Welsh Journals

the vanguard at the victorious affray of Puente de Burgos. In May, 1591, serving under Henry of Navarre in the earthworks before Dieppe, he, with six hundred men, most of them English, charged and routed two full regiments of the Catholic League. Glory to God and to the said Sir Roger Williams," wrote Henry of Navarre's English Ambassador, who has not belied by this action the good opinion that all good people of both nations had of him this long time." At the siege of Rue in 1592 he led a daring sortie. Casting aside his armour he charged with one hundred and fifty men against five squadrons of Spanish and Italian cavalry and six companies of Spanish infantry. He himself accounted for the leader of the horse, and with one shrewd sword-cut, all but cut off the head of the Albanian chief, George Basti. It is little wonder then that pamphlets of his achievements in the wars, entitled, Newes from Sir Roger Williams," sold like hot cakes in the streets of London, and in Chapman's play, Byron's Conspiracy, Henry of Navarre, no doubt for the benefit of the groundlings," is made to refer to the "swelling valour of Colonel Williams. Like that other Welshman of much care and valour," the Fluellen of Shakespeare's play, Sir Roger was of an impulsive, choleric, courageous nature, 1. valiant, And touched with choler hot as gunpowder And quickly will return an injury." but yet quite as ready as that lovable champion of the leek to end his many quarrels and duels amicably. When in 1581, a Captain Thomas in the Spanish service challenged Sir John Norris to a duel and Norris declined, Sir Roger took up the gage. A combat followed in full view of both armies. Both combatants being evenly balanced, no blood was drawn, and the affair ended in a friendly carouse. He was always ready, like Fluellen, to argue about the art of war with those about him, and his squab- bles with his superiors were constant and fiery. At the Tilbury camp his frequent disappearances without leave often brought him into hot water. Shakespeare might very well have copied from him Fluellen's pedantic and ardent zeal for the dis- ciplines of the wars the ceremonies of the wars and the cares of it and the forms of it." For like him, Sir Roger was pre-eminently goot knowledge and literatured in the wars witness his Brief Discourse of War with His Opinions con- cerning some part of Martial Discipline," and his Actions of the Low Countries he was en- thusiastic in his impartial admiration for the dis- cipline" of Parma's army; nor could Fluellen in his heated disputes on military matters with Captain Macmorris (" For, look you, the mines is not according to the disciplines of wars. He has no more directions in the true disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines, than is a puppy dog ") have outdone the vigour with which Sir Roger entered into controversy with his many critics. With the Queen he was on indifferent terms the soldierly bluntness of his speech and the persis- tency with which he advocated more radical measures against Spain (thus compromising her policy of wise passiveness ") did not tend to conciliate her. I would refuse no hazard in the Queen's service, he wrote in 1584, "but I do persuade myself she makes no account of me," and he feared he would have to serve Duke Matthias in Hungary or one of the Turkish pashas against Persia. On one of his appearances at Court to prefer some suit, Elizabeth observing a new pair of boots on his legs, claps her hand to her nose and cries, Fah, Williams, I prithee begone, thy boots stink.' Tut, tut, Madame,' he replied with rough wit, 'Tis my suit that stinks. After one of his Tilbury escapades, she got very angry indeed and commanded the straightest measures to be taken with him; but she had to change her mind when Walsingham bluntly told her that such a course was unthinkable owing to Sir Roger's immense popularity among the soldiers. In July, 1595, when visiting England, he had the satisfaction of being received at Greenwich by her Majesty and all the Court in "a friendly public welcome." Late in the same year when again in London, he was taken suddenly ill of a surfeit in Baynard's Castle," and he died well and very repentant, so we are told, in his lodgings near Paul's Wharf. On the 23rd December, 1595, he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral in very good martiall sort," and among the mourners were all the warlike men of the city of London." EJIW.