the assistance of the new lieutenant-general in field operations nor
could the army be brought into a state of thorough discipline and
efficiency by the magic of Leicester's name. The rank and file of the
English army--not the commanders-needed strengthening. The soldiers
required shoes and stockings, bread and meat, and for these articles
there were not the necessary funds, nor would the title of Lieutenant-
General supply the deficiency. The little auxiliary force was, in truth,
in a condition most pitiable to behold: it was difficult to say whether
the soldiers who had been already for a considerable period in the
Netherlands, or those who had been recently levied in the purlieus of
London, were in the most unpromising plight. The beggarly state in which
Elizabeth had been willing that her troops should go forth to the wars
was a sin and a disgrace. Well might her Lieutenant-General say that her
"poor subjects were no better than abjects." There were few effective
companies remaining of the old force. "There is but a small number of
the first bands left," said Sir John Conway, "and those so pitiful and
unable ever to serve again, as I leave to speak further of theirs, to
avoid grief to your heart. A monstrous fault there hath been somewhere."

Leicester took a manful and sagacious course at starting. Those who had
no stomach for the fight were ordered to depart. The chaplain gave them
sermons; the Lieutenant-General, on St. Stephen's day, made them a "pithy
and honourable" oration, and those who had the wish or the means to buy
themselves out of the adventure, were allowed to do so: for the Earl was
much disgusted with the raw material out of which he was expected to
manufacture serviceable troops. Swaggering ruffians from the
disreputable haunts of London, cockney apprentices, brokendown tapsters,
discarded serving men; the Bardolphs and Pistols, Mouldys, Warts, and the
like--more at home in tavern-brawls or in dark lanes than on the battle-
field--were not the men to be entrusted with the honour of England at a