Under such conditions it is hardly surprising that the enterprise was a disastrous failure. A few butts of liquor left by the Spaniards outside Cadiz sufficed to set the whole force fighting with its own officers, and after weary weeks at sea, aggravated by heavy weather and by pestilence, the result of bad stores, Cecil and the remains of his ten regiments returned home in misery and shame.[155] [Sidenote: 1626.] A similar enterprise under Lord Willoughby in the following year failed in the same way for precisely the same reasons; but Buckingham, still unshaken in his confidence, led a third and a fourth expedition to Rochelle with equal disaster and equal disgrace. The captains had no more control over their men than over a herd of deer.[156] At last, at the outset of a fifth expedition, which promised similar failure, the dagger of Lieutenant Felton, a melancholy man embittered by deprivation of his pay, put an end to Buckingham and to all his follies. On the whole he had not treated the soldiers worse than Elizabeth, but a man of Elizabeth's stamp was more than could be borne with. Nevertheless, amid all these failures there were still plenty of men in England who had the welfare of the military profession at heart. Foremost among them was the veteran Edward Cecil, now Lord Wimbledon, who strove hard to do something for the defence of the principal ports, for the training of the nation at large, and in particular for the encouragement of cavalry. The mounted service had become strangely unpopular with the English at this time, whether because the eternal sieges of the Dutch war afforded it less opportunity of distinction, or because missile tactics had lowered it from its former proud station, it is difficult to say. Certain it is that officers of infantry, and notably Monro, never lost an opportunity of girding at horsemen as fitted only to run away, and as preferring to be mounted only that they might run away the faster. But Cecil, though in this respect unique, was by no means the only man who made his voice heard. Veteran after veteran took pen in hand and wrote of the discipline of Maurice of Nassau and, as time went on, of the system of Gustavus Adolphus; while on the other hand one ingenious gentleman, still jealous of the old national weapon, invented what he called a "double-arm," which combined the pike and the bow, the bow-staff being attached to the shaft of the pike by a vice which could be traversed on a hinge. Strange to say this belated weapon was not ill-received in military circles and found commendation even among Scotsmen.[157] On one important point, however, there was a general consensus of opinion, namely that the condition of the English militia was disgraceful, its system hopelessly inefficient and the corruption of its administration a scandal. The trained bands were hardly called out once in five years for exercise; few men knew how even to load