Page:Englishhistorica36londuoft.djvu/137

 1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 129 George, Third Earl of Cumberland, His Life and his Voyages, a Study from Original Documents. By Dr. G. C. Williamson. (Cambridge: University Press, 1920.) The overthrow of the Spanish Armada was an event at once so dramatic and in its consequences so tremendous that historians have been often led to speak of it as conclusive. That, however, was far from being the case ; and in 1589 both sides began to consider what move would prove most effective in the next round of the maritime game. Drake had far-reaching plans, but these were never seriously considered ; for at Elizabeth's council-table rational strategy was, as a rule, dismissed from consideration as ruinous or foolish. Instead, England was committed to a less worthy and effective scheme which owed its peculiar shape to the subject of Dr. Williamson's biography. ' The noblest born of all the gentlemen adventurers ' was the son of the second earl of Cumberland and Anne, daughter of Lord Dacre of Gillesland. Born in the year of Eliza- beth's accession, he succeeded to the title in early boyhood, and at thirteen years of age proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had Whitgift for his tutor and Dr. Caius, who refounded Gonville Hall, for his medical adviser. He learnt to dance, to play the cithern, and to shoot with the bow. He showed some aptitude for mathematics ; in 1576 took his master's degree ; and in the following year, though not yet out of his teens, married Lady Margaret Russell, the youngest daughter of his guardian, the earl of Bedford. Tall and handsome, proficient in all feats of strength and manly exercises, Lord Cumberland had only to appear before the queen to win her instant approval. He very wisely made it one of his first objects in life to retain his sovereign's good opinion. He plied her with gifts, ' pettycotes of white sarcenett embrothered all over with Venyce silver plate ' and the like. When ' sweet-eyed Cynthia ' dropped her glove, he picked it up reverentially, and powdering it with jewels, wore it in his hat, and challenged all the world to deny that its wearer was the perfect flower of womanhood. Thus arrayed, he is seen in the painting in the National Portrait Gallery, and in the even more remarkable miniature by Nicholas Hilliard which forms the frontispiece to the present work. In due time the queen made him her accredited 1 champion ', and his panoply is still happily preserved at Appleby Castle. In quieter times Cumberland might have rested satisfied with the conquest of hearts at Whitehall and the pursuit of bucks across his wide estates ; but in 1585 war with Spain broke out in earnest, and it behoved all gallants to be stirring. Cumberland became a privateer. One voyage had already been concluded and a second undertaken, when the Armada entered the Channel ; and when the Armada was crushed at Grave- lines, it was Cumberland's privilege to carry home dispatches. In the following year came the remarkable cruise which gave the war in its later stage the twist to which we have referred. Cumberland, suddenly descending upon the Azores, fared so successfully that hence- forth England stood committed to commerce-destruction with the island group as its focal point. In 1590 the earl rested for awhile, but Hawkins and Frobisher repeated his experiment ; and in 1591 Cumberland himself VOL. XXXVI. NO. CXLI. ■ K