The presence of the Queen of Scots in England had set in flame
the Catholic nobles. The wages of Alva's troops had been wrung somehow
out of the wretched Provinces, and his supreme ability and inexorable
resolution were steadily grinding down the revolt. Every port in Holland
and Zealand was in Alva's hands. Elizabeth's throne was undermined by
the Ridolfi conspiracy, the most dangerous which she had ever had to
encounter. The only Protestant fighting power left on the sea which
could be entirely depended on was in the privateer fleet, sailing, most
of them, under a commission from the Prince of Orange.
This fleet was the strangest phenomenon in naval history. It was half
Dutch, half English, with a flavour of Huguenot, and was commanded by a
Flemish noble, Count de la Mark. Its head-quarters were in the Downs or
Dover Roads, where it could watch the narrow seas, and seize every
Spanish ship that passed which was not too strong to be meddled with.
The cargoes taken were openly sold in Dover market. If the Spanish
ambassador is to be believed in a complaint which he addressed to Cecil,
Spanish gentlemen taken prisoners were set up to public auction there
for the ransom which they would fetch, and were disposed of for one
hundred pounds each.
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