146 
THE BRITISH ARMY ON THE CONTINENT OE EUROPE. 
men-at-arms and archers at Agincourt, fought with great renown 
against the brave and chivalrous French for a period of 100 years. 
Further, some of the most celebrated chiefs in Italy were very glad 
indeed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to avail themselves 
of the bravery of soldiers from Great Britain—as is proved by the 
careers of Hawkwood (Aguto) and other leaders of free companies. 
The period which I particularly propose to dwell upon is from the 
accession of Queen Elizabeth till the close of the Crimean war. The 
British army has not done much in Europe since the close of the 
Crimean war. The theory of the balance of power ” has been com¬ 
paratively ignored by British politicians since the close of that war, 
but I do not intend to-night to enter into a political discussion. 
Perhaps the gallant officer who is in the chair might have something 
to say upon that point. I have read his work on the modern balance 
of power with much interest; but, gentlemen, we are not here to con¬ 
sider whether the balance of power is good politically or not, or to 
deal with the British soldier under the influence of this or that political 
theory, or with the object of securing this or that particular aim. I 
am not at all certain that it would not have been a very good thing 
for Europe as well as for England if the English had not forgotten 
altogether their old theory of the balance of power—reference to 
Denmark, for instance, in 1864. Bo this as it may, since the Crimean 
war the British soldier has not played a prominent part on any part of 
the continent of Europe. But from the glorious days of Queen 
Elizabeth till the close of the Crimean war, in regard to every serious 
problem which agitated the European mind, he was deeply concerned. 
I select the reign of Queen Elizabeth for several reasons : one, that 
by that time the effects of the discovery of America and the dis¬ 
covery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, began to 
be widely felt in the domains of commerce and politics, all kinds of 
adventurers came to the front, our old “ sea dogs " Drake, Hawkins, 
Frobisher and others amongst the rest. In her reign also other causes 
were at work. Feudalism and its military, methods were dead ; the 
art of printing aucl the Renaissance diffused intellectual curiosity ; 
religious disputes divided nations into hostile camps; large ships 
began to keep the sea; constant warfare in the Netherlands or in 
Germany or in France or against Solyman the Magnificent afforded 
a fertile field for adventurers of all kinds, and prominent amongst theso 
adventurers, whether in Flanders or in Brabant, in Franco or in Spain 
or in the stormy Atlantic or amidst the everlasting ice which hemmed 
in the north-west and north-east passages, were Britons. 
Queen Elizabeth's own policy was an enigma. The champion 
diplomatic liar of all the Spanish empire admitted her superiority in the 
art of duplicity. Her troops would very gladly indeed have thrown 
themselves heartily into the religious contests and constant revolts that 
agitated France and the Netherlands, but she thwarted their most 
ambitious projects by her vacillating policy, but though she might 
starve them, she could not extinguish their energy. British soldiers 
were publicly commended by such an enemy of their name and nation 
