THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA
Spain’s proudly invincible Armada left Lisbon, May 20, 1588 with
one hundred and forty ships and thirty thousand four hundred and
ninety-seven men; fifty-three shattered vessels, and ten thousand
men, vincible and humbled, returned to port Santander, Sept. 13,
1588. This disaster led to the decadence of Spain as a maritime
power, and indirectly to the decline of Spanish dominance both in
the old and in the new world.
The effects of any great event are not immediately discernible
nor are its causes ever fully revealed. When Philip II. of Spain
received with courteous equanimity his defeated admiral, the Duke
of Medina Sidonia, and to his words,
“And you see here, great King,
All that remains of the Armada’s might
And of the flower of Spain.”
made answer,
“God rules above us!
I sent you to contend with men and not
With rocks and storms. You’re welcome to Madrid.”--_Schiller._
did the great King see then either the causes or the consequences
of the vincibility of his Invincible Armada!
The character of Philip II. is portrayed upon the historic page in
colors of sharp contrast. To the Spaniards he was their Solomon,
their “prudent king”; to Motley and the Netherlands he was “the
demon of the South.”
Philip II. was the finished product of his age and nation. Pride,
intolerance, absolutism combined with excellent administrative
ability, deep tho’ narrow religious convictions, and rigorous
sincerity, characterized both the man and the monarch. To a victim
of an Auto da Fe he said with stern truthfulness, “If my own son
were guilty like you I should lead him with my own hands to the
stake.”
As to Philip’s really having delivered his son, Don Carlos, into
the hands of the Grand Inquisitor as tragically told in Schiller’s
“Don Carlos”, well that is drama, not history. But when a noted
name and its suggested personality--for good or for evil and
unfortunately less frequently for good than for evil--are once
fascinatingly fixed in drama or story or song, not all the tomes
of contradictory evidence, not all the living archives of dead
centuries, not Truth itself, can shatter the crystal charm or make
it cease shining. Alexander the Great, world conqueror; Socrates,
the Wise; Plato, poet-philosopher; Aristotle, master of them
that know; Julius Cæsar, deplored of all nations; Mark Anthony,
Cleopatra’s lover; Nero, monster; Caligula-Commodus-Heliogabalus,
crowned madmen; Marcus Aurelius, Emperor-philosopher; Charlemagne,
the Good; Louis IX., the Saint; Louis XI., hypocrite; John of
England, child murderer; Richard III., deformed devil; Henry VIII.,
wife-killer; Machiavelli, serpent-sophist; Louis XIV., despot,
_Arbiter Elegantiarum_; Elizabeth, Good Queen Bess; Mary, Queen of
Scots, the lovely unfortunate; Philip II. of Spain, bigot: thus are
they fixed in the charmed circle of literature and thus shall they
glitter forever.
Is history itself any more reliable than drama? As to facts, Yes;
as to motives, intentions, cumulative causes, results, all round
truth, No. “Histories are as perfect as the historian is wise,
and is gifted with an eye and a soul,” says the astute Carlyle;
and every honest author feels at deepest heart the truth of these
words. The soft art of omission is known to every artist of the
pen. And condemnation euphemistically balanced by excusing
comment may, in one artistic sentence, satisfy at once a writer’s
conscience, his subjectivity, and the claims of his peculiar
environment. Can any one doubt that it was thus Macaulay wrote
his brilliant history of England? And even granted almost the
impossible--that an historian be ruggedly truthful and fearlessly
sincere; he is not thereby rendered wise, nor is he necessarily
gifted with an eye and a soul.
So in colors of sharp contrast upon the historic page will Philip
II. ever be portrayed; but both can’t be right. Perhaps tho’
they may be as sundered extremes of a prismatic ray which, when
complementary coloring shall have been added, will become white
light.
STORMS.
Truly it was against storms and rocks as well as against such rough
sea-dogs as Drake and Hawkins and Raleigh and Frobisher and Howard
that the Invincible Armada contended. In the beginning of the
northward cruise as the Armada was rounding the corner of Spain,
off Corunna, a violent tempest arose. The frail caravels, and
galleons and galleasses of 1588 were not so independent of wave and
wind as are the Dreadnoughts of 1914. Yet ocean is still master of
man; and man’s most titan-like Titanic is but a puny plaything in
old Neptune’s hand.
Several vessels were lost in the storm, and the fleet was so badly
damaged that in consequence the Spanish Admiral was obliged to stop
off at Corunna for repairs. July 12th, after so inauspicious a
beginning, the fleet was again on its way northward.
Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, captain general of all
the Spanish armies, was at Dunkirk with a flotilla of large
flat-bottomed barges awaiting the Armada to convoy him and his
army across the channel. His plan was to invade England by way of
the Thames and land his veteran forces in London.
“Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, captain general of the Spanish
armies, and governor of the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands,
was beyond all comparison the greatest military genius of his age.
He was also highly distinguished for political wisdom and sagacity,
and for his great administrative talents. He was idolized by his
troops, whose affection he knew how to win without relaxing their
discipline or diminishing his own authority. Pre-eminently cool and
circumspect in his plans, but swift and energetic when the moment
arrived for striking a decisive blow, neglecting no risk that
caution could provide against, conciliating even the populations of
the districts which he attacked by his scrupulous good faith; his
moderation, and his address; Farnese was one of the most formidable
generals that ever could be placed at the head of an army designed
not only to win battles, but to effect conquests. Happy it is for
England and the world that this island was saved from becoming an
arena for the exhibition of his powers.” Creasy.
As in 1588 Alexander Farnese with a chosen army awaited at Dunkirk
the assistance of the Armada both to clear the seas of Dutch and
English war ships and to convoy in safety his flotilla to the coast
of England: so, too, in 1805 Napoleon Bonaparte awaited at Boulogne
for Villeneuve to do him a like service; and in both cases the
English fleet took the offensive and destroyed at one blow both the
protective war boats of the enemy and the hopeful plans of the man
who waited. The sea fights at Calais Roads and at Trafalgar are
perhaps negatively momentous in history but not the less momentous.
The Spanish fleet after some disastrous fighting with the English
cruisers off the coast of Plymouth succeeded in reaching Calais
Roads (July 27). Here they were quickly semi-circled by the
combined Dutch and English fleet under Lord Charles Howard, high
admiral of England. The Spanish ships were far greater in bulk
than those of the opposing force and in the harbor of Calais they
were huddled together “like strong castles fearing no assault, the
lesser placed in the middle ward.” The lighter English ships, no
longer able to use their two best assets, nimbleness and advantage
of the wind, clung doggedly around these ocean leviathans awaiting
the hour of opportunity. At length early on the morning of the 29th
the English Admiral succeeded in thrusting eight Greek fire-ships
in among the compact wooden war vessels. The effect was electrical.
The Spanish ships cut their cables and were dispersed and the fight
ship to ship was soon in full progress. All day long from early
dawn till dark this battle raged. The Spaniards were driven out
from Calais Roads and past the Flemish ports and far out beyond
Dunkirk where the Prince of Parma waited. The English then ceased
pursuit. Lord Henry Seymour with an able squadron was left to
maintain the blockade of the Flemish port and to render ineffectual
the activities of the Prince of Parma.
Northward sped the vincible Armada farther and farther from sunny
Spain. She had many wounded men on board ships, her provisions
were failing, the channel filled with victorious Dutch and English
war boats offered no hope of a way of return, and at last in
desperation the Spanish admiral directed the course of his ships
around the northern coast of Scotland and Ireland. What a long
and cruel way home for wounded soldiers, starving sailors, and
disheartened generals! But even here ill luck pursued them. A
storm arose as they were passing thro’ the Orkneys; their vessels
were dispersed, many were lost. About thirty ships were afterwards
wrecked on the west coast of Ireland, and those of the crews who
succeeded in reaching the shore were immediately put to death. It
is estimated that fourteen thousand thus perished.
And in September of that memorable year there came straggling ship
by ship into the port Santander all that were left of the gallant
fleet that had sailed away five months ago to subdue England and so
win all Europe for Spain.
Nor was that plan at all chimerical, nor its realization
improbable. Spain was at that time in possession of Portugal,
Naples, Sicily, Milan, Franche-Compte, and the Netherlands; in
Africa she controlled Tunis, Oran, the Cape Verde and the Canary
islands; in Asia, the Philippine and Sunda Islands and part of the
Moluccas; in the New World, the empire of Peru, and of Mexico, New
Spain, Chili, Hispaniola and Cuba. Only England held out against
the power of Spain and stood adamantine to all her threats,
cajolery, caresses. Only England stood between Philip II. of Spain
and Spanish dominance in the old and in the New World. English
buccaneers seized upon his galleons on their return gem-laden
from Peru and Mexico. Drake the “master robber of the New World”
had signally dishonored Philip of Spain and had in requital been
honored by the English queen with the title _Sir Francis_. England
must be destroyed (Britannia delenda est.) Spain seemed powerful
enough by land and by sea to be as a new Rome to old Carthage: but
winds and waves and rocky coasts and adamantine Englishmen reversed
the Roman story (Britannia non deleta est.)
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
“What we _appear_ is subject to the judgment
Of all mankind; and what we _are_, of no man.”
_Schiller in “Mary Stuart.”_
These lines upon the lips of Elizabeth Tudor are her condemnation
in the judgment of all mankind. Short sighted, indeed, and headed
directly towards the rapids of the all revealing Real is the mortal
who thus honors appearances.
Elizabeth would have Mary Stuart put to death, but would _seem_ to
have tried to save her: Elizabeth would sign the death warrant,
but would _seem_ to have been constrained, to have done so
regretfully, to have recalled the fatal sentence when, alas! too
late. But all this flimsy Seeming has been blown away by the rugged
years; and that which this Machiavellian queen thought subject to
the judgment of no man has become her condemnation in the eyes of
all.
So close they lie together now in old Westminster Abbey--these
rival queens who once so cordially feared and hated one another!
and for whose conflicting ambitions all Britain was not room
enough, but one must die! How ignoble seems now the strife, how
despicable the deed of culminant hate, how diaphanous all the
Seeming! Was it worth while?
The death of Mary, Queen of Scots, at the hands of her cousin Queen
Elizabeth aroused a feeling of angry indignation in every court
of Europe. France, Spain, and the Vatican, openly denounced the
deed. And it was, in great measure, in execration of this unnatural
cruelty that Pope Sextus V. espoused the cause of Philip II. of
Spain and urged and aided the invasion of England.
Strange that such men as Edmund Spenser, author of _Færie Queen_
and Sir Walter Raleigh, mirror of chivalry, should have been among
the foremost to demand the death of the Scottish queen. But those
were turbulent times. Life and death never played the mortal game
more boldly and recklessly and desperately than in the sixteenth
century. The magic of the New World was upon the old; the glamour
of gem-lit El Dorados shimmered across the seas; and thither
responsively rushed in shaky ships and leaky caravels those whom
the gods would destroy made mad by the bite of the gold-tarantula.
“We are as near to heaven by sea as by land”, shouted Sir Humphrey
Gilbert as his frail bark was lost in the storm; as his deck
lights rose high and dashed low and darkened far down ’neath the
sea-lashing storm.
And night with wondering stars looked down upon De Soto’s lordly
grave. And then as now and even throughout the historic ages, the
prehistoric, the geologic--the thundering waters fell and formed
Niagara Falls. In silvery moonlight, in dazzling sun-radiance
rainbow-frilled, in blinding white of winter, in rainy spring, in
saber flashing summer storm--the thunder-waters fell; they fall;
they shall fall.
When Columbus and his crew, secretly fearful of falling off the
good old planet Earth, sailed the unknown sea; while Cortes
conquered Mexico (not yet calm); while Pizarro ravaged Peru; while
Balboa ascended the Andean heights and “silent upon a peak in
Darien” first saw the vast Pacific; while De Soto died and was
buried; while Drake circumnavigated the globe; while Mary, Queen
of Scots laid her head on the block and the axe fell; while the
Invincible Armada hurrying northward away from the foe, sailed
brokenly back to Spain by way of the Orkneys: while Julius Cæsar
fell pierced with twenty-three wounds; while Hannibal crossed the
Alps; while Alexander, world-conqueror, aged thirty-two died at
old Babylon; while Pericles of Athens reigned imperishably; while
Sardis burned and Sardis was avenged; while Marathon, Salamis,
Thermopylæ, Platæa, Mycale were fighting; while Babylon the Great
was captured by Cyrus; while the Memphian pyramids were building;
while the great Sphinx of Gizeh rose solemnly; while griffins and
dragons and gummy pterodactyls winged the air; while plesiosauri
and ichthyosauri fought for the empire of ocean; while the
original of the Pittsburgh Diplodocus Carnegiei was sixty feet
somewhere--why, even then were the waters rolling over the rock now
called Niagara; even then Niagara Falls that fall and shall fall
were falling.
SEA FIGHTS.
The hostile encounters by land throughout the historic ages
have been practically countless; sea fights are few. Man feels
intuitively that the yielding wave is not the fit place for
battle. Salamis, Actium, Lepanto, Calais Roads are the chief naval
engagements of history.
When Rome had won her first game in world conquest and all Italy
was Rome, Carthage was mistress of the Mediterranean, and without
her permission no man might even wash his hands in her “Phœnician
Lake.” Triremes and quinqueremes with proudly curving prows scudded
over the blue waters or huddled together in port as bevies of black
swans.
And Rome had no fleet. But Rome could learn from her enemies; and
when a wrecked Carthaginian galley was dashed against the Latian
coast, Rome quickly learned the art of making galleys; and within
two months the waving forest near the coast was metamorphosed into
a fleet of one hundred and twenty Roman triremes.
And when the pain of growth was upon Rome making further conquest
fatally necessary, she embarked unsteadily upon her late waving
forest trees and went reeling forth to meet the swan bevies of
the Mediterranean. The hostile fleets engaged and Rome’s was
annihilated.
Then these sullen young-world children wildly wept, as did Romulus
and Remus, perhaps, in the cave of the she-wolf. But when they
were suckled and made strong with the milk of defeat, these wild
young Romans built themselves another fleet. And Duillius devised
a grappling contrivance whereby to catch and hold the enemy’s
ship until a drawbridge could be thrown across o’er which the
short-sword Roman soldiers might pass and so fight on the deck hand
to hand as on land.
Again the hostile fleets engaged on the blue Mediterranean. But as
the haughty quinqueremes with their decks filled with archers bore
down upon the awkward Roman triremes, the grappling “hands” arose,
the quinqueremes were grappled. Consternation prevailed among the
Carthaginians as the drawbridges from ship to ship were thrown
across, and the dreaded Roman soldiers short-sword in hand were
seen slaughtering the archers and the rowers. Rome’s first naval
victory was won.
If the blue Mediterranean could make known all that has taken place
upon its waves and shores--what a Homer of the waters it would be!
But nature is indifferent to the human tragedy.
That other scene off the coast of Carthage, after the second
Punic war, when Rome demanded as a condition of peace that the
Carthaginian fleet should be destroyed--yet burns upon the historic
page, but the waters that once reddened with the flames just ripple
unrememberingly. Five hundred galleys--towering quinqueremes,
sturdy triremes--were led out from the harbor before the mourning
gaze of the dethroned Queen of the Seas, and set on fire; she
watched them blaze down to the laughing waters.
Actium was fought on the Adriatic off the promontory on the west
coast of Greece. Here half the world was bartered for one fleeing
galley and one woman. While the conflict was yet doubtful and
victory seemed even favorably inclined to perch upon the prow of
Anthony’s vessel, the barge of Cleopatra shudderingly backed out
from the bloody fray, wavered, turned, and sped southward. Marc
Anthony followed. Upon the defeat of the allied Roman and Egyptian
forces at Actium and over the tragically dead forms of Anthony
and Cleopatra, Octavius Cæsar arose to world dominance, becoming
Augustus Cæsar, Emperor, Pater Patriæ, and one man Ruler of Rome,
Mistress of the world.
Lepanto was fought at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth, not far
from Actium. Here the Cross triumphed over the Crescent and rescued
Europe from the deadly blight of Islamism. Don John of Austria,
aged twenty-four, led the Christian forces; Alexander Farnese
(Prince of Parma), then a youth of twenty, won here his first of
many laurels under the generously approving eyes of his young
cousin-commander, Don John.
And seventeen years later (1571-1588) the Prince of Parma, Captain
general of all the Spanish armies, awaited impatiently at Dunkirk
for Admiral Medina Sidonia to clear the channel of hostile vessels
so that he and his veteran army might sail across and attack
old England. He watched the fight off Gravelines. How his hot
Spanish heart must have indignantly throbbed even to bursting, as
helplessly cooped in port with a flotilla of unarmed barges to
protect, and Lord Seymour with a strong blockading squadron at the
mouth of the harbor, he could only see and know and acutely feel
that a fearful battle was raging all day long from dawn till dark
and that Spain was losing--Spain had lost. One by one hurrying
northward past the Flemish ports limped the disabled Spanish ships;
English and Dutch cruisers followed in fierce pursuit.
The invasion of England by way of the Thames, the conquest of an
inveterate foe, Success proudly placing a flaming carbuncle upon
the coronet of the Prince of Parma, the approving glance of Philip
and of the fair girl-queen Isabella, Spanish dominance in the old
and in the new world--all as burst bubbles died down in gray mist
as twilight descended, as dark night gathered over the wave and the
world and the fleeing scattered shattered ships of Spain’s vincible
Armada.