If I am seriously expected to make the passage without Santa Cruz, I am ready to do it, although I should go all alone in a cock-boat." But Santa Cruz at least was not destined to assist in the conquest of England; for, worn out with fatigue and vexation, goaded by the reproaches and insults of Philip, Santa Cruz was dead.

He was replaced in the chief command of the fleet by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a grandee of vast wealth, but with little capacity and less experience.

To the iron marquis it was said that a golden duke had succeeded; but the duke of gold did not find it easier to accomplish impossibilities than his predecessor had done.

Day after day, throughout the months of winter and spring, the King had been writing that the fleet was just on the point of sailing, and as frequently he had been renewing to Alexander Farnese the intimation that perhaps, after all, he might find an opportunity of crossing to England, without waiting for its arrival.

And Alexander, with the same regularity, had been informing his master that the troops in the Netherlands had been daily dwindling from sickness and other causes, till at last, instead of the 30,000 effective infantry, with which it had been originally intended to make the enterprise, he had not more than 17,000 in the month of April.