On the 8th of August, Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a white charger, a marshal's _bâton_ grasped in her hand, rode through the camp, where she was received with enthusiastic acclamations by both volunteers and regulars drawn up on a hill near Tilbury church. Forbidding any of her retinue to follow her, she was attended only by the Earls of Ormonde and Leicester, the latter bearing before her the Sword of State. She was also followed by a page, who had the honour of carrying her "white-plumed regal helmet." The queen's costume was a mixture of the military uniform and the fashionable ladies' attire of the period. Beneath a corslet of polished steel descended "a farthingale of such monstrous amplitude, that," observes Miss Strickland, "it is wonderful how her high-mettled war-horse submitted to carry a lady encumbered with a gabardine of so strange a fashion." Riding bare-headed through the ranks, she addressed the warriors in an oration well calculated to inspire them with enthusiasm. It concluded amidst vociferous and long continued cheering. After the dispersion of the Invincible Armada, Elizabeth celebrated a triumph, in imitation of the ancient Romans. She rode in a triumphal chariot from her palace to St. Paul's cathedral, where the "enseignes and colours of ye vanquished Spaniards," were displayed to the delighted gaze of the citizens. * * * * * During the Border Wars between England and Scotland women had frequent opportunities of local distinction. Holinshed, speaking of a skirmish which took place at Naworth, in 1570, between Lord Hursden and Leonard Dacres, says the latter had in his army "many desperate women, who there gave the adventure of their lives, and fought right stoutly." * * * * * The Duchy of Lorraine, or Lothringen, was, for many centuries, a subject of contention between France and Germany. It was for a long time a fief of the German empire; but from the middle of the sixteenth century, the royal family of France became connected with its rulers, and assumed thenceforth a right to interfere in its internal arrangements. During the Thirty Years' War the French drove Duke Charles from his throne, on account of his close connection with Austria. It was during this war that Madame St. Balmont, who has been styled a second Joan of Arc, performed the gallant deeds for which she became so famous. Barbara of Ernecourt, was born in 1609, at the Castle of Neuville, situated between Verdun and Bar. She belonged to a good family in Lorraine, and from her earliest childhood she trained herself in military exercises and the use of arms. Her chief delight was hunting, and every kind of field sport, which the Abbé Arnould remarks, "is a kind of war." One day when she was engaging in her favourite pastime, she met with the Count de St. Belmont, and, being mutually charmed, they married shortly after.