THE BRITISH ARMY ON THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 
147 
as the Duke of Parma. British officers defended Bergen-op-Zoom and 
Helvoetsluys. Lord Willoughby and other Englishmen conduced 
in no small degree to the triumph of Henry of Navarro over the 
League. Among the many touching and terrible episodes of the 
revolt of the Netherlands, one of the best known is the death of Sir 
Philip Sidney at Zutphen. I have deliberately excluded from my 
subject affairs at sea, but soldiers were as prominent as sailors in the 
defeat of the Spanish Armada. Our soldiers, as you see here on the 
map, “ singed the King of Spain’s beard” most effectively. There were 
British invasions of Spain at Corunna, or the Groyne, at Vigo, and at 
other places. A British army marched in “ the journey of Portugal” 
on the same route as was followed in the beginning of the nineteenth 
century ; our army landed near Piniche under Norris and Essex and 
moved down the mountains where long afterwards were constructed 
the lines of Torres Vedras. The British soldiers made a most re¬ 
markable attack on Cadiz in 1596 — a splendid feat of arms that spread 
our glory over Europe and was a bitter humiliation to our enemy. 
Now, gentlemen, when you remember the small population of England 
at this period, and when you remember that England was at this 
period at war with such powerful Irish sept loaders as O’Neal and 
O’Donnell, and that Scotland was far from friendly, you must admit 
that the English people displayed no small energy, martial as well 
as naval, at the close of the sixteenth century (cheers). 
At the beginning of the seventeenth century an appalling disaster 
broke over central Europe. It is hard to estimate the injury done to 
Germany by the Thirty Years’ War. Most of you gentlemen have read 
Schiller, but every author admits that Germany, from being one of the 
most flourishing nations, became one of the poorest owing to the horrors 
of this period. Parts of the Fatherland have never recovered from the 
devastating license of the champions of two Christian creeds, whose 
barbarities rivalled the horrors of the “ great horde 33 or the worst 
violence of Islam. The savage soldiery lived by plunder wherever they 
went, and the arrival of a Swedish army, under Gustavus Adolphus, 
though good for protestantism, was not of much benefit to Germany at 
large. Who were some of the very best troops fighting on the continent 
of Europe in this Thirty Years’ War ?—Scotch and British soldiers. 
The military tutor of Cromwell learned the art of war in Germany. 
Leslie, who commanded at Dunbar against Cromwell, learned the art 
of war in Germany. As to the army of Gustavus Adolphus, some of 
the most eminent soldiers of that Swedish Prince were Scotchmen. 
At the battle of Liitzen, where Gustavus Adolphus was killed, the 
reserve was commanded by Henderson a Scotchman. In the Swedish 
army, then the best in Europe, there wore no fewer than six British 
Generals, 30 British Colonels and 51 British Lieut.-Colonels. So 
famous was the soldiery of Britain, that they were eagerly welcomed 
in auy army under the banner of which they volunteered to serve. 
Our King James I. is not illustrious for his military policy, but his 
troops, in spite of the manner in which they were checkmated by their 
government, maintained the fame of the soldiers of Crecy and Agin- 
