The failure of the Armada was naturally a very conspicuous event in the opinion of that and succeeding generations. It was the visible deliverance of England, and with her of the Protestants of Europe. The piety of the time accounted for the failure of the mighty armament by saying that God had blown upon it, and it had been scattered. This verdict has not always been accepted by the rationalism or the patriotism of modern times, and yet it may be said to be essentially true. The Armada failed through its own weakness and the incapacity of its chief. With the single exception of their use of the fireships in Calais Roads, the English leaders did nothing to force the Duke of Medina Sidonia into a disadvantageous position. He put himself into the worst position by his own acts. When he did decide to retreat, the material strength of his fleet was hardly impaired. It was the moral strength that was gone, and that partly through the discovery that the ships were very ill fitted for their work, and partly because the Spaniards had discovered the hopeless incapacity of their leader. Even at the last moment, when the Spaniards had been saved by a mere shift in the wind from destruction on the banks of Zeeland, Lord Howard showed no wish to come to close quarters with them. The supposition that he left them at the Firth of Forth because he foresaw they would perish on their way home, is inadmissible. Lord Howard cannot have known that the latter part of the month of August would be beyond precedent stormy. If the weather had been what it might have been expected to be, the loss of the Spaniards would probably not have gone beyond a very few more vessels than those which had already been taken or driven on shore, or had fallen into the hands of the enemy in the Channel. In that case, they would indeed have failed to effect an invasion of England; but the ships might have been refitted, and the Armada would not have been considered to have suffered severely. Thousands of men would no doubt have died from scurvy and want of food, but that was usual even with the successful naval expeditions of the time. As the English were then not familiar with the seas north of the Firth of Forth, it is possible that if Lord Howard had pursued the Spaniards, his own ships would have suffered much, if not quite as much as the enemy. The storms did not cause the failure of the Armada in the Channel or the North Sea, but they did produce its destruction. CHAPTER III FROM THE ARMADA TO THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN