By Englands Aid | Page 2

of Ostend and its Defences, showing the lines of the attacking
forces during the siege of 1601-4

BY ENGLAND'S AID

CHAPTER I
AN EXCURSION
"And we beseech Thee, O Lord, to give help and succour to Thy
servants the people of Holland, and to deliver them from the cruelties
and persecutions of their wicked oppressors; and grant Thy blessing,
we pray Thee, upon the arms of our soldiers now embarking to aid
them in their extremity." These were the words with which the Rev.
John Vickars, rector of Hedingham, concluded the family prayers on
the morning of 6th December, 1585.
For twenty years the first portion of this prayer had been repeated daily
by him, as it had been in tens of thousands of English households; for
since the people of the Netherlands first rose against the Spanish yoke
the hearts of the Protestants of England had beat warmly in their cause,
and they had by turns been moved to admiration at the indomitable
courage with which the Dutch struggled for independence against the
might of the greatest power in Europe, and to horror and indignation at
the pitiless cruelty and wholesale massacres by which the Spaniards
had striven to stamp out resistance.
From the first the people of England would gladly have joined in the
fray, and made common cause with their co-religionists; but the queen
and her counsellors had been restrained by weighty considerations from
embarking in such a struggle. At the commencement of the war the
power of Spain overshadowed all Europe. Her infantry were regarded
as irresistible. Italy and Germany were virtually her dependencies, and
England was but a petty power beside her. Since Agincourt was fought
we had taken but little part in wars on the Continent. The feudal system

was extinct; we had neither army nor military system; and the only
Englishmen with the slightest experience of war were those who had
gone abroad to seek their fortunes, and had fought in the armies of one
or other of the continental powers. Nor were we yet aware of our naval
strength. Drake and Hawkins and the other bucaneers had not yet
commenced their private war with Spain, on what was known as the
Spanish main--the waters of the West Indian Islands--and no one
dreamed that the time was approaching when England would be able to
hold her own against the strength of Spain on the seas.
Thus, then, whatever the private sentiments of Elizabeth and her
counsellors, they shrank from engaging England in a life and death
struggle with the greatest power of the time; though as the struggle
went on the queen's sympathy with the people of the Netherlands was
more and more openly shown. In 1572 she was present at a parade of
three hundred volunteers who mustered at Greenwich under Thomas
Morgan and Roger Williams for service in the Netherlands. Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, went out a few
months later with 1500 men, and from that time numbers of English
volunteers continued to cross the seas and join in the struggle against
the Spaniards. Nor were the sympathies of the queen confined to
allowing her subjects to take part in the fighting; for she sent out large
sums of money to the Dutch, and as far as she could, without openly
joining them, gave them her aid.
Spain remonstrated continually against these breaches of neutrality,
while the Dutch on their part constantly implored her to join them
openly; but she continued to give evasive answers to both parties until
the assassination of William of Orange on 10th July, 1584, sent a thrill
of horror through England, and determined the queen and her advisers
to take a more decisive part in the struggle. In the following June
envoys from the States arrived in London, and were received with great
honour, and a treaty between the two countries was agreed upon. Three
months later the queen published a declaration to her people and to
Europe at large, setting forth the terrible persecutions and cruelties to
which "our next neighbours, the people of the Low Countries," the
special allies and friends of England, had been exposed, and stating her

determination to aid them to recover their liberty. The proclamation
concluded: "We mean not hereby to make particular profit to ourself
and our people, only desiring to obtain, by God's favour, for the
Countries, a deliverance of them from war by the Spaniards and
foreigners, with a restitution of their ancient liberties and government."
Sir Thomas Cecil was sent out at once as governor of Brill, and Sir
Philip Sidney as governor of Flushing, these towns being handed over
to England as guarantees by the Dutch. These two officers, with bodies
of troops to serve as garrisons, took charge of their