Such seems to have been the utmost success which, in the most favourable event, could have attended the invasion. A great disaster, no doubt, for England, and one for which Elizabeth would have been judged by history with more severity than justice; for Englishmen have always chosen to risk it, down to our own time.[14] No government which insisted on making adequate provision for the military defence of the country would have been tolerated then, or, to all appearance, would be tolerated now. We have always trusted to our navy. It were to be wished that our naval superiority were as assured now as when we defeated the Armada.
The arrangements for feeding the soldiers and sailors were very defective. A praiseworthy system of control had been introduced to check waste and peculation in time of peace. Of course it did not easily adapt itself to the exigencies of war. Military operations are sure to suffer where a certain, or rather uncertain, amount of waste and peculation is not risked. We have not forgotten the “horrible and heart-rending” sufferings of our army in the Crimea, which, like those of Elizabeth’s fleet, had to be relieved by private effort. In the sixteenth century the lot of the soldier and sailor everywhere was want and disease, varied at intervals by plunder and excess. Philip’s soldiers and sailors were worse off than Elizabeth’s, though he grudged no money for purposes of war.
Those who profess to be scandalised by the appointment of Leicester to the command of the army should point out what fitter choice could have been made. He was the only great nobleman with any military experience; and to suppose that any one but a great nobleman could have been appointed to such a command is to show a profound ignorance of the ideas of the time. He had Sir John Norris, a really able soldier, as his marshal of the camp. After all, no one has alleged that he did not do his duty with energy and intelligence. The story that the Queen thought of making him her “Lieutenant in the government of England and Ireland,” but was dissuaded from it by Burghley and Hatton, rests on no authority but that of Camden, who is fond of repeating spiteful gossip about Leicester. No sensible person will believe that she meant to create a sort of Grand Vizier. She may have thought of making him what we should call “Commander-in-Chief.” There would be much to say for such a concentration of authority while the kingdom was threatened with invasion. The title of “Lieutenant” was a purely military one, and began to be applied under the Tudors to the commanders of the militia in each county. Leicester’s title for the time was “Lieutenant and Captain-General of the Queen’s armies and companies.” But we find him complaining to Walsingham that the patent of Hunsdon, the commander of the Midland army, gave him independent powers. “I shall have wrong if he absolutely command where my patent doth give me power. You may easily conceive what absurd dealings are likely to fall out if you allow two absolute commanders” (28 July). Camden’s story is probably a confused echo of this dispute.