that Elizabeth had ruined herself at last. Happily her moods were
variable as the weather. She was forced to see the condition to which
she had reduced her affairs in the Low Countries by the appearance of a
number of starving wretches who had deserted from the garrisons there
and had come across to clamour for their pay at her own palace gates. If
she had no troops in the field but a mutinous and starving rabble, she
might get no terms at all. It might be well to show Philip that on one
element at least she could still be dangerous. She had lost nothing by
the bold actions of Drake and the privateers. With half a heart she
allowed Drake to fit them out again, take the _Buonaventura_, a ship of
her own, to carry his flag, and go down to the coast of Spain and see
what was going on. He was not to do too much. She sent a vice-admiral
with him, in the _Lion_, to be a check on over-audacity. Drake knew how
to deal with embarrassing vice-admirals. His own adventurers would sail,
if he ordered, to the Mountains of the Moon, and be quite certain that
it was the right place to go to. Once under way and on the blue water he
would go his own course and run his own risks. Cadiz Harbour was
thronged with transports, provision ships, powder vessels--a hundred
sail of them--many of a thousand tons and over, loading with stores for
the Armada. There were thirty sail of adventurers, the smartest ships
afloat on the ocean, and sailed by the smartest seamen that ever handled
rope or tiller. Something might be done at Cadiz if he did not say too
much about it. The leave had been given to him to go, but he knew by
experience, and Burghley again warned him, that it might, and probably
would, be revoked if he waited too long. The moment was his own, and he
used it. He was but just in time. Before his sails were under the
horizon a courier galloped into Plymouth with orders that under no
condition was he to enter port or haven of the King of Spain, or injure
Spanish subjects. What else was he going out for? He had guessed how it
would be. Comedy or earnest he could not tell. If earnest, some such
order would be sent after him, and he had not an instant to lose.
He sailed on the morning of the 12th of April. Off Ushant he fell in
with a north-west gale, and he flew on, spreading every stitch of
canvas which his spars would bear. In five days he was at Cape St.
Vincent. On the 18th he had the white houses of Cadiz right in front of
him, and could see for himself the forests of masts from the ships and
transports with which the harbour was choked. Here was a chance for a
piece of service if there was courage for the venture. He signalled for
his officers to come on board the _Buonaventura_. There before their
eyes was, if not the Armada itself, the materials which were to fit the
Armada for the seas. Did they dare to go in with him and destroy them?
There were batteries at the harbour mouth, but Drake's mariners had
faced Spanish batteries at St. Domingo and Carthagena and had not found
them very formidable. Go in? Of course they would. Where Drake would
lead the corsairs of Plymouth were never afraid to follow. The
vice-admiral pleaded danger to her Majesty's ships. It was not the
business of an English fleet to be particular about danger. Straight in
they went with a fair wind and a flood tide, ran past the batteries and
under a storm of shot, to which they did not trouble themselves to wait
to reply. The poor vice-admiral followed reluctantly in the _Lion_. A
single shot hit the _Lion_, and he edged away out of range, anchored,
and drifted to sea again with the ebb. But Drake and all the rest dashed
on, sank the guardship--a large galleon--and sent flying a fleet of
galleys which ventured too near them and were never seen again.
Further resistance there was none--absolutely none. The crews of the
store ships escaped in their boats to land. The governor of Cadiz, the
same Duke of Medina Sidonia who the next year was to gain a disastrous
immortality, fled 'like a tall gentleman' to raise troops and prevent
Drake from landing. Drake had no intention of landing. At his extreme
leisure he took possession of the Spanish shipping, searched every
vessel, and carried off everything that he could use. He detained as
prisoners the few men that he found on board, and then, after doing his
work deliberately and completely, he set the hulls on fire, cut the
cables, and left them to drive on the rising tide under the walls of the
town--a confused mass of blazing ruin. On the 12th of April he had
sailed from Plymouth; on the 19th he entered Cadiz Harbour; on the 1st
of May he passed out again without the loss of a boat or a man. He said
in jest that he had singed the King of Spain's beard for him. In sober
prose he had done the King of Spain an amount of damage which a million
ducats and a year's labour would imperfectly replace. The daring
rapidity of the enterprise astonished Spain, and astonished Europe more
than the storm of the West Indian towns. The English had long teeth, as
Santa Cruz had told Philip's council, and the teeth would need drawing
before Mass would be heard again at Westminster. The Spaniards were a
gallant race, and a dashing exploit, though at their own expense, could
be admired by the countrymen of Cervantes. 'So praised,' we read, 'was
Drake for his valour among them, that they said that if he was not a
Lutheran there would not be the like of him in the world.' A Court lady
was invited by the King to join a party on a lake near Madrid. The lady
replied that she dared not trust herself on the water with his Majesty
lest Sir Francis Drake should have her.
Drake might well be praised. But Drake would have been the first to
divide the honour with the comrades who were his arm and hand. Great
admirals and generals do not win their battles single-handed like the
heroes of romance. Orders avail only when there are men to execute them.
Not a captain, not an officer who served under Drake, ever flinched or
blundered. Never was such a school for seamen as that twenty years'
privateering war between the servants of the Pope and the West-country
Protestant adventurers. Those too must be remembered who built and
rigged the ships in which they sailed and fought their battles. We may
depend upon it that there was no dishonesty in contractors, no scamping
of the work in the yards where the Plymouth rovers were fitted out for
sea. Their hearts were in it; they were soldiers of a common cause.
Three weeks had sufficed for Cadiz. No order for recall had yet arrived.
Drake had other plans before him, and the men were in high spirits and
ready for anything. A fleet of Spanish men-of-war was expected round
from the Mediterranean. He proposed to stay for a week or two in the
neighbourhood of the Straits, in the hope of falling in with them. He
wanted fresh water, too, and had to find it somewhere.
Before leaving Cadiz Roads he had to decide what to do with his
prisoners. Many English were known to be in the hands of the Holy Office
working in irons as galley slaves. He sent in a pinnace to propose an
exchange, and had to wait some days for an answer. At length, after a
reference to Lisbon, the Spanish authorities replied that they had no
English prisoners. If this was true those they had must have died of
barbarous usage; and after a consultation with his officers Sir Francis
sent in word that for the future such prisoners as they might take would
be sold to the Moors, and the money applied to the redemption of English
captives in other parts of the world.
Water was the next point. There were springs at Faro, with a Spanish
force stationed there to guard them. Force or no force, water was to be
had. The boats were sent on shore. The boats' crews stormed the forts
and filled the casks. The vice-admiral again lifted up his voice. The
Queen had ordered that there was to be no landing on Spanish soil. At
Cadiz the order had been observed. There had been no need to land. Here
at Faro there had been direct defiance of her Majesty's command. He
became so loud in his clamours that Drake found it necessary to lock him
up in his own cabin, and at length to send him home with his ship to
complain. For himself, as the expected fleet from the Straits did not
appear, and as he had shaken off his troublesome second in command, he
proceeded leisurely up the coast, intending to look in at Lisbon and see
for himself how things were going on there. All along as he went he fell
in with traders loaded with supplies for the use of the Armada. All
these he destroyed as he advanced, and at length found himself under the
purple hills of Cintra and looking up into the Tagus. There lay gathered
together the strength of the fighting naval force of Spain--fifty great
galleons, already arrived, the largest war-ships which then floated on
the ocean. Santa Cruz, the best officer in the Spanish navy, was himself
in the town and in command. To venture a repetition of the Cadiz
exploit in the face of such odds seemed too desperate even for Drake,
but it was one of those occasions when the genius of a great commander
sees more than ordinary eyes. He calculated, and, as was proved
afterwards, calculated rightly, that the galleons would be half manned,
or not manned at all, and crowded with landsmen bringing on board the
stores. Their sides as they lay would be choked with hulks and lighters.
They would be unable to get their anchors up, set their canvas, or stir
from their moorings. Daring as Drake was known to be, no one would
expect him to go with so small a force into the enemy's stronghold, and
there would be no preparations to meet him. He could count upon the
tides. The winds at that season of the year were fresh and steady, and
could be counted on also to take him in or out; there was sea room in
the river for such vessels as the adventurers' to manoeuvre and to
retreat if overmatched. Rash as such an enterprise might seem to an
unprofessional eye, Drake certainly thought of it, perhaps had meant to
try it in some form or other and so make an end of the Spanish invasion
of England. He could not venture without asking first for his mistress's
permission. He knew her nature. He knew that his services at Cadiz would
outweigh his disregard of her orders, and that so far he had nothing to
fear; but he knew also that she was still hankering after peace, and
that without her leave he must do nothing to make peace impossible.
There is a letter from him to the Queen, written when he was lying off
Lisbon, very characteristic of the time and the man.
Nelson or Lord St. Vincent did not talk much of expecting supernatural
assistance. If they had we should suspect them of using language
conventionally which they would have done better to leave alone. Sir
Francis Drake, like his other great contemporaries, believed that he was
engaged in a holy cause, and was not afraid or ashamed to say so. His
object was to protest against a recall in the flow of victory. The
Spaniards, he said, were but mortal men. They were enemies of the Truth,
upholders of Dagon's image, which had fallen in other days before the
Ark, and would fall again if boldly defied. So long as he had ships
that would float, and there was food on board them for the men to eat,
he entreated her to let him stay and strike whenever a chance was
offered him. The continuing to the end yielded the true glory. When men
were serving religion and their country, a merciful God, it was likely,
would give them victory, and Satan and his angels should not prevail.
All in good time. Another year and Drake would have the chance he
wanted. For the moment Satan had prevailed--Satan in the shape of
Elizabeth's Catholic advisers. Her answer came. It was warm and
generous. She did not, could not, blame him for what he had done so far,
but she desired him to provoke the King of Spain no further. The
negotiations for peace had opened, and must not be interfered with.
This prohibition from the Queen prevented, perhaps, what would have been
the most remarkable exploit in English naval history. As matters stood
it would have been perfectly possible for Drake to have gone into the
Tagus, and if he could not have burnt the galleons he could certainly
have come away unhurt. He had guessed their condition with entire
correctness. The ships were there, but the ships' companies were not on
board them. Santa Cruz himself admitted that if Drake had gone in he
could have himself done nothing 'por falta de gente' (for want of men).
And Drake undoubtedly would have gone, and would have done something
with which all the world would have rung, but for the positive command
of his mistress. He lingered in the roads at Cintra, hoping that Santa
Cruz would come out and meet him. All Spain was clamouring at Santa
Cruz's inaction. Philip wrote to stir the old admiral to energy. He must
not allow himself to be defied by a squadron of insolent rovers. He must
chase them off the coast or destroy them. Santa Cruz needed no stirring.
Santa Cruz, the hero of a hundred fights, was chafing at his own
impotence; but he was obliged to tell his master that if he wished to
have service out of his galleons he must provide crews to handle them,
and they must rot at their anchors till he did. He told him, moreover,
that it was time for him to exert himself in earnest. If he waited much
longer, England would have grown too strong for him to deal with.
In strict obedience Drake ought now to have gone home, but the campaign
had brought so far more glory than prize-money. His comrades required
some consolation for their disappointment at Lisbon. The theory of these
armaments of the adventurers was that the cost should be paid somehow by
the enemy, and he could be assured that if he brought back a prize or
two in which she could claim a share the Queen would not call him to a
very strict account. Homeward-bound galleons or merchantmen were to be
met with occasionally at the Azores. On leaving Lisbon Drake headed away
to St. Michael's, and his lucky star was still in the ascendant.
As if sent on purpose for him, the _San Philip_, a magnificent caraque
from the Indies, fell straight into his hands, 'so richly loaded,' it
was said, 'that every man in the fleet counted his fortune made.' There
was no need to wait for more. It was but two months since Drake had
sailed from Plymouth. He could now go home after a cruise of which the
history of his own or any other country had never presented the like.
He had struck the King of Spain in his own stronghold. He had disabled
the intended Armada for one season at least. He had picked up a prize by
the way and as if by accident, worth half a million, to pay his
expenses, so that he had cost nothing to his mistress, and had brought
back a handsome present for her. I doubt if such a naval estimate was
ever presented to an English House of Commons. Above all he had taught
the self-confident Spaniard to be afraid of him, and he carried back his
poor comrades in such a glow of triumph that they would have fought
Satan and all his angels with Drake at their head.
Our West-country annals still tell how the country people streamed down
in their best clothes to see the great _San Philip_ towed into Dartmouth
Harbour. English Protestantism was no bad cable for the nation to ride
by in those stormy times, and deserves to be honourably remembered in a
School of History at an English University.
LECTURE VIII
SAILING OF THE ARMADA
Peace or war between Spain and England, that was now the question, with
a prospect of securing the English succession for himself or one of his
daughters. With the whole Spanish nation smarting under the indignity of
the burning of the ships at Cadiz, Philip's warlike ardour had warmed
into something like fire. He had resolved at any rate, if he was to
forgive his sister-in-law at all, to insist on more than toleration for
the Catholics in England. He did not contemplate as even possible that
the English privateers, however bold or dexterous, could resist such an
armament as he was preparing to lead to the Channel. The Royal Navy, he
knew very well, did not exceed twenty-five ships of all sorts and sizes.
The adventurers might be equal to sudden daring actions, but would and
must be crushed by such a fleet as was being fitted out at Lisbon. He
therefore, for himself, meant to demand that the Catholic religion
should be restored to its complete and exclusive superiority, and
certain towns in England were to be made over to be garrisoned by
Spanish troops as securities for Elizabeth's good behaviour. As often
happens with irresolute men, when they have once been forced to a
decision they are as too hasty as before they were too slow. After Drake
had retired from Lisbon the King of Spain sent orders to the Prince of
Parma not to wait for the arrival of the Armada, but to cross the
Channel immediately with the Flanders army, and bring Elizabeth to her
knees. Parma had more sense than his master. He represented that he
could not cross without a fleet to cover his passage. His transport
barges would only float in smooth water, and whether the water was
smooth or rough they could be sent to the bottom by half a dozen English
cruisers from the Thames. Supposing him to have landed, either in Thanet
or other spot, he reminded Philip that he could not have at most more
than 25,000 men with him. The English militia were in training. The
Jesuits said they were disaffected, but the Jesuits might be making a
mistake. He might have to fight more than one battle. He would have to
leave detachments as he advanced to London, to cover his communications,
and a reverse would be fatal. He would obey if his Majesty persisted,
but he recommended Philip to continue to amuse the English with the
treaty till the Armada was ready, and, in evident consciousness that the
enterprise would be harder than Philip imagined, he even gave it as his
own opinion still (notwithstanding Cadiz), that if Elizabeth would
surrender the cautionary towns in Flanders to Spain, and would grant the
English Catholics a fair degree of liberty, it would be Philip's
interest to make peace at once without stipulating for further terms. He
could make a new war if he wished at a future time, when circumstances
might be more convenient and the Netherlands revolt subdued.
To such conditions as these it seemed that Elizabeth was inclining to
consent. The towns had been trusted to her keeping by the
Netherlanders. To give them up to the enemy to make better conditions
for herself would be an infamy so great as to have disgraced Elizabeth
for ever; yet she would not see it. She said the towns belonged to
Philip and she would only be restoring his own to him. Burghley bade
her, if she wanted peace, send back Drake to the Azores and frighten
Philip for his gold ships. She was in one of her ungovernable moods.
Instead of sending out Drake again she ordered her own fleet to be
dismantled and laid up at Chatham, and she condescended to apologise to
Parma for the burning of the transports at Cadiz as done against her
orders.
This was in December 1587, only five months before the Armada sailed
from Lisbon. Never had she brought herself and her country so near ruin.
The entire safety of England rested at that moment on the adventurers,
and on the adventurers alone.
Meanwhile, with enormous effort the destruction at Cadiz had been
repaired. The great fleet was pushed on, and in February Santa Cruz
reported himself almost ready. Santa Cruz and Philip, however, were not
in agreement as to what should be done. Santa Cruz was a fighting
admiral, Philip was not a fighting king. He changed his mind as often as
Elizabeth. Hot fits varied with cold. His last news from England led him
to hope that fighting would not be wanted. The Commissioners were
sitting at Ostend. On one side there were the formal negotiations, in
which the surrender of the towns was not yet treated as an open
question. Had the States been aware that Elizabeth was even in thought
entertaining it, they would have made terms instantly on their own
account and left her alone in the cold. Besides this, there was a second
negotiation underneath, carried on by private agents, in which the
surrender was to be the special condition. These complicated schemings
Parma purposely protracted, to keep Elizabeth in false security. She had
not deliberately intended to give up the towns. At the last moment she
would have probably refused, unless the States themselves consented to
it as part of a general settlement. But she was playing with the idea.
The States, she thought, were too obstinate. Peace would be good for
them, and she said she might do them good if she pleased, whether they
liked it or not.
Parma was content that she should amuse herself with words and neglect
her defences by sea and land. By the end of February Santa Cruz was
ready. A northerly wind blows strong down the coast of Portugal in the
spring months, and he meant to be off before it set in, before the end
of March at latest. Unfortunately for Spain, Santa Cruz fell ill at the
last moment--ill, it was said, with anxiety. Santa Cruz knew well enough
what Philip would not know--that the expedition would be no holiday
parade. He had reason enough to be anxious if Philip was to accompany
him and tie his hands and embarrass him. Anyway, Santa Cruz died after a
few days' illness. The sailing had to be suspended till a new commander
could be decided on, and in the choice which Philip made he gave a
curious proof of what he intended the expedition to do. He did not
really expect or wish for any serious fighting. He wanted to be
sovereign of England again, with the assent of the English Catholics.
He did not mean, if he could help it, to irritate the national pride by
force and conquest. While Santa Cruz lived, Spanish public opinion would
not allow him to be passed over. Santa Cruz must command, and Philip had
resolved to go with him, to prevent too violent proceedings. Santa Cruz
dead, he could find someone who would do what he was told, and his own
presence would no longer be necessary.
The Duke of Medina Sidonia, named El Bueno, or the Good, was a grandee
of highest rank. He was enormously rich, fond of hunting and shooting, a
tolerable rider, for the rest a harmless creature getting on to forty,
conscious of his defects, but not aware that so great a prince had any
need to mend them; without vanity, without ambition, and most happy when
lounging in his orange gardens at San Lucan. Of active service he had
seen none. He was Captain-General of Andalusia, and had run away from
Cadiz when Drake came into the harbour; but that was all. To his
astonishment and to his dismay he learnt that it was on him that the
choice had fallen to be the Lord High Admiral of Spain and commander of
the so much talked of expedition to England. He protested his unfitness.
He said that he was no seaman; that he knew nothing of fighting by sea
or land; that if he ventured out in a boat he was always sick; that he
had never seen the English Channel; and that, as to politics, he neither
knew anything nor cared anything about them. In short, he had not one
qualification which such a post required.
Philip liked his modesty; but in fact the Duke's defects were his
recommendations. He would obey his instructions, would not fight unless
it was necessary, and would go into no rash adventures. All that Philip
wanted him to do was to find the Prince of Parma, and act as Parma
should bid him. As to seamanship, he would have the best officers in the
navy under him; and for a second in command he should have Don Diego de
Valdez, a cautious, silent, sullen old sailor, a man after Philip's own
heart.
Doubting, hesitating, the Duke repaired to Lisbon. There he was put in
better heart by a nun, who said Our Lady had sent her to promise him
success. Every part of the service was new to him. He was a fussy,
anxious little man; set himself to inquire into everything, to meddle
with things which he could not understand and had better have left
alone. He ought to have left details to the responsible heads of
departments. He fancied that in a week or two he could look himself into
everything. There were 130 ships, 8,000 seamen, 19,000 Spanish infantry,
with gentlemen volunteers, officers, priests, surgeons, galley
slaves--at least 3,000 more--provisioned for six months. Then there were
the ships' stores, arms small and great, powder, spars, cordage, canvas,
and such other million necessities as ships on service need. The whole
of this the poor Duke took on himself to examine into, and, as he could
not understand what he saw, and knew not what to look at, nothing was
examined into at all. Everyone's mind was, in fact, so much absorbed by
the spiritual side of the thing that they could not attend to vulgar
commonplaces. Don Quixote, when he set out on his expedition, and forgot
money and a change of linen, was not in a state of wilder exaltation
than Catholic Europe at the sailing of the Armada. Every noble family
in Spain had sent one or other of its sons to fight for Christ and Our
Lady.