The victory was celebrated by medals bearing the device of a fleet in full sail, with the words Venit, vidit, fugit ("it came, it saw, it fled"), and of the dispersal by fireships with the words, Dux femina facti ("a woman led the movement").

IV.—­Elizabeth’s Closing Years

The defeat of the Armada was followed by an expedition to Lisbon, to wrest Portugal from Spain; owing to inadequate equipment it failed, after a promising beginning, the Portuguese lending no help.  Essex managed to escape from court and join the expedition, messengers ordering him to return being too late.  For this he was forgiven; but when he secretly married the widow of Sidney, and daughter of Walsingham, Elizabeth was furiously angry.

Not Essex, but Norris was sent to command a force dispatched to the aid of Henry of Navarre, who was now fighting for the crown of France.  Essex, however, was subsequently sent, at Henry’s own request.  His absence was utilised by Burleigh to secure the advancement of his own astute son, Robert Cecil, who secured the royal favour by the ingenuity of his flattery.

When Essex finally returned from France, he was received with the utmost favour; but in the interval he had been transformed into an intriguing politician.  Parliament, which had not been called for four years, met in 1593, and there was an immediate collision with the Crown.  Elizabeth’s tone was much more despotic than of old.  Petitions for the settlement of the succession were met by the arbitrary imprisonment of Wentworth and other members.

Essex favoured the popular party, but had not the courage to head it; he was moved not by patriotism, but by jealousy of the Cecil ascendancy.  The queen, when she had passed the age of sixty, was as determined as ever to pose as a youthful beauty, and her courtiers had no reluctance in assuming the tone of despairing lovers.  No one played this part more persistently than Raleigh, who, when relegated to the Tower for marrying, proclaimed his misery, not at being separated from his bride, but at being shut out of the radiant presence of the queen.

Essex and Raleigh were associated in two expeditions, one directed with complete success against Cadiz, the other being a complete failure.  The Burleigh faction succeeded in getting for Raleigh whatever credit there was in both cases, though Essex was better entitled to it.

But it was Ireland that wrought the ruin of Essex.  A dispute in the council on the subject caused the queen to box the favourite’s ears, which caused him to retire in resentment for many months.  Soon after his return to court, he brought upon himself his own appointment to the lord-deputyship of Ireland.  His conduct there displeased her; from her scolding letters, he concluded that his enemies in the council were undermining his position in his absence.  He deserted his post, hurried to London, and burst, travel-stained as he was, into Elizabeth’s chamber.  For the moment she appeared disposed to forgive him, but was not long in deciding that his insolence must be punished, and he was placed in confinement.