So gallant was his bearing on the scaffold, so earnestly did he thank God that he was brought out into the light to die, and so tenderly did he take leave of the friends who crowded round him, that Sir John Elyot writes: "It changed the affection of his enemies, and turned their joy into sorrow, and all men else it filled with admiration, leaving no doubt but this, whether death was more acceptable to him, or he more welcome unto death."

For twenty-five minutes he spoke, vindicating himself as a true and loyal subject of the Crown, and seeking pardon only from God, to Whom he asked all to join in prayer for him. "For I have been a soldier, a sailor, and a courtier, which are courses of wickedness and vice; that His almighty goodness will forgive me; that He will cast away my sins from me; and that He will receive me into everlasting life. So I take my leave of you all, making my peace with God."

Perhaps his best remembered words upon the scaffold are those to the sheriff who asked him which way he would lie upon the block, "What matter which way the head lies, so the heart be right." And then to the executioner, who was quite unnerved by the scene, "Strike, man, what

dost thou fear?" And before that he had said to him as he felt the axe, "It is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases."

And so once more into the sunset passed the greatest of Elizabeth's seamen.

CHAPTER IX

ELIZABETHAN SEAMEN

WE have followed Sir Walter Raleigh from his first voyage to his last, and now we must turn to the stirring tales of some of the seamen who led the way, or followed in his track.

Hakluyt's "Voyagers' Tales" give us many a story of the life on the seas, and the discovery of new lands by seamen whose very names are now forgotten; such were John Fox, Thomas Sanders, Miles Phillips, of whom he tells in turn, and their lives we should study for ourselves, but here we have only space to speak of the few best known among those gallant "sea-dogs." Martin Frobisher, John Hawkins, Francis Drake, Richard Grenville, and John Davis, with these names at least all are familiar.

There was no regular navy in the time to which these men belonged. Henry VIII. had built a small one, but it had been allowed to decay during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, so that it was to the ability and strength of private

shipmasters that Elizabeth had to trust for help against her great Spanish enemy.

Spain had done well in colonisation, and was constantly enriching herself by the merchandise brought home from her West Indian subjects. And Spain preserved by terribly rigid methods the old Catholic Religion, while in England the New Religion, or Protestantism, was daily becoming stronger. These two facts alone were enough to account for the bitter rivalry between the seamen of each nation, who did not all go into the deep political questions which lay behind the rivalry, or think of Philip's wish to supplant the powerful Protestant Queen on her own throne by her poor Catholic captive Mary, Queen of Scots.

Those were stirring times, and many a man who longed for fresh fields for his energy went forth to seek them beyond the sea in the new world of which men's minds were full. But throughout the most daring expeditions the hatred of their Spanish enemies was always with them, and the wish to avenge the cruel sufferings of old friends and comrades who had been taken prisoners by the Inquisitors and suffered the mysterious horrors of the Holy Office.

Into those bays in Devon, from which came most of the boldest seamen, boats would come

with stories of the evil fate of some old fellowsailor who had fallen into the hands of the

Spaniards.

These tales were enough to send out another band eager to discover, if possible, land and gold and fresh seas in which to trade and travel, but with the purpose ever deep in their hearts of avenging the fate of their comrades, and undermining by every possible means the hated power of Spain.

Elizabeth was shrewd and far-seeing, and her love of money grew with her years. She saw that to allow her great enemy's strength to be sapped by continual struggles with English ships was greatly to her advantage, especially as she possessed no official navy of her own. So she privately encouraged this petty warfare. It led to the weakening of Philip's naval power, and to the enrichment of her own coffers, for besides rich stores from foreign lands discovered by their own enterprise, her sailors often brought her home the wealth taken on the high seas from some great galleon ploughing its way home with a cargo of gold and pearls from the Spanish West Indian colonies.

The deeds, therefore, of the Elizabethan seamen blend gallantry, enterprise, and bloodshed in one