them in their houses, and talked to them cheerfully of her affairs. She took notice of even the poorest people, and she used to walk and ride about, so that all her subjects knew her and loved her. And now I am going to tell you a part of her history, which will show you how happy it was for her and for England that the people did love their good queen.

The King of Spain had never loved Elizabeth; and he hated England, because the people were Protestants and I am sure you remember how cruel he and his wife Queen Mary were to the English.

He made war against England, and thought that if he could land a great army on the coast, he might conquer all the country and drive away Elizabeth, and make us all Papists again. He hoped this would be easy, because he was the richest king in the world, and had more ships and sailors and soldiers than any other. And he began to build more ships and to collect more sailors and soldiers; and he made so sure he should conquer England, that I have heard he even had chains put on board the ships, to chain the English admirals when his people should take them.

This fleet, that King Philip made ready to conquer England, was the largest that any king had ever sent to sea, and he called it the "Invincible Armada,” * because, he said, nobody could conquer it.

But Queen Elizabeth heard in time that Philip was making ready this great navy, to bring as great an army to attack England. She immediately told the Parliament and people of her danger. She rode out herself to see her soldiers and her ships, and she said, she trusted herself entirely to her good people. The people soon showed her they might be trusted: they

* Armada is the Spanish word for navy.

I

came willingly to be sailors and soldiers; and the great lords gave money to pay the soldiers; and many gentlemen built ships and bought guns, and gave

Queen Elizabeth reviewing her Army at Tilbury.

them to the queen. And she had soon a good fleet. It was not so large as King Philip's indeed, but the people belonging to it remembered that they were to

fight for their own dear England, and a queen whom they loved.

The chief admiral was Lord Howard of Effingham; under him were Lord Seymour, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Martin Frobisher, Sir Walter Raleigh, and several other lords and gentlemen.

The queen got ready herself to march to whatever place the Spaniards might land in. She had a good army a little way from London, at Tilbury Fort, and she went there on horseback, and spoke to the soldiers, to give them courage.

Oh, how anxious everybody in England was, when the news came that the great armada was at sea, and sailing very near us! But it pleased God to save England. Soon after the Spanish fleet set sail a great storm arose, and many of the ships were so damaged that they could not come to England at all.

When the others did come, Queen Elizabeth's fleet met them, and after fighting for several days beat them; and not one ever got to England to land Spanish soldiers. Twelve of them were taken or destroyed; and another storm, greater than the first, sank a great many and wrecked others, so that of all Philip's great fleet and army, only half could get back to Spain; and they were so tired and so hurt that he never could get them together again to attack England.

Philip must have been very sorry that he began to make war against England, for the war lasted as long as he lived, and every year the English admirals used to take a good many of his ships, and one year Lord Essex, who was a great favourite of Queen Elizabeth's, landed in Spain, and took Cadiz, one of Philip's best towns, and burnt a great many ships that were near it.

And this is all I shall tell you of Queen Elizabeth's war with Philip. The rest of the things that were done in her reign you shall read in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER XLVI.

ELIZABETH-continued.

How Ireland was in an evil condition from the conquest; how Elizabeth tried to improve it by sending it wise governors; how the Earl of Desmond's and the Earl of Tyrone's rebellions were subdued; how the Earl of Essex behaved ill, and was put to death; and how Sir Philip Sidney was killed in battle. Ir is a long time since I mentioned Ireland to you. You know that in the reign of King Henry II. the English took a great part of it, and drove the old Irish away to the west side of the island.

Now the English, who settled in Ireland at that time, soon grew more like Irish than Englishmen, and they were as ready to quarrel with any new English that went to settle there as the old Irish had been to quarrel with them; so poor Ireland had never been quiet. The different lords of the new Irish, and the kings of the old, were always fighting, and then they sent to England sometimes to ask for help, and often to complain of one another. Then the kings of England used to send soldiers, with private captains, who very often fought whoever they met, instead of helping one side or the other, and these soldiers generally treated the unhappy Irish as ill as the Danes used to treat the old Britons.

In Queen Elizabeth's time the miserable people in Ireland were never a day without some sad quarrel or

fight, in which many people were killed; and though Ireland is a good country for corn and cattle, and all things useful, yet there was nothing to be had there but oatmeal; the people lived like wild savages, and even the English that had settled there dressed in skins, used bows and arrows, and let their hair grow filthy and matted, more like the wild old Britons you read of in the first chapter, than like Christian gentlemen.

Ireland was strangely divided then there was the part where the old Irish lived in huts among bogs and mountains; then the part with a few old castles that the first English settlers had; and then that where fresh captains, who had come from time to time, had fixed themselves in forts and towns; and all these three parts were constantly at war.

Elizabeth, when she found how very ill Ireland was governed, wished to make it a little more like England, and to try to bring the people to live in peace. She sent a wise Lord Lieutenant there, called Sir Henry Sydney, and then another called Arthur Lord Grey; but all that these good men could do was to keep the new English a little in order, and to try to do justice to the other people. By the queen's orders they set up schools, and a college in Dublin, in hopes that the young Irishmen would learn to become more like the men of other countries.

But the bad way of governing Ireland had gone on too long to allow it to be changed all at once, and Elizabeth found she must send an army there to keep the different English and Irish chiefs in order, if she wished to have peace in the country.

Now these chiefs were all Roman Catholics, for I believe there were no Protestants in Ireland but the very newest of the English; and when the King of