And this approaching destruction of England--now generally believed in--
was like the sound of a trumpet throughout Catholic Europe. Scions of
royal houses, grandees of azure blood, the bastard of Philip II., the
bastard of Savoy, the bastard of Medici, the Margrave of Burghaut, the
Archduke Charles, nephew of the Emperor, the Princes of Ascoli and of
Melfi, the Prince of Morocco, and others of illustrious name, with many
a noble English traitor, like Paget, and Westmoreland, and Stanley, all
hurried to the camp of Farnese, as to some famous tournament, in which it
was a disgrace to chivalry if their names were not enrolled. The roads
were trampled with levies of fresh troops from Spain, Naples, Corsica,
the States of the Church, the Milanese, Germany, Burgundy.

Blas Capizucca was sent in person to conduct reinforcements from the
north of Italy. The famous Terzio of Naples, under Carlos Pinelo,
arrived 3500 strong--the most splendid regiment ever known in the history
of war. Every man had an engraved corslet and musket-barrel, and there
were many who wore gilded armour, while their waving plumes and festive
caparisons made them look like holiday-makers, rather than real
campaigners, in the eyes of the inhabitants of the various cities through
which their road led them to Flanders. By the end of April the Duke of
Parma saw himself at the head of 60,000 men, at a monthly expense of
454,315 crowns or dollars. Yet so rapid was the progress of disease--
incident to northern climates--among those southern soldiers, that we
shall find the number woefully diminished before they were likely to set
foot upon the English shore.

Thus great preparations, simultaneously with pompous negotiations, had
been going forward month after month, in England, Holland, Flanders.
Nevertheless, winter, spring, two-thirds of summer, had passed away, and
on the 29th July, 1588, there remained the same sickening uncertainty,