After this the greatest of the English knights of the high seas made many voyages, dealing out destruction to Spanish galleons and treasure stores. He attacked cities and burned fleets--reporting to the queen that he had just “singed the Spanish king’s beard.” Drake was one of the four chiefs in command of the English ships that destroyed the Spanish Armada. No one did more than he to take the sea power away from Spain and give it to England, and thus make it possible for the English to begin the settlement of our country. SIR WALTER RALEIGH, THE FAVORITE OF GOOD QUEEN BESS A gay company was waiting before the old palace at Greenwich, beside the River Thames below the City of London, on a summer afternoon in the days of Elizabeth. They were watching for the queen and her intimates to come down the broad steps in front of the palace. There had been a shower, and the trees, grass, and bright flowers glistened in the sunshine. “Here comes Her Majesty!” exclaimed some in the waiting throng as a woman in middle life descended the steps, attended by the Earl of Leicester and other nobles and knights whose names are well-known to history. The queen was slender, with her light auburn hair dressed up from her high, pale brow. Her chief mark of beauty was her small, delicate hands with long, taper fingers, of which she was rather vain. She was richly dressed in a heavy silk brocade, and a collar of costly lace stood up from her shoulders behind her slender neck like an open fan. [Illustration: THE BOYHOOD OF RALEIGH. AS HE LISTENS TO THE SAILOR’S TALE OF THE LAND BEYOND THE SEA, RALEIGH RESOLVES TO WIN IT FOR ENGLAND WHEN HE IS A MAN. _From the painting by J. E. Millais_] The court, after receiving her gracious greetings, followed the queen in a grand promenade through the park. Elizabeth soon came to a spot where the recent shower had left a shallow pool of water. A quaint writer describes this scene: “Her Majesty meeting with a plashy place, made some scruples to go on, when Raleigh (dressed in the gay and genteel habit of those times) presently cast off and spread his new plush cloak on the ground, whereon the Queen trod gently over, rewarding him afterwards with many suits for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a foot-cloth.” Walter Raleigh was a handsome young man, six feet tall, with curly brown hair and beard. He had been a soldier in France and an officer in Ireland, and had made several voyages of discovery with his gallant half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert. It was the fashion--indeed it seemed necessary then--for men at court to flatter the middle-aged maiden queen, who was foolish enough to believe that she was as lovely as they told her she was. The Earl of Leicester once entertained her at Kenilworth Castle, where he had all the clocks stopped on the moment of her arrival to show that no notice should be taken of the passing of time during her visit there.