Let him bring millions infinite of men, Unpeopling weſterne Affrica and Greece: Yet we aſſure vs of the victorie.

Others, most notably David C. Nicolle, claim instead that this merely depicts a mail ventail (the face covering of a mail coif), which has been unlaced for comfort when not in battle.

She that has [chastity], is clad in compleat steel.

This half-embrace of failure, as Coward suggests, is something the British like to think of as distinctly British.