THE ROUT OF THE ARMADA
The fight between the fleets had begun on Sunday morning, and at the
end of the third day the strength of the Armada remained unbroken.
The moral effect had no doubt been great, but the loss of two or
three ships was a trifle to so large a force, and the spirit of
the Spaniards had been raised by the gallant and successful defence
the San Marcos had made on the Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday was
again calm. The magazines of the English ships were empty. Though
express after express had been sent off praying that ammunition
might be sent, none had arrived, and the two fleets lay six miles
apart without action, save that the galleasses came out and skirmished
for a while with the English ships.
That evening, however, a supply of ammunition sufficient for another
day's fighting arrived, and soon after daybreak the English fleet
moved down towards the Armada, and for the first time engaged them
at close quarters. The Ark Raleigh, the Bear, the Elizabeth Jones,
the Lion, and the Victory bore on straight into the centre of the
Spanish galleons, exchanging broadsides with each as they passed.
Oquendo with his vessel was right in the course of the English
flagship, and a collision took place, in which the Ark Raleigh's
rudder was unshipped, and she became unmanageable.
The enemy's vessels closed round her, but she lowered her boats,
and these, in spite of the fire of the enemy, brought her head round
before the wind, and she made her way through her antagonists and
got clear. For several hours the battle continued. The Spanish fire
was so slow, and their ships so unwieldy, that it was rarely they
succeeded in firing a shot into their active foes, while the English
shot tore their way through the massive timbers of the Spanish
vessels, scattering the splinters thickly among the soldiers, who
had been sent below to be out of harm's way; but beyond this, and
inflicting much damage upon masts and spars, the day's fighting
had no actual results. No captures were made by the English.
The Spaniards suffered, but made no sign; nevertheless their
confidence in their powers was shaken. Their ammunition was also
running short, and they had no hope of refilling their magazines
until they effected a junction with Parma. Their admiral that night
wrote to him asking that two shiploads of shot and powder might
be sent to him immediately. "The enemy pursue me," he said; "they
fire upon me most days from morning till nightfall, but they will
not close and grapple. I have given them every opportunity. I
have purposely left ships exposed to tempt them to board, but they
decline to do it; and there is no remedy, for they are swift and we
are slow. They have men and ammunition in abundance." The Spanish
admiral was unaware that the English magazines were even more empty
than his own.
On Friday morning Howard sailed for Dover to take in the supplies
that were so sorely needed. The Earl of Sussex, who was in command
of the castle, gave him all that he had, and the stores taken from
the prizes came up in light vessels and were divided among the
fleet, and in the evening the English fleet again sailed out and
took up its place in the rear of the Armada. On Saturday morning
the weather changed. After six days of calm and sunshine it began
to blow hard from the west, with driving showers. The Spaniards,
having no pilots who knew the coasts, anchored off Calais. The
English fleet, closely watching their movements, brought up two
miles astern.
The Spanish admiral sent off another urgent letter to Parma
at Dunkirk, begging him to send immediately thirty or forty fast
gunboats to keep the English at bay. Parma had received the admiral's
letters, and was perfectly ready to embark his troops, but could
not do this as the admiral expected he would, until the fleet came
up to protect him. The lighters and barges he had constructed for
the passage were only fit to keep the sea in calm weather, and
would have been wholly at the mercy of even a single English ship
of war. He could not, therefore, embark his troops until the duke
arrived. As to the gunboats asked for, he had none with him.
But while the Spanish admiral had grave cause for uneasiness in
the situation in which he found himself, Lord Howard had no greater
reason for satisfaction. In spite of his efforts the enemy's
fleet had arrived at their destination with their strength still
unimpaired, and were in communication with the Duke of Parma's
army. Lord Seymour had come up with a squadron from the mouth of
the Thames, but his ships had but one day's provisions on board,
while Drake and Howard's divisions had all but exhausted their
supplies. The previous day's fighting had used up the ammunition
obtained at Dover. Starvation would drive every English ship from
the sea in another week at the latest. The Channel would then be
open for the passage of Parma's army.
At five o'clock on Sunday evening a council of war was held in Lord
Howard's cabin, and it was determined, that as it was impossible
to attack the Spanish Fleet where they lay at the edge of shallow
water, an attempt must be made to drive them out into the Channel
with fireships. Eight of the private vessels were accordingly taken,
and such combustibles as could be found--pitch, tar, old sails,
empty casks, and other materials--were piled into them. At
midnight the tide set directly from the English fleet towards the
Spaniards, and the fireships, manned by their respective crews,
hoisted sail and drove down towards them.
When near the Armada the crews set fire to the combustibles, and
taking to their boats rowed back to the fleet. At the sight of the
flames bursting up from the eight ships bearing down upon them,
the Spaniards were seized with a panic. The admiral fired a gun as
a signal, and all cut their cables and hoisted sail, and succeeded
in getting out to sea before the fireships arrived. They lay to six
miles from shore, intending to return in the morning and recover
their anchors; but Drake with his division of the fleet, and Seymour
with the squadron from the Thames, weighed their anchors and stood
off after them, while Howard with his division remained off Calais,
where, in the morning, the largest of the four galleasses was seen
aground on Calais Bar. Lord Howard wasted many precious hours in
capturing her before he set off to join Drake and Seymour, who were
thundering against the Spanish fleet. The wind had got up during
the night, and the Spaniards had drifted farther than they expected,
and when morning dawned were scattered over the sea off Gravelines.
Signals were made for them to collect, but before they could do so
Drake and Seymour came up and opened fire within pistol shot. The
English admiral saw at once that, with the wind rising from the
south, if he could drive the unwieldy galleons north they would
be cut off from Dunkirk, and would not be able to beat back again
until there was a change of wind.
All through the morning the English ships poured a continuous
shower of shot into the Spanish vessels, which, huddled together
in a confused mass, were unable to make any return whatever. The
duke and Oquendo, with some of the best sailors among the Fleet,
tried to beat out from the crowd and get room to manoeuvre, but
Drake's ships were too weatherly and too well handled to permit
of this, and they were driven back again into the confused mass,
which was being slowly forced towards the shoals and banks of the
coasts.
Howard came up at noon with his division, and until sunset the fire
was maintained, by which time almost the last cartridge was spent,
and the crews worn our by their incessant labour. They took no
prizes, for they never attempted to board. They saw three great
galleons go down, and three more drift away towards the sands of
Ostend, where they were captured either by the English garrisoned
there or by three vessels sent by Lord Willoughby from Flushing,
under the command of Francis Vere. Had the English ammunition lasted
but a few more hours the whole of the Armada would have been either
driven ashore or sunk; but when the last cartridge had been burned
the assailants drew off to take on board the stores which had,
while the fighting was going on, been brought up by some provision
ships from the Thames.
But the Spaniards were in no condition to benefit by the cessation
of the attack. In spite of the terrible disadvantages under which
they laboured, they had fought with splendid courage. The sides of
the galleons had been riddled with shot, and the splinters caused by
the rending of the massive timbers had done even greater execution
than the iron hail. Being always to leeward, and heeling over
with the wind, the ships had been struck again and again below the
waterline, and many were only kept from sinking by nailing sheets
of lead over the shot holes.
Their guns were, for the most part, dismounted or knocked to pieces.
Several had lost masts, the carnage among the crews was frightful,
and yet not a single ship hauled down her colours. The San Mateo,
which was one of those that grounded between Ostend and Sluys,
fought to the last, and kept Francis Vere's three ships at bay for
two hours, until she was at last carried by boarding.
Left to themselves at the end of the day, the Spaniards gathered
in what order they could, and made sail for the north. On counting
the losses they found that four thousand men had been killed or
drowned, and the number of wounded must have been far greater. The
crews were utterly worn out and exhausted. They had the day before
been kept at work cleaning and refitting, and the fireships had
disturbed them early in the night. During the engagement there had
been no time to serve out food, and the labours of the long struggle
had completely exhausted them. Worst of all, they were utterly
disheartened by the day's fighting. They had been pounded by their
active foes, who fired five shots to their one, and whose vessels
sailed round and round them, while they themselves had inflicted
no damage that they could perceive upon their assailants.
The English admirals had no idea of the extent of the victory they
had won. Howard, who had only come up in the middle of the fight,
believed that they "were still wonderful great and strong," while
even Drake, who saw more clearly how much they had suffered,
only ventured to hope that some days at least would elapse before
they could join hands with Parma. In spite of the small store of
ammunition that had arrived the night before, the English magazines
were almost empty; but they determined to show a good front, and
"give chase as though they wanted nothing."
When the morning dawned the English fleet were still to windward
of the Armada, while to leeward were lines of white foam, where
the sea was breaking on the shoals of Holland. It seemed that the
Armada was lost. At this critical moment the wind suddenly shifted
to the east. This threw the English fleet to leeward, and enabled
the Spaniards to head out from the coast and make for the North
Sea. The Spanish admiral held a council. The sea had gone down,
and they had now a fair wind for Calais; and the question was put
to the sailing masters and captains whether they should return into
the Channel or sail north round Scotland and Ireland, and so return
to Spain. The former was the courageous course, but the spirit of the
Spaniards was broken, and the vote was in favour of what appeared
a way of escape. Therefore, the shattered Fleet bore on its way
north. On board the English fleet a similar council was being held,
and it was determined that Lord Seymour's squadron should return to
guard the Channel, lest Parma should take advantage of the absence
of the fleet to cross from Dunkirk to England, and that Howard and
Drake with their ninety ships should pursue the Spaniards; for it
was not for a moment supposed that the latter had entirely abandoned
their enterprise, and intended to return to Spain without making
another effort to rejoin Parma.
During the week's fighting Geoffrey and Lionel Vickars had taken
such part as they could in the contest; but as there had been
no hand to hand fighting, the position of the volunteers on board
the fleet had been little more than that of spectators. The crews
worked the guns and manoeuvred the sails, and the most the lads
could do was to relieve the ship boys in carrying up powder and
shot, and to take round drink to men serving the guns. When not
otherwise engaged they had watched with intense excitement the
manoeuvres of their own ship and of those near them, as they swept
down towards the great hulls, delivered their broadsides, and then
shot off again before the Spaniards had had time to discharge more
than a gun or two. The sails had been pierced in several places,
but not a single shot had struck the hull of the vessel. In the
last day's fighting, however, the Active became entangled among
several of the Spanish galleons, and being almost becalmed by their
lofty hulls, one of them ran full at her, and rolling heavily in
the sea, seemed as if she would overwhelm her puny antagonist.
Geoffrey was standing at the end of the poop when the mizzen rigging
became entangled in the stern gallery of the Spaniard, and a moment
later the mast snapped off, and as it fell carried him overboard.
For a moment he was half stunned, but caught hold of a piece of
timber shot away from one of the enemy's ships, and clung to it
mechanically. When he recovered and looked round, the Active had
drawn out from between the Spaniards, and the great galleon which
had so nearly sunk her was close beside him.
The sea was in a turmoil; the waves as they set in from the west
being broken up by the rolling of the great ships, and torn by the
hail of shot. The noise was prodigious, from the incessant cannonade
kept up by the English ships and the return of the artillery on
board the Armada, the rending of timber, the heavy crashes as the
great galleons rolled against one another, the shouting on board
the Spanish ships, the creaking of the masts and yards, and the
flapping of the sails.
On trying to strike out, Geoffrey found that as he had been knocked
overboard he had struck his right knee severely against the rail
of the vessel, and was at present unable to use that leg. Fearful
of being run down by one of the great ships, and still more of being
caught between two of them as they rolled, he looked round to try
to get sight of an English ship in the throng. Then, seeing that
he was entirely surrounded by Spaniards, he left the spar and swam
as well as he could to the bow of a great ship close beside him,
and grasping a rope trailing from the bowsprit, managed by its aid
to climb up until he reached the bobstay, across which he seated
himself with his back to the stem. The position was a precarious
one, and after a time he gained the wooden carved work above, and
obtained a seat there just below the bowsprit, and hidden from the
sight of those on deck a few feet above him. As he knew the vessels
were drifting to leeward towards the shoals, he hoped to remain
hidden until the vessel struck, and then to gain the shore.
Presently the shifting of the positions of the ships brought the
vessel on which he was into the outside line. The shots now flew
thickly about, and he could from time to time feel a jar as the
vessel was struck.
So an hour went on. At the end of that time he heard a great shouting
on deck, and the sound of men running to and fro. Happening to look
down he saw that the sea was but a few feet below him, and knew
that the great galleon was sinking. Another quarter of an hour she
was so much lower that he was sure she could not swim many minutes
longer; and to avoid being drawn down with her he dropped into the
water and swam off. He was but a short distance away when he heard
a loud cry, and glancing over his shoulder saw the ship disappearing.
He swam desperately, but was caught in the suck and carried under;
but there was no great depth of water, and he soon came to the
surface again. The sea was dotted with struggling men and pieces
of wreckage. He swam to one of the latter, and held on until he
saw some boats, which the next Spanish ship had lowered when she
saw her consort disappearing, rowing towards them, and was soon
afterwards hauled into one of them. He had closed his eyes as it
came up, and assumed the appearance of insensibility, and he lay
in the bottom of the boat immovable, until after a time he heard
voices above, and then felt himself being carried up the ladder
and laid down on the deck.
He remained quiet for some rime, thinking over what he had best do.
He was certain that were it known he was English he would at once
be stabbed and thrown overboard, for there was no hope of quarter;
but he was for some time unable to devise any plan by which, even
for a short rime, to conceal his nationality. He only knew a few
words of Spanish, and would be detected the moment he opened his
lips. He thought of leaping up suddenly and jumping overboard;
but his chance of reaching the English ships to windward would be
slight indeed. At last an idea struck him, and sitting up he opened
his eyes and looked round. Several other Spaniards who had been
picked up lay exhausted on the deck near him. A party of soldiers
and sailors close by were working a cannon. The bulwarks were
shot away in many places, dead and dying men lay scattered about,
the decks were everywhere stained with blood, and no one paid any
attention to him until presently the fire began to slacken. Shortly
afterwards a Spanish officer came up and spoke to him.
Geoffrey rose to his feet, rubbed his eyes, yawned, and burst into
an idiotic laugh. The officer spoke again but he paid no attention,
and the Spaniard turned away, believing that the lad had lost his
senses from fear and the horrors of the day.
As night came on he was several times addressed, but always with
the same result. When after dark food and wine were served out,
he seized the portion offered to him, and hurrying away crouched
under the shelter of a gun, and devoured it as if fearing it would
be taken from him again.
When he saw that the sailors were beginning to repair some of the
most necessary ropes and stays that had been shot away, he pushed
his way through them and took his share of the work, laughing
idiotically from time to time. He had, when he saw that the galleon
was sinking, taken off his doublet, the better to be able to swim,
and in his shirt and trunks there was nothing to distinguish him
from a Spaniard, and none suspected that he was other than he seemed
to be--a ship's boy, who had lost his senses from fear. When the
work was done, he threw himself on the deck with the weary sailors.
His hopes were that the battle would be renewed in the morning, and
that either the ship might be captured, or that an English vessel
might pass so close alongside that he might leap over and swim to
her.
Great was his disappointment next day when the sudden change of
wind gave the Spanish fleet the weather gage, and enabled them to
steer away for the north. He joined in the work of the crew, paying
no attention whatever to what was passing around him, or heeding
in the slightest the remarks made to him. Once or twice when an
officer spoke to him sternly he gave a little cry, ran to the side,
and crouched down as if in abject fear. In a very short time no
attention was paid to him, and he was suffered to go about as he
chose, being regarded as a harmless imbecile. He was in hopes that
the next day the Spaniards would change their course and endeavour
to beat back to the Channel, and was at once disappointed and
surprised as they sped on before the southwesterly wind, which
was hourly increasing in force. Some miles behind he could see the
English squadron in pursuit; but these made no attempt to close
up, being well contented to see the Armada sailing away, and being
too straitened in ammunition to wish to bring on an engagement so
long as the Spaniards were following their present course.
The wind blew with ever increasing force; the lightly ballasted
ships made bad weather, rolling deep in the seas, straining heavily,
and leaking badly through the opening seams and the hastily stopped
shot holes. Water was extremely scarce, and at a signal from the
admiral all the horses and mules were thrown overboard in order
to husband the supply. Several of the masts, badly injured by the
English shot, went by the board, and the vessels dropped behind
crippled, to be picked up by the pursuing fleet.
Lord Howard followed as far as the mouth of the Forth; and seeing
that the Spaniards made no effort to enter the estuary, and his
provisions being now well nigh exhausted, he hove the fleet about
and made back for the Channel, leaving two small vessels only to
follow the Armada and watch its course, believing that it would
make for Denmark, refit there, and then return to rejoin Parma.
It was a grievous disappointment to the English to be thus forced
by want of provisions to relinquish the pursuit. Had they been
properly supplied with provisions and ammunition they could have
made an end of the Armada; whereas, they believed that by allowing
them now to escape the whole work would have to be done over again.
They had sore trouble to get back again off the Norfolk coast. The
wind became so furious that the fleet was scattered. A few of the
largest ships reached Margate; others were driven into Harwich,
others with difficulty kept the sea until the storm broke.
It might have been thought that after such service as the fleet
had rendered even Elizabeth might have been generous; but now that
the danger was over, she became more niggardly than ever. No fresh
provisions were supplied for the sick men, and though in the fight
off the Dutch coast only some fifty or sixty had been killed, in
the course of a very short time the crews were so weakened by deaths
and disease that scarce a ship could have put to sea, however urgent
the necessity. Drake and Howard spent every penny they could raise
in buying fresh meat and vegetables, and in procuring some sort of
shelter on shore for the sick. Had the men received the wages due
to them they could have made a shift to have purchased what they
so urgently required; but though the Treasury was full of money,
not a penny was forthcoming until every item of the accounts had
been investigated and squabbled over. Howard was compelled to pay
from his private purse for everything that had been purchased at
Plymouth, Sir John Hawkins was absolutely ruined by the demands
made on him to pay for necessaries supplied to the fleet, and had
the admirals and sailors of the fleet that saved England behaved
like ignominious cowards, their treatment could not have been worse
than that which they received at the hands of their sovereign.
But while the English seamen were dying like sheep from disease
and neglect, their conquered foes were faring no better. They had
breathed freely for the first time when they saw the English fleet
bear up; an examination was made of the provisions that were left,
and the crews were placed on rations of eight ounces of bread,
half a pint of wine, and a pint of water a day. The fleet was still
a great one, for of the hundred and fifty ships which had sailed
from Corunna, a hundred and twenty still held together. The weather
now turned bitterly cold, with fog and mist, squalls and driving
showers; and the vessels, when they reached the north coast of
Scotland, lost sight of each other, and each struggled for herself
in the tempestuous sea.
A week later the weather cleared, and on the 9th of August Geoffrey
looking round at daybreak saw fifteen other ships in sight. Among
these were the galleons of Calderon and Ricaldo, the Rita, San
Marcos, and eleven other vessels. Signals were flying from all of
them, but the sea was so high that it was scarce possible to lower
a boat. That night it again blew hard and the fog closed in, and
in the morning Geoffrey found that the ship he was on, and all
the others, with the exception of that of Calderon, were steering
north; the intention of Ricaldo and De Leyva being to make for the
Orkneys and refit there. Calderon had stood south, and had come
upon Sidonia with fifty ships; and these, bearing well away to the
west of Ireland, finally succeeded for the most part in reaching
Spain, their crews reduced by sickness and want to a mere shadow
of their original strength.
The cold became bitter as De Leyva's ships made their way towards
the Orkneys. The storm was furious, and the sailors, unaccustomed
to the cold and weakened by disease and famine, could no longer
work their ships, and De Leyva was obliged at last to abandon
his intention and make south. One galleon was driven on the Faroe
Islands, a second on the Orkneys, and a third on the Isle of Mull,
where it was attacked by the natives and burned with almost every
one on board. The rest managed to make the west coast of Ireland,
and the hope that they would find shelter in Galway Bay, or the
mouth of the Shannon, began to spring up in the breasts of the
exhausted crews.
The Irish were their co-religionists and allies, and had only been
waiting for news of the success of the Armada to rise in arms against
the English, who had but few troops there. Rumours of disaster had
arrived, and a small frigate had been driven into Tralee Bay. The
fears of the garrison at Tralee Castle overcame their feelings of
humanity, and all on board were put to death. Two galleons put into
Dingle, and landing begged for water; but the natives, deciding
that the Spanish cause was a lost one, refused to give them a drop,
seized the men who had landed in the boats, and the galleons had
to put to sea again.
Another ship of a thousand tons, Our Lady of the Rosary, was driven
into the furious straits between the Blasket Islands and the coast
of Kerry. Of her crew of seven hundred, five hundred had died.
Before she got halfway through she struck among the breakers, and
all the survivors perished save the son of the pilot, who was washed
ashore lashed to a plank. Six others who had reached the mouth of
the Shannon sent their boats ashore for water; but although there
were no English there the Irish feared to supply them, even though
the Spaniards offered any sum of money for a few casks. One of the
ships was abandoned and the others put to sea, only to be dashed
ashore in the same gale that wrecked Our Lady of the Rosary, and
of all their crews only one hundred and fifty men were cast ashore
alive. Along the coast of Connemara, Mayo, and Sligo many other
ships were wrecked. In almost every case the crews who reached the
shore were at once murdered by the native savages for the sake of
their clothes and jewellery.
Geoffrey had suffered as much as the rest of the crew on board
the galleon in which he sailed. All were so absorbed by their own
suffering and misery that none paid any attention to the idiot boy
in their midst. He worked at such work as there was to do: assisted
to haul on the ropes, to throw the dead overboard, and to do what
could be done for the sick and wounded. Like all on board he was
reduced almost to a skeleton, and was scarce able to stand.
As the surviving ships passed Galway Bay, one of them, which was
leaking so badly that she could only have been kept afloat a few
hours in any case, entered it, and brought up opposite the town. Don
Lewis of Cordova, who commanded, sent a party on shore, believing
that in Galway, between which town and Spain there had always been
close connections, they would be well received. They were, however,
at once taken prisoners. An attempt was made to get up the anchors
again, but the crew were too feeble to be able to do so, and the
natives coming out in their boats, all were taken prisoners and sent
on shore. Sir Richard Bingham, the governor of Connaught, arrived
in a few hours, and at once despatched search parties through Clare
and Connemara to bring all Spaniards cast ashore alive to the town,
and sent his son to Mayo to fetch down all who landed there. But
young Bingham's mission proved useless; every Spaniard who had
landed had been murdered by the natives, well nigh three thousand
having been slain by the axes and knives of the savages who professed
to be their co-religionists.
Sir Richard Bingham was regarded as a humane man, but he feared
the consequences should the eleven hundred prisoners collected at
Galway be restored to health and strength. He had but a handful of
troops under him, and had had the greatest difficulty in keeping
down the Irish alone. With eleven hundred Spanish soldiers to aid
them the task would be impossible, and accordingly he gave orders
that all, with the exception of Don Lewis himself, and three or
four other nobles, should be executed. The order was carried out;
Don Lewis, with those spared, was sent under an escort to Dublin,
but the others being too feeble to walk were killed or died on the
way, and Don Lewis himself was the sole survivor out of the crews
of a dozen ships.
De Leyva, the most popular officer in the Armada, had with him in
his ship two hundred and fifty young nobles of the oldest families
in Spain. He was twice wrecked. The first time all reached the
shore in safety, and were protected by O'Niel, who was virtually
the sovereign of the north of Ulster. He treated them kindly for
a time. They then took to sea again, but were finally wrecked off
Dunluce, and all on board save five perished miserably. Over eight
thousand Spaniards died on the Irish coast. Eleven hundred were put
to death by Bingham, three thousand murdered by the Irish, the rest
drowned; and of the whole Armada but fifty-four vessels, carrying
between nine and ten thousand worn out men, reached Spain, and of
the survivors a large proportion afterwards died from the effects
of the sufferings they had endured.