THE ROUT OF THE ARMADA.
The fight between the fleets had begun on Sunday morning, and at the
end of the third day the strength of the Armada remained unbroken. The
moral effect had no doubt been great, but the loss of two or three
ships was a trifle to so large a force, and the spirit of the Spaniards
had been raised by the gallant and successful defence the _San Marcos_
had made on the Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday was again calm. The
magazines of the English ships were empty. Though express after express
had been sent off praying that ammunition might be sent, none had
arrived, and the two fleets lay six miles apart without action, save
that the galleasses came out and skirmished for a while with the
English ships.
That evening, however, a supply of ammunition sufficient for another
day's fighting arrived, and soon after daybreak the English fleet moved
down towards the Armada, and for the first time engaged them at close
quarters. The _Ark-Raleigh_, the _Bear_, the _Elizabeth Jones_, the
_Lion_, and the _Victory_ bore on straight into the centre of the
Spanish galleons, exchanging broadsides with each as they passed.
Oquendo with his vessel was right in the course of the English
flagship, and a collision took place, in which the _Ark-Raleigh's_
rudder was unshipped, and she became unmanageable.
The enemy's vessels closed round her, but she lowered her boats, and
these, in spite of the fire of the enemy, brought her head round before
the wind, and she made her way through her antagonists and got clear.
For several hours the battle continued. The Spanish fire was so slow,
and their ships so unwieldy, that it was rarely they succeeded in
firing a shot into their active foes, while the English shot tore their
way through the massive timbers of the Spanish vessels, scattering the
splinters thickly among the soldiers, who had been sent below to be out
of harm's way; but beyond this, and inflicting much damage upon masts
and spars, the day's fighting had no actual results. No captures were
made by the English.
The Spaniards suffered, but made no sign; nevertheless their confidence
in their powers was shaken. Their ammunition was also running short,
and they had no hope of refilling their magazines until they effected a
junction with Parma. Their admiral that night wrote to him asking that
two shiploads of shot and powder might be sent to him immediately. "The
enemy pursue me," he said; "they fire upon me most days from morning
till nightfall, but they will not close and grapple. I have given them
every opportunity. I have purposely left ships exposed to tempt them to
board, but they decline to do it; and there is no remedy, for they are
swift and we are slow. They have men and ammunition in abundance." The
Spanish admiral was unaware that the English magazines were even more
empty than his own.
On Friday morning Howard sailed for Dover to take in the supplies that
were so sorely needed. The Earl of Sussex, who was in command of the
castle, gave him all that he had, and the stores taken from the prizes
came up in light vessels and were divided among the fleet, and in the
evening the English fleet again sailed out and took up its place in the
rear of the Armada.
On Saturday morning the weather changed. After six days of calm and
sunshine it began to blow hard from the west, with driving showers. The
Spaniards, having no pilots who knew the coasts, anchored off Calais.
The English fleet, closely watching their movements, brought up two
miles astern.
The Spanish admiral sent off another urgent letter to Parma at Dunkirk,
begging him to send immediately thirty or forty fast gunboats to keep
the English at bay. Parma had received the admiral's letters, and was
perfectly ready to embark his troops, but could not do this as the
admiral expected he would, until the fleet came up to protect him. The
lighters and barges he had constructed for the passage were only fit to
keep the sea in calm weather, and would have been wholly at the mercy
of even a single English ship of war. He could not, therefore, embark
his troops until the duke arrived. As to the gunboats asked for, he had
none with him.
But while the Spanish admiral had grave cause for uneasiness in the
situation in which he found himself, Lord Howard had no greater reason
for satisfaction. In spite of his efforts the enemy's fleet had arrived
at their destination with their strength still unimpaired, and were in
communication with the Duke of Parma's army. Lord Seymour had come up
with a squadron from the mouth of the Thames, but his ships had but one
day's provisions on board, while Drake and Howard's divisions had all
but exhausted their supplies. The previous day's fighting had used up
the ammunition obtained at Dover. Starvation would drive every English
ship from the sea in another week at latest. The Channel would then be
open for the passage of Parma's army.
At five o'clock on Sunday evening a council of war was held in Lord
Howard's cabin, and it was determined, that as it was impossible to
attack the Spanish fleet where they lay at the edge of shallow water,
an attempt must be made to drive them out into the Channel with
fire-ships. Eight of the private vessels were accordingly taken, and
such combustibles as could be found--pitch, tar, old sails, empty
casks, and other materials--were piled into them. At midnight the tide
set directly from the English fleet towards the Spaniards, and the
fire-ships, manned by their respective crews, hoisted sail and drove
down towards them.
When near the Armada the crews set fire to the combustibles, and taking
to their boats rowed back to the fleet. At the sight of the flames
bursting up from the eight ships bearing down upon them, the Spaniards
were seized with a panic. The admiral fired a gun as a signal, and all
cut their cables and hoisted sail, and succeeded in getting out to sea
before the fire-ships arrived. They lay-to six miles from shore,
intending to return in the morning and recover their anchors; but Drake
with his division of the fleet, and Seymour with the squadron from the
Thames, weighed their anchors and stood off after them, while Howard
with his division remained off Calais, where, in the morning, the
largest of the four galleasses was seen aground on Calais Bar. Lord
Howard wasted many precious hours in capturing her before he set off to
join Drake and Seymour, who were thundering against the Spanish fleet.
The wind had got up during the night, and the Spaniards had drifted
farther than they expected, and when morning dawned were scattered over
the sea off Gravelines. Signals were made for them to collect, but
before they could do so Drake and Seymour came up and opened fire
within pistol-shot. The English admiral saw at once that, with the wind
rising from the south, if he could drive the unwieldy galleons north
they would be cut off from Dunkirk, and would not be able to beat back
again until there was a change of wind.
All through the morning the English ships poured a continuous shower of
shot into the Spanish vessels, which, huddled together in a confused
mass, were unable to make any return whatever. The duke and Oquendo,
with some of the best sailors among the fleet, tried to bear out from
the crowd and get room to manoeuvre, but Drake's ships were too
weatherly and too well handled to permit of this, and they were driven
back again into the confused mass, which was being slowly forced
towards the shoals and banks of the coasts.
Howard came up at noon with his division, and until sunset the fire was
maintained, by which time almost the last cartridge was spent, and the
crews worn out by their incessant labour. They took no prizes, for they
never attempted to board. They saw three great galleons go down, and
three more drift away towards the sands of Ostend, where they were
captured either by the English garrisoned there or by three vessels
sent by Lord Willoughby from Flushing, under the command of Francis
Vere. Had the English ammunition lasted but a few more hours the whole
of the Armada would have been either driven ashore or sunk; but when
the last cartridge had been burned the assailants drew off to take on
board the stores which had, while the fighting was going on, been
brought up by some provision ships from the Thames.
But the Spaniards were in no condition to benefit by the cessation of
the attack. In spite of the terrible disadvantages under which they
laboured, they had fought with splendid courage. The sides of the
galleons had been riddled with shot, and the splinters caused by the
rending of the massive timbers had done even greater execution than the
iron hail. Being always to leeward, and heeling over with the wind, the
ships had been struck again and again below the water-line, and many
were only kept from sinking by nailing sheets of lead over the
shot-holes.
Their guns were, for the most part, dismounted or knocked to pieces.
Several had lost masts, the carnage among the crews was frightful, and
yet not a single ship hauled down her colours. The _San Matteo_, which
was one of those that grounded between Ostend and Sluys, fought to the
last, and kept Francis Vere's three ships at bay for two hours, until
she was at last carried by boarding.
Left to themselves at the end of the day, the Spaniards gathered in
what order they could, and made sail for the north. On counting the
losses they found that four thousand men had been killed or drowned,
and the number of wounded must have been far greater. The crews were
utterly worn-out and exhausted. They had the day before been kept at
work cleaning and refitting, and the fire-ships had disturbed them
early in the night. During the engagement there had been no time to
serve out food, and the labours of the long struggle had completely
exhausted them. Worst of all, they were utterly disheartened by the
day's fighting. They had been pounded by their active foes, who fired
five shots to their one, and whose vessels sailed round and round them,
while they themselves had inflicted no damage that they could perceive
upon their assailants.
The English admirals had no idea of the extent of the victory they had
won. Howard, who had only come up in the middle of the fight, believed
that they "were still wonderful great and strong," while even Drake,
who saw more clearly how much they had suffered, only ventured to hope
that some days at least would elapse before they could join hands with
Parma. In spite of the small store of ammunition that had arrived the
night before, the English magazines were almost empty; but they
determined to show a good front, and "give chase as though they wanted
nothing."
When the morning dawned the English fleet were still to windward of the
Armada, while to leeward were lines of white foam, where the sea was
breaking on the shoals of Holland. It seemed that the Armada was lost.
At this critical moment the wind suddenly shifted to the east. This
threw the English fleet to leeward, and enabled the Spaniards to head
out from the coast and make for the North Sea. The Spanish admiral held
a council. The sea had gone down, and they had now a fair wind for
Calais; and the question was put to the sailing-masters and captains
whether they should return into the Channel or sail north round
Scotland and Ireland, and so return to Spain. The former was the
courageous course, but the spirit of the Spaniards was broken, and the
vote was in favour of what appeared a way of escape. Therefore, the
shattered fleet bore on its way north. On board the English fleet a
similar council was being held, and it was determined that Lord
Seymour's squadron should return to guard the Channel, lest Parma
should take advantage of the absence of the fleet to cross from Dunkirk
to England, and that Howard and Drake with their ninety ships should
pursue the Spaniards; for it was not for a moment supposed that the
latter had entirely abandoned their enterprise, and intended to return
to Spain without making another effort to rejoin Parma.
During the week's fighting Geoffrey and Lionel Vickars had taken such
part as they could in the contest; but as there had been no
hand-to-hand fighting, the position of the volunteers on board the
fleet had been little more than that of spectators. The crews worked
the guns and manoeuvred the sails, and the most the lads could do was
to relieve the ship-boys in carrying up powder and shot, and to take
round drink to men serving the guns. When not otherwise engaged they
had watched with intense excitement the manoeuvres of their own ship
and of those near them, as they swept down towards the great hulls,
delivered their broadsides, and then shot off again before the
Spaniards had had time to discharge more than a gun or two. The sails
had been pierced in several places, but not a single shot had struck
the hull of the vessel. In the last day's fighting, however, the
_Active_ became entangled among several of the Spanish galleons, and
being almost becalmed by their lofty hulls, one of them ran full at
her, and rolling heavily in the sea, seemed as if she would overwhelm
her puny antagonist.
[Illustration: GEOFFREY CARRIED OVERBOARD BY THE FALLING MAST]
Geoffrey was standing at the end of the poop when the mizzen rigging
became entangled in the stern gallery of the Spaniard, and a moment
later the mast snapped off, and as it fell carried him overboard. For a
moment he was half-stunned, but caught hold of a piece of timber shot
away from one of the enemy's ships, and clung to it mechanically. When
he recovered and looked round, the _Active_ had drawn out from between
the Spaniards, and the great galleon which had so nearly sunk her was
close beside him.
The sea was in a turmoil; the waves as they set in from the west being
broken up by the rolling of the great ships, and torn by the hail of
shot. The noise was prodigious, from the incessant cannonade kept up by
the English ships and the return of the artillery on board the Armada,
the rending of timber, the heavy crashes as the great galleons rolled
against one another, the shouting on board the Spanish ships, the
creaking of the masts and yards, and the flapping of the sails.
On trying to strike out, Geoffrey found that as he had been knocked
overboard he had struck his right knee severely against the rail of the
vessel, and was at present unable to use that leg. Fearful of being run
down by one of the great ships, and still more of being caught between
two of them as they rolled, he looked round to try to get sight of an
English ship in the throng. Then, seeing that he was entirely
surrounded by Spaniards, he left the spar and swam as well as he could
to the bow of a great ship close beside him, and grasping a rope
trailing from the bowsprit, managed by its aid to climb up until he
reached the bobstay, across which he seated himself with his back to
the stem. The position was a precarious one, and after a time he gained
the wooden carved work above, and obtained a seat there just below the
bowsprit, and hidden from the sight of those on deck a few feet above
him. As he knew the vessels were drifting to leeward towards the
shoals, he hoped to remain hidden until the vessel struck, and then to
gain the shore.
Presently the shifting of the positions of the ships brought the vessel
on which he was into the outside line. The shots now flew thickly
about, and he could from time to time feel a jar as the vessel was
struck.
So an hour went on. At the end of that time he heard a great shouting
on deck, and the sound of men running to and fro. Happening to look
down he saw that the sea was but a few feet below him, and knew that
the great galleon was sinking. Another quarter of an hour she was so
much lower that he was sure she could not swim many minutes longer; and
to avoid being drawn down with her he dropped into the water and swam
off. He was but a short distance away when he heard a loud cry, and
glancing over his shoulder saw the ship disappearing. He swam
desperately, but was caught in the suck and carried under; but there
was no great depth of water, and he soon came to the surface again. The
sea was dotted with struggling men and pieces of wreckage. He swam to
one of the latter, and held on until he saw some boats, which the next
Spanish ship had lowered when she saw her consort disappearing, rowing
towards them, and was soon afterwards hauled into one of them. He had
closed his eyes as it came up, and assumed the appearance of
insensibility, and he lay in the bottom of the boat immovable, until
after a time he heard voices above, and then felt himself being carried
up the ladder and laid down on the deck.
He remained quiet for some time, thinking over what he had best do. He
was certain that were it known he was English he would at once be
stabbed and thrown overboard, for there was no hope of quarter; but he
was for some time unable to devise any plan by which, even for a short
time, to conceal his nationality. He only knew a few words of Spanish,
and would be detected the moment he opened his lips. He thought of
leaping up suddenly and jumping overboard; but his chance of reaching
the English ships to windward would be slight indeed. At last an idea
struck him, and sitting up he opened his eyes and looked round. Several
other Spaniards who had been picked up lay exhausted on the deck near
him. A party of soldiers and sailors close by were working a cannon.
The bulwarks were shot away in many places, dead and dying men lay
scattered about, the decks were everywhere stained with blood, and no
one paid any attention to him until presently the fire began to
slacken. Shortly afterwards a Spanish officer came up and spoke to him.
Geoffrey rose to his feet, rubbed his eyes, yawned, and burst into an
idiotic laugh. The officer spoke again but he paid no attention, and
the Spaniard turned away, believing that the lad had lost his senses
from fear and the horrors of the day.
As night came on he was several times addressed, but always with the
same result. When after dark food and wine were served out, he seized
the portion offered to him, and hurrying away crouched under the
shelter of a gun, and devoured it as if fearing it would be taken from
him again.
When he saw that the sailors were beginning to repair some of the most
necessary ropes and stays that had been shot away, he pushed his way
through them and took his share of the work, laughing idiotically from
time to time. He had, when he saw that the galleon was sinking, taken
off his doublet, the better to be able to swim, and in his shirt and
trunks there was nothing to distinguish him from a Spaniard, and none
suspected that he was other than he seemed to be--a ship's boy, who had
lost his senses from fear. When the work was done, he threw himself on
the deck with the weary sailors. His hopes were that the battle would
be renewed in the morning, and that either the ship might be captured,
or that an English vessel might pass so close alongside that he might
leap over and swim to her.
Great was his disappointment next day when the sudden change of wind
gave the Spanish fleet the weather-gage, and enabled them to steer away
for the north. He joined in the work of the crew, paying no attention
whatever to what was passing around him, or heeding in the slightest
the remarks made to him. Once or twice when an officer spoke to him
sternly he gave a little cry, ran to the side, and crouched down as if
in abject fear. In a very short time no attention was paid to him, and
he was suffered to go about as he chose, being regarded as a harmless
imbecile. He was in hopes that the next day the Spaniards would change
their course and endeavour to beat back to the Channel, and was at once
disappointed and surprised as they sped on before the south-westerly
wind, which was hourly increasing in force. Some miles behind he could
see the English squadron in pursuit; but these made no attempt to close
up, being well contented to see the Armada sailing away, and being too
straitened in ammunition to wish to bring on an engagement so long as
the Spaniards were following their present course.
The wind blew with ever-increasing force; the lightly ballasted ships
made bad weather, rolling deep in the seas, straining heavily, and
leaking badly through the opening seams and the hastily-stopped
shot-holes. Water was extremely scarce, and at a signal from the
admiral all the horses and mules were thrown overboard in order to
husband the supply. Several of the masts, badly injured by the English
shot, went by the board, and the vessels dropped behind crippled, to be
picked up by the pursuing fleet.
Lord Howard followed as far as the mouth of the Forth; and seeing that
the Spaniards made no effort to enter the estuary, and his provisions
being now well-nigh exhausted, he hove the fleet about and made back
for the Channel, leaving two small vessels only to follow the Armada
and watch its course, believing that it would make for Denmark, refit
there, and then return to rejoin Parma.
It was a grievous disappointment to the English to be thus forced by
want of provisions to relinquish the pursuit. Had they been properly
supplied with provisions and ammunition they could have made an end of
the Armada; whereas, they believed that by allowing them now to escape
the whole work would have to be done over again. They had sore trouble
to get back again off the Norfolk coast. The wind became so furious
that the fleet was scattered. A few of the largest ships reached
Margate; others were driven into Harwich, others with difficulty kept
the sea until the storm broke.
It might have been thought that after such service as the fleet had
rendered even Elizabeth might have been generous; but now that the
danger was over, she became more niggardly than ever. No fresh
provisions were supplied for the sick men, and though in the fight off
the Dutch coast only some fifty or sixty had been killed, in the course
of a very short time the crews were so weakened by deaths and disease
that scarce a ship could have put to sea, however urgent the necessity.
Drake and Howard spent every penny they could raise in buying fresh
meat and vegetables, and in procuring some sort of shelter on shore for
the sick. Had the men received the wages due to them they could have
made a shift to have purchased what they so urgently required; but
though the Treasury was full of money, not a penny was forthcoming
until every item of the accounts had been investigated and squabbled
over. Howard was compelled to pay from his private purse for everything
that had been purchased at Plymouth, Sir John Hawkins was absolutely
ruined by the demands made on him to pay for necessaries supplied to
the fleet, and had the admirals and sailors of the fleet that saved
England behaved like ignominious cowards, their treatment could not
have been worse than that which they received at the hands of their
sovereign.
But while the English seamen were dying like sheep from disease and
neglect, their conquered foes were faring no better. They had breathed
freely for the first time when they saw the English fleet bear up; an
examination was made of the provisions that were left, and the crews
were placed on rations of eight ounces of bread, half a pint of wine,
and a pint of water a day. The fleet was still a great one, for of the
hundred and fifty ships which had sailed from Corunna, a hundred and
twenty still held together. The weather now turned bitterly cold, with
fog and mist, squalls and driving showers; and the vessels, when they
reached the north coast of Scotland, lost sight of each other, and each
struggled for herself in the tempestuous sea.
A week later the weather cleared, and on the 9th of August Geoffrey
looking round at daybreak saw fifteen other ships in sight. Among these
were the galleons of Calderon and Ricaldo, the _Rita, San Marcos_, and
eleven other vessels. Signals were flying from all of them, but the sea
was so high that it was scarce possible to lower a boat. That night it
again blew hard and the fog closed in, and in the morning Geoffrey
found that the ship he was on, and all the others, with the exception
of that of Calderon, were steering north; the intention of Ricaldo and
De Leyva being to make for the Orkneys and refit there. Calderon had
stood south, and had come upon Sidonia with fifty ships; and these,
bearing well away to the west of Ireland, finally succeeded for the
most part in reaching Spain, their crews reduced by sickness and want
to a mere shadow of their original strength.
The cold became bitter as De Leyva's ships made their way towards the
Orkneys. The storm was furious, and the sailors, unaccustomed to the
cold and weakened by disease and famine, could no longer work their
ships, and De Leyva was obliged at last to abandon his intention and
make south. One galleon was driven on the Faroe Islands, a second on
the Orkneys, and a third on the Isle of Mull, where it was attacked by
the natives and burned with almost every one on board. The rest managed
to make the west coast of Ireland, and the hope that they would find
shelter in Galway Bay, or the mouth of the Shannon, began to spring up
in the breasts of the exhausted crews.
The Irish were their co-religionists and allies, and had only been
waiting for news of the success of the Armada to rise in arms against
the English, who had but few troops there. Rumours of disaster had
arrived, and a small frigate had been driven into Tralee Bay. The fears
of the garrison at Tralee Castle overcame their feelings of humanity,
and all on board were put to death. Two galleons put into Dingle, and
landing begged for water; but the natives, deciding that the Spanish
cause was a lost one, refused to give them a drop, seized the men who
had landed in the boats, and the galleons had to put to sea again.
Another ship of a thousand tons, _Our Lady of the Rosary_, was driven
into the furious straits between the Blasket Islands and the coast of
Kerry. Of her crew of seven hundred, five hundred had died. Before she
got half-way through she struck among the breakers, and all the
survivors perished save the son of the pilot, who was washed ashore
lashed to a plank. Six others who had reached the mouth of the Shannon
sent their boats ashore for water; but although there were no English
there the Irish feared to supply them, even though the Spaniards
offered any sum of money for a few casks. One of the ships was
abandoned and the others put to sea, only to be dashed ashore in the
same gale that wrecked _Our Lady of the Rosary_, and of all their crews
only one hundred and fifty men were cast ashore alive. Along the coast
of Connemara, Mayo, and Sligo many other ships were wrecked. In almost
every case the crews who reached the shore were at once murdered by the
native savages for the sake of their clothes and jewellery.
Geoffrey had suffered as much as the rest of the crew on board the
galleon in which he sailed. All were so absorbed by their own suffering
and misery that none paid any attention to the idiot boy in their
midst. He worked at such work as there was to do: assisted to haul on
the ropes, to throw the dead overboard, and to do what could be done
for the sick and wounded. Like all on board he was reduced almost to a
skeleton, and was scarce able to stand.
As the surviving ships passed Galway Bay, one of them, which was
leaking so badly that she could only have been kept afloat a few hours
in any case, entered it, and brought up opposite the town. Don Lewis of
Cordova, who commanded, sent a party on shore, believing that in
Galway, between which town and Spain there had always been close
connections, they would be well received. They were, however, at once
taken prisoners. An attempt was made to get up the anchors again, but
the crew were too feeble to be able to do so, and the natives coming
out in their boats, all were taken prisoners and sent on shore. Sir
Richard Bingham, the governor of Connaught, arrived in a few hours, and
at once despatched search parties through Clare and Connemara to bring
all Spaniards cast ashore alive to the town, and sent his son to Mayo
to fetch down all who landed there. But young Bingham's mission proved
useless; every Spaniard who had landed had been murdered by the
natives, well-nigh three thousand having been slain by the axes and
knives of the savages who professed to be their co-religionists.
Sir Richard Bingham was regarded as a humane man, but he feared the
consequences should the eleven hundred prisoners collected at Galway be
restored to health and strength. He had but a handful of troops under
him, and had had the greatest difficulty in keeping down the Irish
alone. With eleven hundred Spanish soldiers to aid them the task would
be impossible, and accordingly he gave orders that all, with the
exception of Don Lewis himself, and three or four other nobles, should
be executed. The order was carried out; Don Lewis, with those spared,
was sent under an escort to Dublin, but the others being too feeble to
walk were killed or died on the way, and Don Lewis himself was the sole
survivor out of the crews of a dozen ships.
De Leyva, the most popular officer in the Armada, had with him in his
ship two hundred and fifty young nobles of the oldest families in
Spain. He was twice wrecked. The first time all reached the shore in
safety, and were protected by O'Niel, who was virtually the sovereign
of the north of Ulster. He treated them kindly for a time. They then
took to sea again, but were finally wrecked off Dunluce, and all on
board save five perished miserably. Over eight thousand Spaniards died
on the Irish coast. Eleven hundred were put to death by Bingham, three
thousand murdered by the Irish, the rest drowned; and of the whole
Armada but fifty-four vessels, carrying between nine and ten thousand
worn-out men, reached Spain, and of the survivors a large proportion
afterwards died from the effects of the sufferings they had endured.