His death was a national misfortune. In 1596 the Spaniards took Calais, and thus gained an outpost only twenty miles from England. Elizabeth retorted by a great expedition under the young Earl of Essex and Howard of Effingham. Cadiz was taken and destroyed, with twelve warships and a merchant fleet worth 8,000,000 ducats. The blow to Spanish industry was crushing, but, despite Essex’s entreaty, Howard would not garrison the impregnable port. Had he done so, it might well have become to England what Gibraltar is now. As it was, Philip was goaded into a fresh attempt at invasion; but the ill-equipped fleet, largely composed of embargoed foreign craft filled with soldiers, which he hounded to sea in October, under the Conde de Santa Gadea, was so shattered by a storm, that little of it could ever be rallied again. Philip was now bankrupt, but at the cost of misery, which left its mark on Spain for centuries, he prepared for yet one attempt more. In 1597 Essex sailed with a large fleet to the Azores on a nearly fruitless cruise against the Spanish treasure fleet. By amazing exertions a new Spanish fleet had been assembled in Ferrol, and while Essex was on his way home the last great Armada, 136 ships strong, reached the coast of Brittany. Another fleet was following from Lisbon, and in all there were some 18,000 troops on board. The plan of action was that which Menendez had laid down twenty years before. Essex, however, safely made Plymouth in a violent gale, which scattered the ill-found Spanish fleet, this time, happily, with little loss of life. It was Philip’s last effort, and a year later he died. After his death the war languished until 1601. The English Navy was only employed on abortive commerce-destroying expeditions, and was looked upon with contempt by the bold privateers who harried the Spanish Main. In 1602 Spain made a last effort, and, assisted by the slackness and want of foresight of Elizabeth’s chief minister, Sir Robert Cecil, son of Burghley, succeeded in landing 4,000 troops in Ireland. This woke up the drowsy government. The Spaniards were blockaded in Kinsale by the army of Lord Deputy Mountjoy and the fleet under Sir Richard Leveson. A reinforcing squadron was annihilated in Castlehaven, and Kinsale forced to surrender. In 1602 Leveson sailed to the Spanish coast and won a victory at Cezimbra, but in 1603 Elizabeth died. Her successor, James I., was only too ready to come to terms, and made peace forthwith, without settling the Indies trade question, over which so much blood was subsequently shed. It was the first ill-service done by the Stuarts to the country over which they had come to rule, and it was not to be the last. [Illustration: _A. Rischgitz._ SIR JOHN HAWKINS (1532-1595). Rear-Admiral of the English fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, and the designer of all its finest ships. _Photographed from the contemporary painting in the Sir John Hawkins Hospital at Chatham._]