Writers who are loth to admit that the trust, the gratitude, the enthusiastic loyalty which Elizabeth inspired were the first and most important cause of the great victory, have sought to belittle the grandest moment of her life by pointing out that the famous speech at Tilbury was made _after_ the battle of Gravelines. But the dispersal of the Armada by the storm of August 5th was not yet known in England. Drake, writing on the 8th and 10th, thinks that it is gone to Denmark to refit, and begs the Queen not to diminish any of her forces. The occasion of the speech on the 10th seems to have been the arrival of a post on that day, while the Queen was at dinner in Leicester’s tent, with a false alarm that Parma had embarked all his forces, and might be expected in England immediately.[15]
But the Lieutenant-General had reached the end of his career. Three weeks after the Tilbury review he died of “a continued fever,” at the age of fifty-six. He kept Elizabeth’s regard to the last, because she believed--and during the latter part of his life, not wrongly--in his fidelity and devotion. There is no sign that she at any time valued his judgment or suffered him to sway her policy, except so far as he was the mouthpiece of abler advisers; nor did she ever allow his enmities, violent as they were, to prejudice her against any of her other servants. His fortune was no doubt much above his deserts, and he has paid the usual penalty. There are few personages in history about whom so much malicious nonsense has been written.
We cannot help looking on England as placed in a quite new position by the defeat of the Armada--a position of security and independence. In truth, what was changed was not so much the relative strength of England and Spain as the opinion of it held by Englishmen and Spaniards, and indeed by all Europe. The loss to Philip in mere ships, men, and treasure was no doubt considerable. But his inability to conquer England was demonstrated rather than caused by the destruction of the Armada. Philip himself talked loftily about “placing another fleet upon the seas.” But his subjects began to see that defence, not conquest, was now their business--and had been for some time if they had only known it: