Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1109 page)

Now Henry VII and Henry VIII had been the real makers of the English navy, for they had been the first kings to build big ships which could sail anywhere and fight anybody. And
Henry VIII had paid very special attention to guns and gunnery. He had also been the true father of English merchant shipping, and had encouraged his subjects to trade to distant parts of the world. All merchant-ships in those days carried guns, for they always had to be ready for a tussle with pirates. So,
though the Spanish fleet was perhaps twice as numerous as the English
Royal
navy, the number of fighting ships that England could put to sea far out-numbered those that Spain could send into the Channel. And our men were going to fight, not only for Queen and faith, but for home and wives and children;
to fight, too, on their own shores, every tide and shoal cf which was well known to them.

When Spain had discovered America and the Portuguese had found the way round the
Cape of Good Hope to India, each tried to exclude all other nations from the seas they had explored, from the lands they had discovered, and from the trades they had opened up. And a Pope had had the astounding insolence to divide these seas, countries, and trades between the Spaniards and Portuguese,
giving the Western World to Spain, the Eastern to Portugal. Englishmen, when they abolished the Pope, naturally laughed at this exclusion;
they meant to take, and did take, English goods to all countries where they could find a market for them, and this rough, deep-sea game went on all through the reigns of Edward and Mary.
In the reign of Elizabeth it became
the
game of
Englishmen. You can imagine some simple
English sailor lad, who had perhaps never done more than a few coasting voyages from one little port of Devon to another, opening his eyes to the wonders of the Tropics as he sails in Francis Drake’s great voyage in the
Golden
Hind
across the Atlantic, across the Equator,
south and ever south till the Strait of Magellan opens the door into the Pacific; then north again, picking up here and there some rich
Spanish merchant-ship as a prize; then across through innumerable spice islands to the Indian

Ocean, and so round the Cape of Good Hope and home; home to his own wind-swept Channel and the white cliffs by Plymouth. This was in 1580 — the first English voyage round the
World, the third only of such voyages in recorded history; honour to Sir Francis Drake!

With Drake in the Tropics

South and far south below the Line,

Our Admiral leads us on,
Above, undreamed-of planets shine —

The stars we knew are gone.
Around, our clustered seamen mark

The silent deep ablaze
With fires, through which the far-down shark
Shoots glimmering on his ways.

The sultry tropic breezes fail

That plagued us all day through;
Like molten silver hangs our sail,

Our decks are dark with dew.
Now the rank moon commands the sky,

Ho! Bid the watch beware
And rouse all sleeping men that lie
Unsheltered in her glare.

How long the time ‘twixt bell and bell!
How still our lanthorns burn!

How strange our whispered words that tell

Of England and return!
Old towns, old streets, old friends, old loves,

We name them each to each.
While the lit face of Heaven removes
Them farther from our reach.

Now is the utmost ebb of night

When mind and body sink,
And loneliness and gathering fright

O’erwhelm us, if we think —
Yet, look, where in his room apart,

All windows opened wide,
Our Admiral thrusts away the chart
And comes to walk outside.

Kindly, from man to man he goes,

With comfort, praise, or jest.
Quick to suspect our childish woes,

Our terror and unrest.
It is as though the sun should shine —

Our midnight fears are gone!
South and far south below the Line,
Our Admiral leads us on!

Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, Grenville, Cavendish and a hundred more of gallant English merchants and sailors pushed their ships and their trade into every corner of Spanish America;and of course the Spaniards hanged many of them as pirates and burned others as heretics.
Remonstrances to the English Queen were of little use, for she was often able to reply to
Philip, “Then why is your Majesty encouraging plots against my life and helping my rebels I
in Ireland?”

Philip had, in fact, delayed his attack too long; he had no idea how strong England had grown in the thirty years of Elizabeth’s reign.
And though he was now King of Portugal as well as Spain, and master of all the gold mines I
of America, he was as stingy as Elizabeth. I
Even in this critical year, 1588, his “Armada5’
was not nearly big enough to win, and it was I
very badly equipped as a fighting force; his ships did not carry enough gunpowder, and most of their provisions were rotten. Still,
the terror was great in many English hearts as the Spaniards swept up channel in the last half of July. For one long, hot week our light and swift sailing ships hung round their flanks,
knocking their spars to pieces at long range,
almost without the loss of a single English life or gun. The object of the Spaniards was to avoid fighting until they came off the Dutch coast, for there was a large Spanish army col- !
lected in the River Scheldt, under the great I
General Parma, ready to be ferried across to I

the mouth of the Thames. But before the
Spaniards reached the Straits of Dover their fleet had been half crippled by the English guns; and, when they were off Calais, a lot of boats smeared with pitch and full of gunpowder were set on fire and set adrift among them.
This so terrified the Spanish Admiral that he put his whole fleet about and fled into the
North Sea. Then great gales arose and drove them northward and ever northward. Many were wrecked, the remainder lumbered round
Scotland and southward again round Ireland;
perhaps half or one third, and these, mostly mere hulks, arrived at length in the harbours of Spain; the winds and waves and rocks had finished what the English guns had begun:

Long, long in vain the waiting mothers kneel

In the white palaces of far Castile.

Weep, wide brown eyes that watch along the shore,

Your dark-haired lovers shall return no more;

Only it may be, on the rising tide,

The shattered hull of one proud bark may glide,

To moor at even on a smooth bay’s breast,

Where the South mountains lean toward the
West,A wraith of battle with her broken spars,

Between the water’s shimmer and the stars.

Our country, and, with her, the great cause of freedom and Protestantism, were saved.
Spain was now known to be mainly a bugbear to frighten children, and England and Elizabeth ruled the waves.

The great Queen lived for fifteen years after her victory, and her enemy, Philip, lived for ten. She never realized how complete that victory had been; when her best councillors and her bravest sailors urged her to follow it up and blow the Spanish once and for all out of the seas, she utterly refused. She allowed occasional raids on the Spanish coasts and colonies,
and one of these took the city and burned the great dockyard of Cadiz; but pay for a big war she would not; though, in a big war, swift victory was all’but certain, and would have produced a lasting peace. Her last years were very lonely; she had never married; the great men who had helped her to make England a first-rate power, Burghley, Walsingham, Drake,
Grenville, had died before her. The rising generation was all looking toward her successor,
and that could only be King James of Scotland,
whom she cordially hated, and whom she knewto be incapable of continuing her work. The
Church of England, which she had nursed, was indeed safe; but the Puritan party within it was growing, and was strong even in Parliament. All this foretold that seventeenth-century England would have plenty of troubles to face, though no such dangers from foreign foes and religious strife as had threatened it during the seventy years of Elizabeth’s life and the forty-five of her reign. She died at Richmond in the seventieth year of her age in 1603.

“Together”

When Horse and Rider each can trust the

other everywhere.
It takes a fence and more than a fence to pound

that happy pair;
For the one will do what the other demands,

although he is beaten and blown,
And when it is done, they can live through a run that neither could face alone.

When Crew and Captain understand each other

to the core,
It takes a gale and more than a gale to put

their ship ashore;
For the one will do what the other commands,
although they are chilled to the bone,

And both together can live through weather that neither could face alone.

When King and People understand each other

past a doubt,
It takes a foe and more than a foe to knock that

country out;
For the one will do what the other one asks as

soon as the need is known,
And hand in hand they can make a stand which neither could make alone!

This wisdom had Elizabeth and all her subjects too,

For she was theirs and they were hers as well

the Spaniard knew;
For when his grim Armada came to conquer

the Nation and Throne,
Why, back to back they met an attack that neither could face alone!

It is not wealth nor talk nor trade nor schools

nor even the Vote,
Will save your land when the enemy’s hand is

tightening round your throat.
But a King and a People who thoroughly trust

each other in all that is done
Can sleep on their bed without any dread —
for the world will leave ‘em alone!

CHAPTER VIII

THE EARLY STUARTS AND THE GREAT CIVIL WAR, 1603-60

Henry VIII and Elizabeth had given England unity and patriotism. Would the next race of kings, the Stuarts, be able to maintain unity?
That was the question which every one was asking while King James I was slowly riding from Scotland to London in 1603. James, of whom you may read the character in Sir Walter
Scott’s beautiful story, “The Fortunes of Nigel,”
was already thirty-five, “an old King,” he said;
and he had had a miserable time in Scotland between the turbulent nobles and the Presby’terian ministers who were always preaching at him. And he had been very poor. He knew England to be rich, and thought he was going to be a rich and great King. He was a firm and very learned Protestant, a kindly man,
though irritable and conceited. He saw a great deal farther than most of his subjects saw, but he never understood the temper of the English people; and above all he did not know, as the