any quarter to collect, if he could, more food and powder. The snake had
been scotched, but not killed. More than half the great fleet were far
away, untouched by shot, perhaps able to fight a second battle if they
recovered heart. To follow, to drive them on the banks if the wind held,
or into the North Sea, anywhere so that he left them no chance of
joining hands with Parma again, and to use the time before they had
rallied from his blows, that was the present necessity. His own poor
fellows were famished and in rags; but neither he nor they had leisure
to think of themselves. There was but one thought in the whole of them,
to be again in chase of the flying foe. Howard was resolute as Drake.
All that was possible was swiftly done. Seymour and the Thames squadron
were to stay in the Straits and watch Parma. From every attainable
source food and powder were collected for the rest--far short in both
ways of what ought to have been, but, as Drake said, 'we were resolved
to put on a brag and go on as if we needed nothing.' Before dawn the
admiral and he were again off on the chase.
The brag was unneeded. What man could do had been done, and the rest was
left to the elements. Never again could Spanish seamen be brought to
face the English guns with Medina Sidonia to lead them. They had a fool
at their head. The Invisible Powers in whom they had been taught to
trust had deserted them. Their confidence was gone and their spirit
broken. Drearily the morning broke on the Duke and his consorts the day
after the battle. The Armada had collected in the night. The nor'-wester
had freshened to a gale, and they were labouring heavily along, making
fatal leeway towards the shoals.
It was St. Lawrence's Day, Philip's patron saint, whose shoulder-bone he
had lately added to the treasures of the Escurial; but St. Lawrence was
as heedless as St. Dominic. The _San Martin_ had but six fathoms under
her. Those nearer to the land signalled five, and right before them they
could see the brown foam of the breakers curling over the sands, while
on their weather-beam, a mile distant and clinging to them like the
shadow of death, were the English ships which had pursued them from
Plymouth like the dogs of the Furies. The Spanish sailors and soldiers
had been without food since the evening when they anchored at Calais.
All Sunday they had been at work, no rest allowed them to eat. On the
Sunday night they had been stirred out of their sleep by the fire-ships.
Monday they had been fighting, and Monday night committing their dead to
the sea. Now they seemed advancing directly upon inevitable destruction.
As the wind stood there was still room for them to wear and thus escape
the banks, but they would then have to face the enemy, who seemed only
refraining from attacking them because while they continued on their
present course the winds and waves would finish the work without help
from man. Recalde, De Leyva, Oquendo, and other officers were sent for
to the _San Martin_ to consult. Oquendo came last. 'Ah, Señor Oquendo,'
said the Duke as the heroic Biscayan stepped on board, 'que haremos?'
(what shall we do?) 'Let your Excellency bid load the guns again,' was
Oquendo's gallant answer. It could not be. De Leyva himself said that
the men would not fight the English again. Florez advised surrender. The
Duke wavered. It was said that a boat was actually lowered to go off to
Howard and make terms, and that Oquendo swore that if the boat left the
_San Martin_ on such an errand he would fling Florez into the sea.
Oquendo's advice would have, perhaps, been the safest if the Duke could
have taken it. There were still seventy ships in the Armada little hurt.
The English were 'bragging,' as Drake said, and in no condition
themselves for another serious engagement. But the temper of the entire
fleet made a courageous course impossible. There was but one Oquendo.
Discipline was gone. The soldiers in their desperation had taken the
command out of the hands of the seamen. Officers and men alike
abandoned hope, and, with no human prospect of salvation left to them,
they flung themselves on their knees upon the decks and prayed the
Almighty to have pity on them. But two weeks were gone since they had
knelt on those same decks on the first sight of the English shore to
thank Him for having brought them so far on an enterprise so glorious.
Two weeks; and what weeks! Wrecked, torn by cannon shot, ten thousand of
them dead or dying--for this was the estimated loss by battle--the
survivors could now but pray to be delivered from a miserable death by
the elements. In cyclones the wind often changes suddenly back from
north-west to west, from west to south. At that moment, as if in answer
to their petition, one of these sudden shifts of wind saved them from
the immediate peril. The gale backed round to S.S.W., and ceased to
press them on the shoals. They could ease their sheets, draw off into
open water, and steer a course up the middle of the North Sea.
So only that they went north, Drake was content to leave them
unmolested. Once away into the high latitudes they might go where they
would. Neither Howard nor he, in the low state of their own magazines,
desired any unnecessary fighting. If the Armada turned back they must
close with it. If it held its present course they must follow it till
they could be assured it would communicate no more for that summer with
the Prince of Parma. Drake thought they would perhaps make for the
Baltic or some port in Norway. They would meet no hospitable reception
from either Swedes or Danes, but they would probably try. One only
imminent danger remained to be provided against. If they turned into the
Forth, it was still possible for the Spaniards to redeem their defeat,
and even yet shake Elizabeth's throne. Among the many plans which had
been formed for the invasion of England, a landing in Scotland had long
been the favourite. Guise had always preferred Scotland when it was
intended that Guise should be the leader. Santa Cruz had been in close
correspondence with Guise on this very subject, and many officers in the
Armada must have been acquainted with Santa Cruz's views. The Scotch
Catholic nobles were still savage at Mary Stuart's execution, and had
the Armada anchored in Leith Roads with twenty thousand men, half a
million ducats, and a Santa Cruz at its head, it might have kindled a
blaze at that moment from John o' Groat's Land to the Border.
But no such purpose occurred to the Duke of Medina Sidonia. He probably
knew nothing at all of Scotland or its parties. Among the many
deficiencies which he had pleaded to Philip as unfitting him for the
command, he had said that Santa Cruz had acquaintances among the English
and Scotch peers. He had himself none. The small information which he
had of anything did not go beyond his orange gardens and his tunny
fishing. His chief merit was that he was conscious of his incapacity;
and, detesting a service into which he had been fooled by a hysterical
nun, his only anxiety was to carry home the still considerable fleet
which had been trusted to him without further loss. Beyond Scotland and
the Scotch Isles there was the open ocean, and in the open ocean there
were no sandbanks and no English guns. Thus, with all sail set he went
on before the wind. Drake and Howard attended him till they had seen
him past the Forth, and knew then that there was no more to fear. It was
time to see to the wants of their own poor fellows, who had endured so
patiently and fought so magnificently. On the 13th of August they saw
the last of the Armada, turned back, and made their way to the Thames.
But the story has yet to be told of the final fate of the great
'enterprise of England' (the 'empresa de Inglaterra'), the object of so
many prayers, on which the hopes of the Catholic world had been so long
and passionately fixed. It had been ostentatiously a religious crusade.
The preparations had been attended with peculiar solemnities. In the
eyes of the faithful it was to be the execution of Divine justice on a
wicked princess and a wicked people. In the eyes of millions whose
convictions were less decided it was an appeal to God's judgment to
decide between the Reformation and the Pope. There was an
appropriateness, therefore, if due to accident, that other causes
besides the action of man should have combined in its overthrow.
The Spaniards were experienced sailors; a voyage round the Orkneys and
round Ireland to Spain might be tedious, but at that season of the year
need not have seemed either dangerous or difficult. On inquiry, however,
it was found that the condition of the fleet was seriously alarming. The
provisions placed on board at Lisbon had been found unfit for food, and
almost all had been thrown into the sea. The fresh stores taken in at
Corunna had been consumed, and it was found that at the present rate
there would be nothing left in a fortnight. Worse than all, the
water-casks refilled there had been carelessly stowed. They had been
shot through in the fighting and were empty; while of clothing or other
comforts for the cold regions which they were entering no thought had
been taken. The mules and horses were flung overboard, and Scotch
smacks, which had followed the retreating fleet, reported that they had
sailed for miles through floating carcases.
The rations were reduced for each man to a daily half-pound of biscuit,
a pint of water, and a pint of wine. Thus, sick and hungry, the wounded
left to the care of a medical officer, who went from ship to ship, the
subjects of so many prayers were left to encounter the climate of the
North Atlantic. The Duke blamed all but himself; he hanged one poor
captain for neglect of orders, and would have hanged another had he
dared; but his authority was gone. They passed the Orkneys in a single
body. They then parted, it was said in a fog; but each commander had to
look out for himself and his men. In many ships water must be had
somewhere, or they would die. The _San Martin_, with sixty consorts,
went north to the sixtieth parallel. From that height the pilots
promised to take them down clear of the coast. The wind still clung to
the west, each day blowing harder than the last. When they braced round
to it their wounded spars gave way. Their rigging parted. With the
greatest difficulty they made at last sufficient offing, and rolled down
somehow out of sight of land, dipping their yards in the enormous seas.
Of the rest, one or two went down among the Western Isles and became
wrecks there, their crews, or part of them, making their way through
Scotland to Flanders. Others went north to Shetland or the Faroe
Islands. Between thirty and forty were tempted in upon the Irish coasts.
There were Irishmen in the fleet, who must have told them that they
would find the water there for which they were perishing, safe harbours,
and a friendly Catholic people; and they found either harbours which
they could not reach or sea-washed sands and reefs. They were all
wrecked at various places between Donegal and the Blaskets. Something
like eight thousand half-drowned wretches struggled on shore alive. Many
were gentlemen, richly dressed, with velvet coats, gold chains, and
rings. The common sailors and soldiers had been paid their wages before
they started, and each had a bag of ducats lashed to his waist when he
landed through the surf. The wild Irish of the coast, tempted by the
booty, knocked unknown numbers of them on the head with their
battle-axes, or stripped them naked and left them to die of the cold. On
one long sand strip in Sligo an English officer counted eleven hundred
bodies, and he heard that there were as many more a few miles distant.
The better-educated of the Ulster chiefs, the O'Rourke and O'Donnell,
hurried down to stop the butchery and spare Ireland the shame of
murdering helpless Catholic friends. Many--how many cannot be
said--found protection in their castles. But even so it seemed as if
some inexorable fate pursued all who had sailed in that doomed
expedition. Alonzo de Leyva, with half a hundred young Spanish nobles of
high rank who were under his special charge, made his way in a galleass
into Killibeg. He was himself disabled in landing. O'Donnell received
and took care of him and his companions. After remaining in O'Donnell's
castle for a month he recovered. The weather appeared to mend. The
galleass was patched up, and De Leyva ventured an attempt to make his
way in her to Scotland. He had passed the worst danger, and Scotland was
almost in sight; but fate would have its victims. The galleass struck a
rock off Dunluce and went to pieces, and Don Alonzo and the princely
youths who had sailed with him were washed ashore all dead, to find an
unmarked grave in Antrim.
Most pitiful of all was the fate of those who fell into the hands of
the English garrisons in Galway and Mayo. Galleons had found their way
into Galway Bay--one of them had reached Galway itself--the crews half
dead with famine and offering a cask of wine for a cask of water. The
Galway townsmen were human, and tried to feed and care for them. Most
were too far gone to be revived, and died of exhaustion. Some might have
recovered, but recovered they would be a danger to the State. The
English in the West of Ireland were but a handful in the midst of a
sullen, half-conquered population. The ashes of the Desmond rebellion
were still smoking, and Dr. Sanders and his Legatine Commission were
fresh in immediate memory. The defeat of the Armada in the Channel could
only have been vaguely heard of. All that English officers could have
accurately known must have been that an enormous expedition had been
sent to England by Philip to restore the Pope; and Spaniards, they
found, were landing in thousands in the midst of them with arms and
money; distressed for the moment, but sure, if allowed time to get their
strength again, to set Connaught in a blaze. They had no fortresses to
hold so many prisoners, no means of feeding them, no men to spare to
escort them to Dublin. They were responsible to the Queen's Government
for the safety of the country. The Spaniards had not come on any errand
of mercy to her or hers. The stern order went out to kill them all
wherever they might be found, and two thousand or more were shot,
hanged, or put to the sword. Dreadful! Yes, but war itself is dreadful
and has its own necessities.
The sixty ships which had followed the _San Martin_ succeeded at last in
getting round Cape Clear, but in a condition scarcely less miserable
than that of their companions who had perished in Ireland. Half their
companies died--died of untended wounds, hunger, thirst, and famine
fever. The survivors were moving skeletons, more shadows and ghosts than
living men, with scarce strength left them to draw a rope or handle a
tiller. In some ships there was no water for fourteen days. The weather
in the lower latitudes lost part of its violence, or not one of them
would have seen Spain again. As it was they drifted on outside Scilly
and into the Bay of Biscay, and in the second week in September they
dropped in one by one. Recalde, with better success than the rest, made
Corunna. The Duke, not knowing where he was, found himself in sight of
Corunna also. The crew of the _San Martin_ were prostrate, and could not
work her in. They signalled for help, but none came, and they dropped
away to leeward to Bilbao. Oquendo had fallen off still farther to
Santander, and the rest of the sixty arrived in the following days at
one or other of the Biscay ports. On board them, of the thirty thousand
who had left those shores but two months before in high hope and
passionate enthusiasm, nine thousand only came back alive--if alive they
could be called. It is touching to read in a letter from Bilbao of their
joy at warm Spanish sun, the sight of the grapes on the white walls, and
the taste of fresh home bread and water again. But it came too late to
save them, and those whose bodies might have rallied died of broken
hearts and disappointed dreams. Santa Cruz's old companions could not
survive the ruin of the Spanish navy. Recalde died two days after he
landed at Bilbao. Santander was Oquendo's home. He had a wife and
children there, but he refused to see them, turned his face to the wall,
and died too. The common seamen and soldiers were too weak to help
themselves. They had to be left on board the poisoned ships till
hospitals could be prepared to take them in. The authorities of Church
and State did all that men could do; but the case was past help, and
before September was out all but a few hundred needed no further care.
Philip, it must be said for him, spared nothing to relieve the misery.
The widows and orphans were pensioned by the State. The stroke which had
fallen was received with a dignified submission to the inscrutable
purposes of Heaven. Diego Florez escaped with a brief punishment at
Burgos. None else were punished for faults which lay chiefly in the
King's own presumption in imagining himself the instrument of
Providence.
The Duke thought himself more sinned against than sinning. He did not
die, like Recalde or Oquendo, seeing no occasion for it. He flung down
his command and retired to his palace at San Lucan; and so far was
Philip from resenting the loss of the Armada on its commander, that he
continued him in his governorship of Cadiz, where Essex found him seven
years later, and where he ran from Essex as he had run from Drake.
The Spaniards made no attempt to conceal the greatness of their defeat.
Unwilling to allow that the Upper Powers had been against them, they set
it frankly down to the superior fighting powers of the English.
The English themselves, the Prince of Parma said, were modest in their
victory. They thought little of their own gallantry. To them the defeat
and destruction of the Spanish fleet was a declaration of the Almighty
in the cause of their country and the Protestant faith. Both sides had
appealed to Heaven, and Heaven had spoken.
It was the turn of the tide. The wave of the reconquest of the
Netherlands ebbed from that moment. Parma took no more towns from the
Hollanders. The Catholic peers and gentlemen of England, who had held
aloof from the Established Church, waiting _ad illud tempus_ for a
religious revolution, accepted the verdict of Providence. They
discovered that in Anglicanism they could keep the faith of their
fathers, yet remain in communion with their Protestant fellow-countrymen,
use the same liturgy, and pray in the same temples. For the first time
since Elizabeth's father broke the bonds of Rome the English became a
united nation, joined in loyal enthusiasm for the Queen, and were
satisfied that thenceforward no Italian priest should tithe or toll
in her dominions.
But all that, and all that went with it, the passing from Spain to
England of the sceptre of the seas, must be left to other lectures, or
other lecturers who have more years before them than I. My own theme has
been the poor Protestant adventurers who fought through that perilous
week in the English Channel and saved their country and their country's
liberty.
THE END
_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._