The English sea forces under Lord High Admiral Howard, of Effingham, a
zealous patriot, with Sir Francis Drake, who ranked second in command,
were assembled at Plymouth, watching for the enemy. Whe nthe
long-looked-for Spanish fleet came in sight, beacon fires were lighted
on the hills to give the alarm.
"For swift to east and swift to west the ghastly war flame spread;
High on St. Michael's Mount it shone: it shone on Beachy Head.
Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire,
Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire."
--Macaulay's "Armada."
The enemy's ships moved steadily toward the coast in the form of a
crescent seven miles across; but Howard, Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, and
other noted captains, were ready to receive them. With their
fast-sailing cruisers they sailed around the unwieldy Spanish
warships, firing four shots to the enemy's one, and "harassing them as
a swarm of wasps worry a bear." Several of the Spanish vessels were
captured and one blown up. At last the commander sailed for Calais to
repair damages and take a fresh start. The English followed. When
night came on, Drake sent eight blazing fire ships to drift down among
the Armada as it lay at anchor. Thoroughly alarmed at the prospect of
being burned where they lay, the Spaniards cut their cables and made
sail for the north.
401. Destruction of the Armada, 1588; Elizabeth at Tilbury and at
St. Paul's.
They were hotly pursued by the English, who, having lost but a single
vessel in the fight, might have cut them to pieces, had not
Elizabeth's suicidal economy stinted them in body powder and
provisions. Meanwhile the Spanish fleet kept moving northward. The
wind increased to a gale, the gale to a furious storm. The commander
of the Armada attempted to go around Scotland and return home that
way; but ship after ship was driven ashore and wrecked on the wild and
rocky coast of western Ireland. On one strand, less than five miles
long, over a thousand corpses were counted. Those who escaped the
waves met death by the hands of the inhabitants. Of the magnificent
fleet which had sailed so proudly from Spain only fifty-three vessels
returned, and they were but half manned by exhausted crews stricken by
pestilence and death. Thus ended Philip II's boasted attack on
England.
When all danger was past, Elizabeth went to Tilbury, on the Thames
below London, to review the troops collected there to defend the
capital. "I know," said she, "that I have but the feeble body of a
woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England too."
Unhappily the niggardly Queen had half starved her brave sailors, and
many of them came home only to die. None the less Elizabeth went with
solemn pomp to St. Paul's Cathedral to offer thanks for the great
victory, which was commemorated by a medal bearing this inscription:
"God blew with his winds, and they were scattered." The date of the
defeat of the Armada, 1588, was a turning point in English history.
From that time England gradually rose, under the leadership of such
illustrious commanders as Drake, Blake, and Nelson, until she became
what she has ever since remained--the greatest sea power in the world
(SS459, 557).