discipline, of powder and shot, there was a deficiency. No braver or
more competent soldier could be found than Sir Edward Stanley--the man
whom we have seen in his yellow jerkin, helping himself into Fort Zutphen
with the Spanish soldier's pike--and yet Sir Edward Stanley gave but a
sorry account of the choicest soldiers of Chester and Lancashire, whom he
had been sent to inspect. "I find them not," he said, "according to your
expectation, nor mine own liking. They were appointed two years past to
have been trained six days by the year or more, at the discretion of the
muster-master, but, as yet, they have not been trained one day, so that
they have benefited nothing, nor yet know their leaders. There is now
promise of amendment, which, I doubt, will be very slow, in respect to my
Lord Derby's absence."

My Lord Derby was at that moment, and for many months afterwards,
assisting Valentine Dale in his classical prolusions on the sands of
Bourbourg. He had better have been mustering the trainbands of
Lancashire. There was a general indisposition in the rural districts to
expend money and time in military business, until the necessity should
become imperative. Professional soldiers complained bitterly of the
canker of a long peace. "For our long quietness, which it hath pleased
God to send us," said Stanley, "they think their money very ill bestowed
which they expend on armour or weapon, for that they be in hope they
shall never have occasion to use it, so they may pass muster, as they
have done heretofore. I want greatly powder, for there is little or none
at all."

The day was fast approaching when all the power in England would be too
little for the demand. But matters had not very much mended even at
midsummer. It is true that Leicester, who was apt to be sanguine-
particularly in matters under his immediate control--spoke of the handful