Although Derbyshire was perhaps further removed from the sea-coast than any other county, the threatened approach of the great Spanish Armada appears to have made almost as much stir as in the sea-board counties. The gentlemen of the county consented to greatly increase the number of lances and light-horse, provided that such action should not be taken as a precedent; and they further promised to provide an addition of 400 to the number of unmounted troops. The old earl wrote a brave letter to his sovereign, assuring her that the gentlemen of Derbyshire were both ready and well affected, and that, as for himself, the threatened invasion was making him young again, “though lame in body, yet was he lusty in heart to lead her greatest enemy one blow, and to live and die in her service.” The signal defeat of Spain brought for some years general peace and quiet throughout the kingdom. The musters in Derbyshire and elsewhere were but rarely called out, save in the winter of 1598–9, when renewed threats from Spain caused Sir Humphrey Ferrers, the most active of the Derbyshire deputy-lieutenants, to view the musters of the various hundreds. Quite irrespective of the part played by the general musters during this reign in preparation for possible emergencies, there was much stir and excitement in the county, accompanied, no doubt, by a great deal of misery, consequent upon the repeated call for troops to take part in the subjection of Ireland. The levies of troops for Ireland were almost ceaseless during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. It has usually been understood by historians that these raw troops came mainly from Lancashire and Cheshire; but the Belvoir manuscripts, supported by the Acts of the Privy Council and local muniments, show that Derbyshire—possibly as a compliment to her bravery—was being constantly called upon to supply men for these expeditions entirely out of proportion to the limited area and population of the county. It is not surprising to find that these forcibly impressed levies, utterly untrained in military matters, and suffering severely from poor clothing, insufficient food, the dampness of the climate, and frequent infectious disease, perished in large numbers before they could attain to any proficiency. When the Earl of Essex was granted special powers in 1573 to suppress the Irish rebellion, Derbyshire had to submit to the impressment of a hundred men, and a complaint was lodged at the sessions that some of the best lead-miners had been taken for that purpose. The whole story of these forced levies, of the difficulty of conveying them to the ports of Lancashire and Cheshire, of their frequent desertions both en route and even when they had crossed the seas, of the poorness of the weapons and equipments with which they were supplied by the swindling contractors of the day, is a most sorry and sordid tale. Nor could these Derbyshire troops have presented, even