The chief event with which all boys, I imagine, connect the name of Queen Elizabeth is the defeat of the Great Armada sent against these shores by the King of Spain. Doubtless on that summer night in the year 1588 there were watchers by the beacon on Alderley Edge who saw the 'Wrekin's crest of fire' flashing its message northwards. There was no telegraph in those days, and yet in an hour or two at most the news of the approach of an enemy was carried by beacon fires from the Channel to the Cheviots. Cheshire indeed produced no Drake or Hawkins; but Sir George Beeston, whose tomb you may see in Bunbury Church, commanded the ship Dreadnought, one of the four ships that broke through the Spanish line and took an active part in the pursuit and destruction of the Spanish vessels. A few years later Sir Uryan Legh of Adlington Hall accompanied Lord Howard and Raleigh and the Earl of Essex on an expedition to Cadiz, when they destroyed the ships in the harbour and for a second time 'singed the King of Spain's beard'. The town itself was taken by storm, and for his bravery on this occasion Sir Uryan Legh was knighted. The Leghs were always to the fore when there was any fighting to be done. A canopied arch in Prestbury Church marks his last resting-place, but the tomb itself has long since disappeared. One result of the expeditions of Drake and Raleigh was that Englishmen were inspired with a passion for travel, whether abroad or at home, partly for the sake of adventure and the pursuit of wealth, partly out of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. The voyages of the great navigators, 'itineraries' or diaries of travel, and histories of our own country and its people were written at this period. These books show clearly in their pages how intensely proud the Englishmen of Elizabeth's day were of their country and their queen and her brave seamen, who by their victories over Spain raised England to the first position among the nations of the world. Michael Drayton wrote a long poem called 'Polyolbion', in which four hundred lines are taken up with a description of Cheshire, which he calls the thrice happy Shire, confined so to be twixt two so famous Floods, as Mersey is, and Dee. He speaks of Chester as th' imaginary work of some huge Giant's hand: which if such ever were, Tradition tells not who. The book was illustrated by a number of curious maps, adorned with quaint figures of men and women representing the rivers, hills, forests, and castled towns. John Speed was born at Farndon on the Dee, and wrote a book called the _Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain_, which contained the earliest set of maps published in England.