Thus the invasion of England was no “scarecrow,” as Wilford imagined, but a scheme already thoroughly matured.  If Holland and Zeeland should meantime fall into the hands of Philip, it was no exaggeration on that soldier’s part to observe that the “freehold of England would be worth but little.”

To oppose this formidable array against the liberties of Europe stood Elizabeth Tudor and the Dutch Republic.  For the Queen, however arbitrary her nature, fitly embodied much of the nobler elements in the expanding English national character.  She felt instinctively that her reliance in the impending death-grapple was upon the popular principle, the national sentiment, both in her own country and in Holland.  That principle and that sentiment were symbolized in the Netherland revolt; and England, although under a somewhat despotic rule, was already fully pervaded with the instinct of self-government.  The people held the purse and the sword.

No tyranny could be permanently established so long as the sovereign was obliged to come every year before Parliament to ask for subsidies; so long as all the citizens and yeomen of England had weapons in their possession, and were carefully trained to use them; so long, in short, as the militia was the only army, and private adventurers or trading companies created and controlled the only navy.  War, colonization, conquest, traffic, formed a joint business and a private speculation.  If there were danger that England, yielding to purely mercantile habits of thought and action, might degenerate from the more martial standard to which she had been accustomed, there might be virtue in that Netherland enterprise, which was now to call forth all her energies.  The Provinces would be a seminary for English soldiers.

“There can be no doubt of our driving the enemy out of the country through famine and excessive charges,” said the plain-spoken English soldier already quoted, who came out with Leicester, “if every one of us will put our minds to go forward without making a miserable gain by the wars.  A man may see, by this little progress journey, what this long peace hath wrought in us.  We are weary of the war before we come where it groweth, such a danger hath this long peace brought us into.  This is, and will be, in my opinion, a most fit school and nursery to nourish soldiers to be able to keep and defend our country hereafter, if men will follow it.”

Wilford was vehement in denouncing the mercantile tendencies of his countrymen, and returned frequently to that point in his communications with Walsingham and other statesmen.  “God hath stirred up this action,” he repeated again, “to be a school to breed up soldiers to defend the freedom of England, which through these long times of peace and quietness is brought into a most dangerous estate, if it should be attempted.  Our delicacy is such that we are already weary, yet this journey is naught in respect to the misery and hardship that soldiers must and do endure.”