The Infanta to be Queen of England--Approaches of the Scottish
Catholic lords to Philip--Execution of Mary Stuart--Intrigues for
the English succession--Drake’s expedition to Cadiz--The peace
negotiations with Farnese--Preparations for the Armada--Sailing of
the Armada from Lisbon--Its return to Vigo--Medina Sidonia advises
its abandonment--Its strength--Engagements with the English--Panic
at Calais--Final defeat--Causes of the disaster--Philip’s reception
of the news.
The principle of a direct Spanish invasion of England had now been
adopted by Philip as the only means of getting rid of Elizabeth, and
again uniting the country to him in a close alliance. He clearly foresaw
that the absorption of Great Britain into his own dominions would be
resisted to the last by France, the pope, and most of the Italian
princes, as well as by Protestants everywhere, and that the opposition
would be too strong for him to overcome. He therefore decided to
nominate as sovereign his favourite elder daughter, Isabel Clara
Eugenia, whose mother, it will be recollected, was a French princess,
and a daughter of Catharine de Medici. He probably thought by this
nomination to minimise the opposition of France, and that the pope would
be conciliated.
The Scottish Catholics and Guise, however, did not relish the changed
position. They were being thrust further and further into the
background, and they accordingly made a determined attempt once again to
place themselves in the forefront. Guise saw that the influence of the
Scottish-French party in the Vatican and near Philip was powerless to
overcome that of the Jesuits, Allen and the English exiles, supplemented
by Philip’s own interests, and he therefore intrigued for the pressure
to be brought to bear from Scotland itself upon Philip. He arranged for
Huntly, Morton, and Claude Hamilton to send an emissary, Robert Bruce,
under his (Guise’s) auspices to Philip, offering him, if they where
supported, to restore the Catholic religion in Scotland, to compel James
to become a Catholic, and to release Mary, and, above all, “to deliver
into his Majesty’s hands at once, or when his Majesty thinks fit, one or
two good ports in Scotland near the English border to be used against
the Queen of England.” They asked for 6000 foreign troops paid for a
year and 150,000 crowns to equip their own clansmen.
There had been great difference of opinion in Philip’s councils as to
the advisability of invading England through Scotland or direct. It was
conceded that the former would be more convenient, but that for the
reasons already stated it would be unpopular with the English Catholics.
But Santa Cruz and all of Philip’s most experienced advisers had
continued to urge upon him the need of having some ports of refuge in
the Channel or the North Sea; and the offer of the Scottish nobles
seemed to provide this, as well as furnishing a diversion in the north,
which would greatly harass Elizabeth. Bruce arrived in Madrid in
September 1586, and met with kindly but vague encouragement from Philip,
who suggested that Bruce should go to Rome and ask the pope for the
money, which he knew to be impracticable. In fact, the plans of the
Armada were now matured and in full preparation, and although the offer
of the Scottish lords was tempting, Philip was determined that Guise
should have no share in his enterprise. Farnese and Mendoza were
requested to report upon the proposal, with a view of obtaining, if
possible, the advantages offered by the Scots without Guise’s
interference. Mendoza was strongly favourable; Farnese was cool and
doubtful. He resented Philip’s half confidence in him, and perhaps also
the complete ignoring of his children’s claim to the English crown,
which was at least as good as Philip’s. He declined to give an opinion
until he knew what were Philip’s real intentions in the invasion.
Mendoza was strongly in favour of immediately closing with the Scottish
offer. He pointed out that to attack England by sea was to strike her in
her strongest place, whilst a disaster to the Armada, in which all the
national resources had been pledged, would bring irretrievable ruin. But
Philip and Farnese were slow, and wanted all sorts of guarantees and
assurances, which kept Bruce in Flanders and France for months, whilst
his principals, sick of vague half-promises, lost heart, and talked of
going over to the Protestant side, on a pledge that their religion
should be tolerated. Then Bruce was sent back with 10,000 crowns to
freight a number of small boats at Leith and send them to Dunkirk for
Parma’s troops; and the 150,000 crowns demanded by the Scottish lords
were promised when they rose. This was kept from Guise, but he knew all
about it from his spies in Scotland, and was intensely wroth. Catharine
de Medici also learnt of the matter, and thought it a good opportunity
of ridding herself of Guise and checkmating Philip at the same time. She
therefore offered Guise a large subsidy if he would go and help his
kinsman James to the crown. He thought wiser, however, to divulge the
Spanish plot to James himself. Elizabeth also informed James, so that
when Bruce arrived in Scotland the artful young king was forewarned, and
was only vaguely courteous in his reception of the hints that the
Spaniard would help him to avenge his mother. He was indeed now
surrounded by Protestant ministers, and fully understood that he had
more to hope for from Elizabeth than from Philip, a view indeed which
Elizabeth and her party lost no opportunity of impressing upon him.
In the meanwhile the execution of Mary Stuart had somewhat altered
Philip’s position in relation to England. It became now necessary that
the question of his title to the crown should be settled at once, and
the pope was cautiously approached with the suggestion that he should
give the investiture to the Infanta Isabel. Allen was employed to assure
his Holiness of the desire of the English Catholics that she should be
their sovereign, and to ply him with genealogical essays and pedigrees
proving her right. Cardinal Deza too, the savage bigot who had so
fiercely harried the Moriscos in Andalucia, was prompted to inflame the
pope’s zeal by showing him that only under Philip’s auspices could
Catholicism be firmly established in England. In the meanwhile the
Scottish party, led by Chisholm, Bishop of Dunblane, with the English
Pagets and others, were full of plans for converting James. One
persuasive churchman after another was sent to tackle him, but the wily
Stuart was not to be caught, and it came to nothing. Philip expressed
and showed the deepest grief for the death of Mary Stuart, and fulfilled
her dying wishes most scrupulously, at great cost to himself. There is
no reason to doubt the sincerity of his sorrow, especially as her death
added considerably to the immediate difficulties he had to overcome.
Whilst the intrigues continued in Rome--on Philip’s side to obtain
further aid from the pope, to secure the appointment of Allen as
cardinal, and the recognition of the Infanta as Queen of England, and on
the other side to secure the pontiff’s support of the Franco-Scottish
plans for James Stuart’s conversion, or even an arrangement with
Elizabeth--through all the year 1587 the ports and arsenals of Spain and
Portugal were busy with the preparations for the great expedition. Don
Antonio was in England now, clamouring for armed aid against his enemy,
his every action watched by Philip’s spies; and from them news reached
Spain that a considerable force was being fitted out under Drake in
England in Antonio’s interests again to attack the Azores, or to plunder
the treasure ships from the Indies. But suddenly the dreaded Drake with
his fleet appeared off Cadiz on April 18.[2] Elizabeth had only with
great unwillingness allowed him to sail for Spain, and had warned him
not to do too much harm, but to watch what was being done. As usual, as
soon as he was out of sight of England he took his own course, placed
his vice-admiral, Borough, under arrest for reminding him not to exceed
the queen’s orders, and entered Cadiz harbour, to the dismay of the
Spaniards. He plundered, burned, and sunk all the ships in the port, and
destroyed all the stores he could lay hands upon, and then quietly
sailed out again unmolested. He did damage to the extent of a million
ducats, and if he had disobeyed the queen’s orders still further, he
might have stopped the Armada for good, by burning the ships in Lisbon,
for we now know from Santa Cruz’s own confession that there were no men
or guns on board to protect them. But he no doubt thought he had done
enough, for he knew that his mistress was now engaged in peace
negotiations with Farnese on account of Philip.[3] The English
commissioners, the traitor Crofts, controller of the household, amongst
them, after endless bickering and delay, arranged a place of meeting
agreeable to both parties, and every effort to drag matters out was made
by Farnese, in order to give Philip more time for preparations, whilst
the English were to be lulled by false hopes of peace. How far Elizabeth
herself was deceived in these negotiations is uncertain, but the
commissioners, and the experienced Dr. Dale with them, were not very
long before they came to the conclusion that they were insincere. The
most extraordinary element in the case is that Farnese was at first
ignorant of Philip’s real intention, and wrote strongly urging the king
to let him make peace in earnest and abandon his plans for the invasion
of England. From first to last, indeed, Farnese had no heart or belief
in the enterprise. He foresaw all the difficulties which ultimately
befell it and more, and, although he vehemently justified himself for
his share in the catastrophe, his contemporaries were firm in the belief
that he purposely failed to do his best. It is certain, from frequent
complaints in his letters, that he considered himself aggrieved, and
resented the cool half-confidence with which his uncle treated him. “How
can I,” he says, “give sound advice or make fitting arrangements unless
I am informed of the real objects in view?”
In the early spring of 1586 Santa Cruz had furnished a complete estimate
of all that would be required for the Armada--a perfect monument of
knowledge and foresight. There were to be 150 great ships, 320 smaller
vessels of from 50 to 80 tons each, 40 galleys and 6 galleasses, 556 in
all, besides 240 flat boats and pinnaces. There were to be 30,000 seamen
and 63,890 soldiers, with 1600 horses; and the extra expenditure was
calculated at 3,800,000 ducats. But to concentrate so powerful a force
as this in Spain itself was too great a task for Philip’s haste, and he
took the first fatal step by arranging that one-half was to be raised by
Farnese in Flanders, for now Philip, like most slow men when they have
once made up their minds, was in a desperate hurry. For thirty years he
had driven his most faithful servants to despair by his stolid
impassibility to English insult and aggression. He had seen his colonies
sacked, his commerce destroyed by English privateers; he had been robbed
of treasure beyond calculation, and suffered every imaginable insult
from a queen whom he could have crushed a dozen times over in the
earlier years of her reign. Leicester, who had fawned upon him, and had
sworn eternal fealty to him, had commanded an army against him in his
own territory; and the English privy councillors, who for years had
battened on his bribes, had connived at the placing on the brows of a
foreigner one of his own ancestral crowns. He had stood all this without
revolt, in the face of his councillors, but, when at last he had lifted
his ponderous “leaden foot,” he must needs do things in haste. Santa
Cruz, old sailor as he was, could ill brook divided command with Parma,
knowing that he must in the end take second place, and he became
discontented and jealous at the alterations of his plans. He urged--as
did every one else--that some safe ports of refuge must first be secured
in the North Sea; but Philip was in a hurry, and trusted to happy
chance. In September 1587 Santa Cruz received his instructions. He was
to go direct to Margate and protect the passage of Parma’s troops
across, and he was on no account to allow himself to be diverted from
this course until he had joined hands with Parma. In vain the old sailor
represented the danger of adopting this plan until they could be sure of
harbours of refuge in case of need. The king still hoped to beguile the
English with thoughts of peace, and answered with harsh hauteur Santa
Cruz’s assurance that hurry meant failure. The old hero, who would have
stood unmoved before an army, incontinently went home and died of a
broken heart (February 1588). Philip so rarely said a hasty word, that
when he did so, the effect was terrible.
The commanders and nobles on the Armada were jealous and quarrelsome,
already chafing at the delay and appalling mismanagement which resulted
from Philip’s insistence that all details must go through him. The only
man whose rank and power would ensure respect from all of them was the
most splendid noble in Spain, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who was under
orders to take the Andalucian squadron from Cadiz to Lisbon; and him
Philip appointed to the command. He protested plaintively, and truly,
that he was entirely unfit for the task. He had no experience or
knowledge of the sea, he was always sea-sick, and had no mental capacity
which fitted him to a great command. Philip probably knew this as well
as the duke, or even the duchess, who was very emphatic on the subject;
but it suited him, he thought, to have such a man, because he would be
certain to obey the king’s orders strictly, and Philip was anxious, as
usual, to control the whole expedition with unerring precision from his
cell in the Escorial, hundreds of miles away. When the duke arrived in
Lisbon he found everything in utter confusion. Arms, ammunition, stores,
and men were short. Orders given had not been fulfilled, and many weeks
passed before Medina Sidonia could report that all was ready,
notwithstanding the king’s urgent requests that not a day should be
lost. The most trifling matters were considered and decided by the king
himself in Madrid. Nothing could be done without him. The stronger sorts
of wine must be mixed with a certain quantity of water; the men on the
fleet must be confessed and take the communion before sailing, and must
not use bad language; no private berths or bunks must be erected on the
ships, and scores of similar orders were sent from Madrid solemnly
signed by the king, whilst the duke was praying for men, money, and
stores, and the victuallers, with the connivance of the pursers, were
shipping rotten food, fraudulent both in quantity and quality. At length
in April the preparations had sufficiently advanced for Philip to send
his final instructions to the duke. He is reminded that he is going on a
holy errand in God’s service, and divine aid may therefore be counted
upon. He is to go direct to Margate and then join hands with the Duke of
Parma and protect his passage across, and is not to be diverted from
this even if he hears that Drake has come to Spain. If possible, he was
to send to Parma the promised contingent of 6000 soldiers; and, if by
any mishap he could not join hands with him, he was to capture the Isle
of Wight, and then communicate with Parma, who, in union with him, would
settle the next step. With this instruction a very important closed
despatch was sent, to be delivered to Parma only after he had landed in
England.
This despatch is of the greatest possible interest as fixing definitely
what where Philip’s ultimate aims in the invasion, and the irreducible
minimum with which he would have been satisfied. If Parma found that
conquest was not easy, and considered it advisable to make peace, there
were three points upon which he was to base his negotiations. First,
that free exercise of the Catholic religion should be allowed; secondly,
that the fortresses occupied by the English in the Netherlands should
be restored to him; and, thirdly, that the damage done to Spain and
Spanish subjects should be made good. The third condition was to be used
mainly as a lever to obtain the other two; but the first condition,
namely, religious toleration, was to be the main object, and with this,
as a last resource, Philip would have been contented.
On April 25 the sacred standard was delivered to Medina Sidonia with
great pomp in Lisbon. Rogations, prayers, fastings, and propitiatory
masses were performed ceaselessly, not only on board the Armada, but all
over Spain. In the most solemn manner the soldiers and sailors were
inflamed with the idea that they were God’s own chosen warriors, going
under His divine protection to restore the faith to millions of English
people, who were yearning for their coming--to millions held in
subjection by a wicked queen and a few heretics. The weather was
bad--like December, said the duke,--and it was May 30 before the great
fleet could be got out of the Tagus. Head winds and heavy weather kept
them off the coast--some of the ships drifting as far down as Cape St.
Vincent--for a fortnight. By that time the victuals on board were going
bad and running short. Many had to be thrown overboard, and sickness
began to prevail, mainly in consequence of overcrowding and putrid food
and water. By June 14, when the duke was off Finisterre, it became
evident that if the expedition was to continue, fresh provisions would
have to be obtained, and despatch boats were sent to the ports begging
that supplies might be sent to them. Before they could reach the
fleet--June 19--a heavy gale came on, and the duke’s flagship, with
forty other vessels, ran for refuge into Corunna. During the night it
blew a hurricane, and the rest of the ships, scattered as they were and
unable to bear up to windward, were driven far apart and in great peril.
Some of them ran into various Biscay and Galician ports, others were
driven as far north as the Scilly Isles and the English coast, many were
badly damaged, and for days the fate of the majority of them was
uncertain. The duke lost what little heart he had for the expedition,
and seriously advised the king to abandon it. It had been proved now
that the water was putrid and insufficient, the food rotten, except the
rice, and that fraud of the most shameful description had been practised
by the victuallers. The officers, said the duke, did not know their
duty; the whole force was disorganised and too weak to undertake the
task in hand. This was a counsel of despair, and Philip’s only answer
was that not a moment was to be lost in revictualling and refitting the
fleet and proceeding on the voyage. The rough old sea-dogs on the
fleet--Bertondona, Recalde, and Oquendo--were scornful at the timid fine
gentlemen who surrounded them and trembled at the perils of the sea.
They had been breasting the gales of the North Atlantic since they were
boys, and could not understand the doubts and fears which assailed the
crowds of silken-clad landsmen who swarmed on board and got in the way
of the sailormen. The king had appointed a council of officers to advise
the duke. Don Pedro de Valdes was for sailing at once, before even
waiting for the scattered ships to come in. This annoyed the duke, who
was all for delay, and Don Pedro himself ascribed to this feeling his
subsequent abandonment and capture by the English. The king continued to
urge Medina Sidonia to activity, sometimes almost chidingly, and at
last, tired of the obviously wilful delay, he gave peremptory orders
that the Armada was to sail at once. The men were once more confessed
and absolved, and finally on July 22 (N.S.), 1588, the great fleet left
Corunna harbour, not without grave misgivings of the timid duke, which
were openly scoffed at by the sailors. The whole fleet consisted of 131
sail, with 7050 sailors, 17,000 soldiers, and 1300 officers,
gentlemen-adventurers, priests, and servants. The four galleys soon
found themselves unable to live through the Biscay seas and abandoned
the Armada, taking refuge in various French and Spanish ports. The rest
of the fleet first sighted the Lizard at four o’clock in the afternoon
of Friday, July 30 (N.S.). The moment land was discovered the blessed
flag with the crucifix, the Virgin, and the Magdalen was hoisted, and
signals fired that every man on board the fleet should join in prayer.
Then a council was called, and for the first time the admirals were
informed of the king’s orders. They were dismayed to find that they were
to sail up the Channel to the Straits of Dover, leaving Plymouth, and
perhaps the English fleet, behind them untouched. Recalde warned the
duke against ruining the king’s cause by a too slavish obedience to his
orders, and almost violently urged him to attack and take Plymouth
before going further. The duke replied that “the king had ordered him
strictly to join hands with Parma before anything else, and he had no
discretion in the matter; nor was he so vain as to suppose that the
king would allow him to violate his commands on this, his first
expedition.” The commanders, however, sufficiently worked on the duke’s
fears to prevail upon him to write to the king that night, saying that
as he had not received any reply from Parma to all his despatches, he
purposed to remain off the Isle of Wight until he heard whether the
Flemish forces were quite ready, because, as they had no ports of refuge
in the Channel, he could not wait for Parma off the shoally Flemish
coast.
The first panic in England had been succeeded by feverish activity; all
that could inflame patriotic zeal was done. The Spaniards, it was said,
were bringing cargoes of scourges and instruments of torture, all adults
were to be put to death, and 7000 wet-nurses were coming in the Armada
to suckle the orphan infants. Such nonsense as this was firmly believed,
and the echoes of it have not even yet entirely died out. Corporations
and individuals vied with each other in providing means for defence; but
withal the land forces, assembled in two _corps d’armée_, one on each
side of the Thames, were but hasty levies, half drilled and armed, and
commanded by the incompetent Leicester. The queen was personally
popular, but if Parma had landed and she had fallen, it is probable that
there would have been no great resistance on the part of the people at
large to the adoption of the Catholic religion. They had changed too
often to care very much about it, if they were allowed to go about their
business without molestation and had a firm, peaceful government. Parma
had from the first insisted that his force was purely for land warfare,
and his boats were merely flat-bottom barges for the transport of his
men. He had been kept terribly short of money, and had borrowed the last
ducat he could get at most usurious interest. His army, moreover, was
small for the work it had to do, and he continued to insist that he must
have the 6000 Spanish soldiers from the Armada which had been promised
him. The English fleets consisted of 197 sail in all, with, at most,
18,000 men on board. Most of these ships--as also was the case with the
Spaniards--were small cargo boats, lightly armed, and quite unfit for
severe fighting. The largest Spanish ship, the _Regazona_, was 1249 tons
burden, and the largest English ship, the _Triumph_, 1100 tons, but,
generally speaking, the Spanish fighting ships were much larger, as they
certainly were of much higher build than the English, the tactics of the
latter always being to fire low into the hulls of their opponents and
avoid grappling and boarding, which they could do, as their lines were
finer and the vessels much more handy.
The Armada sailed up Channel in a curved line seven miles in extent,
with a light west wind, and at dawn on Sunday the English fleet was
sighted off Plymouth to the number of about fifty sail. The latter soon
gained the wind, and began firing into the Spanish rear-squadron. Then
began the memorable series of skirmishes which decided the fate of
Europe for all time to come. The Spanish ships were out-manœuvred
from the first. They found that the English vessels could sail round
them easily, their superior speed and sailing qualities enabling them to
harass their enemies without coming to close quarters. It was purely
artillery fighting, and in this the English were immensely superior. The
Spaniards shouted defiance and taunts that the English were afraid of
them and dared not approach. Drake and Howard knew where their strength
lay; kept the wind and followed the Armada, always harassing the rear
and flanks. Recalde’s flagship of the rear-squadron was for a time
exposed to the united fire of seven English galleons and became almost a
wreck. This first fight on Sunday demoralised the Spaniards. They felt
they were fighting a defensive battle and were running away from the
enemy. The contempt for their commander, and the knowledge of their
helplessness, crept over them like a paralysis. When late in the
afternoon the duke gave orders for the squadrons to be re-formed and
proceed on their way, Recalde’s damaged ship was found to be unable to
keep up with them. Don Pedro de Valdes went to her assistance, and in
doing so fouled one of his own ships, breaking his bowsprit and
foremast. His ship too became unmanageable. She had 500 men on board and
a large amount of treasure. An attempt was made to take her in tow, but
unsuccessfully. Night was coming on, and the duke himself wanted to get
away from the English, who hung upon his rear only a couple of miles
away. He would fight no more that night if he could help it, and he
abandoned two of the finest ships of his fleet without striking a blow.
Then Oquendo’s great ship, _Our Lady of the Rose_, was accidentally
blown up, and soon became a blazing wreck. The duke ordered the men and
treasure to be taken out of her and the ship sunk. But the heart of the
crews had gone, and such was the panic, that the unwounded survivors
scrambled out of the ship as best they might, leaving the vessel and
their scorched and wounded comrades to their fate. And so from day to
day the spirits of the men fell as they realised their powerlessness,
and the Armada crept up the Channel with the English fleet always
hanging on their rear and to windward of them. Every day the duke sent
beseeching letters to Parma to come out and help him. Parma was
indignant. Help him! How could he help him with flat-bottom barges that
would not stand a freshet, much less a gale? Besides, said he, the
arrangement was that you were to help me, not I help you. Justin of
Nassau, with the Dutch fleet, moreover, was watching as a cat watches a
mouse, and Parma could not stir. The officers sent by the duke declared
that Parma was not ready to come out, even if the Armada had fulfilled
its task. He gave them the lie, and with one of them nearly came to
blows. What if he had no water, or guns, or food on his boats? They were
only barges to carry men across, and were not meant either for fighting
or for a voyage of more than a few hours. Besides, how could he come out
with the wind dead in his teeth and Nassau and Seymour watching him? And
so on Sunday, August 7 (N.S.), just one week after the Lizard was
sighted, the great Spanish fleet was huddled, all demoralised and
confused, in Calais roads, at anchor, whilst the duke in vain sent
hourly petitions to Parma to come out and reinforce him. The crews were
ripe for panic now, and when at midnight eight fireships came flaring
down upon them with the wind from the English fleet, the duke seems to
have lost his head. He did not tow the fireships out of reach, in
accordance with his own previous instructions, but gave orders for his
cables to be cut. All the great ships had two anchors each out, and
these were left at the bottom of the sea, whilst the invincible Armada
crowded and hurtled away. The duke’s intention had been to come back in
the morning, pick up his anchors, and resume his position until Parma
could come out. But if Parma was shut up before, when only Lord Henry
Seymour and Justin of Nassau were watching him, much less could he stir
now that the lord admiral and Drake had joined Seymour.
The duke brought up in a dangerous position near Gravelines, and when
the morning of Monday dawned he found his fleet scattered and
demoralised, with a stiff west wind blowing and most of his ships
drifted far to leeward. He had only forty ships with him now--one of his
great galleasses, the _San Lorenzo_, had been wrecked at the mouth of
Calais harbour in the confusion of the night--to fight the united
English fleets. The engagement was terrible, lasting from nine o’clock
in the morning till six o’clock at night, the English tactics continuing
to be the same, keeping up a tremendous artillery fire on particular
ships until they were utterly crippled. The Spaniards fought
desperately, but they could rarely come to close quarters, and their
gunnery was greatly inferior to the English. The result, consequently,
was never in doubt. The duke’s ship was in the hottest of the fight, and
her decks were like shambles, for she had been hit by 107 shot. At the
end of the dreadful day she and her consorts were utterly beaten and
riddled; two of the finest galleons, completely unseaworthy, drifted on
to the Flemish coast and were captured, and at dawn on Tuesday what was
left of the Armada was dragging heavily in a strong westerly gale, with
sandbanks on the lee. All spirit and discipline were lost now. The one
idea was to get away from these “devilish people,” who would only fight
with big guns and would not come to close quarters. The duke himself was
for surrender, but Oquendo swore he would throw overboard the first man
who attempted such a thing. He brought his ship alongside the duke’s and
yelled sailor curses upon the landlubber that wanted to run away. “Go
back to your tunny ponds, you chicken-hearted craven,” he cried again
and again; and so the poor duke, in complete collapse, shut himself in
his cabin and was seen no more till he arrived in Spain. At noon a
providential--the Spaniards called it miraculous--wind came from the
south-west, and they were able to weather the dreaded shoals. Oquendo
and the old sailors were now for turning about and fighting again. But
the duke had had enough fighting for the rest of his life, and would
have no more. Besides, there was no ammunition on most of the ships. So
the fatal order was given to run up the North Sea with the wind to the
north of the Orkneys, make a long leg to the west, far out into the
Atlantic, and thence set a course for home. Off the Scottish border the
English fleet left them to their fate. Assailed by tempests almost
unexampled, rotting with pestilence, the water quite putrid now and the
food worse, they struggled to the north and west. Many fell off to
leeward and were seen no more; many sank riddled like sieves in the wild
Atlantic gales; seventeen could not beat far enough to the west and were
dashed to pieces on the frowning coasts of Ulster and Connaught, where
the men who escaped drowning were slaughtered--several thousands of
them--by the English garrisons and the wild Irish kerns. Only
sixty-five ships ever got back to Spain, and of the 24,000 men who
sailed, full of hope that they were going on a sacred crusade to certain
victory, only 10,000 poor, starved, stricken creatures crept back to
Santander.
A wail of grief went up through Spain. The little-hearted duke abandoned
his ships and men as soon as he sighted Spanish land, and went to his
home in the south in shameful, selfish luxury, with the curses and
insults of a whole populace ringing in his ears. Some said it was
Parma’s jealousy that caused the disaster, others that it was the duke’s
cowardice. Be it as it may, the old sailors, Oquendo and Recalde, who
had borne themselves like the heroes that they were, died of grief and
shame as soon as they brought their battered hulls to port.
It is difficult to apportion the blame, but one thing is certain, that
the germ of the disaster lay in Philip’s rigid, blighting system, by
which everything, great and small, had to be worked by one weary,
overburdened man from a cell in the Escorial. Spain might curse and
clamour for vengeance, but Philip said not a word. He saw the efforts
and hopes of years scattered like scudding clouds. He saw his impotence
made patent to a scoffing world. He saw his enemies exulting in his
downfall, and his rebel Netherlanders at last free from his grasp. He
saw his treasury empty and his credit ruined, for the pope himself
mocked him, and refused to pay the subsidy he had promised, because the
conditions had not been fulfilled. He saw himself an old and ailing man,
with only a dull child to succeed him; and yet in the face of all this
his marble equanimity never left him. He had, he said, only striven to
do God’s work, and if God in His inscrutable wisdom had ordained that he
should fail, he could only humbly bow his head to the divine decree and
bless Him for all things.
There was no defeat for such a man as this; and he could afford to be
generous and magnanimous, as he was, to the men whose shortcomings were
the immediate cause of the great catastrophe which ruined the power of a
nation, but could not break the faith or spirit of a man who regarded
himself as the fly-wheel of the machine by which the Almighty worked the
earth.