England breathes again. They came to conquer, to bring us to the torture
and the stake--to do to us free Englishmen as Cortes did by the Indians
of Anahuac. Our manhood to the slave bench, our daughters to dishonour,
our souls to the loving-kindness of the priest, our wealth to the
Emperor and the Pope! God has answered them with his winds, Drake has
answered them with his guns. They are gone, and with them the glory of
Spain.

I, Thomas Wingfield, heard the news to-day on this very Thursday in the
Bungay market-place, whither I went to gossip and to sell the apples
which these dreadful gales have left me, as they hang upon my trees.

Before there had been rumours of this and of that, but here in Bungay
was a man named Young, of the Youngs of Yarmouth, who had served in one
of the Yarmouth ships in the fight at Gravelines, aye and sailed north
after the Spaniards till they were lost in the Scottish seas.

Little things lead to great, men say, but here great things lead to
little, for because of these tidings it comes about that I, Thomas
Wingfield, of the Lodge and the parish of Ditchingham in the county of
Norfolk, being now of a great age and having only a short time to live,
turn to pen and ink. Ten years ago, namely, in the year 1578, it pleased
her Majesty, our gracious Queen Elizabeth, who at that date visited this
county, that I should be brought before her at Norwich. There and then,
saying that the fame of it had reached her, she commanded me to give
her some particulars of the story of my life, or rather of those twenty
years, more or less, which I spent among the Indians at that time when
Cortes conquered their country of Anahuac, which is now known as Mexico.
But almost before I could begin my tale, it was time for her to start
for Cossey to hunt the deer, and she said it was her wish that I should