Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/200

186 was lying off Dunkirk. The two celebrated Dutch admirals were soon in full chase of the Spaniards. Sixteen of the ships having four thousand troops on board, bore away with all speed for the coast of Flanders, but the rest fled for shelter into the Downs. Charles sent the earl of Arundel to demand from Oquendo, the Spanish admiral, his destination, being not without apprehension that they might be intended for a descent on Ireland, or in aid of his disaffected subjects of Scotland.



Oquendo satisfied Arundel that they were really on their way to Flanders, and demanded the protection of Charles as a friendly power. Charles was not unwilling to do so for a consideration, and the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds was the price named in ready cash. For this Charles was to send the English fleet under protection of his own to Flanders, but the two Dutch admirals, having now no less than one hundred sail, from continued fresh arrivals, attacked the Spaniards in the English roads, sunk and burned five of the largest vessels, drove twenty-three more on shore, and pursued the rest across the channel, suffering only ten of them to escape them. All this time the English admiral lay near at hand, but made no movement in protection of the Spaniards. The English people on shore beheld the destruction of the Spanish fleet with the greatest exultation, the memory of the great Armada being yet so strong amongst them; but Charles had lost his much desired money at the moment that he thought to have grasped it, and with it had acquired an immense amount of foreign odium. To have suffered the vessels of a friendly power, which had fled to him for shelter, to be attacked and chased from his own harbour, lowered him greatly in the estimation of continental nations, and gave them an idea of the audacity of the Dutch, who unrebuked had perpetrated this insult, extremely to the disparagement of England It was questioned whether, had he already received the money of the Spaniards, he could have protected them from the victorious Dutch, the necessary conflict with whom would have involved England in a foreign war.

At the time of this untoward occurrence Charles had sent for Wentworth from Ireland, to assist him by his counsel as to the best mode of dealing with his difficulties at home, and the Scots in the north. Wentworth had overridden all obstacles in Ireland, and had forced an income out of the reluctant people there; he was thought, therefore, by Charles, the only man whose wisdom and resolution were equal to the crisis. Wentworth had strongly advised Charles against marching against the Scots, knowing that the king's raw levies would have no chance against them; and he had gone on actively drilling ten thousand men, to prepare men for the campaign, which he felt must come, even after all