CHAPTER VIII.
THE SPANISH ARMADA.
The struggle that was at hand between Spain and England had long beenforeseen as inevitable. The one power was the champion of RomanCatholicism, the other of Protestantism; and yet, although so much hungupon the result of the encounter, and all Europe looked on with themost intense interest, both parties entered upon the struggle withoutallies, and this entirely from the personal fault of the sovereigns ofthe two nations.
Queen Elizabeth, by her constant intrigues, her underhand dealings withFrance and Spain, her grasping policy in the Netherlands, her meannessand parsimony, and the fact that she was ready at any moment tosacrifice the Netherlands to her own policy, had wholly alienated thepeople of the Low Country; for while their own efforts for defence wereparalysed by the constant interference of Elizabeth, no benefit wasobtained from the English army, whose orders were to stand always onthe defensive--the queen's only anxiety appearing to be to keep hergrasp upon the towns that had been handed over to her as the price ofher alliance.
Her own counsellors were driven to their wits' end by her constantchanges of purpose. Her troops were starving and in rags from herparsimony, the fleet lay dismantled and useless from want of funds, andexcept such arming and drilling as took place at the expense of thenobles, counties, and cities, no preparation whatever was made to meetthe coming storm. Upon the other hand, Philip of Spain, who might havebeen at the head of a great Catholic league against England, hadisolated himself by his personal ambitions, Had he declared himselfready, in the event of his conquest of England, to place James ofScotland upon the throne, he would have had Scotland with him, togetherwith the Catholics of England, still a powerful and important body.
France, too, would have joined him, and the combination againstElizabeth and the Protestants of England would have been well-nighirresistible. But this he could not bring himself to do. His dream wasthe annexation of England to Spain; and smarting as the EnglishCatholics were under the execution of Mary of Scotland, their Englishspirit revolted against the idea of the rule of Spain, and the greatCatholic nobles hastened, when the moment of danger arrived, to join inthe defence of their country, while Scotland, seeing no advantage to begained in the struggle, stood sullenly aloof, and France gave no aid toa project which was to result, if successful, in the aggrandizement ofher already dangerously formidable neighbour.
Thus England and Spain stood alone--Philip slowly but steadilypreparing for the great expedition for the conquest of England,Elizabeth hesitating, doubtful; at one moment gathering seamen andarming her fleet, a month or two later discharging the sailors andlaying up the ships.
In the spring of 1587 Drake, with six vessels belonging to the crownand twenty-four equipped by merchants of London and other places, hadseized a moment when Elizabeth's fickle mind had inclined to warlikemeasures, and knowing that the mood might last but a day, had slippedout of Plymouth and sailed for Spain a few hours before a messengerarrived with a peremptory order from Elizabeth against entering anySpanish port or offering violence to any Spanish town or ships.Although caught in a gale in the Channel, Drake held on, and, reachingGibraltar on the 16th April, ascertained that Cadiz was crowded withtransports and store-ships.
Vice-admiral Burroughs, controller of the navy, who had been speciallyappointed to thwart Drake's plans, opposed any action being taken; butDrake insisted upon attack, and on the 19th the fleet stood in to Cadizharbour. Passing through the fire of the batteries, they sank the onlygreat ship of war in the roads, drove off the Spanish galleys, andseized the vast fleet of store-ships loaded with wine, corn, andprovisions of all sorts for the use of the Armada. Everything of valuethat could be conveniently moved was transferred to the English ships,then the Spanish vessels were set on fire, their cables cut, and theywere left to drift an entangled mass of flame. Drake took a number ofprisoners, and sent a messenger on shore proposing to exchange them forsuch English seamen as were prisoners in Spain. The reply was therewere no English prisoners in Spain; and as this was notoriously untrue,it was agreed in the fleet that all the Spaniards they might take inthe future should be sold to the Moors, and the money reserved for theredeeming of such Englishmen as might be in captivity there orelsewhere.
The English fleet then sailed for Cape St. Vincent, picking up on theirway large convoys of store-ships all bound for the Tagus, where theArmada was collecting. These were all burned, and Drake brought up atCape St. Vincent, hoping to meet there a portion of the Armada expectedfrom the Mediterranean. As a harbour was necessary, he landed, stormedthe fort at Faro, and took possession of the harbour there. Theexpected enemy did not appear, and Drake sailed up to the mouth of theTagus, intending to go into Lisbon and attack the great Spanish fleetlying there under its admiral, Santa Cruz.
That the force gathered there was enormous Drake well knew, but relyingas much on the goodness of his cause as on the valour of his sailors,and upon the fact that the enemy would be too crowded together to fightwith advantage, he would have carried out his plan had not a shiparrived from England with orders forbidding him to enter the Tagus.However, he lay for some time at the mouth of the river, destroyingevery ship that entered its mouth, and sending in a challenge to SantaCruz to come out and fight. The Spanish admiral did not accept it, andDrake then sailed to Corunna, and there, as at Cadiz, destroyed all theships collected in the harbour and then returned to England, having inthe course of a few months inflicted an enormous amount of damage uponSpain, and having taken the first step to prove that England was themistress of the sea.
But while the little band of English had been defending Sluys againstthe army of the Duke of Parma, Philip had been continuing hispreparations, filling up the void made by the destruction wrought byDrake, and preparing an Armada which he might well have considered tobe invincible. Elizabeth was still continuing her negotiations. She wasquite ready to abandon the Netherlands to Spain if she could but keepthe towns she held there, but she could not bring herself to hand theseover either to the Netherlands or to Spain. She urged the States tomake peace, to which they replied that they did not wish for peace onsuch terms as Spain would alone grant; they could defend themselves forten years longer if left alone; they did not ask for further help, andonly wanted their towns restored to them.
Had the Armada started as Philip intended in September, it would havefound England entirely unprepared, for Elizabeth still obstinatelyrefused to believe in danger, and the few ships that had been held incommission after Drake's return had been so long neglected that theycould hardly keep the sea without repair; the rest lay unrigged in theMedway. But the delay gave England fresh time for preparation. Parma'sarmy was lying in readiness for the invasion under canvas at Dunkirk,and their commander had received no information from Spain that thesailing of the Armada was delayed.
The cold, wet, and exposure told terribly upon them, and of the 30,000who were ready to embark in September not 18,000 were fit for serviceat the commencement of the year. The expenses of this army and of theArmada were so great that Philip was at last driven to give orders tothe Armada to start. But fortune again favoured England. Had the fleetsailed as ordered on the 30th of January they would again have foundthe Channel undefended, for Elizabeth, in one of her fits of economy,had again dismantled half the fleet that had been got ready for sea,and sent the sailors to their homes.
But the execution of Philip's orders was prevented by the sudden deathof Santa Cruz. The Duke of Medina-Sidonia was appointed his successor,but as he knew nothing of the state of the Armada fresh delays becamenecessary, and the time was occupied by Elizabeth, not in preparing forthe defence of the country, but in fresh negotiations for peace. Shewas ready to make any concessions to Spain, but Philip was now onlyamusing himself by deceiving her. Everything was now prepared for theexpedition, and just as the fleet was ready to start, the negotiationswere broken off. But though Elizabeth's government had made nopreparations for the defence of the country, England herself had notbeen idle. Throughout the whole c
ountry men had been mustered,officered, and armed, and 100,000 were ready to move as soon as thedanger became imminent.
The musters of the Midland counties, 30,000 strong, were to form aseparate army, and were to march at once to a spot between Windsor andHarrow. The rest were to gather at the point of danger. The coastcompanies were to fall back wherever the enemy landed, burning the cornand driving off the cattle, and avoiding a battle until the force ofthe neighbouring counties joined them. Should the landing take place aswas expected in Suffolk, Kent, or Sussex, it was calculated thatbetween 30,000 and 40,000 men would bar the way to the invaders beforethey reached London, while 20,000 men of the western counties wouldremain to encounter the Duke of Guise, who had engaged to bring acrossan army of Frenchmen to aid the Spaniards.
Spain, although well aware of the strength of England on the sea,believed that she would have no difficulty with the raw English levies;but Parma, who had met the English at Sluys, had learnt to respecttheir fighting qualities, and in a letter to Philip gave the opinionthat even if the Armada brought him a reinforcement of 6000 men hewould still have an insufficient force for the conquest of England. Hesaid, "When I shall have landed I must fight battle after battle. Ishall lose men by wounds and disease, I must leave detachments behindme to keep open my communications, and in a short time the body of myarmy will become so weak that not only I may be unable to advance inthe face of the enemy, and time may be given to the heretics and yourmajesty's other enemies to interfere, but there may fall out somenotable inconvenience, with the loss of everything, and I be unable toremedy it."
Unfortunately, the English fleet was far less prepared than the landforces. The militia had been easily and cheaply extemporized, but afleet can only be prepared by long and painful sacrifices. The entireEnglish navy contained but thirteen ships of over four hundred tons,and including small cutters and pinnaces there were but thirty-eightvessels of all sorts and sizes carrying the queen's flag. Fortunately,Sir John Hawkins was at the head of the naval administration, and inspite of the parsimony of Elizabeth had kept the fleet in a good stateof repair and equipment. The merchant navy, although numerous, wasequally deficient in vessels of any size.
Philip had encouraged ship-building in Spain by grants from the crown,allowing four ducats a ton for every ship built of above three hundredtons burden, and six ducats a ton for every one above five hundredtons. Thus he had a large supply of great ships to draw upon inaddition to those of the royal navy, while in England the largestvessels belonging to private owners did not exceed four hundred tons,and there were not more than two or three vessels of that size sailingfrom any port of the country. The total allowance by the queen for therepair of the whole of the royal navy, wages of shipwrights, clerks,carpenters, watchmen, cost of timber, and all other necessary dockyardexpenses, was but L4000 a-year.
In December the fleet was ready for sea, together with the contingentfurnished by the liberality and patriotism of the merchants andcitizens of the great ports. But as soon as it was got together halfthe crews collected and engaged at so great an expense were dismissed,the merchant ships released, and England open to invasion, and hadParma started in the vessels he had prepared, Lord Howard, whocommanded the English navy, could not have fired a shot to haveprevented his crossing.
Well might Sir John Hawkins in his despair at Elizabeth's capricesexclaim: "We are wasting money, wasting strength, dishonouring anddiscrediting ourselves by our uncertain dallying." But though dailyreports came from Spain of the readiness of the Armada to set sail,Elizabeth, even when she again permitted the navy to be manned,fettered it by allowing it to be provided with rations for only a monthat a time, and permitting no reserves to be provided in the victuallingstores; while the largest vessels were supplied with ammunition foronly a day and a half's service, and the rest of the fleet with butenough for one day's service. The council could do nothing, and LordHoward's letters prove that the queen, and she only, was responsiblefor the miserable state of things that prevailed.
At last, in May, Lord Howard sailed with the fleet down Channel,leaving Lord Henry Seymour with three men-of-war and a squadron ofprivateers to watch Dunkirk. At Plymouth the admiral found Drake withforty ships, all except one raised and sent to sea at the expense ofhimself and the gentry and merchants of the west counties. The weatherwas wild, as it had been all the winter. Howard with the great shipslay at anchor in the Sound, rolling heavily, while the smaller craftwent for shelter into the mouth of the river. There were but eighteendays' provisions on board; fresh supplies promised did not arrive, andthe crews were put on half rations, and eked these out by catchingfish. At last, when the supplies were just exhausted, the victuallingships arrived with one month's fresh rations, and a message that nomore would be sent. So villainous was the quality of the stores thatfever broke out in the fleet.
It was not until the end of the month that Elizabeth would even permitany further preparations to be made, and the supplies took some timecollecting. The crews would have been starved had not the officers sodivided the rations as to make them last six weeks. The men died inscores from dysentery brought on by the sour and poisonous beer issuedto them, and Howard and Drake ordered wine and arrow-root from the townfor the use of the sick, and had to pay for it from their own pockets.
But at last the Armada was ready for starting. Contingents of Spanish,Italians, and Portuguese were gathered together with the faithful fromall countries--Jesuits from France; exiled priests, Irish and English;and many Catholic Scotch, English, and Irish noblemen and gentlemen.The six squadrons into which the fleet was divided contained sixty-fivelarge war ships, the smallest of which was seven hundred tons. Sevenwere over one thousand, and the largest, an Italian ship, _LaRegazona_, was thirteen hundred. All were built high like castles,their upper works musket-proof, their main timbers four or five feetthick, and of a strength it was supposed no English cannon could pierce.
Next to the big ships, or galleons as they were called, were fourgalleasses, each carrying fifty guns and 450 soldiers and sailors, androwed by 300 slaves. Besides these were four galleys, fifty-six greatarmed merchant ships, the finest Spain possessed, and twenty caravelsor small vessels. Thus the fighting fleet amounted to 129 vessels,carrying in all 2430 cannon. On board was stored an enormous quantityof provisions for the use of the army after it landed in England, therebeing sufficient to feed 40,000 men for six months.
There were on board 8000 sailors, 19,000 soldiers, 1000 gentlemenvolunteers, 600 priests, servants, and miscellaneous officers, and 2000galley slaves. This was indeed a tremendous array to meet the fleetlying off Plymouth, consisting of 29 queen's ships of all sizes, 10small vessels belonging to Lord Howard and members of his family, and43 privateers between 40 and 400 tons under Drake, the united crewsamounting to something over 9000 men.
The winter had passed pleasantly to Geoffrey and Lionel Vickars; theearl had taken a great fancy to them, and they had stayed for some timein London as members of his suite. When the spring came they had spokenabout rejoining Francis Vere in Holland, but the earl had said thatthere was little doing there. The enmity excited by the conduct ofElizabeth prevented any co-operation between the Dutch and English; andindeed the English force was reduced to such straits by the refusal ofthe queen to furnish money for their pay, or to provide funds for evenabsolute necessaries, that it was wholly incapable of taking the field,and large numbers of the men returned to England.
Had this treatment of her soldiers and sailors at the time when suchperil threatened their country been occasioned by want of funds, someexcuse would have been possible for the conduct of Elizabeth; but atthe time there were large sums lying in the treasury, and it wasparsimony and not incapacity to pay that actuated Elizabeth in thecourse she pursued.
As the boys were still uneasy as to the opinion Francis Vere might formof their continued stay in England, they wrote to him, their letterbeing inclosed in one from the earl; but the reply set their minds atrest--"By all means stay in England," Captain Vere wro
te, "since thereis nothing doing here of any note or consequence, nor likely to be. Weare simply idling out time in Bergen-op-Zoom, and not one of us but islonging to be at home to bear his part in the events pending there. Itis hard, indeed, to be confined in this miserable Dutch town whileEngland is in danger. Unfortunately we are soldiers and must obeyorders; but as you are as yet only volunteers, free to act as youchoose, it would be foolish in the extreme for you to come over to thisdull place while there is so much going on in England. I have writtento my cousin, asking him to introduce you to some of the countrygentlemen who have fitted out a ship for service against the Spaniards,so that you may have a hand in what is going on."
This the earl had done, and early in May they had journeyed down toPlymouth on horseback with a party of other gentlemen who were going onboard the _Active_, a vessel of two hundred and fifty tons belonging toa gentleman of Devonshire, one Master Audrey Drake, a relation of SirFrancis Drake. The earl himself was with the party. He did not intendto go on board, for he was a bad sailor; and though ready, as he said,to do his share of fighting upon land, would be only an encumbrance onboard a ship.
He went down principally at the request of Cecil and other members ofthe council, who, knowing that he was a favourite of the queen, thoughtthat his representations as to the state of the fleet might do morethan they could do to influence her to send supplies to the distressedsailors. The earl visited the ships lying in the mouth of the Tamar,and three times started in a boat to go out to those in the Sound; butthe sea was so rough, and he was so completely prostrated by sickness,that he had each time to put back. What he saw, however, on board theships he visited, and heard from Lord Howard as to the state of thoseat sea, was quite sufficient. He at once expended a considerable amountof money in buying wine and fresh meat for the sick, and then hurriedaway to London to lay before the queen the result of his personalobservations, and to implore her to order provisions to be immediatelydespatched to the fleet.
But even the description given by one of her favourites of thesufferings of the seamen was insufficient to induce the queen to openher purse-strings, and the earl left her in great dudgeon; and althoughhis private finances had been much straitened by his extravagance andlove of display, he at once chartered a ship, filled her withprovisions, and despatched her to Plymouth.
Mr. Drake and the gentlemen with him took up their abode in the townuntil there should be need for them to go on board the _Active_, wherethe accommodation was much cramped, and life by no means agreeable; andthe Vickars therefore escaped sharing the sufferings of those on boardship.
At the end of May came the news that the Armada had sailed on the 19th,and high hopes were entertained that the period of waiting hadterminated. A storm, however, scattered the great fleet, and it was notuntil the 12th of July that they sailed from the Bay of Ferrol, wherethey had collected after the storm.
Never was there known a season so boisterous as the summer of 1588, andwhen off Ushant, in a south-west gale, four galleys were wrecked on theFrench coast, and the _Santa Anna_, a galleon of 800 tons, went down,carrying with her ninety seamen, three hundred soldiers, and 50,000ducats in gold.
After two days the storm abated, and the fleet again proceeded. Atdaybreak on the 20th the Lizard was in sight, and an Englishfishing-boat was seen running along their line. Chase was given, butshe soon out-sailed her pursuers, and carried the news to Plymouth. TheArmada had already been made out from the coast the night before, andbeacon lights had flashed the news all over England. In every villageand town men were arming and saddling and marching away to therendezvous of the various corps.
In Plymouth the news was received with the greatest rejoicing. Thanksto the care with which the provisions had been husbanded, and to themanner in which the officers and volunteers had from their privatemeans supplemented the scanty stores, there was still a week'sprovisions on board, and this, it was hoped, would suffice for theirneeds. The scanty supply of ammunition was a greater source of anxiety;but they hoped that fresh supplies would be forthcoming, now that eventhe queen could no longer close her eyes to the urgent necessity of thecase.
As soon as the news arrived all the gentlemen in the town flocked onboard the ships, and on the night of the 19th the queen's ships andsome of the privateers went to moorings behind Ram Head, so that theycould make clear to sea; and on the morning when the Spaniards sightedthe Lizard, forty sail were lying ready for action under the headland.
At three o'clock in the afternoon the look-out men on the hill reporteda line of sails on the western horizon. Two wings were at firstvisible, which were gradually united as the topsails of those in thecentre rose above the line of sea. As they arose it could be seen thatthe great fleet was sailing, in the form of a huge crescent, before agentle wind. A hundred and fifty ships, large and small, were counted,as a few store-ships bound for Flanders had joined the Armada forprotection.
The _Active_ was one of the privateers that had late the evening beforegone out to Earn Head, and just as it was growing dusk the anchors weregot up, and the little fleet sailed out from the shelter of the land asthe Armada swept along.
The Spanish admiral at once ordered the fleet to lie-to for the night,and to prepare for a general action at daybreak, as he knew from afisherman he had captured that the English fleet were at Plymouth. Thewind was on shore, but all through the night Howard's and Drake's shipsbeat out from the Sound until they took their places behind the Spanishfleet, whose position they could perfectly make out by the light of thehalf-moon that rose at two in the morning.
On board the English fleet all was confidence and hilarity. Thesufferings of the last three months were forgotten. The numbers andmagnitude of the Spanish ships counted as nothing. The sailors of thewest country had met the Spaniards on the Indian seas and proved theirmasters, and doubted not for a moment that they should do so again.
There was scarce a breath of air when day broke, but at eight o'clock abreeze sprang up from the west, and the Armada made sail and attemptedto close with the English; but the low, sharp English ships sailed twofeet to the one of the floating castles of Spain, and could sail closeto the wind, while the Spanish ships, if they attempted to close-haultheir sails, drifted bodily to leeward. Howard's flagship, the_Ark-Raleigh_, with three other English ships, opened the engagement byrunning down along their rear-line, firing into each galleon as theypassed, then wearing round and repeating the manoeuvre. The great _SanMatteo_ luffed out from the rest of the fleet and challenged them toboard, but they simply poured their second broadside into her andpassed on.
The excellence of the manoeuvring of the English ships, and therapidity and accuracy of their fire, astonished the Spaniards.Throughout the whole forenoon the action continued; the Spaniardsmaking efforts to close, but in vain, the English ships keeping theweather-gage and sailing continually backwards and forwards, pouring intheir broadsides. The height and size of the Spanish ships were againstthem; and being to leeward they heeled over directly they came up tothe wind to fire a broadside, and their shots for the most part wentfar over their assailants, while they themselves suffered severely fromthe English fire. Miquel de Oquendo, who commanded one of the sixSpanish squadrons, distinguished himself by his attempts to close withthe English, and by maintaining his position in the rear of the fleetengaged in constant conflict with them.
He was a young nobleman of great promise, distinguished alike for hisbravery and chivalrous disposition; but he could do little while thewind remained in the west and the English held the weather-gage. So faronly the ships that had been anchored out under Earn Head had takenpart in the fight, those lying higher up in the Sound being unable tomake their way out. At noon the exertions of their crews, who had fromthe preceding evening worked incessantly, prevailed, and they were nowseen coming out from behind the headland to take part in the struggle.Medina-Sidonia signalled to his fleet to make sail up Channel, Martinezde Ricaldo covering the rear with the squadron of Biscay. He wasvice-admiral of the fleet, and consider
ed to be the best seaman Spainpossessed now that Santa Cruz was dead.
The wind was now rising. Lord Howard sent off a fast boat with lettersto Lord Henry Seymour, telling him how things had gone so far, andbidding him be prepared for the arrival of the Spanish fleet in theDowns. As the afternoon went on the wind rose, and a rolling sea camein from the west. Howard still hung upon the Spanish rear, firing butseldom in order to save his powder. As evening fell, the Spanishvessels, huddled closely together, frequently came into collision withone another, and in one of these the _Capitana_, the flagship of theAndalusian division, commanded by Admiral Pedro de Valdez, had herbowsprit carried away, the foremast fell overboard, and the shipdropped out of her place.
Two of the galleasses came to her assistance and tried to take her intow, but the waves were running so high that the cable broke. Pedro deValdez had been commander of the Spanish fleet on the coast of Holland,and knew the English Channel and the northern shores of France andHolland well. The duke therefore despatched boats to bring him off withhis crew, but he refused to leave his charge. Howard, as with his shipshe passed her, believed her to be deserted and went on after the fleet;but a London vessel kept close to her and exchanged shots with her allnight, until Drake, who had turned aside to chase what he believed tobe a portion of the Spanish fleet that had separated itself from therest, but which turned out to be the merchant ships that had joined itfor protection, came up, and the _Capitana_ struck her flag. Drake tookher into Torbay, and there left her in the care of the Brixhamfishermen, and taking with him Valdez and the other officers sailedaway to join Lord Howard. The fishermen, on searching the ship, foundsome tons of gunpowder on board her. Knowing the scarcity of ammunitionin the fleet they placed this on board the _Roebuck_, the fastesttrawler in the harbour, and she started at once in pursuit of the fleet.
The misfortune to the _Capitana_, was not the only one that befell theSpaniards. While Oquendo was absent from his galleon a quarrel aroseamong the officers, who were furious at the ill result of the day'sfighting. The captain struck the master-gunner with a stick; thelatter, a German, rushed below in a rage, thrust a burning fuse into apowder barrel, and sprang through a port-hole into the sea. The wholeof the deck was blown up, with two hundred sailors and soldiers; butthe ship was so strongly built that she survived the shock, and hermast still stood.
The duke sent boats to learn what had happened. These carried off thefew who remained unhurt, but there was no means of taking off thewounded. These, however, were treated kindly and sent on shore when theship was picked up at daylight by the English, who, on rifling her,found to their delight that there were still many powder barrels onboard that had escaped the explosion.
The morning broke calm, and the wind, when it came, was from the east,which gave the Spaniards the advantage of position. The two fleets layidle all day three or four miles apart, and the next morning, as thewind was still from the east, the Spaniards bore down upon Howard tooffer battle.
The English, however, headed out to sea. Encouraged by seeing theirassailants avoid a pitched battle the Spaniards gave chase. The _SanMarcos_, the fastest sailer in the fleet, left the rest behind, andwhen the breeze headed round at noon she was several miles to windwardof her consorts, and the English at once set upon her. She fought withextreme courage, and defended herself single-handed for an hour and ahalf, when Oquendo came up to the rescue, and as the action offPlymouth had almost exhausted his stock of powder, and the Brixhamsloop had not yet come up, Howard was obliged to draw off.
The action of this day was fought off Portland. During the three daysthe British fleet had been to sea they had received almost hourlyreinforcements. From every harbour and fishing port along the coastfrom Plymouth to the Isle of Wight vessels of all sizes, smacks, andboats put off, crowded with noblemen and gentlemen anxious to take partin the action, and their enthusiasm added to that of the weary andill-fed sailors. At the end of the third day the English fleet hadincreased to a hundred sail, many of which, however, were of very smallburden.