Westward Ho!

C >> Charles Kingsley >> Westward Ho!


Of her the Jesuits were not unmindful; and found it convenient, indeed,
to forget awhile the sorrows of the Queen of Heaven in those of the
Queen of Scots. Not that they cared much for those sorrows; but they
were an excellent stock-in-trade. She was a Romanist; she was "beautiful
and unfortunate," a virtue which, like charity, hides the multitude of
sins; and therefore she was a convenient card to play in the great game
of Rome against the Queen and people of England; and played the poor
card was, till it got torn up by over-using. Into her merits or demerits
I do not enter deeply here. Let her rest in peace.

To all which the people of England made a most practical and terrible
answer. From the highest noble to the lowest peasant, arose one
simultaneous plebiscitum: "We are tired of these seventeen years of
chicanery and terror. This woman must die: or the commonweal of England
perish!" We all know which of the two alternatives was chosen.

All Europe stood aghast: but rather with astonishment at English
audacity, than with horror at English wickedness. Mary's own French
kinsfolk had openly given her up as too bad to be excused, much less
assisted. Her own son blustered a little to the English ambassador;
for the majesty of kings was invaded: whereon Walsingham said in open
council, that "the queen should send him a couple of hounds, and that
would set all right." Which sage advice (being acted on, and some deer
sent over and above) was so successful that the pious mourner, having
run off (Randolph says, like a baby to see the deer in their cart),
returned for answer that he would "thereafter depend wholly upon her
majesty, and serve her fortune against all the world; and that he only
wanted now two of her majesty's yeoman prickers, and a couple of her
grooms of the deer." The Spaniard was not sorry on the whole for the
catastrophe; for all that had kept him from conquering England long ago
was the fear lest, after it was done, he might have had to put the crown
thereof on Mary's head, instead of his own. But Mary's death was as
convenient a stalking-horse to him as to the pope; and now the Armada
was coming in earnest.

Elizabeth began negotiating; but fancy not that she does nothing more,
as the following letter testifies, written about midsummer, 1587.


"F. Drake to Captain Amyas Leigh. This with haste.

"DEAR LAD,

"As I said to her most glorious majesty, I say to you now. There are two
ways of facing an enemy. The one to stand off, and cry, 'Try that again,
and I'll strike thee'; the other to strike him first, and then, 'Try
that at all, and I'll strike thee again.' Of which latter counsel her
majesty so far approves, that I go forthwith (tell it not in Gath) down
the coast, to singe the king of Spain's beard (so I termed it to her
majesty, she laughing), in which if I leave so much as a fishing-boat
afloat from the Groyne unto Cadiz, it will not be with my good will, who
intend that if he come this year, he shall come by swimming and not by
sailing. So if you are still the man I have known you, bring a good ship
round to Plymouth within the month, and away with me for hard blows and
hard money, the feel of both of which you know pretty well by now.

"Thine lovingly,

"F. Drake."


Amyas clutched his locks over this letter, and smoked more tobacco the
day he got it than had ever before been consumed at once in England. But
he kept true to his promise; and this was his reply:--



"Amyas Leigh to the Worshipful Sir F. Drake, Admiral of her Majesty's
Fleet in Plymouth.

"MOST HONORED SIR,

"A magician keeps me here, in bilboes for which you have no picklock;
namely, a mother who forbids. The loss is mine: but Antichrist I can
fight any year (for he will not die this bout, nor the next), while my
mother--but I will not trouble your patience more than to ask from you
to get me news, if you can, from any prisoners of one Don Guzman Maria
Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto; whether he is in Spain or in the Indies;
and what the villain does, and where he is to be found. This only I
entreat of you, and so remain behind with a heavy heart.

"Yours to command in all else, and I would to Heaven, in this also,

"AMYAS LEIGH."


I am sorry to have to say, that after having thus obeyed his mother,
Master Amyas, as men are too apt to do, revenged himself on her by being
more and more cross and disagreeable. But his temper amended much,
when, a few months after, Drake returned triumphant, having destroyed
a hundred sail in Cadiz alone, taken three great galleons with immense
wealth on board, burnt the small craft all along the shore, and offered
battle to Santa Cruz at the mouth of the Tagus. After which it is
unnecessary to say, that the Armada was put off for yet another year.

This news, indeed, gave Amyas little comfort; for he merely observed,
grumbling, that Drake had gone and spoiled everybody else's sport: but
what cheered him was news from Drake that Don Guzman had been heard of
from the captain of one of the galleons; that he was high in favor in
Spain, and commandant of soldiers on board one of the largest of the
marquis's ships.

And when Amyas heard that, a terrible joy took possession of him. When
the Armada came, as come it would, he should meet his enemy at last! He
could wait now patiently: if--and he shuddered at himself, as he found
himself in the very act of breathing a prayer that Don Guzman might not
die before that meeting.

In the meanwhile, rumor flew thousand-tongued through the length and
breadth of the land; of vast preparations going on in Spain and Italy;
of timber felled long before for some such purpose, brought down to the
sea, and sawn out for shipbuilding; of casting of cannon, and drilling
of soldiers; of ships in hundreds collecting at Lisbon; of a crusade
preached by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who had bestowed the kingdom of
England on the Spaniard, to be enjoyed by him as vassal tributary to
Rome; of a million of gold to be paid by the pope, one-half down at
once, the other half when London was taken; of Cardinal Allen writing
and printing busily in the Netherlands, calling on all good Englishmen
to carry out, by rebelling against Elizabeth, the bull of Sixtus the
Fifth, said (I blush to repeat it) to have been dictated by the Holy
Ghost; of Inquisitors getting ready fetters and devil's engines of all
sorts; of princes and noblemen, flocking from all quarters, gentlemen
selling their private estates to fit out ships; how the Prince of
Melito, the Marquess of Burgrave, Vespasian Gonzaga, John Medicis,
Amadas of Savoy, in short, the illegitimate sons of all the southern
princes, having no lands of their own, were coming to find that
necessary of life in this pleasant little wheat-garden. Nay, the Duke of
Medina Sidonia had already engaged Mount-Edgecombe for himself, as the
fairest jewel of the south; which when good old Sir Richard Edgecombe
heard, he observed quietly, that in 1555 he had the pleasure of
receiving at his table at one time the admirals of England, Spain, and
the Netherlands, and therefore had experience in entertaining Dons; and
made preparations for the visit by filling his cellars with gunpowder,
with a view to a house-warming and feu-de-joie on the occasion. But as
old Fuller says, "The bear was not yet killed, and Medina Sidonia might
have catched a great cold, had he no other clothes to wear than the skin
thereof."

So flew rumor, false and true, till poor John Bull's wits were well-nigh
turned: but to the very last, after his lazy fashion, he persuaded
himself that it would all come right somehow; that it was too great news
to be true; that if it was true, the expedition was only meant for the
Netherlands; and, in short, sat quietly over his beef and beer for many
a day after the French king had sent him fair warning, and the queen,
the ministry, and the admirals had been assuring him again and again
that he, and not the Dutchman, was the destined prey of this great
flight of ravenous birds.

At last the Spaniard, in order that there should be no mistake about the
matter, kindly printed a complete bill of the play, to be seen still in
Van Meteran, for the comfort of all true Catholics, and confusion of all
pestilent heretics; which document, of course, the seminary priests used
to enforce the duty of helping the invaders, and the certainty of their
success; and from their hands it soon passed into those of the devout
ladies, who were not very likely to keep it to themselves; till John
Bull himself found his daughters buzzing over it with very pale faces
(as young ladies well might who had no wish to follow the fate of
the damsels of Antwerp), and condescending to run his eye through it,
discovered, what all the rest of Europe had known for months past, that
he was in a very great scrape.

Well it was for England, then, that her Tudor sovereigns had compelled
every man (though they kept up no standing army) to be a trained
soldier. Well it was that Elizabeth, even in those dangerous days of
intrigue and rebellion, had trusted her people enough, not only to leave
them their weapons, but (what we, forsooth, in these more "free" and
"liberal" days dare not do) to teach them how to use them. Well it
was, that by careful legislation for the comfort and employment of "the
masses" (term then, thank God, unknown), she had both won their hearts,
and kept their bodies in fighting order. Well it was that, acting as
fully as Napoleon did on "la carriere ouverte aux talens," she had
raised to the highest posts in her councils, her army, and her navy, men
of business, who had not been ashamed to buy and sell as merchants and
adventurers. Well for England, in a word, that Elizabeth had pursued
for thirty years a very different course from that which we have been
pursuing for the last thirty, with one exception, namely, the leaving as
much as possible to private enterprise.

There we have copied her: would to Heaven that we had in some other
matters! It is the fashion now to call her a despot: but unless every
monarch is to be branded with that epithet whose power is not as
circumscribed as Queen Victoria's is now, we ought rather to call her
the most popular sovereign, obeyed of their own free will by the freest
subjects which England has ever seen; confess the Armada fight to have
been as great a moral triumph as it was a political one; and (now that
our late boasting is a little silenced by Crimean disasters) inquire
whether we have not something to learn from those old Tudor times, as
to how to choose officials, how to train a people, and how to defend a
country.

To return to the thread of my story.

January, 1587-8, had well-nigh run through, before Sir Richard Grenville
made his appearance on the streets of Bideford. He had been appointed in
November one of the council of war for providing for the safety of the
nation, and the West Country had seen nothing of him since. But one
morning, just before Christmas, his stately figure darkened the old
bay-window at Burrough, and Amyas rushed out to meet him, and bring him
in, and ask what news from Court.

"All good news, dear lad, and dearer madam. The queen shows the spirit
of a very Boadicea or Semiramis; ay, a very Scythian Tomyris, and if she
had the Spaniard before her now, would verily, for aught I know, feast
him as the Scythian queen did Cyrus, with 'Satia te sanguine, quod
sitisti.'"

"I trust her most merciful spirit is not so changed already," said Mrs.
Leigh.

"Well, if she would not do it, I would, and ask pardon afterwards, as
Raleigh did about the rascals at Smerwick, whom Amyas knows of. Mrs.
Leigh, these are times in which mercy is cruelty. Not England alone,
but the world, the Bible, the Gospel itself, is at stake; and we must do
terrible things, lest we suffer more terrible ones."

"God will take care of world and Bible better than any cruelty of ours,
dear Sir Richard."

"Nay, but, Mrs. Leigh, we must help Him to take care of them! If those
Smerwick Spaniards had not been--"

"The Spaniard would not have been exasperated into invading us."

"And we should not have had this chance of crushing him once and for
all; but the quarrel is of older standing, madam, eh, Amyas? Amyas, has
Raleigh written to you of late?"

"Not a word, and I wonder why."

"Well; no wonder at that, if you knew how he has been laboring. The
wonder is, whence he got the knowledge wherewith to labor; for he never
saw sea-work to my remembrance."

"Never saw a shot fired by sea, except ours at Smerwick, and that
brush with the Spaniards in 1579, when he sailed for Virginia with Sir
Humphrey; and he was a mere crack then."

"So you consider him as your pupil, eh? But he learnt enough in the
Netherland wars, and in Ireland too, if not of the strength of ships,
yet still of the weakness of land forces; and would you believe it, the
man has twisted the whole council round his finger, and made them give
up the land defences to the naval ones."

"Quite right he, and wooden walls against stone ones for ever! But as
for twisting, he would persuade Satan, if he got him alone for half an
hour."

"I wish he would sail for Spain then, just now, and try the powers of
his tongue," said Mrs. Leigh.

"But are we to have the honor, really?"

"We are, lad. There were many in the council who were for disputing the
landing on shore, and said--which I do not deny--that the 'prentice
boys of London could face the bluest blood in Spain. But Raleigh argued
(following my Lord Burleigh in that) that we differed from the Low
Countries, and all other lands, in that we had not a castle or town
throughout, which would stand a ten days' siege, and that our ramparts,
as he well said, were, after all, only a body of men. So, he argued, as
long as the enemy has power to land where he will, prevention, rather
than cure, is our only hope; and that belongs to the office, not of an
army, but of a fleet. So the fleet was agreed on, and a fleet we shall
have."

"Then here is his health, the health of a true friend to all bold
mariners, and myself in particular! But where is he now?"

"Coming here to-morrow, as I hope--for he left London with me, and so
down by us into Cornwall, to drill the train-bands, as he is bound
to do, being Seneschal of the Duchies and Lieutenant-General of the
county."

"Besides Lord Warden of the Stanneries! How the man thrives!" said Mrs.
Leigh.

"How the man deserves to thrive!" said Amyas; "but what are we to do?"

"That is the rub. I would fain stay and fight the Spaniards."

"So would I; and will."

"But he has other plans in his head for us."

"We can make our own plans without his help."

"Heyday, Amyas! How long? When did he ask you to do a thing yet and you
refuse him?"

"Not often, certainly; but Spaniards I must fight."

"Well, so must I, boy: but I have given a sort of promise to him,
nevertheless."

"Not for me too, I hope?"

"No: he will extract that himself when he comes; you must come and sup
to-morrow, and talk it over."

"Be talked over, rather. What chestnut does the cat want us monkeys to
pull out of the fire for him now, I wonder?"

"Sir Richard Grenville is hardly accustomed to be called a monkey," said
Mrs. Leigh.

"I meant no harm; and his worship knows it, none better: but where is
Raleigh going to send us, with a murrain?"

"To Virginia. The settlers must have help: and, as I trust in God, we
shall be back again long before this armament can bestir itself."

So Raleigh came, saw, and conquered. Mrs. Leigh consented to Amyas's
going (for his twelve-month would be over ere the fleet could start)
upon so peaceful and useful an errand; and the next five months were
spent in continual labor on the part of Amyas and Grenville, till seven
ships were all but ready in Bideford river, the admiral whereof was
Amyas Leigh.

But that fleet was not destined ever to see the shores of the New World:
it had nobler work to do (if Americans will forgive the speech) than
even settling the United States.

It was in the long June evenings, in the year 1588; Mrs. Leigh sat in
the open window, busy at her needle-work; Ayacanora sat opposite to her,
on the seat of the bay, trying diligently to read "The History of the
Nine Worthies," and stealing a glance every now and then towards the
garden, where Amyas stalked up and down as he had used to do in happier
days gone by. But his brow was contracted now, his eyes fixed on the
ground, as he plodded backwards and forwards, his hands behind his back,
and a huge cigar in his mouth, the wonder of the little boys of Northam,
who peeped in stealthily as they passed the iron-work gates, to see the
back of the famous fire-breathing captain who had sailed round the world
and been in the country of headless men and flying dragons, and then
popped back their heads suddenly, as he turned toward them in his walk.
And Ayacanora looked, and looked, with no less admiration than the
urchins at the gate: but she got no more of an answering look from Amyas
than they did; for his head was full of calculations of tonnage and
stowage, of salt pork and ale-barrels, and the packing of tools and
seeds; for he had promised Raleigh to do his best for the new colony,
and he was doing it with all his might; so Ayacanora looked back again
to her book, and heaved a deep sigh. It was answered by one from Mrs.
Leigh.

"We are a melancholy pair, sweet chuck," said the fair widow. "What is
my maid sighing about, there?"

"Because I cannot make out the long words," said Ayacanora, telling a
very white fib.

"Is that all? Come to me, and I will tell you."

Ayacanora moved over to her, and sat down at her feet.

"H--e, he, r--o, ro, i--c--a--l, heroical," said Mrs. Leigh.

"But what does that mean?"

"Grand, good, and brave, like--"

Mrs. Leigh was about to have said the name of one who was lost to her
on earth. His fair angelic face hung opposite upon the wall. She paused
unable to pronounce his name; and lifted up her eyes, and gazed on the
portrait, and breathed a prayer between closed lips, and drooped her
head again.

Her pupil caught at the pause, and filled it up for herself--

"Like him?" and she turned her head quickly toward the window.

"Yes, like him, too," said Mrs. Leigh, with a half-smile at the gesture.
"Now, mind your book. Maidens must not look out of the window in school
hours."

"Shall I ever be an English girl?" asked Ayacanora.

"You are one now, sweet; your father was an English gentleman."

Amyas looked in, and saw the two sitting together.

"You seem quite merry there," said he.

"Come in, then, and be merry with us."

He entered, and sat down; while Ayacanora fixed her eyes most
steadfastly on her book.

"Well, how goes on the reading?" said he; and then, without waiting for
an answer--"We shall be ready to clear out this day week, mother, I do
believe; that is, if the hatchets are made in time to pack them."

"I hope they will be better than the last," said Mrs. Leigh. "It seems
to me a shameful sin to palm off on poor ignorant savages goods which we
should consider worthless for ourselves."

"Well, it's not over fair: but still, they are a sight better than they
ever had before. An old hoop is better than a deer's bone, as Ayacanora
knows,--eh?"

"I don't know anything about it," said she, who was always nettled at
the least allusion to her past wild life. "I am an English girl now, and
all that is gone--I forget it."

"Forget it?" said he, teasing her for want of something better to do.
"Should not you like to sail with us, now, and see the Indians in the
forests once again?"

"Sail with you?" and she looked up eagerly.

"There! I knew it! She would not be four-and-twenty hours ashore, but
she would be off into the woods again, bow in hand, like any runaway
nymph, and we should never see her more."

"It is false, bad man!" and she burst into violent tears, and hid her
face in Mrs. Leigh's lap.

"Amyas, Amyas, why do you tease the poor fatherless thing?"

"I was only jesting, I'm sure," said Amyas, like a repentant schoolboy.
"Don't cry now, don't cry, my child, see here," and he began fumbling in
his pockets; "see what I bought of a chapman in town to-day, for you, my
maid, indeed, I did."

And out he pulled some smart kerchief or other, which had taken his
sailor's fancy.

"Look at it now, blue, and crimson, and green, like any parrot!" and he
held it out.

She looked round sharply, snatched it out of his hand, and tore it to
shreds.

"I hate it, and I hate you!" and she sprang up and darted out of the
room.

"Oh, boy, boy!" said Mrs. Leigh, "will you kill that poor child? It
matters little for an old heart like mine, which has but one or two
chords left whole, how soon it be broken altogether; but a young heart
is one of God's precious treasures, Amyas, and suffers many a long pang
in the breaking; and woe to them who despise Christ's little ones!"

"Break your heart, mother?"

"Never mind my heart, dear son; yet how can you break it more surely
than by tormenting one whom I love, because she loves you?"

"Tut! play, mother, and maids' tempers. But how can I break your heart?
What have I done? Have I not given up going again to the West Indies for
your sake? Have I not given up going to Virginia, and now again settled
to go after all, just because you commanded? Was it not your will? Have
I not obeyed you, mother, mother? I will stay at home now, if you will.
I would rather rust here on land, I vow I would, than grieve you--" and
he threw himself at his mother's knees.

"Have I asked you not to go to Virginia? No, dear boy, though every
thought of a fresh parting seems to crack some new fibre within me, you
must go! It is your calling. Yes; you were not sent into the world to
amuse me, but to work. I have had pleasure enough of you, my darling,
for many a year, and too much, perhaps; till I shrank from lending you
to the Lord. But He must have you. . . . It is enough for the poor old
widow to know that her boy is what he is, and to forget all her anguish
day by day, for joy that a man is born into the world. But, Amyas,
Amyas, are you so blind as not to see that Ayacanora--"

"Don't talk about her, poor child. Talk about yourself."

"How long have I been worth talking about? No, Amyas, you must see it;
and if you will not see it now, you will see it one day in some sad and
fearful prodigy; for she is not one to die tamely. She loves you, Amyas,
as a woman only can love."

"Loves me? Well, of course. I found her, and brought her home; and I
don't deny she may think that she owes me somewhat--though it was no
more than a Christian man's duty. But as for her caring much for me,
mother, you measure every one else's tenderness by your own."

"Think that she owes you somewhat? Silly boy, this is not gratitude,
but a deeper affection, which may be more heavenly than gratitude, as
it may, too, become a horrible cause of ruin. It rests with you, Amyas,
which of the two it will be."

"You are in earnest?"

"Have I the heart or the time to jest?"

"No, no, of course not; but, mother, I thought it was not comely for
women to fall in love with men?"

"Not comely, at least, to confess their love to men. But she has never
done that, Amyas; not even by a look or a tone of voice, though I have
watched her for months."

"To be sure, she is as demure as any cat when I am in the way. I only
wonder how you found it out."

"Ah," said she, smiling sadly, "even in the saddest woman's soul there
linger snatches of old music, odors of flowers long dead and turned to
dust--pleasant ghosts, which still keep her mind attuned to that which
may be in others, though in her never more; till she can hear her own
wedding-hymn re-echoed in the tones of every girl who loves, and sees
her own wedding-torch re-lighted in the eyes of every bride."

"You would not have me marry her?" asked blunt, practical Amyas.

"God knows what I would have--I know not; I see neither your path nor
my own--no, not after weeks and months of prayer. All things beyond are
wrapped in mist; and what will be, I know not, save that whatever else
is wrong, mercy at least is right."

"I'd sail to-morrow, if I could. As for marrying her, mother--her birth,
mind me--"

"Ah, boy, boy! Are you God, to visit the sins of the parents upon the
children?"

"Not that. I don't mean that; but I mean this, that she is half a
Spaniard, mother; and I cannot!--Her blood may be as blue as King
Philip's own, but it is Spanish still! I cannot bear the thought that my
children should have in their veins one drop of that poison."

"Amyas! Amyas!" interrupted she, "is this not, too, visiting the
parents' sins on the children?"

"Not a whit; it is common sense,--she must have the taint of their
bloodthirsty humor. She has it--I have seen it in her again and again.
I have told you, have I not? Can I forget the look of her eyes as
she stood over that galleon's captain, with the smoking knife in her
hand.--Ugh! And she is not tamed yet, as you can see, and never will
be:--not that I care, except for her own sake, poor thing!"