*Interim*
That feat of Sir Walter Raleigh was a wondrous achievement that any manmight envy without blame. The English fleet came to anchor off Cadiz onJune 20, 1596. Sir Walter's voice had great weight with the generals,and it was by his counsel and ordering that the enterprise was ruled.His device was to attack the galleons lying there in the haven and afterassail the town, and so was it performed. Himself led the van ward inthe _Warspright_, and ran through a fierce cannonade from the fort ofPuntal and the galleys, esteeming them but as wasps in respect of thepowerfulness of the others, and making no answer save by blare oftrumpet to each discharge. And he dropped anchor close over against the_St. Philip_ and the _St. Andrew_, the greatest of all the galleons, andthe same which had overpowered in the Azores the little _Revenge_wherein Sir Richard Grenville died gloriously, winning deathless fame.Three hours the _Warspright_ fought those great ships, and was nearsinking; nevertheless Raleigh would not yield precedence to my LordEssex or the Lord Admiral, but thrust himself athwart the channel, so ashe was sure none should out-start him again for that day.
And so he set on to grapple the _St. Philip_, and the Spaniards fellinto a panic, and that galleon with three others tried to run aground,tumbling into the sea soldiers in heaps, so thick as if coals had beenpoured out of a sack. Straightway two were taken or ever their captainswere able to turn them; but the _St. Philip_ was blown up by hercaptain, and a multitude of men were drowned or scorched with theflames. And Raleigh received in the leg from a spent shot a grievouswound, interlaced and deformed with splinters.
Thereupon my Lord Essex hasted to land, and put to rout eight hundredhorse that stood against him, and by eight of the clock the English weremasters of the market-place, the forts, and the whole town save only thecastle, which held out till break of day. And the citizens wereconstrained to pay a hundred and twenty thousand crowns for theirransom, and moreover all the rich merchandise of the town fell to theEnglish as spoils of war. And Sir Walter's valiant deeds purchasedagain the favour of the Queen, and she willed he should come to thePalace, and received him graciously, holding much private talk andriding abroad with him.
My grandfather, who was of a goodly presence, had taken the eye of theQueen, and she lifted him out of the Guard and made him one of her fiftygentlemen pensioners, albeit he was full young for such a place. Thesegentlemen were appointed to attend the Queen on all ceremoniousoccasions, bearing a gilt axe upon a staff, and to serve about thePalace, the which offices were little to his liking. And his fatherdying about this time, he went down into Hampshire to take up hisinheritance, and was much busied about his estates, and exercising asjustice of the peace that little law he had learned in the Inner Temple.But he was again lodging in London when my Lord Essex, having botched uphis work in Ireland, and taking reproof like a spoilt child, gave reinto his ill-temper, and hatched treason against his long-sufferingMistress. My grandfather often spoke to me sorrowfully of thatheadstrong young lord, and related sundry of his foolhardy doings--howhe locked into an inner chamber the Chancellor, the Chief Justice, andother grave men who had resorted to his house to inquire the cause ofthe assemblage of armed men there; how he rode boisterously through thestreets, brandishing his sword, and calling upon the populace to followhim; and how finally he lost his head on the block.
A short while thereafter, my grandfather sailed to Ireland, where befellhim the last great adventure, and, as he was wont to say, the mostfortunate, of his life. The O'Neill, called Earl of Tyrone, had beenlong time a thorn in the side of Queen Elizabeth, taking gold from theKing of Spain to sustain his treasons, and in the year 1597 making openwar upon the English governor. He did great despite upon the people ofthe Plantation, and lurking in the forests, long defied the Englishsoldiery. My Lord Mountjoy, whom the Queen had sent to Ireland as herdeputy in the room of Essex, being resolved to make an end of therebellion, ravaged and wasted the country, driving off the cattle,starving the people, and fortifying all the passes through the woods.And you shall read now how my grandfather once more, and for the lasttime, drew his sword, and the strange fashion whereby he was led to putit up again, for ever.
*THE FIFTH PART*
*CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN IRELAND, AND THE MANNER OF HIS WINNING A WIFE*
headpiece to Fifth Part]