had done little damage to our ships—a good omen.
    I had packed away my finery, ordered the jewels locked in the guarded Tower of London, retreated to Richmond, farther up the Thames. And waited.
    From my palace window I could see the river, its ripples showing the ebbing tide current. The waxing moon played on its surface, making bright patches that broke and rearranged themselves as the water rolled past. On the opposite bank the reeds and willows were painted silver by the moonlight, the swans resting among them standing out as stark white. A night for lovers.
    And then, a red glare through the silver moonlight. A beacon, twinkling from miles away. Then another. The Armada had been sighted. The local militia was called to assemble.
    â€œLight! Light!” I called for candles. There would be no sleep tonight. I heard the commotion in the palace as messengers arrived, and then one was brought before me. He knelt, trembling.
    â€œWell?” I said. “Tell me all.” I motioned him up.
    He was only a lad, perhaps fifteen. “I tended the beacon on Upshaw Hill. I lighted it when I saw the one on Adcock Ridge. It would have taken twenty-four or thirty-six hours since the first one was lit to the west.”
    â€œI see.” I had my guard pay him. “You have done well.”
    But in truth I knew no more than I had just by seeing the beacon myself. Only when knowledgeable witnesses arrived would the truth be revealed. “Prepare yourselves,” I told my guard. Raleigh, the head of them, was away in the west counties. He must have seen the Armada. How far along the coast had it gotten?

    It was three full days before the details could reach us in London. The Armada had first been sighted on July 29 by the captain of the Golden Hind , guarding and scouting the entrance to the Channel. He spotted some fifty Spanish sails near the Scilly Isles and made straightway to Plymouth a hundred miles away to warn Drake.
    The next day, July 30, the Armada had entered the Channel.
    It was now August 1. “Tell me exactly what has happened,” I said to the messenger. My tone was cool, though my heart raced.
    â€œI do not know. I think the Spanish caught our western squadron in harbor at Plymouth, bottled up by the wind so they could not get out. They made an easy target for the Spanish to attack, if they sighted them.”
    â€œAnd then?”
    â€œI was dispatched before we knew what happened,” he said.
    My heart sank. This was only partial news. Had our fleet been disabled by the wind and then destroyed by the Spaniards? Did all of England now lie open before them?

    No one knew. We waited at Richmond as the days ticked by—August 2, 3, 4. The guards never left me, and all the entrances to the palace were sealed. We kept our trunks packed and slept little.
    We feared the worst—that the Spaniards were even now marching toward London. “But,” I told Marjorie, “we can comfort ourselves that all of England will not be conquered, no matter if they capture us and overrun London. There is more to the realm than the south counties and London. In Wales and in the north, the terrain is rough and the people rougher. The east is full of marshes and fens. If the Spanish cannot subdue the Netherlands after thirty years, they could never pacify us. New leaders would rise if I and my entire government disappeared.”
    â€œWe breed fierce fighters,” she said. “We would make their lives hell if they occupied us.”
    â€œAnd if they tried to station enough soldiers here to quiet us, they would leave the Netherlands empty and lose them,” said Catherine.
    I looked at them. They did not even pretend to be calm. Both their husbands were out fighting the invaders, and they had no word of them.
    â€œAh, ladies,” I said. “We stand and fall as one.”
    But what was happening?

    Late that night, Lord Hunsdon came to Richmond. I welcomed him with