had fled, after suffering great damage, and had then gone to pieces, all hands perishing; that the Armada had taken a port in Scotland, where it was very comfortably established; that the flag-ship of Lord-admiral Howard, of Drake; and of that “distinguished mariner Hawkins,” had all been sunk in action, and that no soul had been saved except Drake, who had escaped in a cock-boat.  “This is good news,” added the writer; “and it is most certain.”

The King pondered seriously over these conflicting accounts, and remained very much in the dark.  Half, the month of September went by, and he had heard nothing—­official since the news of the Calais catastrophe.  It may be easily understood that Medina Sidonia, while flying round the Orkneys had not much opportunity for despatching couriers to Spain, and as Farnese had not written since the 10th August, Philip was quite at a loss whether to consider himself triumphant or defeated.  From the reports by way of Calais, Dunkerk, and Rouen, he supposed that the Armada, had inflicted much damage on the enemy.  He suggested accordingly, on the 3rd September, to the Duke of Parma, that he might now make the passage to England, while the English fleet, if anything was left of it was repairing its damages. “’Twill be easy enough to conquer the country,” said Philip, “so soon as you set foot on the soil.  Then perhaps our Armada can come back and station itself in the Thames to support you.”

Nothing could be simpler.  Nevertheless the King felt a pang of doubt lest affairs, after all, might not be going on so swimmingly; so he dipped his pen in the inkstand again, and observed with much pathos, “But if this hope must be given up, you must take the Isle of Walcheren:  something must be done to console me.”

And on the 15th September he was still no wiser.  “This business of the Armada leaves me no repose,” he said; “I can think of nothing else.  I don’t content myself with what I have written, but write again and again, although in great want of light.  I hear that the Armada has sunk and captured many English ships, and is refitting in a Scotch pert.  If this is in the territory, of Lord Huntley, I hope he will stir up the Catholics of that country.”

And so, in letter after letter, Philip clung to the delusion that Alexander could yet, cross to England, and that the Armada might sail up the Thames.  The Duke was directed to make immediate arrangements to that effect with Medina Sidonia, at the very moment when that tempest-tossed grandee was painfully-creeping back towards the Bay of Biscay, with what remained of his invincible fleet.

Sanguine and pertinacious, the King refused to believe in, the downfall of his long-cherished scheme; and even when the light was at last dawning upon him, he was like a child, crying for a fresh toy, when the one which had long amused him had been broken.  If the Armada were really very much damaged, it was easy enough, he thought, for the Duke of Parma to make him a new one, while the old, one was repairing.  “In case the Armada is too much shattered to come out,” said Philip, “and winter compels it to stay in that port, you must cause another Armada to be constructed at Emden and the adjacent towns, at my expense, and, with the two together, you will certainly be able to conquer England.”