IN THE SPACIOUS DAYS.
THE SPANISH ARMADA.
“_Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England’s praise;_
_I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days,_
_When the great fleet invincible against her bore in vain_
_The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain._”
IT is the afternoon of July 19, in the year of grace 1588. You are
gazing at the terraced bowling-green of the Pelican Inn that looks down
upon the blue waters of Plymouth Sound. A group of admirals and captains
is gathered on the closely-shaven lawn, men of mark every one of them,
and sea-dogs all. They are waiting, “as lions in their lair wait for the
passing of a herd of deer.”
“See those five talking earnestly in the centre of a ring which longs to
overhear and yet is too respectful to approach close. Those soft, long
eyes and pointed chin you recognize already; they are Walter Raleigh’s.
The fair young man in the flame-coloured doublet, whose arm is round
Raleigh’s neck, is Lord Sheffield. Opposite them stands, by the side of
Sir Richard Grenville, a man as stately as he, Lord Sheffield’s uncle,
the Lord Charles Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England; next
to them is his son-in-law, Sir Robert Southwell, captain of the
_Elizabeth Jonas_. But who is that short, sturdy, plainly-dressed man
who stands with legs a little apart and hands behind his back, looking
up with keen gray eyes into the face of each speaker? His cap is in his
hands, so you can see the bullet head of crisp brown hair and the
wrinkled forehead, as well as the high cheek-bones, the short square
face, the broad temples, the thick lips, which are yet as firm as
granite—a coarse, plebeian stamp of man. Yet the whole figure and
attitude are that of boundless determination, self-possession, energy;
and when at last he speaks a few blunt words, all eyes are turned
respectfully upon him—for his name is Francis Drake.
“A burly, grizzled elder, in greasy, sea-stained garments contrasting
oddly with the huge gold chain about his neck, waddles up, as if he had
been born, and had lived ever since, in a gale of wind at sea. The upper
half of his sharp, dogged visage seems of brick-red leather, the lower
of badger’s fur; and as he claps Drake on the back, and, with a broad
Devon twang, shouts, ‘Be you a-coming to drink your wine, Francis Drake,
or be you not?—saving your presence, my lord!’ the Lord High Admiral
only laughs, and bids Drake go and drink his wine with John Hawkins,
admiral of the port.”
As they lift their long-necked Dutch glasses a rough-bearded old sea-dog
bursts in upon them and cries to the Lord Admiral,—
“My lord! My lord! They are coming! I saw them off the Lizard last
night.”
“Who, my good sir?”
“The Armada, your worship—the Spaniard! You’ll find them here before
nightfall, my lord.”
“Then we must haste,” observes the Lord High Admiral; and turning to
Drake, he says, “I must command the help of your counsel, vice-admiral.”
“And it’s this, my good lord,” replies Drake, who has taken up a bowl
and is now aiming it at the jack: “they’ll come soon enough for us to
show them sport, and yet slow enough for us to be ready; so let no man
hurry himself. And as example is better than precept, here goes.” So
saying he aims his bowl. Hawkins follows suit, and the game is played to
a finish.
“There, vice-admiral,” cries the veteran, “you’re beaten, and that’s the
rubber. Pay up three dollars, old high-flyer, and go and earn more, like
an honest adventurer.”
“Well,” says Drake, pulling out his purse, “we’ll walk down now and see
about these young hotheads. As I live, they are setting to tow the ships
out already!—breaking the men’s backs overnight to make them fight the
lustier in the morning! Well, well, they haven’t sailed round the world,
John Hawkins.”
And John Hawkins, with a hearty “bye-bye” to the bystanders, waddles off
with the remark, “We’re going to blow the Dons up now in earnest.”
“Night sank upon the dusky beach and o’er the purple sea;
Such night in England ne’er has been, nor e’er again shall be!
From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford Bay,
That time of slumber was as bright and busy as the day.”
Meanwhile the lordly fleet of Spain, swelling in white clouds of sail to
the heavens, speeds on towards the shores of our threatened land.
Why, you ask, is the Spaniard bent on invading England?
Who does not know something of the exploits of the sea-dogs—how they
harried King Philip’s territories in America, and how no treasure ship
put out from the ports save in fear and trembling? Philip, the most
powerful monarch of Europe, and the champion of the Pope, had been hard
hit by Drake and his fellows. He saw clearly that unless England were
crushed he could not retain his empire in the New World. Further, his
Flemish subjects were in desperate revolt against him, and English
troops had now joined them. How he hated England! She should bite the
dust, and he would stake the whole strength of his kingdom, the wealth
of the two Indies, the flower of Spanish chivalry on the enterprise. It
was a Crusade—nothing less. The Pope had excommunicated the heretic
Elizabeth, and the martyred Queen of Scots had bequeathed England to him
on the scaffold. Holy Church would fight for him, and victory was
already assured. So every dockyard in Spain rang with the hammers of
shipwrights, and all Latin Christendom sent him volunteers. The sea was
covered with vessels freighted with arms and provisions streaming to the
mouth of the Tagus. 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.
Drake begged Elizabeth to let him fit out a fleet and sail along the
coast of Spain to see what was going on. Very reluctantly she consented,
but ere his vessels were hull down a courier galloped into Plymouth with
orders that under no condition was he to enter a Spanish port or haven.
The courier arrived too late—Drake, knowing the mind of his mistress,
had sailed, and recall was impossible. In five days he was at Cape St.
Vincent, and a day later he saw before him the forest of masts in the
harbour of Cadiz. In dashed Drake, with a fair wind and flood tide, past
the batteries, which hurled a storm of shot and shell at him. He did not
pause to reply, but pushed on, seized and sank the guardship, took
possession of the Spanish shipping, and looted everything of the
slightest service to him. Then he set the hulls on fire, cut the cables,
and left them blazing beneath the walls of the town. He had, in his own
pleasant phrase, “singed the King of Spain’s beard.” He had delayed the
Armada for a whole year, and had spoiled his Catholic Majesty to the
tune of a million ducats, without losing a boat or a man!
Home came Drake, begging the queen to let him play the same game on the
Tagus, where fifty great galleons, the main strength of the fighting
naval force of Spain, were assembled. But the queen would not consent;
she would provoke the King of Spain no further. Negotiations for peace
had begun, and must not be interrupted.
In the spring of the next year the Armada was ready, and the whole
Spanish nation, smarting under the indignity of Drake’s exploit, was
burning to revenge itself on England. It consisted of one hundred and
thirty vessels, half of them being galleons of the largest size. The
ships were manned by eight thousand sailors, and overcrowded with twenty
thousand soldiers, besides slaves, servants, and priests. Every noble
family in Spain sent a son to fight for the holy cause. The ships,
however, were ill-found and ill-provisioned, and were commanded by a
modest gentleman who confessed that he was no seaman, that he hardly
knew a mast from an anchor, and that when he ventured out in a boat he
was always seasick. To meet this vast fleet England had but thirty-four
ships in the royal navy, but almost every seaport and many rich
merchants and noblemen fitted out craft to fight the Spaniard. Their
crews numbered eighteen thousand men, all good seamen, and their
commanders were sea-dogs all.
The Spanish Lord High Admiral—the Duke of Medina Sidonia—received his
orders directly from Philip. He was to fight no battle, but was to haste
with all speed to the North Foreland and there communicate with the Duke
of Parma, who was in the Netherlands with thirty thousand men waiting to
cross. The army would be landed, and England would be at his feet! So
much for instructions. On May 14, 1588, the Armada dropped down the
Tagus, and as the galleons came out the blustering north wind met them,
and day by day they drifted to leeward until they were off Cape St.
Vincent. The wind changed at last, and the ships steered northward
again, their crews in a terrible state owing to the stinking water and
the putrid pork, fish, and bread which fraudulent contractors had
foisted on them. The ships were obliged to put into Corunna, with crews
too weak to man the yards, and ready to desert in shoals.
At last the Armada got under way again, and the old seaman who burst in
upon the admirals and captains on the Pelican bowling-green told a true
tale: the Armada was coming without a doubt. Badly, indeed, was the
English fleet prepared to meet them. Elizabeth’s niggardly soul would
not permit her to provide sufficient stores and provisions for the
fleet. The English sailors were ill-clothed and ill-provided in every
way, but they did not complain. They tightened their belts and prayed
for the speedy coming of the enemy. Their prayer was soon to be
answered.
The Armada was now in the Channel, sailing crescent-wise. As it passed
by, out went the Plymouth fleet, hanging on to its rear like grim death.
The English guns were far more powerful than those of the Spaniards, and
they poured in broadsides at a safe distance with deadly effect.
Further, they could fire five shots to the Dons’ one. Every broadside
told, and the effect of the shot and splinters on the overcrowded
Spanish ships was terrible.
So the Armada pursued its way, and Howard “plucked out its feathers one
by one.” For a week the running fight was kept up. During the first few
days the English were badly hampered by want of powder and provisions,
but now that danger was imminent there was no lack of ammunition and
stores. Off Calais the fleets faced each other, and a long day’s battle
was fought. On the night of Sunday, July 28, a memorable council of war
was held in the _Ark’s_ main cabin, attended by Howard, Drake, Seymour,
Hawkins, Martin Frobisher, and others. The conference was short, for
there was no time to lose. Eight useless vessels were immediately coated
with pitch—hulls, spars, and rigging. Pitch was poured on the decks and
over the sides, and men were told off to steer them. The night was dark
as the grave; a faint westerly wind was curling the waters; and towards
midnight the look-outs on the Spanish galleons saw several phantom-like
vessels bearing down on them.
Suddenly the ships broke into a blaze from water-line to truck, and
lighted up the scene like noonday. The Spaniards lost their heads, and
in their panic they slipped their cables and put to sea, uncertain which
way to steer. Drake and Hawkins now bore down upon them, pouring in
cataracts of round shot. The decks of the Spanish ships were like
slaughter-houses. The Spanish shot flew high over the low hulls of the
enemy, while every English broadside found its billet. Not until his
magazines were empty and his last cartridge was fired did Drake draw
off.
Then a gale sprang up and the Dons were forced to steer up the North
Sea. The English closely followed them, and “the Lord sent His wind and
scattered them.” Of the proud fleet which left Spain for the conquest of
the heretic isle only fifty-three shattered vessels returned to Spain.
Thousands of Spanish corpses strewed the shores of the Orkneys, the
Western Isles, and the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Scarcely a noble
family in Spain but mourned a relative slain or drowned.
Thus England and English liberty were saved. All honour to you, noble
sea-dogs! May Britain never lack sons of your breed! To you we owe
freedom, literature, commerce, and empire, and above all the mastery of
that
“KINGDOM none can take,
The realm of the circling sea.”
[Illustration: =The Armada in Sight.=
(_From the Picture by Seymour Lucas, R.A. By permission of Mr. Arthur
Lucas._)]
[Illustration: =QUEEN ELIZABETH AT TILBURY FORT.=
(_From the picture by Daniel Maclise, R.A. By permission of the Council
of the Art Union of London._)]
[Illustration]
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
“_For ’tis the sunrise now of zeal,_
_And faith and hope are in their prime_
_In great Eliza’s golden time._”
Once more Queen Elizabeth figures in our pageant. She is passing to her
barge amidst a crowd of courtiers, who buzz round her like bees seeking
the honey of her smile. Amongst the spectators of her progress you
observe a young man, comely of person, handsome of face, and gallant of
bearing. Suddenly her Majesty pauses; the ground is miry, and she
hesitates to soil her dainty shoes. In a moment the young man has pulled
off his rich plush cloak and has thrown it upon the ground for the queen
to walk upon. She is flattered by the attention; she smiles graciously
on the young man and says, “You have this day spoiled a gay mantle in
our behalf. We thank you for your service, though the manner of offering
it was unusual and something bold.”
“In a sovereign’s need,” he replies, “it is each liegeman’s duty to be
bold.”
“That is well said,” the queen remarks, and at a bound the young man
springs into her royal favour. It was afterwards said that the spoiling
of his cloak gained him a good many _suits_.
The young man whose introduction to the queen you have just witnessed is
Walter Raleigh, a Devonshire gentleman who has already seen much warlike
service, and has shown himself to be possessed of many qualities besides
personal bravery and prowess in battle. In sooth he is one of the most
heroic and brilliant men of that brilliant and heroic age—explorer,
soldier, sailor, poet, prose writer, and true-hearted gentleman—“a
spirit without spot,” as Shelley finely calls him. Let us learn
something of his career.
Raleigh was not yet thirty when he first attracted the attention of
Elizabeth. He was then a tall, well-built man with thick, dark hair, a
bright complexion, and an expression full of life. His dress was always
magnificent, and he had the faculty of displaying himself and his
capacities to the best possible advantage. His speech was bold and
plausible; he was fearless and dashing, a man of a stout heart, a sound
head, and a strong right hand. Now that Elizabeth had admitted him to
her favour, she speedily raised him from the position of a poor
gentleman adventurer to one of the most wealthy of her courtiers. He was
knighted in 1584, and subsequently sat in Parliament for Devonshire.
Soon, however, he wearied of a life of luxury and busy idleness at the
court, and arranged with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, to join
him in his projected voyage to Newfoundland. But Elizabeth positively
forbade him to go, and reluctantly he bowed to the royal command.
Gilbert never returned from Newfoundland. On the homeward voyage he
stuck to his little, unseaworthy vessel, the _Squirrel_, and declined to
take his passage on board the _Golden Hind_, the larger vessel which
convoyed him. To all arguments he had but one reply, “I will not forsake
my little company, with whom I have passed through so many storms and
perils.” When the ships were to the north of the Azores terrible seas
arose, and the _Squirrel_ was well-nigh swamped. Through all the foul
weather Sir Humphrey, gallant gentleman that he was, sat on deck, calm
and unmoved, reading a book. When they besought him to board the _Golden
Hind_ he said, “We are as near to heaven by sea as by land.” During the
night of Monday, September 9, 1583, the watchers on the _Golden Hind_
suddenly missed the lights of the _Squirrel_. She had gone down with all
her crew.
Raleigh applied for the patent which Sir Humphrey, his half-brother, had
held, and was accorded the royal permission to discover unknown lands,
take possession of them in the queen’s name, and hold them to his own
profit for six years. At once he fitted out an expedition, which coasted
northward from Florida and took possession of Roanoke Island, within the
lagoons of what is now North Carolina. His captains returned with a
glowing account of the “good land” which they had discovered, and
Raleigh took immediate steps to colonize it. He called it Virginia, in
honour of the Virgin Queen.
Accordingly, in the year 1585, he sent out Sir Richard Grenville with
one hundred and eight men, and on Roanoke Island a little colony was
established. Ralph Lane was left in charge of the party, and Grenville
sailed for home, hoping for the best but fearing the worst. Unhappily
the wrong sort of men had been sent out—soft-handed gentlemen who could
not dig, and were ashamed to beg. Before long there were bitter quarrels
in the little hive between the drones and the workers, food ran short,
and the colonists were on the verge of starvation.
In the next year Drake touched at Roanoke after his attack on Cartagena,
and seeing what a helpless, shiftless crew the colonists were, he
carried them all back to England save fifteen. The colony had thus
proved a costly failure, but the experiment was notable, because it was
the first attempt to found a greater Britain beyond the seas. He who
writes the history of British expansion must never forget to give
Raleigh a foremost place in the roll of Empire-makers.
One of the immediate results of the voyage was the introduction into
this country of the potato and the tobacco plant. Raleigh grew potatoes
in his garden at Youghal, and thus gave Ireland the staple food of her
peasantry. According to an old story, he was the first man to smoke
tobacco in England. It is said that his servant, seeing volumes of smoke
issuing from his mouth, concluded that he was on fire, and promptly
poured a bucket of water over him, thus effectually putting out his
pipe.
A second attempt to found a colony on Roanoke Island failed, and Raleigh
was terribly disappointed. He could do no more; so in 1589, the year
after he helped to repel the Armada, he disposed of his rights to a
company of merchants, who made no attempt to found a new colony on the
ruins of the old. Thus the sixteenth century came to an end, and England
had no colony of any kind in America.
In the year 1592 Raleigh fell into disgrace with his royal mistress. She
discovered that the man she had delighted to honour and enrich had
actually dared to love one of her maids of honour. An excuse was
speedily found by the jealous queen for sending Raleigh and his
lady-love, Elizabeth Throgmorton, to the Tower. At length, however, the
queen relented and restored Raleigh to liberty, but forbade him the
court. The lovers were married and settled at Sherborne, where Raleigh
busied himself in erecting a magnificent mansion and laying out its
grounds with great taste.
About this time he made acquaintance with the Spanish legend of the
fabulous wealth of El Dorado, the city of Manoa, in South America. The
story fascinated his romantic nature, and he could not rest until he had
attempted its discovery. Yielding to his wife’s entreaties, he refrained
from going in search of it himself, and sent his tried and trusty
servant, Jacob Whiddon, in his stead. Whiddon returned without having
discovered anything, and Raleigh now essayed the adventure himself. With
a fleet of five ships he sailed in February 1595, and in the next month
arrived at the island of Trinidad. He seized the capital and captured
the governor, who confirmed the stories of the richness and wonder of
Manoa, and told him of its remarkable inhabitants, the dog-headed men
“whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.”
Early in April Raleigh started on the quest with a little flotilla of
five boats, a hundred men, and provisions for a month. He entered the
Orinoco, but found the labour of rowing against the vast and powerful
stream most exhausting. Sometimes his boats did not progress a
stone’s-throw in an hour. After struggling onwards for nearly four
hundred miles he was obliged to own himself beaten. He brought back with
him some pieces of quartz showing grains of gold and the earliest
specimens of mahogany ever seen in this country. Subsequently he
attacked several Spanish settlements and then returned to England, where
his enemies declared that the story of his river voyage was an
invention. As a matter of fact, Guiana is rich in gold, and more than
one famous mine has been worked in the country which Raleigh endeavoured
to explore.
Raleigh lived peacefully at home for nearly two years, and then played a
brilliant part in Drake’s daring attack on Cadiz. He commanded the
_Warspite_, the leading ship, and though severely wounded, landed with
his men for the storming of the town. His gallantry won him the queen’s
forgiveness, and once more he was a familiar figure about the court.
Under Essex he commanded a ship in the fleet which sailed for Flores, in
the Azores, to lie in wait for Spanish treasure galleons. His
disobedience of orders in his capture of Fayal earned for him the enmity
of Essex, who now became one of his bitterest enemies. Essex, however,
came to the block, but not before he had done Raleigh considerable
mischief.
Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, and James the Sixth of Scotland became
James the First of England. There were plots to prevent his accession
and to put Lady Arabella Stewart, an Englishwoman of the royal house, on
the throne. The cowardly Lord Cobham was at the head of the Main Plot,
and when arrested he made a lying confession implicating Raleigh, who
was tried and found guilty of compassing the death of the king, of
endeavouring to set Arabella Stewart on the throne, of receiving bribes
from the court of Spain, and of seeking to deliver the country into the
hands of its enemy. Raleigh’s execution was ordered, and he wrote a
touching farewell to his wife; but on the eve of the fatal day he was
reprieved and committed to the Tower with the death sentence hanging
over his head. For about twelve years he remained a prisoner. He was
treated leniently, and given apartments in the Bloody Tower, where he
lived with his wife and son and his attendants. Frequently the young
Prince Henry visited him, and the lad grew fond of his gallant and
brilliant friend. “No man but my father,” he once said, “would keep such
a bird in a cage.”
Raleigh now busied himself in a variety of occupations: he designed a
model of a ship, he condensed fresh water from salt, he compounded
drugs, he began his “History of the World,” and wrote verses and
political pamphlets. About the year 1610 he revived his old project for
discovering Manoa. Twenty years had now passed since he had returned
from Guiana, but during his long solitude in the Tower his mind returned
again and again to the fabulous riches of El Dorado, and he devised plan
after plan for securing its wealth. He now made a proposition to certain
lords of the Council, and they listened to it. “If I bring them not to a
mountain covered with gold and silver ore,” he wrote, “let the commander
have commission to cut off my head there.” All he stipulated for was
that if half a ton of precious ore should be brought home he should have
a free pardon. At length the king was persuaded to agree to the
proposal, and in March 1617 the order for his release was signed.
Raleigh and his wife adventured all they had in fitting out the
expedition. Ere it sailed the Spanish ambassador intervened. He
protested loudly that Guiana belonged to Spain, and that Raleigh’s
expedition proposed an invasion of Spanish territory, and was simply a
cloak for piracy on a gigantic scale. The ambassador believed that
Raleigh had his eye on the Mexican Plate fleet, and as after events
proved, he was right. James warned Raleigh that he was not to fight the
Spaniards, and on this understanding he was permitted to sail.
Misfortune dogged him from the outset. Foul winds and storms drove him
back, and afterwards scattered his fleet and sank one of his vessels. He
had difficulty in getting water at the Canaries, and a hurricane drove
him from the Cape Verde Islands. For forty days he lay in the doldrums,
while his men fell a prey to scurvy and fever and grew mutinous. At
length, when the remnant of his ten ships arrived off the mouth of the
Orinoco, Raleigh was prostrate with fever, and his men had lost all hope
of success. But his courageous spirit was equal to the occasion. “We can
make the adventure,” he cried; “and if we perish, it shall be no honour
to England or gain to his Majesty to lose one hundred as valiant men as
England hath in it.”
While he remained off the mouth of the river, his lieutenant, Thomas
Keymis, with five ships and four hundred men, undertook the great quest.
For three weeks they battled against the mighty current, but when they
approached the proposed landing-place they found a Spanish settlement
blocking their path. This they stormed and burnt, Raleigh’s son being
killed in the attack. Though the settlement was captured, the Spaniards
were still in the woods, and Keymis, having done all that man could do,
was forced to retreat. Raleigh met him with a bitter reproach——“You
have undone me by your obstinacy.” Keymis said not a word, but betook
himself to his cabin, where he ran a dagger through his heart.
Raleigh was now desperate. He proposed to go himself in search of the
mine, but his men would not follow him. Then he suggested the capture of
the Mexican Plate fleet; but they refused, saying that, even if they
succeeded, the king would hang them when they got home. There was no
help for it, so Raleigh was obliged to return to England. With angry
reproaches to his “rabble of idle rascals,” he set sail, knowing well
the fate which awaited him.
In June 1618 he was back at Plymouth, and was at once arrested. James
was courting the favour of his “dear brother of Spain,” and the Spanish
ambassador had obtained a promise from him that, “if Raleigh returned
loaded with gold acquired by an attack on the subjects of the King of
Spain, he would surrender it all, and would give up the authors of the
crime to be hanged in the public square of Madrid.” Now the Spaniard
claimed his victim, and James actually proposed to keep his word; but he
dared not do so, for England now regarded Raleigh as a champion of
English interests against Spanish tyranny. He was thereupon brought to
trial. In the course of it the Attorney-General said, “Sir Walter
Raleigh hath been as a star at which the world hath gazed; but stars may
fall—nay, they must fall when they trouble the sphere where they
abide.” There was a legal difficulty in the way: Raleigh was under
sentence of death, and therefore could not be legally tried. The easiest
way out of the difficulty was to order his execution on the old charge
of treason. This was done. As Raleigh returned to his prison he
remarked, “The world itself is but a larger prison, out of which some
are daily selected for execution.”
On October 19, 1618, he was brought to the scaffold, which had been
erected in Old Palace Yard. He met his fate cheerfully, and jested
pleasantly even on the way to the block. He addressed the crowd in a
well-known speech, thanking God heartily that He had brought him to die
in the light, and not left him to perish obscurely in the dark prison of
the Tower. He denied all accusations of treason, and defended himself
against other charges. When he had finished he said, “And now I have a
long journey to go, and must take my leave.” As he laid his head on the
block the executioner bade him turn his head to the east. “What matter,”
he answered, “how the head lies, so that the heart be right?” These
noble words had hardly fallen from his lips when the axe descended.
[Illustration: =THE BOYHOOD OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH.=
(_From the picture by Sir J. E. Millais, Bart., P.R.A., in the National
Gallery of British Art._)]
[Illustration]