cathedral, or oratory. The King had emptied his treasury. The hidalgo
and the tradesman had offered their contributions. The crusade against
the Crescent itself had not kindled a more intense or more sacred
enthusiasm. All pains were taken to make the expedition spiritually
worthy of its purpose. No impure thing, specially no impure woman, was
to approach the yards or ships. Swearing, quarrelling, gambling, were
prohibited under terrible penalties. The galleons were named after the
apostles and saints to whose charge they were committed, and every
seaman and soldier confessed and communicated on going on board. The
ship-boys at sunrise were to sing their Buenos Dias at the foot of the
mainmast, and their Ave Maria as the sun sank into the ocean. On the
Imperial banner were embroidered the figures of Christ and His Mother,
and as a motto the haughty 'Plus Ultra' of Charles V. was replaced with
the more pious aspiration, 'Exsurge, Deus, et vindica causam tuam.'
Nothing could be better if the more vulgar necessities had been looked
to equally well. Unluckily, Medina Sidonia had taken the inspection of
these on himself, and Medina Sidonia was unable to correct the
information which any rascal chose to give him.
At length, at the end of April, he reported himself satisfied. The
banner was blessed in the cathedral, men and stores all on board, and
the Invincible Armada prepared to go upon its way. No wonder Philip was
confident. A hundred and thirty galleons, from 1,300 to 700 tons, 30,000
fighting men, besides slaves and servants, made up a force which the
world might well think invincible. The guns were the weakest part. There
were twice as many as the English; but they were for the most part nine
and six pounders, and with but fifty rounds to each. The Spaniards had
done their sea fighting hitherto at close range, grappling and trusting
to musketry. They were to receive a lesson about this before the summer
was over. But Philip himself meanwhile expected evidently that he would
meet with no opposition. Of priests he had provided 180; of surgeons and
surgeons' assistants eighty-five only for the whole fleet.
In the middle of May he sent down his last orders. The Duke was not to
seek a battle. If he fell in with Drake he was to take no notice of him,
but thank God, as Dogberry said to the watchman, that he was rid of a
knave. He was to go straight to the North Foreland, there anchor and
communicate with Parma. The experienced admirals who had learnt their
trade under Santa Cruz--Martinez de Recalde, Pedro de Valdez, Miguel de
Oquendo--strongly urged the securing Plymouth or the Isle of Wight on
their way up Channel. This had evidently been Santa Cruz's own design,
and the only rational one to have followed. Philip did not see it. He
did not believe it would prove necessary; but as to this and as to
fighting he left them, as he knew he must do, a certain discretion.
The Duke then, flying the sacred banner on the _San Martin_, dropped
down the Tagus on the 14th of May, followed by the whole fleet. The
_San Martin_ had been double-timbered with oak, to keep the shot out. He
liked his business no better. In vain he repeated to himself that it was
God's cause. God would see they came to no harm. He was no sooner in the
open sea than he found no cause, however holy, saved men from the
consequences of their own blunders. They were late out, and met the
north trade wind, as Santa Cruz had foretold.
They drifted to leeward day by day till they had dropped down to Cape
St. Vincent. Infinite pains had been taken with the spiritual state of
everyone on board. The carelessness or roguery of contractors and
purveyors had not been thought of. The water had been taken in three
months before. It was found foul and stinking. The salt beef, the salt
pork, and fish were putrid, the bread full of maggots and cockroaches.
Cask was opened after cask. It was the same story everywhere. They had
to be all thrown overboard. In the whole fleet there was not a sound
morsel of food but biscuit and dried fruit. The men went down in
hundreds with dysentery. The Duke bewailed his fate as innocently as
Sancho Panza. He hoped God would help. He had wished no harm to
anybody. He had left his home and his family to please the King, and he
trusted the King would remember it. He wrote piteously for fresh stores,
if the King would not have them all perish. The admirals said they could
go no further without fresh water. All was dismay and confusion. The
wind at last fell round south, and they made Finisterre. It then came on
to blow, and they were scattered. The Duke with half the fleet crawled
into Corunna, the crews scarce able to man the yards and trying to
desert in shoals.
The missing ships dropped in one by one, but a week passed and a third
of them were still absent. Another despairing letter went off from the
Duke to his master. He said that he concluded from their misfortunes
that God disapproved of the expedition, and that it had better be
abandoned. Diego Florez was of the same opinion. The stores were
worthless, he said. The men were sick and out of heart. Nothing could be
done that season.
It was not by flinching at the first sight of difficulty that the
Spaniards had become masters of half the world. The old comrades of
Santa Cruz saw nothing in what had befallen them beyond a common
accident of sea life. To abandon at the first check an enterprise
undertaken with so much pretence, they said, would be cowardly and
dishonourable. Ships were not lost because they were out of sight. Fresh
meat and bread could be taken on board from Corunna. They could set up a
shore hospital for the sick. The sickness was not dangerous. There had
been no deaths. A little energy and all would be well again. Pedro de
Valdez despatched a courier to Philip to entreat him not to listen to
the Duke's croakings. Philip returned a speedy answer telling the Duke
not to be frightened at shadows.
There was nothing, in fact, really to be alarmed at. Fresh water took
away the dysentery. Fresh food was brought in from the country. Galician
seamen filled the gaps made by the deserters. The ships were laid on
shore and scraped and tallowed. Tents were pitched on an island in the
harbour, with altars and priests, and everyone confessed again and
received the Sacrament. 'This,' wrote the Duke, 'is great riches and a
precious jewel, and all now are well content and cheerful.' The
scattered flock had reassembled. Damages were all repaired, and the only
harm had been loss of time. Once more, on the 23rd of July, the Armada
in full numbers was under way for England and streaming across the Bay
of Biscay with a fair wind for the mouth of the Channel.
Leaving the Duke for the moment, we must now glance at the preparations
made in England to receive him. It might almost be said that there were
none at all. The winter months had been wild and changeable, but not so
wild and not so fluctuating as the mind of England's mistress. In
December her fleet had been paid off at Chatham. The danger of leaving
the country without any regular defence was pressed on her so vehemently
that she consented to allow part of the ships to be recommissioned. The
_Revenge_ was given to Drake. He and Howard, the Lord Admiral, were to
have gone with a mixed squadron from the Royal Navy and the adventurers
down to the Spanish coast. In every loyal subject there had long been
but one opinion, that a good open war was the only road to an honourable
peace. The open war, they now trusted, was come at last. But the hope
was raised only to be disappointed. With the news of Santa Cruz's death
came a report which Elizabeth greedily believed, that the Armada was
dissolving and was not coming at all. Sir James Crofts sang the usual
song that Drake and Howard wanted war, because war was their trade. She
recalled her orders. She said that she was assured of peace in six
weeks, and that beyond that time the services of the fleet would not be
required. Half the men engaged were to be dismissed at once to save
their pay. Drake and Lord Henry Seymour might cruise with four or five
of the Queen's ships between Plymouth and the Solent. Lord Howard was to
remain in the Thames with the rest. I know not whether swearing was
interdicted in the English navy as well as in the Spanish, but I will
answer for it that Howard did not spare his language when this missive
reached him. 'Never,' he said, 'since England was England was such a
stratagem made to deceive us as this treaty. We have not hands left to
carry the ships back to Chatham. We are like bears tied to a stake; the
Spaniards may come to worry us like dogs, and we cannot hurt them.'
It was well for England that she had other defenders than the wildly
managed navy of the Queen. Historians tell us how the gentlemen of the
coast came out in their own vessels to meet the invaders. Come they did,
but who were they? Ships that could fight the Spanish galleons were not
made in a day or a week. They were built already. They were manned by
loyal subjects, the business of whose lives had been to meet the enemies
of their land and faith on the wide ocean--not by those who had been
watching with divided hearts for a Catholic revolution.
March went by, and sure intelligence came that the Armada was not
dissolving. Again Drake prayed the Queen to let him take the _Revenge_
and the Western adventurers down to Lisbon; but the commissioners wrote
full of hope from Ostend, and Elizabeth was afraid 'the King of Spain
might take it ill.' She found fault with Drake's expenses. She charged
him with wasting her ammunition in target practice. She had it doled out
to him in driblets, and allowed no more than would serve for a day and a
half's service. She kept a sharp hand on the victualling houses. April
went, and her four finest ships--the _Triumph_, the _Victory_, the
_Elizabeth Jonas_, and the _Bear_--were still with sails unbent,
'keeping Chatham church.' She said they would not be wanted and it would
be waste of money to refit them. Again she was forced to yield at last,
and the four ships were got to sea in time, the workmen in the yards
making up for the delay; but she had few enough when her whole fleet was
out upon the Channel, and but for the privateers there would have been
an ill reckoning when the trial came. The Armada was coming now. There
was no longer a doubt of it. Lord Henry Seymour was left with five
Queen's ships and thirty London adventurers to watch Parma and the
Narrow Seas. Howard, carrying his own flag in the _Ark Raleigh_, joined
Drake at Plymouth with seventeen others.
Still the numbing hand of his mistress pursued him. Food supplies had
been issued to the middle of June, and no more was to be allowed. The
weather was desperate--wildest summer ever known. The south-west gales
brought the Atlantic rollers into the Sound. Drake lay inside, perhaps
behind the island which bears his name. Howard rode out the gales under
Mount Edgecumbe, the days going by and the provisions wasting. The
rations were cut down to make the stores last longer. Owing to the many
changes the crews had been hastily raised. They were ill-clothed,
ill-provided every way, but they complained of nothing, caught fish to
mend their mess dinners, and prayed only for the speedy coming of the
enemy. Even Howard's heart failed him now. English sailors would do what
could be done by man, but they could not fight with famine. 'Awake,
Madam,' he wrote to the Queen, 'awake, for the love of Christ, and see
the villainous treasons round about you.' He goaded her into ordering
supplies for one more month, but this was to be positively the last. The
victuallers inquired if they should make further preparations. She
answered peremptorily, 'No'; and again the weeks ran on. The
contractors, it seemed, had caught her spirit, for the beer which had
been furnished for the fleet turned sour, and those who drank it
sickened. The officers, on their own responsibility, ordered wine and
arrowroot for the sick out of Plymouth, to be called to a sharp account
when all was over. Again the rations were reduced. Four weeks' allowance
was stretched to serve for six, and still the Spaniards did not come. So
England's forlorn hope was treated at the crisis of her destiny. The
preparations on land were scarcely better. The militia had been called
out. A hundred thousand men had given their names, and the stations had
been arranged where they were to assemble if the enemy attempted a
landing. But there were no reserves, no magazines of arms, no stores or
tents, no requisites for an army save the men themselves and what local
resources could furnish. For a general the Queen had chosen the Earl of
Leicester, who might have the merit of fidelity to herself, but
otherwise was the worst fitted that she could have found in her whole
dominions; and the Prince of Parma was coming, if he came at all, at
the head of the best-provided and best-disciplined troops in Europe. The
hope of England at that moment was in her patient suffering sailors at
Plymouth. Each morning they looked out passionately for the Spanish
sails. Time was a worse enemy than the galleons. The six weeks would be
soon gone, and the Queen's ships must then leave the seas if the crews
were not to starve. Drake had certain news that the Armada had sailed.
Where was it? Once he dashed out as far as Ushant, but turned back, lest
it should pass him in the night and find Plymouth undefended; and
smaller grew the messes and leaner and paler the seamen's faces. Still
not a man murmured or gave in. They had no leisure to be sick.
The last week of July had now come. There were half-rations for one week
more, and powder for two days' fighting. That was all. On so light a
thread such mighty issues were now depending. On Friday, the 23rd, the
Armada had started for the second time, the numbers undiminished;
religious fervour burning again, and heart and hope high as ever.
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday they sailed on with a smooth sea and soft
south winds, and on Monday night the Duke found himself at the Channel
mouth with all his flock about him. Tuesday morning the wind shifted to
the north, then backed to the west, and blew hard. The sea got up, broke
into the stern galleries of the galleons, and sent the galleys looking
for shelter in French harbours. The fleet hove to for a couple of days,
till the weather mended. On Friday afternoon they sighted the Lizard and
formed into fighting order; the Duke in the centre, Alonzo de Leyva
leading in a vessel of his own called the _Rata Coronada_, Don Martin de
Recalde covering the rear. The entire line stretched to about seven
miles.
The sacred banner was run up to the masthead of the _San Martin_. Each
ship saluted with all her guns, and every man--officer, noble, seaman,
or slave--knelt on the decks at a given signal to commend themselves to
Mary and her Son. We shall miss the meaning of this high epic story if
we do not realise that both sides had the most profound conviction that
they were fighting the battle of the Almighty. Two principles, freedom
and authority, were contending for the guidance of mankind. In the
evening the Duke sent off two fast fly-boats to Parma to announce his
arrival in the Channel, with another reporting progress to Philip, and
saying that till he heard from the Prince he meant to stop at the Isle
of Wight. It is commonly said that his officers advised him to go in and
take Plymouth. There is no evidence for this. The island would have been
a far more useful position for them.
At dark that Friday night the beacons were seen blazing all up the coast
and inland on the tops of the hills. They crept on slowly through
Saturday, with reduced canvas, feeling their way--not a sail to be seen.
At midnight a pinnace brought in a fishing-boat, from which they learnt
that on the sight of the signal fires the English had come out that
morning from Plymouth. Presently, when the moon rose, they saw sails
passing between them and the land. With daybreak the whole scene became
visible, and the curtain lifted on the first act of the drama. The
Armada was between Rame Head and the Eddystone, or a little to the west
of it. Plymouth Sound was right open to their left. The breeze, which
had dropped in the night, was freshening from the south-west, and right
ahead of them, outside the Mew Stone, were eleven ships manoeuvring to
recover the wind. Towards the land were some forty others, of various
sizes, and this formed, as far as they could see, the whole English
force. In numbers the Spaniards were nearly three to one. In the size of
the ships there was no comparison. With these advantages the Duke
decided to engage, and a signal was made to hold the wind and keep the
enemy apart. The eleven ships ahead were Howard's squadron; those inside
were Drake and the adventurers. With some surprise the Spanish officers
saw Howard reach easily to windward out of range and join Drake. The
whole English fleet then passed out close-hauled in line behind them and
swept along their rear, using guns more powerful than theirs and pouring
in broadsides from safe distance with deadly effect. Recalde, with
Alonzo de Leyva and Oquendo, who came to his help, tried desperately to
close; but they could make nothing of it. They were out-sailed and
out-cannoned. The English fired five shots to one of theirs, and the
effect was the more destructive because, as with Rodney's action at
Dominica, the galleons were crowded with troops, and shot and splinters
told terribly among them.
The experience was new and not agreeable. Recalde's division was badly
cut up, and a Spaniard present observes that certain officers showed
cowardice--a hit at the Duke, who had kept out of fire. The action
lasted till four in the afternoon. The wind was then freshening fast and
the sea rising. Both fleets had by this time passed the Sound, and the
Duke, seeing that nothing could be done, signalled to bear away up
Channel, the English following two miles astern. Recalde's own ship had
been an especial sufferer. She was observed to be leaking badly, to drop
behind, and to be in danger of capture. Pedro de Valdez wore round to
help him in the _Capitana_, of the Andalusian squadron, fouled the
_Santa Catalina_ in turning, broke his bowsprit and foretopmast, and
became unmanageable. The Andalusian _Capitana_ was one of the finest
ships in the Spanish fleet, and Don Pedro one of the ablest and most
popular commanders. She had 500 men on board, a large sum of money,
and, among other treasures, a box of jewel-hilted swords, which Philip
was sending over to the English Catholic peers. But it was growing dark.
Sea and sky looked ugly. The Duke was flurried, and signalled to go on
and leave Don Pedro to his fate. Alonzo de Leyva and Oquendo rushed on
board the _San Martin_ to protest. It was no use. Diego Florez said he
could not risk the safety of the fleet for a single officer. The
deserted _Capitana_ made a brave defence, but could not save herself,
and fell, with the jewelled swords, 50,000 ducats, and a welcome supply
of powder, into Drake's hands.
Off the Start there was a fresh disaster. Everyone was in ill-humour. A
quarrel broke out between the soldiers and seamen in Oquendo's galleon.
He was himself still absent. Some wretch or other flung a torch into the
powder magazine and jumped overboard. The deck was blown off, and 200
men along with it.
Two such accidents following an unsuccessful engagement did not tend to
reconcile the Spaniards to the Duke's command. Pedro de Valdez was
universally loved and honoured, and his desertion in the face of an
enemy so inferior in numbers was regarded as scandalous poltroonery.
Monday morning broke heavily. The wind was gone, but there was still a
considerable swell. The English were hull down behind. The day was spent
in repairing damages and nailing lead over the shot-holes. Recalde was
moved to the front, to be out of harm's way, and De Leyva took his post
in the rear.
At sunset they were outside Portland. The English had come up within a
league; but it was now dead calm, and they drifted apart in the tide.
The Duke thought of nothing, but at midnight the Spanish officers
stirred him out of his sleep to urge him to set his great galleasses to
work; now was their chance. The dawn brought a chance still better, for
it brought an east wind, and the Spaniards had now the weather-gage.
Could they once close and grapple with the English ships, their superior
numbers would then assure them a victory, and Howard, being to leeward
and inshore, would have to pass through the middle of the Spanish line
to recover his advantage. However, it was the same story. The Spaniards
could not use an opportunity when they had one. New-modelled for
superiority of sailing, the English ships had the same advantage over
the galleons as the steam cruisers would have over the old
three-deckers. While the breeze held they went where they pleased. The
Spaniards were out-sailed, out-matched, crushed by guns of longer range
than theirs. Their own shot flew high over the low English hulls, while
every ball found its way through their own towering sides. This time the
_San Martin_ was in the thick of it. Her double timbers were ripped and
torn; the holy standard was cut in two; the water poured through the
shot-holes. The men lost their nerve. In such ships as had no gentlemen
on board notable signs were observed of flinching.
At the end of that day's fighting the English powder gave out. Two days'
service had been the limit of the Queen's allowance. Howard had pressed
for a more liberal supply at the last moment, and had received the
characteristic answer that he must state precisely how much he wanted
before more could be sent. The lighting of the beacons had quickened
the official pulse a little. A small addition had been despatched to
Weymouth or Poole, and no more could be done till it arrived. The Duke,
meanwhile, was left to smooth his ruffled plumes and drift on upon his
way. But by this time England was awake. Fresh privateers, with powder,
meat, bread, fruit, anything that they could bring, were pouring out
from the Dorsetshire harbours. Sir George Carey had come from the
Needles in time to share the honours of the last battle, 'round shot,'
as he said, 'flying thick as musket balls in a skirmish on land.'
The Duke had observed uneasily from the _San Martin's_ deck that his
pursuers were growing numerous. He had made up his mind definitely to go
for the Isle of Wight, shelter his fleet in the Solent, land 10,000 men
in the island, and stand on his defence till he heard from Parma. He
must fight another battle; but, cut up as he had been, he had as yet
lost but two ships, and those by accident. He might fairly hope to force
his way in with help from above, for which he had special reason to look
in the next engagement. Wednesday was a breathless calm. The English
were taking in their supplies. The Armada lay still, repairing damages.
Thursday would be St. Dominic's Day. St. Dominic belonged to the Duke's
own family, and was his patron saint. St. Dominic he felt sure, would
now stand by his kinsman.