Free All the Queen's Men by Peter Brimacombe Page B

fortune favoured the brave and victory was achieved as much by luck as judgement. It was a crucial military encounter that was to have monumental significance, in the short term ensuring that the threat of imminent invasion no longer existed. In the long term, the English fleet’s epic victory was to have even more far-reaching consequences, as it heralded the beginning of the decline and fall of the Spanish Empire. The eminent twentieth-century Elizabethan historian A.L. Rowse commented succinctly that, as well as Central and South America, the whole of North America might have ended up speaking Spanish, an interesting and altogether plausible theory.
    Elizabeth was a ‘drama Queen’ in a highly dramatic age: charismatic, inspirational, effortlessly able to motivate otherwise cynical men into glorious achievements for the collective good of her kingdom – to circumnavigate the globe, to defeat the mightiest of her enemies, to create the finest literature the world has ever seen. She had an uncanny ability to inspire not only the great and the good but also the ordinary people in her kingdom, to capture the hearts and minds of her citizens regardless of class or calling. Blessed with the common touch, she captured the affection of those that she encountered on her famous ‘Royal Progresses’, when the Queen and all her retinue passed in slow and stately manner across the English countryside in high summer. Though the immediate purpose of these progresses was to visit important towns in her kingdom, it was also part of an elaborate propaganda exercise to project a favourable image of the Queen to her public in the days before the existence of any form of instant wide-scale communication. Although Elizabeth did not invent the concept of ‘the progress’, she certainly exploited it to maximum effect throughout her reign. The Queen’s temperament was ideally suited to these occasions as she loved an audience. Whereas her half-sister Mary had been rather shy and hated crowds, Elizabeth was in her element. Although a ‘Royal Progress’ could be regarded as a piece of cynical stage-management, it nevertheless brought a touch of glamour into the ordinary world, and great pleasure to the local dignitaries of each town the Queen visited. Elizabeth might stop to talk with people in the crowd or out on the open road, a brief moment in time that would remain with them for the rest of their lives. ‘Progresses’ could be arduous and even boring for the Queen, dutifully listening to local mayors droning on with tedious orations, or enduring yet another amateurish local pageant. Yet throughout these occasions she behaved impeccably, listening in apparent rapt attention before paying a gracious comment or a word of heartfelt thanks in Norwich, Coventry, Bristol, Southampton or any of the other towns she descended on in a blaze of glory. She cleverly recognized that this was all part of being a successful Queen of England, maintaining the love and loyalty of her subjects.
    Even during the normal course of Court activity in London, the Queen’s movements appeared highly impressive to the casual observer:
    When the Queen goes abroad in public the Lord Chamberlain walks first, being followed by all the nobility who are in Court, and the Knights of the Order that are present walk after, near the Queen’s person, such as the Earl of Essex, the Admiral and others. After come the six heralds who bear maces before the Queen. After her march the fifty Gentlemen of the Guard, each carrying a halbard, and sumptuously attired; and after that the Maids and Ladies who accompany them very well attired. 8
    The French envoy de Maisse’s graphic description beautifully conveys the vibrancy of the Royal Court, together with the Queen’s love of pageantry on every conceivable occasion, a trait that she had acquired from her father. This endeared Elizabeth to the majority of those who filled her