DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

16 grant his request, but not wishing to offend him she remained silent for a time, thinking how best to soften her refusal. She noticed in the meantime that his boots, instead of being bright and polished, were made of rough and untanned leather, so she turned away, pretending to be disgusted, and exclaimed, ‘Oh, Williams, how your boots smell!’ ‘Tut, Madam,’ replied the sturdy Welshman, with an appropriate pun, ‘it is my suit that smells, not my boots.’ Her avarice often betrayed her into a false economy. She allowed herself to be persuaded at a moment of great national peril, when the Spanish fleet, the Invincible Armada, had actually set sail for the shores of England, that soldiers and sailors wished for war because it was their trade, and she dismissed from their ships. the crews which had been collected at much expense; she forbade the dispatch of the re- quired amount of provisions, and sent an inadequate supply of beer, which was sour and poisonous into the bargain, and produced dysentery. When the commanders ordered fresh provisions on their own responsibility, she called them to sharp account, and made them pay the bill themselves. Then shortly afterwards, when the Armada had been defeated, and the country saved from complete annihilation, her first act was to complain of a trivial waste of provisions, and the carelessness by which some biscuits had been spoilt by the sea-water. Sir