Free Hell Hath No Fury by Rosalind Miles

intelligence of her spymaster, Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth was only too well aware of the situation. But her unwavering courage won the admiration of all, even her ancient enemy, the Pope. As a war leader, Elizabeth rose to the crisis, chose her commanders brilliantly, and reined in her instinct to micromanage. Above all she remained at the helm, fearlessly refusing to leave London despite the entreaties of her ministers, just as the royal family stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the Blitz of World War II. “Yet David beat Goliath,” she averred.
    And Elizabeth’s faith in her tiny English fleet was fully justified. Although numerically outclassed by the massive Spanish galleons and only a fraction of their size, the little English warships were far easier to maneuver, nipping in and out of close combat like dogs baiting a bear. Among the English captains, Drake, Hawkins, and others also had the advantage of their previous successful attacks against the galleons on the Spanish main.
    The result was devastation. One by one the galleons were blown up, boarded and sunk, or harried up the length of the English Channel in a desperate flight to find a way back to Spain around Scotland and Ireland, where many more were wrecked on those inhospitable shores. Only 54 of the proud 130 ever returned to Spain, and those in such bad shape that they never went to sea again.
    The scale of the Spanish disaster was not known at the time. In the following days, England prepared for a land invasion from the Low Countries, where the Duke of Parma had assembled a fleet of 1,500 barges to ferry thousands of Spanish pikemen across the Channel. Elizabeth rode out to hearten her army clad in armor previously made for her late brother Edward VI, who had died at sixteen, as his silver breastplate was the only piece in the royal treasury small enough to fit her slender frame (see Isabella of Spain, Chapter 2, for the identical tactic).
    At Tilbury on the Thames outside London, she delivered the speech that has become world-famous, declaring, “Though I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, I have the heart and stomach of a king, yea and a king of England too.” She went on to heap insults on the enemy, in the long tradition of commanders pumping up the aggression of the troops: “I think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any prince of Europe should dare invade the borders of our realm!” she proclaimed, promising her soldiers cash rewards and “a famous victory over the enemies of God, my kingdom and my people.”
    So the battle of the Armada was won by tactics, but also by fate. That summer the Channel saw violent winds and unseasonable storms, which ravaged the top-heavy galleons while the English fleet escaped damage. But to an Elizabethan, there was no such thing as random good luck, only the working of the hand of God. Once victory was certain, Elizabeth, image-conscious to the last, seized the opportunity for a worldwide anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda coup. She ordered a medal to be struck and widely distributed with the Latin slogan
Deus flavit, et dissipati sunt
(God blew, and they were scattered). God was a Protestant, and he’d shown his true colors: he’d fought on England’s side. With a little help from England’s rightful if not Holy Roman Majesty, Elizabeth herself, of course.
    Reference: Rosalind Miles,
I, Elizabeth,
1994.
    ETHELFLEDA
    Aethelflaed, “The Lady of the Mercians,” Saxon Queen and War Leader, d. 918
CE
    Ethelfleda was the daughter of England’s founding king, Alfred the Great, born into war as her father fought to free his emerging country from the invasions of the Danes. A bold tactician and an outstanding commander, she played a major part in driving out the warriors, raiders, and thugs of various races grouped together under the name of the Vikings, who regularly fell on the eastern coast of England from the plague-ridden and famine-prone