move, and with the help of the galleasses he might hope to come to close
quarters at last. Howard seemed inclined to give him his wish. With just
wind enough to move the Lord Admiral led in the _Ark Raleigh_ straight
down on the Spanish centre. The _Ark_ out-sailed her consorts and found
herself alone with the galleons all round her. At that moment the wind
dropped. The Spanish boarding-parties were at their posts. The tops were
manned with musketeers, the grappling irons all prepared to fling into
the _Ark's_ rigging. In imagination the English admiral was their own.
But each day's experience was to teach them a new lesson. Eleven boats
dropped from the _Ark's_ sides and took her in tow. The breeze rose
again as she began to move. Her sails filled, and she slipped away
through the water, leaving the Spaniards as if they were at anchor,
staring in helpless amazement. The wind brought up Drake and the rest,
and then began again the terrible cannonade from which the Armada had
already suffered so frightfully. It seemed that morning as if the
English were using guns of even heavier metal than on either of the
preceding days. The armament had not been changed. The growth was in
their own frightened imagination. The Duke had other causes for
uneasiness. His own magazines were also giving out under the unexpected
demands upon them. One battle was the utmost which he had looked for. He
had fought three, and the end was no nearer than before. With resolution
he might still have made his way into St. Helen's roads, for the English
were evidently afraid to close with him. But when St. Dominic, too,
failed him he lost his head. He lost his heart, and losing heart he lost
all. In the Solent he would have been comparatively safe, and he could
easily have taken the Isle of Wight; but his one thought now was to
find safety under Parma's gaberdine and make for Calais or Dunkirk. He
supposed Parma to have already embarked, on hearing of his coming, with
a second armed fleet, and in condition for immediate action. He sent on
another pinnace, pressing for help, pressing for ammunition, and
fly-boats to protect the galleons; and Parma was himself looking to be
supplied from the Armada, with no second fleet at all, only a flotilla
of river barges which would need a week's work to be prepared for the
crossing.
Philip had provided a splendid fleet, a splendid army, and the finest
sailors in the world except the English. He had failed to realise that
the grandest preparations are useless with a fool to command. The poor
Duke was less to blame than his master. An office had been thrust upon
him for which he knew that he had not a single qualification. His one
anxiety was to find Parma, lay the weight on Parma's shoulders, and so
have done with it.
On Friday he was left alone to make his way up Channel towards the
French shore. The English still followed, but he counted that in Calais
roads he would be in French waters, where they would not dare to meddle
with him. They would then, he thought, go home and annoy him no further.
As he dropped anchor in the dusk outside Calais on Saturday evening he
saw, to his disgust, that the _endemoniada gente_--the infernal
devils--as he called them, had brought up at the same moment with
himself, half a league astern of him. His one trust was in the Prince of
Parma, and Parma at any rate was now within touch.
LECTURE IX
DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA
In the gallery at Madrid there is a picture, painted by Titian,
representing the Genius of Spain coming to the delivery of the afflicted
Bride of Christ. Titian was dead, but the temper of the age survived,
and in the study of that great picture you will see the spirit in which
the Spanish nation had set out for the conquest of England. The scene is
the seashore. The Church a naked Andromeda, with dishevelled hair,
fastened to the trunk of an ancient disbranched tree. The cross lies at
her feet, the cup overturned, the serpents of heresy biting at her from
behind with uplifted crests. Coming on before a leading breeze is the
sea monster, the Moslem fleet, eager for their prey; while in front is
Perseus, the Genius of Spain, banner in hand, with the legions of the
faithful laying not raiment before him, but shield and helmet, the
apparel of war for the Lady of Nations to clothe herself with strength
and smite her foes.
In the Armada the crusading enthusiasm had reached its point and focus.
England was the stake to which the Virgin, the daughter of Sion, was
bound in captivity. Perseus had come at last in the person of the Duke
of Medina Sidonia, and with him all that was best and brightest in the
countrymen of Cervantes, to break her bonds and replace her on her
throne. They had sailed into the Channel in pious hope, with the blessed
banner waving over their heads.
To be the executor of the decrees of Providence is a lofty ambition, but
men in a state of high emotion overlook the precautions which are not to
be dispensed with even on the sublimest of errands. Don Quixote, when he
set out to redress the wrongs of humanity, forgot that a change of linen
might be necessary, and that he must take money with him to pay his
hotel bills. Philip II., in sending the Armada to England, and confident
in supernatural protection, imagined an unresisted triumphal
procession. He forgot that contractors might be rascals, that water four
months in the casks in a hot climate turned putrid, and that putrid
water would poison his ships' companies, though his crews were companies
of angels. He forgot that the servants of the evil one might fight for
their mistress after all, and that he must send adequate supplies of
powder, and, worst forgetfulness of all, that a great naval expedition
required a leader who understood his business. Perseus, in the shape of
the Duke of Medina Sidonia, after a week of disastrous battles, found
himself at the end of it in an exposed roadstead, where he ought never
to have been, nine-tenths of his provisions thrown overboard as unfit
for food, his ammunition exhausted by the unforeseen demands upon it,
the seamen and soldiers harassed and dispirited, officers the whole week
without sleep, and the enemy, who had hunted him from Plymouth to
Calais, anchored within half a league of him.
Still, after all his misadventures, he had brought the fleet, if not to
the North Foreland, yet within a few miles of it, and to outward
appearance not materially injured. Two of the galleons had been taken;
a third, the _Santa Aña_, had strayed; and his galleys had left him,
being found too weak for the Channel sea; but the great armament had
reached its destination substantially uninjured so far as English eyes
could see. Hundreds of men had been killed and hundreds more wounded,
and the spirit of the rest had been shaken. But the loss of life could
only be conjectured on board the English fleet. The English admiral
could only see that the Duke was now in touch with Parma. Parma, they
knew, had an army at Dunkirk with him, which was to cross to England. He
had been collecting men, barges, and transports all the winter and
spring, and the backward state of Parma's preparations could not be
anticipated, still less relied upon. The Calais anchorage was unsafe;
but at that season of the year, especially after a wet summer, the
weather usually settled; and to attack the Spaniards in a French port
might be dangerous for many reasons. It was uncertain after the day of
the Barricades whether the Duke of Guise or Henry of Valois was master
of France, and a violation of the neutrality laws might easily at that
moment bring Guise and France into the field on the Spaniards' side. It
was, no doubt, with some such expectation that the Duke and his advisers
had chosen Calais as the point at which to bring up. It was now
Saturday, the 7th of August. The Governor of the town came off in the
evening to the _San Martin_. He expressed surprise to see the Spanish
fleet in so exposed a position, but he was profuse in his offers of
service. Anything which the Duke required should be provided, especially
every facility for communicating with Dunkirk and Parma. The Duke
thanked him, said that he supposed Parma to be already embarked with his
troops, ready for the passage, and that his own stay in the roads would
be but brief. On Monday morning at latest he expected that the attempt
to cross would be made. The Governor took his leave, and the Duke,
relieved from his anxieties, was left to a peaceful night. He was
disturbed on the Sunday morning by an express from Parma informing him
that, so far from being embarked, the army could not be ready for a
fortnight. The barges were not in condition for sea. The troops were in
camp. The arms and stores were on the quays at Dunkirk. As for the
fly-boats and ammunition which the Duke had asked for, he had none to
spare. He had himself looked to be supplied from the Armada. He promised
to use his best expedition, but the Duke, meanwhile, must see to the
safety of the fleet.
Unwelcome news to a harassed landsman thrust into the position of an
admiral and eager to be rid of his responsibilities. If by evil fortune
the north-wester should come down upon him, with the shoals and
sandbanks close under his lee, he would be in a bad way. Nor was the
view behind him calculated for comfort. There lay the enemy almost
within gunshot, who, though scarcely more than half his numbers, had
hunted him like a pack of bloodhounds, and, worse than all, in double
strength; for the Thames squadron--three Queen's ships and thirty London
adventurers--under Lord H. Seymour and Sir John Hawkins, had crossed in
the night. There they were between him and Cape Grisnez, and the
reinforcement meant plainly enough that mischief was in the wind.
After a week so trying the Spanish crews would have been glad of a
Sunday's rest if they could have had it; but the rough handling which
they had gone through had thrown everything into disorder. The sick and
wounded had to be cared for, torn rigging looked to, splintered timbers
mended, decks scoured, and guns and arms cleaned up and put to rights.
And so it was that no rest could be allowed; so much had to be done, and
so busy was everyone, that the usual rations were not served out and the
Sunday was kept as a fast. In the afternoon the stewards went ashore for
fresh meat and vegetables. They came back with their boats loaded, and
the prospect seemed a little less gloomy. Suddenly, as the Duke and a
group of officers were watching the English fleet from the _San
Martin's_ poop deck, a small smart pinnace, carrying a gun in her bow,
shot out from Howard's lines, bore down on the _San Martin_, sailed
round her, sending in a shot or two as she passed, and went off unhurt.
The Spanish officers could not help admiring such airy impertinence.
Hugo de Monçada sent a ball after the pinnace, which went through her
mainsail, but did no damage, and the pinnace again disappeared behind
the English ships.
So a Spanish officer describes the scene. The English story says nothing
of the pinnace; but she doubtless came and went as the Spaniard says,
and for sufficient purpose. The English, too, were in straits, though
the Duke did not dream of it. You will remember that the last supplies
which the Queen had allowed to the fleet had been issued in the middle
of June. They were to serve for a month, and the contractors were
forbidden to prepare more. The Queen had clung to her hope that her
differences with Philip were to be settled by the Commission at Ostend;
and she feared that if Drake and Howard were too well furnished they
would venture some fresh rash stroke on the coast of Spain, which might
mar the negotiations. Their month's provisions had been stretched to
serve for six weeks, and when the Armada appeared but two full days'
rations remained. On these they had fought their way up Channel.
Something had been brought out by private exertion on the Dorsetshire
coast, and Seymour had, perhaps, brought a little more. But they were
still in extremity. The contractors had warned the Government that they
could provide nothing without notice, and notice had not been given. The
adventurers were in better state, having been equipped by private
owners. But the Queen's ships in a day or two more must either go home
or their crews would be starving. They had been on reduced rations for
near two months. Worse than that, they were still poisoned by the sour
beer. The Queen had changed her mind so often, now ordering the fleet to
prepare for sea, then recalling her instructions and paying off the men,
that those whom Howard had with him had been enlisted in haste, had come
on board as they were, and their clothes were hanging in rags on them.
The fighting and the sight of the flying Spaniards were meat and drink,
and clothing too, and had made them careless of all else. There was no
fear of mutiny; but there was a limit to the toughest endurance. If the
Armada was left undisturbed a long struggle might be still before them.
The enemy would recover from its flurry, and Parma would come out from
Dunkirk. To attack them directly in French waters might lead to
perilous complications, while delay meant famine. The Spanish fleet had
to be started from the roads in some way. Done it must be, and done
immediately.
Then, on that same Sunday afternoon a memorable council of war was held
in the _Ark's_ main cabin. Howard, Drake, Seymour, Hawkins, Martin
Frobisher, and two or three others met to consult, knowing that on them
at that moment the liberties of England were depending. Their resolution
was taken promptly. There was no time for talk. After nightfall a strong
flood tide would be setting up along shore to the Spanish anchorage.
They would try what could be done with fire-ships, and the excursion of
the pinnace, which was taken for bravado, was probably for a survey of
the Armada's exact position. Meantime eight useless vessels were coated
with pitch--hulls, spars, and rigging. Pitch was poured on the decks and
over the sides, and parties were told off to steer them to their
destination and then fire and leave them.
The hours stole on, and twilight passed into dark. The night was
without a moon. The Duke paced his deck late with uneasy sense of
danger. He observed lights moving up and down the English lines, and
imagining that the _endemoniada gente_--the infernal devils--might be up
to mischief ordered a sharp look-out. A faint westerly air was curling
the water, and towards midnight the watchers on board the galleons made
out dimly several ships which seemed to be drifting down upon them.
Their experience since the action off Plymouth had been so strange and
unlooked for that anything unintelligible which the English did was
alarming.
The phantom forms drew nearer, and were almost among them when they
broke into a blaze from water-line to truck, and the two fleets were
seen by the lurid light of the conflagration; the anchorage, the walls
and windows of Calais, and the sea shining red far as eye could reach,
as if the ocean itself was burning. Among the dangers which they might
have to encounter, English fireworks had been especially dreaded by the
Spaniards. Fire-ships--a fit device of heretics--had worked havoc among
the Spanish troops, when the bridge was blown up, at Antwerp. They
imagined that similar infernal machines were approaching the Armada. A
capable commander would have sent a few launches to grapple the burning
hulks, which of course were now deserted, and tow them out of harm's
way. Spanish sailors were not cowards, and would not have flinched from
duty because it might be dangerous; but the Duke and Diego Florez lost
their heads again. A signal gun from the _San Martin_ ordered the whole
fleet to slip their cables and stand out to sea.
Orders given in panic are doubly unwise, for they spread the terror in
which they originate. The danger from the fire-ships was chiefly from
the effect on the imagination, for they appear to have drifted by and
done no real injury. And it speaks well for the seamanship and courage
of the Spaniards that they were able, crowded together as they were, at
midnight and in sudden alarm to set their canvas and clear out without
running into one another. They buoyed their cables, expecting to return
for them at daylight, and with only a single accident, to be mentioned
directly, they executed successfully a really difficult manoeuvre.
The Duke was delighted with himself. The fire-ships burnt harmlessly
out. He had baffled the inventions of the _endemoniada gente_. He
brought up a league outside the harbour, and supposed that the whole
Armada had done the same. Unluckily for himself, he found it at daylight
divided into two bodies. The _San Martin_ with forty of the best
appointed of the galleons were riding together at their anchors. The
rest, two-thirds of the whole, having no second anchors ready, and
inexperienced in Channel tides and currents, had been lying to. The west
wind was blowing up. Without seeing where they were going they had
drifted to leeward, and were two leagues off, towards Gravelines,
dangerously near the shore. The Duke was too ignorant to realise the
full peril of his situation. He signalled to them to return and rejoin
him. As the wind and tide stood it was impossible. He proposed to follow
them. The pilots told him that if he did the whole fleet might be lost
on the banks. Towards the land the look of things was not more
encouraging.
One accident only had happened the night before. The Capitana galleass,
with Don Hugo de Monçada and eight hundred men on board, had fouled her
helm in a cable in getting under way and had become unmanageable. The
galley slaves disobeyed orders, or else Don Hugo was as incompetent as
his commander-in-chief. The galleass had gone on the sands, and as the
tide ebbed had fallen over on her side. Howard, seeing her condition,
had followed her in the _Ark_ with four or five other of the Queen's
ships, and was furiously attacking her with his boats, careless of
neutrality laws. Howard's theory was, as he said, to pluck the feathers
one by one from the Spaniard's wing, and here was a feather worth
picking up. The galleass was the most splendid vessel of her kind
afloat, Don Hugo one of the greatest of Spanish grandees.
Howard was making a double mistake. He took the galleass at last, after
three hours' fighting. Don Hugo was killed by a musket ball. The vessel
was plundered, and Howard's men took possession, meaning to carry her
away when the tide rose. The French authorities ordered him off,
threatening to fire upon him; and after wasting the forenoon, he was
obliged at last to leave her where she lay. Worse than this, he had lost
three precious hours, and had lost along with them, in the opinion of
the Prince of Parma, the honours of the great day.
Drake and Hawkins knew better than to waste time plucking single
feathers. The fire-ships had been more effective than they could have
dared to hope. The enemy was broken up. The Duke was shorn of half his
strength, and the Lord had delivered him into their hand. He had got
under way, still signalling wildly, and uncertain in which direction to
turn. His uncertainties were ended for him by seeing Drake bearing down
upon him with the whole English fleet, save those which were loitering
about the galleass. The English had now the advantage of numbers. The
superiority of their guns he knew already, and their greater speed
allowed him no hope to escape a battle. Forty ships alone were left to
him to defend the banner of the crusade and the honour of Castile; but
those forty were the largest and the most powerfully armed and manned
that he had, and on board them were Oquendo, De Leyva, Recalde, and
Bretandona, the best officers in the Spanish navy next to the lost Don
Pedro.
It was now or never for England. The scene of the action which was to
decide the future of Europe was between Calais and Dunkirk, a few miles
off shore, and within sight of Parma's camp. There was no more
manoeuvring for the weather-gage, no more fighting at long range.
Drake dashed straight upon his prey as the falcon stoops upon its
quarry. A chance had fallen to him which might never return; not for the
vain distinction of carrying prizes into English ports, not for the ray
of honour which would fall on him if he could carry off the sacred
banner itself and hang it in the Abbey at Westminster, but a chance so
to handle the Armada that it should never be seen again in English
waters, and deal such a blow on Philip that the Spanish Empire should
reel with it. The English ships had the same superiority over the
galleons which steamers have now over sailing vessels. They had twice
the speed; they could lie two points nearer to the wind. Sweeping round
them at cable's length, crowding them in one upon the other, yet never
once giving them a chance to grapple, they hurled in their cataracts of
round shot. Short as was the powder supply, there was no sparing it that
morning. The hours went on, and still the battle raged, if battle it
could be called where the blows were all dealt on one side and the
suffering was all on the other. Never on sea or land did the Spaniards
show themselves worthier of their great name than on that day. But from
the first they could do nothing. It was said afterwards in Spain that
the Duke showed the white feather, that he charged his pilot to keep him
out of harm's way, that he shut himself up in his cabin, buried in
woolpacks, and so on. The Duke had faults enough, but poltroonery was
not one of them. He, who till he entered the English Channel had never
been in action on sea or land, found himself, as he said, in the midst
of the most furious engagement recorded in the history of the world. As
to being out of harm's way, the standard at his masthead drew the
hottest of the fire upon him. The _San Martin's_ timbers were of oak and
a foot thick, but the shot, he said, went through them enough to shatter
a rock. Her deck was a slaughterhouse; half his company were killed or
wounded, and no more would have been heard or seen of the _San Martin_
or her commander had not Oquendo and De Leyva pushed in to the rescue
and enabled him to creep away under their cover. He himself saw nothing
more of the action after this. The smoke, he said, was so thick that he
could make out nothing, even from his masthead. But all round it was but
a repetition of the same scene. The Spanish shot flew high, as before,
above the low English hulls, and they were themselves helpless butts to
the English guns. And it is noticeable and supremely creditable to them
that not a single galleon struck her colours. One of them, after a long
duel with an Englishman, was on the point of sinking. An English
officer, admiring the courage which the Spaniards had shown, ran out
upon his bowsprit, told them that they had done all which became men,
and urged them to surrender and save their lives. For answer they
cursed the English as cowards and chickens because they refused to
close. The officer was shot. His fall brought a last broadside on them,
which finished the work. They went down, and the water closed over them.
Rather death to the soldiers of the Cross than surrender to a heretic.
The deadly hail rained on. In some ships blood was seen streaming out of
the scupper-holes. Yet there was no yielding; all ranks showed equal
heroism. The priests went up and down in the midst of the carnage,
holding the crucifix before the eyes of the dying. At midday Howard came
up to claim a second share in a victory which was no longer doubtful.
Towards the afternoon the Spanish fire slackened. Their powder was gone,
and they could make no return to the cannonade which was still
overwhelming them. They admitted freely afterwards that if the attack
had been continued but two hours more they must all have struck or gone
ashore. But the English magazines were empty also; the last cartridge
was shot away, and the battle ended from mere inability to keep it up.
It had been fought on both sides with peculiar determination. In the
English there was the accumulated resentment of thirty years of menace
to their country and their creed, with the enemy in tangible shape at
last to be caught and grappled with; in the Spanish, the sense that if
their cause had not brought them the help they looked for from above,
the honour and faith of Castile should not suffer in their hands.
It was over. The English drew off, regretting that their thrifty
mistress had limited their means of fighting for her, and so obliged
them to leave their work half done. When the cannon ceased the wind
rose, the smoke rolled away, and in the level light of the sunset they
could see the results of the action.
A galleon in Recalde's squadron was sinking with all hands. The _San
Philip_ and the _San Matteo_ were drifting dismasted towards the Dutch
coast, where they were afterwards wrecked. Those which were left with
canvas still showing were crawling slowly after their comrades who had
not been engaged, the spars and rigging so cut up that they could
scarce bear their sails. The loss of life could only be conjectured, but
it had been obviously terrible. The nor'-wester was blowing up and was
pressing the wounded ships upon the shoals, from which, if it held, it
seemed impossible in their crippled state they would be able to work
off.