The Queen wrote another outspoken letter to the generals on the 20th of May, in which she says they were perverting the object of their expedition; which was to burn the King of Spain's navy and restore Dom Antonio, and then proceed to the Azores. Corunna, she says, is of little importance and the risk great, and she commands them to fulfil her orders at once. Do not, she says, suffer yourselves to be transported with an haviour of vainglory which will obfuscate the eyes of your judgment. Secretary Windebanke, writing to Heneage at the same time, says the Queen is strangely set against the expedition, and is intensely incensed at the fruitless attack on Corunna. "She thinks they went to places for their own profit rather than for her service."--_State Papers_ (_Domestic_). [23] The bitter jest in Madrid at the time was that, whereas with the Armada the year before there went an army with no commander, there was now a commander with no army. [24] Contarini to the Doge. Venetian Calendar of State Papers. [25] A letter in the collection of the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield curiously illustrates the not altogether happy relations that existed between the English invaders and the pretender's friends. The letter is dated the 27th of May, and is from General Norris to Captain George (Burton?), whom he had left in charge at Peniche, complaining that "the King is aggrieved that you do take upon you to give the word since he hath appointed a Governor. And in truth it is not reason but the Governor should have the pre-eminence and therefore henceforward fail not to let him have that honour." This is a sample of the frequent complaints that the English did not treat Antonio quite as a king expected to be treated in his own realm. The fact was that Antonio had been too long a suppliant and a fugitive dependent largely upon Elizabeth's caprices for the English to regard him otherwise than as a tool for their own ends. [26] Venetian Calendar of State Papers. [27] This is more likely to be true than the assertion of my Portuguese that Antonio could get nothing to eat. The great body of the people were unquestionably in his favour, but had no leaders and would not fight. [28] If the Earl of Essex was rash and headstrong, he was also chivalrous. Pricket (or Wingfield) says: "Hee for money hired men to carrie sick and hurt upon pikes (for want of waggons) and hee (whose true virtue and nobilitie, as it dooth in all other his actions appear so did it very much in this) threw his owne stuffe, I mean apparell and necessaries from his owne carriages, and let them be left by the way, to put hurt and sick men upon them in this march."