Читать книгу London in the Time of the Tudors онлайн

104 страница из 135

THE SPANISH ARMADA (THE FIRST ENGAGEMENT)

From Pine’s engravings of the House of Lords tapestry hangings.

The City also supplied a fleet of sixteen ships, the largest in the river, fully found, with four light pinnaces, and paid the men during their services. It was with these ships that Drake ran into Cadiz and Lisbon, destroyed a great quantity of shipping, and threw into the sea the military materials that had been accumulated there.

The Earl of Leicester, who was in command at Tilbury, received 1000 of the London force only, and that on condition that they brought their own provisions.

The London men wore a uniform of white with white caps, and the City arms in scarlet on back and front. Some carried arquebuses; some were halberdiers; some were pikemen. They marched in companies according to their arms. Their officers rode beside the men dressed in black velvet. They were preceded by billmen, corresponding to the modern pioneers; by a company of whifflers, i.e. trumpeters; and in the midst marched six Ensigns in white satin faced with black sarsenet, and rich scarves. The dress of officers and men was just as useless and unfit for continued work as could well be devised. It is melancholy to find that the Earl of Leicester, who was in command at Tilbury, held a very poor opinion of the London contingent. “I see,” he writes to Walsingham, “that their service will be little, except they have their own captains, and having them I look for none at all by them when we shall meet the enemy.” Most fortunately there was no enemy to meet, and the heroism of the Londoners remains unchallenged. The Captain of the London Trained Bands was Martin Bond, citizen, whose tomb remains at St. Helen’s Church.