ELIZABETH (x), 1588-98-BRITANNIA VICTRIX
[Sidenote: After the Armada]
The sceptre had passed. The world awoke suddenly to the truth of which
the great debacle was only the unexpected testimony. The Spanish People
were slow to realise the overwhelming fact--overwhelming, because for
the best part of a century at least they had accounted themselves the
nation favoured by Heaven, chosen for the crushing of the heathen and
the heretic, assured of victory. So, for a few years, had the English
thought of themselves; but with a difference; for their spirit was that
expressed in the later Puritan adage, "Trust in God and keep your
powder dry". The Spaniard had neglected to keep his powder dry. The
nation which observes both injunctions is tolerably certain to defeat
that which observes only one.
The sceptre had passed; but Spain would not acquiesce without a
struggle, and, in his slow fashion, Philip set himself to adapt to his
own navy the lesson taught by the fate of the Armada. England had won
the lead, but she was not to hold it unchallenged, though she did
maintain it convincingly. For her alertness did not leave her, and to
her had been transferred not the power only but also the enormous
prestige which Spain had hitherto enjoyed, and which counts for much in
every struggle where it is recognised on both sides.
But the re-organisation of the Spanish Navy was a matter of time. For
the moment, the result of the collision was absolutely to reverse the
hypothetical though not the actual position of the two countries. Spain
was reduced completely to the defensive. England no longer thought of
guarding herself, but only of smiting her foe--a theory of the mutual
relations on which, unofficially, the seamen had been acting for the
last decade.
If during the closing ten years of his life Philip's strongest desire
was to recover the lost supremacy, his energies were still divided by
his extreme anxiety to prevent the Bourbon succession in France; while
the conviction was proving day by day more irresistible that the
Protestant Netherlands would be lost for ever to Spain. Yet the eternal
series of abortive plots for restoring the old religion and placing
either Philip or a tool of Philip on the English throne went on; not in
fact ending till the death of Elizabeth joined England and Scotland
under a single crown.
[Sidenote: A new phase]
Politically the dramatic climax of Elizabeth's reign is the dispersion
of the Armada. The dragon has been fought and vanquished, and at this
point, the curtain ought to ring down and leave the audience to imagine
the Red-cross knight and his ladye-love living happy for ever
afterwards. But in history no climax is more than an incident; at the
most it is but the decisive entry on a new phase. The chain of
causation, of the interdependence of events, is continuous.
The moment of the Armada then may be regarded as the conclusion of a
phase. The work of the great statesmen, whose names are most intimately
associated with that of Elizabeth, was accomplished. They had kept
England united and at peace within her own borders through a long
period of recurring crises. They had so fostered the national spirit
and the national resources that she had finally proved herself a match
for the mightiest Power in Europe. They had achieved for her the
premier position upon the Ocean. They had defeated every attempt to
entice or to force her back to the Roman obedience. They had secured a
larger latitude of religious tolerance than prevailed in any other
State of Europe. These things they had definitely won, though there was
still need of keen brains, stout hearts, strong hands, and sturdy
consciences to hold them. They had been responsible for the planting
and watering. It was left mainly to others in the last years of
Elizabeth to assure the beginnings of the increase.
[Sidenote: 1588 The Death of Leicester]
Of the counsellors who had played a prominent part in Elizabeth's reign,
Nicholas Bacon had died in 1579. The rest still lived, but none of them
for long. The next to disappear was Leicester, who survived the
dispersion of the Armada by only a few weeks. So long as he had been an
aspirant to the hand of his royal mistress, he existed chiefly to
trouble the minds of statesmen--a piece of grit in the machinery; an
apparently quite worthless person After he had settled down into the
less ambiguous position of a mere personal favourite, with no chance of
satisfying swelling ambitions, he became a definite partisan of the
Walsingham school whose ideal lay in the advancement of protestantism
and antagonism to Spain. When not warped by the vain imaginings of his
earlier years, he would seem to have been a person of respectable
abilities, little decision of character, decently loyal; an ornamental
figurehead whose position enabled him to serve his friends; shallow;
neither dangerous, nor conspicuously incapable; not entirely deserving
of the extreme contempt which is usually poured upon him; but at best a
poor creature whose importance was wholly adventitious.
[Sidenote: France, 1588-89]
Of infinitely more consequence in its influence on the political
situation was the death on December 23rd, by the hands of assassins of
the Duke of Guise. The murder, planned by Henry III., deprived the
League of its head, and decisively forced the French King into the arms
of his Protestant heir. Nine months later (August 1589), Henry III. was
assassinated in turn, and Henry of Navarre laid claim to the crown, his
uncle Charles, Cardinal of Bourbon, being proclaimed King by the
Catholics. Hence in Philip's eyes a closer union than ever between
himself and the League--now headed by Mayenne, brother of the murdered
Guise--became imperative. A Huguenot king in France, a heretic queen in
England, and heretic rebels in the Netherlands, threatened a
combination which he was bound to try and paralyse. The attempt went
far to thwart itself; for numbers of the French Catholics were ready to
go a long way towards a compromise with Henry of Navarre when they felt
the alternative to be a Spanish domination; while that astute prince
hailed the opportunity which enabled him to claim the role of patriot,
and to point to the Leaguers as the clients of the foreigner. On the
other hand, Philip's energies during the remainder of his life were
largely absorbed in futile efforts to redress on French soil the loss
of Spanish supremacy on the seas.
[Sidenote: 1588 England aggressive]
Under the new conditions, the antagonism between the two schools of
English statesmanship takes a slightly altered form. Walsingham among
the ministers, Drake among the seamen, had always believed fervently in
the theory of breaking the power of Spain to pieces. Elizabeth and (in
the main) Burghley had clung to the theory of gradually making England
so secure and so formidable that Spain and England alike should
ultimately recognise a condition of amicable equality as the best for
both. Spain would then become amenable to reason in matters
ecclesiastical and commercial, the old intercourse would be restored in
its fulness, and general prosperity would result. Against their wishes,
matters had been by the inevitable trend of events forced to the
arbitrament of battle. But even now, terrible as the disaster of the
Armada had been, Spain was by no means shattered; in fact, though the
English nation was more than jubilant, the seamen themselves were
evidently disappointed that they had not in the encounter inflicted
more complete ruin upon their rivals. They had found the Spaniards less
easy to dispose of than they had anticipated.
[Sidenote: Alternative Naval policies]
The victory however had been won by the great captains of the
aggressive party; it was followed almost immediately by the revolt of
Henry III. from the Guise domination; all the conditions were in favour
of an offensive campaign. For the time being, a peace-party had ceased
to exist. The only question now was, how to strike. And at this stage
we see the two rival theories of naval policy in war time beginning to
be formulated, since naval policy on a large scale was only brought
into being by the development of an oceanic field for it to work in. Of
the one policy which has constantly prevailed with our great English
admirals, that of making the destruction of the enemy's fighting fleet
the primary object, with mere commerce-destroying secondary, Drake was
in practice the father; of the other, that of concentrating on his
trade-routes and menacing his commerce, not unusually favoured by
France in her wars with England, John Hawkins was the advocate.
For the moment Drake, being undoubtedly the hero of the hour, appeared
to triumph. His was the scheme of operations approved. But before it
could be put in practice, its essential features were distorted;
through no fault of his the plan failed of its full effect; disfavour
followed; and war on Spanish commerce again became the prevalent policy.
Its attractions for adventurers are obvious; and its inferiority as a
method of transforming superiority into supremacy was not yet
recognised.
[Sidenote: Don Antonio]
Drake's actual design, however, was not on this occasion a precise
exemplification of the theory just associated with his name, although
its failure brought the supporters of the opposing school to the front.
The Armada disaster had already given the English for the time complete
command of the sea, and his intention was to strike a crippling blow at
the Spanish power by establishing the Pretender Don Antonio on the
throne of Portugal and in control of the Azores. Ever since Philip had
grasped the Portuguese crown in 1580, Elizabeth had played
diplomatically with the notion of helping Don Antonio to challenge his
title by force of arms, and Walsingham would have found a grim joy in
turning the play into earnest. But Antonio could count upon no support
worth mentioning from other quarters; Elizabeth's help had been in
quality the same as and in quantity less than she had doled out to
Huguenots and Netherlanders. The one real attempt in his favour,
wherein there had hardly been a pretence of English participation, had
been crushed by Santa Cruz at the naval battle of Terceira in the
Azores in 1583. But what had been impracticable before the Armada was
so no longer. With the command of the sea, Portugal might now be won;
the loss in itself would be a grievous weakening to Spain; and in
alliance with England. Portugal would be to her neighbour very much
what Scotland would have been to England had Mary been restored--and
accepted--by Spanish aid.
[Sidenote: Plan of the Lisbon Expedition, 1588-89] Such was Drake's
idea, which was to be carried out after the method beloved by the Queen.
It was not to be exactly a Government affair, but the enterprise of a
Company, in which her Majesty was to hold shares, providing some money
and half a dozen ships from her fleet, and various guarantees. It was
to be a joint naval and military venture, with Drake and Norreys
respectively in command of the two arms, with a free hand in the
conduct of operations. All through the winter of 1588 Drake and Norreys
were hard at work preparing this counter-Armada; but as spring came on,
the Queen's passion for tying her servants' hands developed on the
familiar lines. It was not till April that Drake succeeded in
definitely starting, and he went with a very fine armament; but with
only a month's commissariat, without the siege train promised, and
fettered by instructions wholly inconsistent with his own plan of
campaign.
The Spaniards acquired what purported to be a statement of the terms
agreed on between Elizabeth and Don Antonio, under which Portugal, with
the Azores, was to be reduced to a province of England. It does not
appear however that this document was based upon facts; and the
instructions [Footnote: _Cf._ Corbett, ii, ] issued to the
expedition are quite inconsistent with the whole idea. The attempt to
establish Antonio in Portugal was only to be made if the conditions
were favourable; if it succeeded, the English were then to retire; if
it were dropped, they were to make for the Azores. But in any case they
were to begin by attacking the shipping in Biscayan and other Northern
harbours of Spain--an entirely superfluous proceeding, as Spain for the
time had no naval force which could give trouble.
[Sidenote: 1589 May: Corunna and Peniche]
Consequently the expedition--which was accompanied by Elizabeth's
latest favourite, the young Earl of Essex, a runaway and from his
Mistress--instead of making straight for Lisbon attacked Corunna. The
troops were landed, the town stormed and sacked, and the shipping
destroyed, the Spaniards being driven into the citadel. Immediate
departure being prevented by the wind, after nearly a week's operations
a fierce but unsuccessful attempt was made to storm the citadel also.
This however was followed by a brilliant action, at the Bridge of El
Burgo, in which Norreys decisively defeated a relieving force of
greatly superior numbers, prodigies of valour being performed during
the battle. But the capture of the citadel was unimportant; and the
wind improving, the expedition proceeded--with many prizes and much
spoil--to operate against Lisbon. On the way, for some not very
intelligible reason, Peniche, some fifty miles from Lisbon, was stormed
by the soldiers--as it would seem, against Drake's will. The whole army
was here disembarked, to operate against Lisbon by land, while the
fleet proceeded to the mouth of the Tagus.
[Sidenote: Failure at Lisbon]
Drake at once captured Cascaes, which commanded the entry. But he could
do nothing more till the army was ready to co-operate. Norreys arrived
presently: but he had no siege train, and resolved that unless the
Portuguese rose, as Don Antonio had promised, the attempt on Lisbon
must be abandoned. It is practically certain that had the attack been
made, the resolute commandant and his slender garrison would have been
easily overpowered, the mob favouring the assailants. But Norreys was
unaware of the facts; the partisans of Don Antonio did not rise; and
the English fell back to Cascaes to reimbark; having destroyed a
considerable quantity of stores, and defied Spain on her own soil with
a handful of men, but otherwise having failed to accomplish the purpose
of the expedition. Drake however also captured a great convoy of store-
ships. Contrary winds prevented the fleet from proceeding to the Azores,
and nothing more was accomplished but the destruction of Vigo, while in
the subsequent storms a number of ships were damaged or lost. The
business was a failure, though it had given convincing proof that even
in Spanish territory--much more on the seas--Spain was incapable of
taking the offensive. The expedition found its way home about the end
of June; a few weeks before the assassination of the French King, which
transformed the Prince of Navarre into Henry IV., a legitimate monarch
fighting for his throne against a threatened alien domination.
The ships had suffered; the booty was small; the crews and the troops
had been wasted by sickness and sharp fighting. Consequently Drake and
Drake's policy were generally discredited. It had in fact been quite
clearly demonstrated that Spain was on her knees, and that nothing but
inadequate armament and deficient supplies had prevented the admiral
from reducing her to a condition still more desperate. But
superficially, he had failed.
[Sidenote: Policies and Persons]
Now the policy of the forward school, of which Drake was the leading
example and Walter Raleigh was to be the exponent both with sword and
pen, was twofold; to prostrate Spain and her naval power, and to plant
English colonies in direct competition with and open antagonism to the
colonies of Spain. But the men who had grasped the whole conception
were few. Walsingham, the one among the elder statesmen who was in
touch with these ideas, had but a few months to live. The ordinary idea
of the ordinary Anti-Spaniard was to damage Spain as much as possible;
but the means to that end which he recognised lay mainly, if not
entirely, in the raiding of Spanish commerce and the interception of
treasure-fleets. This was avowedly the view of John Hawkins, which
naturally appealed to the Adventurers of the day.
On the other side was the school of Burghley himself, and of Elizabeth;
who had never wished, and did not now wish, to see Spain prostrate, and
had never been without hopes of converting the rivalry into an alliance,
though not averse to the bringing of severe pressure to bear for the
recovery of commercial privileges and the suppression of political
antagonism. Burghley had not by any means always approved of
Elizabeth's methods; when it was only by those tortuous wiles that
peace could be preserved he had joined with Walsingham and Leicester in
counselling war; but if war could be with honour avoided, it had been
his constant desire to avoid it; while he had consistently and
honourably opposed Drake, condemned his buccaneering methods, and
refused to profit by his daring ventures. Burghley's second son Robert,
destined to be the old statesman's successor, already establishing his
position, was the agent of his father's policy. The Queen's latest
favourite, the young Earl of Essex--a son-in-law of Walsingham, and
stepson of Leicester--was no statesman in fact, though he fancied
himself one. His ambition was unlimited; and while, as an anti-Spaniard,
he was a leader of the party opposed to the Cecils, he was not less
hotly jealous of his rival within that party, Walter Raleigh (at an
earlier period, and also afterwards, associated with the Cecils), whose
large conceptions he could hardly appreciate. Finally the Queen herself,
with the same political ideals as her old minister, had still never
been able to resist the temptation of the profits accruing from the
unauthorised raiding policy--a policy which dealt no blows from which
it was impossible for Spain to recover, while it kept her in too
bruised a condition to have any prospect of fighting again at an
advantage.
It was Elizabeth who had ensured the failure of Drake's expedition, for
which Drake himself was made responsible. Drake's policy was in
consequence driven off the field, which was held by that of Essex and
Hawkins--to which, as a policy, the Cecils were not vehemently opposed,
while it satisfied the aroused bellicosity of the nation. Private
enterprise was left to struggle with schemes of colonisation; and Spain
held her trans-oceanic possessions.
[Sidenote: France, 1589-93]
But Spain's activity was crippled, her recuperation checked; and thus,
indirectly, as well as with some direct assistance from England, Henry
IV was enabled more than to hold his own in France, until in 1593, by
accepting the Mass, he definitely won over to his side all but the
extreme supporters of the League: from which time his ultimate triumph
and that of at least limited toleration in France was secured: since
Alexander of Parma, the one man whose military genius was more than a
match for that of Henry, died in 1592.
[Sidenote: 1590 Death of Walsingham]
Here however we are anticipating. From the summer of 1589, Drake drops
into the background. How matters might have gone if Walsingham or even
Leicester had lived and retained their influence, it is not easy to
say; both were staunch supporters of the admiral. But Leicester was
already dead; and though the Queen had full confidence in the Secretary,
she never liked him. Already he was practically in retirement; and in
the following April he too died. With him, a very genuine puritanism
and a determined antagonism to Spain had always been first principles.
No man had expressed himself more openly in Council or more bitterly in
private correspondence in condemnation of the tricks and the falsehoods
which constituted--with a success which cannot be denied--the stock in
trade of the Queen's diplomacy. He repeatedly risked favour and
position by his outspokenness. His own policy and conduct had at all
times been conducted in accordance with a standard of morals and of
honour which was none the less strict though it does not always command
sympathy. To Mary Stewart he was a relentless enemy. He had no
compunctions in his system of espionage, and in his employment of
traitors and of the _agent provocateur._ He, more than anyone else,
was probably responsible for the extensive and extended application of
torture as a means to extract information. These, in his eyes, were
methods without which it was impossible to fight the enemy who must be
fought at any cost. He was ready, even eager, to join battle openly
with Spain in the cause of the Religion, which to him was a reality,
while to Elizabeth, if not also to Burghley, it was only a political
factor which it annoyed her to be obliged to recognise. And of his high
personal integrity, the final proof is that when he died, he left means
insufficient to provide a decent funeral. If his mantle may be said to
have fallen on anyone, it was on Walter Raleigh; and Raleigh was not of
the Council, while his favour with the Queen was at best an extremely
fluctuating quantity.
[Sidenote: Operations in 1590]
It was not Drake then, but Hawkins and Frobisher who in 1590 commanded
the armaments sent out to Spanish waters; with the primary intention of
intercepting the annual convoy of treasure-ships. Disappointment was
again in store, for the Spaniards had news of the expedition, the
treasure-fleet did not sail, and the admirals returned home without
spoils. Not, however, without hurting the enemy; for Spanish finance
was dependent on the arrival of the bullion, Philip was crippled for
want of it, and for the same reason Parma was almost paralysed. The
Huguenot cause was advanced in France by Henry's victory at Ivry. In
spite of his difficulties, however, Parma prevented the King from
capturing Paris and so completing his triumph; but, with his resources
so exhausted, even his genius was unable to accomplish more.
In the same year the splendid qualities developed by English seamen
were illustrated by a valiant fight, in which twelve Spanish ships of
war attacked a flotilla of ten English merchantmen, who fought so
stubbornly that after six hours of conflict the Spaniards drew off,
fairly defeated; the English having lost neither a ship nor a man.
[Sidenote: 1591 The "Revenge"]
In the meantime, however, Philip was making strenuous efforts to adapt
his navy to the conditions of maritime warfare introduced by the
English. In Havana, ships were being built of a greatly improved
construction for fighting and manoeuvring, and the Spanish yards were
busy. So when in 1591 a fleet sailed from England under Lord Thomas
Howard [Footnote: Son of the Duke of Norfolk (executed in 1572) by his
second wife; and half-brother of the Earl of Arundel, who died in the
Tower in 1589.] and Richard Grenville, with much the same intent as
that of Hawkins and Frobisher in 1590, they found themselves no longer
in possession of the same complete command of the seas. Their squadron
was a comparatively small one, including only six regular fighting
ships; and as they lay in the Azores, in waiting for the treasure-fleet,
tidings reached them that an armada of fifty-three vessels was hard at
hand on its way to convoy that fleet. Howard put to sea at once,
avoiding an action; but Grenville on the _Revenge_ [Footnote: The
_Revenge_ was Drake's ship in the Armada conflict.] of set purpose
allowed himself to be entangled in the Spanish fleet; and thereupon
ensued that great fight, that glorious folly, which has been told in
immortal prose and sung in immortal verse; in which for fifteen hours
Drake's favourite vessel did battle, almost unaided, with fifty-three
Spaniards. Not more splendid, not less irrational, were the great deeds
of the three hundred at Thermopylae, of the six hundred at Balaclava.
False moves in the game of war, all of them, from the scientific point
of view; objectless, unreasoning, without possibility of material gain
accruing; but for all that, deeds which for their sheer daring will
ring for ever in the ears of men; of which the bare memory is an
inspiration; whereof the fame in their own day roused the emulous
courage of every Spartan and of every Englishman, making them ready to
face any odds, and chilling the blood of their foes. Vain deeds, when
we count the cost and the tangible gain--but very far from vain when we
take into account the intangible moral effect.
Yet it was but the supreme example of that heroic spirit, shown times
and again, at Zutphen, at the Bridge of El Burgo, in countless fights
with Spaniards and with the elements, which in Elizabeth's day raised
England to be the first among the nations. A deed therefore to be dwelt
upon, if we would understand aright the history of those times, in
which the historian must perforce discourse most frequently and at
greatest length on doings of a less inspiring order. The craft of the
statesman, the skill of the general, are the prominent factors in the
making of history; but the character, the types, of the men of whom
nations are constituted, are no less fundamental and vital.
[Sidenote: France, 1590-93]
In the meantime, the death in France of Henry IV.'s nominal rival, his
uncle the titular Charles X., had increased the difficulties of the
League, which was reduced to putting forward as its candidate the
Infanta Isabella, the daughter of Philip and his third wife Elizabeth
of Valois--whom also Philip destined as his nominee for the English
throne when he should overthrow the heretic Queen. This involved the
setting aside of the Salic law of succession, and an unmistakable
Spanish ascendancy, which no conceivable marriage could make
satisfactory to any one but Philip. Thus Elizabeth still found herself
compelled to give Henry material assistance, and the English contingent
before Rouen, which the French King was seeking to capture in the
latter part of 1591, was commanded by Essex. Again however Parma
intervened, compelling the siege to be raised: though his death a year
later left no commander of equal ability to oppose Henry.
[Sidenote: Operations of 1592-94]
During the next three years, 1592-94, no attacks were made on a large
scale. One was planned for the first year, to be commanded jointly by
Raleigh and Frobisher. But Raleigh was recalled; the men who had joined
his flag were indisposed to serve under Frobisher; the squadron divided,
and ultimately accomplished little beyond the capture of a single rich
prize. Nevertheless, the process of raiding Spanish commerce by
privateering ships or squadrons was carried on, with much injury to
Spanish trade, and collection of considerable spoils; the chief of the
raiders being perhaps the Earl of Cumberland, who never failed to
conduct at least one such expedition annually. But though Philip's
finances continued thereby to be materially crippled, he was not
prevented from carrying on the work of reorganising his navy; while
towards the end of 1593 he had secured more than one station at Blavet
and elsewhere on the coast of Brittany, where he hoped to establish an
advanced base from which he could constantly threaten the Channel and
Ireland. This scheme however was frustrated at the end of 1594 by a
successful joint attack of Frobisher by sea and Norreys by land on a
position at Crozon which threatened to dominate Brest; and by the
expulsion of the Spaniards from other points in that neighbourhood
where they had sought to plant themselves. Frobisher however died from
a wound he received in the fighting. The move was one that Raleigh had
advocated zealously; and it proved thoroughly effective.
Important as was this blow to Philip's naval aspirations, the political
situation was still more decisively affected during these three years
by the death of Parma in December 1592, Henry's acceptance of the Mass
in July 1593, and his consequent recognition by the bulk of the French
Catholics early in 1594: although the extremists of the League
continued their opposition to him, and their support of the Spanish
Infanta, a course which secured the maintenance of the alliance between
Henry and Elizabeth.
[Sidenote: 1589-94 A survey]
From 1589, when the English Queen had deliberately dislocated the plans
of Drake's Lisbon expedition, changing it from a great political stroke
into an unsatisfactory raid, till the closing months of 1594 when once
again a decisively damaging blow was dealt to Philip's naval schemes,
the war had given ample occasion for stirring deeds of valour and
brilliant feats of arms, but the scheme of operations throughout had
been narrow and shortsighted. Though the honours still lay unmistakably
with England, Spain had in fact been gaining ground, slowly remedying
those defects in her organisation which had been so glaringly exposed
by the breakdown of the Armada: and when Frobisher fell at Crozon, she
was more formidable than at any time since Medina Sidonia had sailed
from Corunna But besides the main open contest, Philip throughout these
years had been dallying after his old fashion with the factions outside
of England which might be looked to as possible instruments for shaking
the throne of Elizabeth.
These were to be found among the exiled English Catholics, in Scotland,
and in Ireland.
[Sidenote: Spain and the English Catholics]
With the Catholic exiles however, there was little to be done. Those
indeed who were closely associated with the Jesuits founded their hopes
of a Catholic restoration on Spanish dominion, with the Infanta
Isabella as Queen of England; but the fact by itself sufficed to keep
the bulk of the party cold if not antagonistic. The price was too high
to pay, for any but Parsons and his associates. English Catholics
looked by preference to the succession possibly of the Catholic
Stanleys of Derby [Footnote: See _Front_]--who unfortunately stood
aloof--or of either James of Scotland or his cousin Arabella
(representing the half-English Lennox Stewarts), both Protestants of
whose conversion hopes were maintained. Patriotism, Nationality, held
precedence over Religion: even although in 1593 fresh and harsh
measures against Catholics as well as Puritans were adopted by
Parliament. Under these conditions, plots for the removal of Elizabeth
by methods which would make all the lukewarm elements in England
actively hostile to Spain were not likely to receive encouragement from
Philip. A variety of such plots were in fact concocted and duly
revealed by informers or suspects under torture, and fathered on Philip
or his ministers; but in every case the evidence connecting them with
the Spaniards is of the weakest. Naturally, Essex and the war-party in
England made the most of these stories, in order to inflame public
opinion against Philip, and with no little success. Nevertheless,
whatever element of truth they may have contained, they are too flimsy
and unsubstantial to be seriously included in the indictments against
Philip's character-which are indeed sufficiently grave without
them. [Footnote: See Hume's _Treason and Plot,_ cc. iv. v., where
the evidence in a series of these plots is impartially set forth. The
most notable of the group is that of Lopez, who was executed in 1594.]
[Sidenote: Scottish Intrigues]
Scottish intrigues with Philip were equally abortive. James, on the
throne, played an unceasing game of chicane and double-dealing,
perpetually playing off parties and persons against each other with
that curious cunning which he designated "king-craft". The Catholic
nobles alternated between hopes of capturing him, or of ejecting him,
and fears of their own suppression. They tried to bargain with Philip,
on the hypothesis of effecting James's conversion and placing him on
the English throne; on the hypothesis of a Catholic restoration in
Scotland; for one brief interval, on the hypothesis of giving Philip a
free hand. But James had an ingenious trick of playing at friendship
with his Catholic lords and introducing himself into these
negotiations; whereas Philip had no idea of stirring a finger to help
James to the English succession: and the Scottish Catholic lords
themselves were by no means ready to relinquish the national aspiration
to seat a Scots king on the throne of England. So that while these
intrigues caused some perturbation in the English court, and led
Elizabeth to lecture her young kinsman and disciple with a fine show of
pained indignation, they never came within measurable distance of
definite action.
[Sidenote: Ireland, 1583-92]
Ireland however offered a more promising field of operations. For a
decade following the suppression of Desmond's rebellion, that country
had lain in a state of exhaustion. English "under-takers" had been
planted in the desolated and forfeited lands of Munster. In the North,
Tyrconnel was loyal--that is, was not disposed to rebellion; Tirlough
Lynagh, head of the O'Neills, was of a like mind; and Hugh O'Neill, the
successor to the Earldom of Tyrone, had been brought up in England, and
was a professed supporter of English rule: against which there was no
one to make head. Even the coming of the Armada, while creating some
nervousness, produced no disturbances, though the assistance given by a
chief here and there to ship-wrecked Spaniards brought them into
trouble. But this was the calm of exhaustion merely. The unvarying
impression produced by the Irish letters of the time is that Englishmen
regarded the native chiefs as a low type of savage, and the common folk
as a noxious kind of vermin; and it is painfully clear that the
standard of civilisation was of that debased type which must prevail
where the governing powers have habitually set the example of
distorting the first four commandments of the decalogue and ignoring
the other six. The normal attitude of the bulk of the native Irish and
Anglo-Irish was one of repressed hatred and veiled defiance towards the
English, ready to break out openly whenever an opportunity should seem
to present itself. That attitude would probably have been universal had
not some of the chiefs, like Ormonde, been convinced that even the
English system was preferable to the anarchy and strife of septs which
would result from a temporarily successful rebellion: finding in
friendly relations with the Government the best guarantee for the
security of their own position.
Masterful and capable men however like the old Kildare and Shan O'Neill
had demanded more. To Kildare the Henries had granted that more; Shan
had come near to securing it in despite of Elizabeth. Now an abler man
than either, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, dissatisfied with his
treatment at the hands of the English was making up his mind to renew
the contest.
[Sidenote: Tyrone, 1592-94]
Tyrone did not raise the standard of revolt. But in 1592-3, Tyrone, his
brother in law Hugh Roe O'Donnell, [Footnote: Hugh O'Donnell had been
trapped and held prisoner in Dublin as a hostage for Tyrconnell's good
behaviour; but succeeded in making his escape.] Tyrconnell's son, his
neighbours Maguire and O'Rourke, and the McWilliams or Burkes of
Connaught--dwellers in the parts furthest from the Pale--were in active
defiance of the Government. Tyrone was engaged in officially placating
or repressing or remonstrating with them, ostensibly doing his best to
serve the Queen; ready to hand over hostages, to present himself in
person to the Deputy Fitzwilliam and demonstrate his loyalty, or to
take the field against the rebels with the royal forces. The Deputy,
and the President of Connaught, had information that he was in fact in
collusion with the rebels, but none which could be brought home to him;
and the royal forces--amounting only to between four and five thousand
men--were as usual inadequate to doing more than march into disturbed
districts, accomplish some burnings and hangings, enjoy one or two
sharp skirmishes, and march out again. But by 1594 Tyrone and his
friends were in communication with Spain, and Philip was again
contemplating the expulsion of the English from Ireland as an effective
line of operation in his war with Elizabeth.
[Sidenote: 1595 Drake's last voyage]
By this time the Queen was waking up to the fact that the Spanish sea-
power was not diminishing but recovering: the attack on the Brittany
ports points to the revival of a more far-seeing naval policy; Drake
was returning to favour, and the younger Cecil was well-disposed
towards him. It was decided that he and old John Hawkins should revive
the past methods and conduct a grand attack on the Spanish Main and
Panama. As usual however, fluctuating orders from the Queen delayed the
start till some months after the intended date; the Plate fleet reached
its destination in safety; the Spaniards got wind of the expedition;
and when Drake and Hawkins at last put to sea they had instructions
calculated effectively to prevent their accomplishing anything like a
surprise. Porto Rico, the first main objective, had due warning, and so
was able to offer a successful resistance to the attack, energetically
as it was conducted. The death of Hawkins, who had grown too cautious
to work well with Drake, relieved the expedition of divided counsels;
but Drake had not realised that in the years of his inaction the
Spaniards had profited by the lessons he had taught them. Though he
sacked and burnt La Hacha, Santa Marta, and Nombre de Dios, the spoils
were small; the enemy, prepared for his coming, had secured the passes
through Darien to Panama, and it was found that there was no
possibility of forcing them. Then came the final disaster; Drake
himself was seized with dysentery, and on January 28th, 1598, the great
seaman died. He found in the Ocean his fitting grave: and the
expedition returned to England having failed to accomplish anything
noteworthy, though it had to fight a not unsuccessful battle with a
slightly superior fleet on the way home.
Six months before Drake sailed on his last voyage, Raleigh had gone on
a notable exploring expedition to the Orinoco; the forerunner of not a
few voyages in search of the fabled Eldorado. Beyond some extension of
geographical knowledge however, the venture was unfruitful.
[Sidenote: 1596 The Cadiz expedition]
Although Drake's expedition had been spoilt, his theories were once
more, in the main, in the ascendant; and in June 1598 a great attacking
force was again organised, with Cadiz for its principal objective. An
effective blow at Philip's navy was made all the more necessary at the
moment, because the Archduke Albert, now in command in the Netherlands,
had just succeeded in capturing Calais from the French. Howard of
Effingham again commanded as admiral, with Essex as general in chief, a
council which included Raleigh and Lord Thomas Howard, and a Dutch
contingent which was under the orders of the English chief. The
Spaniards had this time no suspicion of what was on foot. The harbour
of Cadiz was full of shipping; which included however a number of ships
of war in fighting trim. Thus it was not without a fierce conflict that
the English drove their way in. Two ships only were captured, and
transferred from the Spanish to the English navy, but numbers were sunk
or burnt. The exploit was a brilliant one, owing its success largely to
a change from the original plan of attack, for which that advocated by
Raleigh was substituted. Cadiz itself was stormed, captured, and put to
ransom; but the victors displayed what was in those days a singular and
notable restraint and courtesy in their treatment of the vanquished. In
spite, however, of the protests of Essex, who wished to remain in
occupation of Cadiz, Lord Howard was content with the heavy spoils
secured and the immense destruction wrought, and the expedition
returned home.
[Sidenote: Ireland, 1595-96]
Tyrone in the meantime was playing his difficult game in Ireland with
remarkable success. He consistently maintained his professions of
loyalty, though by now calling himself "The O'Neill," like Shan, he
fostered the belief that he was only waiting to declare himself anti-
English; he continued to evade action against the more open rebels; he
continued to correspond with Spain; and yet Sir John Norreys, now in
command of the army in Ireland, could not resist the belief that he
meant to be loyal and would be loyal and would make the other chiefs so,
if his assistance were loyally accepted and his position frankly
confirmed by the English. Whether such anticipations would have proved
true if he had been treated as Henry VII. treated Kildare, it is
impossible to say. But the Deputy Fitzwilliam, and his successor
Russell, regarded him as a traitor at heart, and persistently provided
him with palpable excuse for distrusting them [Footnote: Tyrone received
a letter from Philip, which he showed the Deputy, as a proof of the
tempting offers made to him and of his own loyalty, on condition that
it should neither be copied nor retained. But it was kept by the
English, and used by them to attack Philip, and others.] in turn. Under
such conditions, loyal or not at bottom, it was no part of the Earl's
policy to break with Philip, or on the other hand to commit himself too
deeply till Philip should be also irrevocably committed to rendering
real solid assistance.
So Norreys went on recommending conciliation, and Russell went on
opposing that policy, while Elizabeth persistently abstained alike from
effective conciliation and from the one practicable alternative policy
of placing a really strong organised and orderly garrison in the
country: maintaining instead only a few ill-paid ill-disciplined ill-
behaved troops who might on occasion meet the raw Irish levies but were
wholly unfitted to be the instruments of a firm government. And all the
time from every officer in Ireland arose the perpetual petition to be
recalled from service in a country where neither a soldier nor an
administrator could possibly escape lowering any reputation he might
have previously acquired. It was well for England that Drake's last
expedition demanded the entire attention of the Spanish Fleet; and that,
following thereon, the Cadiz expedition was even more destructive to
the prospects of the new Armada which Philip was still seeking to
organise, than Drake's former Cadiz expedition had proved itself to the
Great Armada in 1587. Tyrone was thereby baulked of Spanish help,
without which he would not plunge into such a rebellion as might
threaten seriously to embarrass Elizabeth and benefit Philip.
[Sidenote: 1596 The second Armada]
So matters stood in the summer of 1596. One quality however Philip
possessed with which Englishmen must sympathise; he never recognised
that he was beaten. Crushing as the blow at Cadiz was, the northern
ports were left alone, and there the laborious building up of a great
fleet was in steady progress. Philip was stirred to deal a
counterstroke, and late in October a huge new Armada of nearly a
hundred vessels sailed from Vigo Bay, its destination unknown save to
Philip, its very existence unrealised in England, where no one believed
that a Spanish fleet would put to sea so late in the year. The Irish
chiefs however had notice that an invading force was coming. But the
old story was repeated. The preparations had been thrown out of gear by
the disaster of the summer; all the provisions were incomplete; the
ships were hopelessly ill-found; and the fleet had hardly started when
a terrific storm fell on it and shattered it. Thirty or more of the
vessels were lost at sea; when the rest of the battered armament
struggled back to Ferrol, pestilence broke out, and the crews died and
deserted by hundreds if not by thousands. The stars in their courses
fought against Philip and ruined the second Armada--this time without
the help of hostile man.
[Sidenote: 1597 The Island Voyage, etc.]
This was followed again in the next summer by another English
expedition, known as the "Island Voyage," with Essex, Lord Thomas
Howard, and Raleigh in command; with a score of ships from the Royal
Navy, and a Dutch contingent as in the Cadiz expedition. [Footnote: The
soldiers wanted an army to attack Calais. Raleigh's insistence however
carried the day in favour of a naval blow. (Raleigh, _Opinion on the
Spanish Alarum_.)] The affair however was mismanaged. From the start,
there were adverse tempests. [Footnote: _S. P. Dom._ iv., p. 463.]
Corunna and Ferrol, which it was intended to attack, were found warned
and armed for defence; and the gales were unfavourable. The fleet made
for the Azores, and captured Fayal, Graciosa, and St. Michael's; but
the treasure-fleet by good fortune evaded the English and found safety
at Terceira. Raleigh and Essex quarrelled violently; and the fleet
returned home with little accomplished. It succeeded however in
weathering a storm which once more had made havoc of still another
Spanish Armada, which sought to seize the opportunity for making a raid
on Cornwall with a view to seizing and holding some port, to be used as
an advance post for operations in the Channel--a sufficiently wild
scheme at the best, with Essex's fleet returning almost on the heels of
the expedition.
The failure decided Tyrone that Spain was a thoroughly broken reed; and
he succeeded in making terms with the English Government [Footnote: _S.
P. Irish,_ vi., pp. 477-479.] that winter, if only with a view to
organising a more determined and independent rebellion in the near
future.
[Sidenote: 1598 Spain]
It is abundantly evident in this the last year of Philip's life that he
was beaten at every point, however his obstinate fanaticism might
refuse to admit it. His designs on the throne of France were foiled;
the negotiations were already far advanced for the Peace of Vervins
which was to set the French King free from the war. The prospect of
placing Isabella [Footnote: Philip was now arranging to bestow Flanders
upon her as an independent sovereignty.] on the English throne was more
visionary than ever. The Spanish party among the English Catholics were
growing more and more out of favour; pride in the prestige of English
arms, scorn that England should be dominated by a nation which could
not match her in open fight, strengthened the patriotic section. The
Scots would not stir a finger except to make their own monarch king of
the neighbouring country. The Pope himself had no desire to see Spain
so aggrandised as to be able to dictate to Christendom. The prospect of
the Netherlands being reduced to submission had all but vanished. As
for the maritime rivalry, all the Spanish efforts had been in vain. The
ships had been improved; the defence of the trade-routes had been
better organised. Several of the blows aimed by England had been more
or less abortive; but one at least had been staggering, and every
attempt at a counterstroke had ended in plain disaster. Moreover from
first to last the Spaniards, valiant as they often proved themselves,
had fought as beaten men, the English as assured victors; both alike
with a perfect conviction that the latter were certain to win against
any but overwhelming odds. Such a fight as that of the _Revenge,_
with the nationalities of the combatants reversed, was unimaginable.
Yet even in 1598 Philip and some of his ecclesiastical counsellors were
unconvinced, and a brief alarm was created when a Spanish flotilla
dashed up the Channel and made its way to Calais, not yet restored to
France. Completely unexpected as it was, however, English squadrons
were on the seas almost at a day's notice. Half the flotilla was lost
outside Calais, and immediately afterwards the Spanish ports were in a
ferment at the report that Cumberland was hovering off their own coast
--very sufficient evidence of the immense superiority of the English,
both in organisation and _morale._
[Sidenote: Death of Philip, Sept.]
In September, Elizabeth's great enemy breathed his last. He was not
exactly the monster of iniquity that he has been painted; not a
criminal for the love of criminality. He was a Tiberius rather than a
Nero; a morbid influence, not a devouring pestilence. A perfectly
sombre bigot; an example of what the Greeks would have called [Greek:
hubris] of a very exceptional kind, who believed devoutly in himself as
the instrument chosen by the Saints for the overthrow of heretics;
convinced that his aims and interests were favoured by Heaven, ranking
before those of the Papacy itself; without a qualm as to the
righteousness of all means he could adopt to further those aims. Save
in one slight instance, we seek in vain to find in him any sign of
human affections--tenderness, sympathy, generosity. Infinitely
laborious, his idea of government was to elaborate an enormous
machinery, of which every portion should be under his personal control;
eternally suspicious, he trusted no man, and kept the hands of his
servants tied and bound; immovably cautious, he always waited to strike
till he thought he could do so with overwhelming force, and he always
waited till the time to strike had passed--till his opponent had
crippled him by striking first. Forty years before, he was lord of the
New World, lord of the seas, lord of Spain, of half Italy, of the
Netherlands, and seemed destined to be lord of England, almost of
Europe. Elizabeth and Cecil had seen where lay the weakness of his
position; they had evaded, cajoled, finally had defied and triumphed
over him. When he sank to the grave, the lordship of the sea had passed,
the lordship of the Netherlands was passing, the lordship of the New
World was tottering. His overweening egotism had sucked the life-blood
of Spain. The Power which forty years before had threatened to dominate
the world was no better than a decrepit giant; the form still loomed
gigantic, but the substance was gripped with the chill paralysis
wherewith Philip had smitten it, since he had entered like a poisonous
blight upon his inheritance.
[Sidenote: Death of Burghley, Aug.]
Philip was seventy-one when he died. Six weeks earlier Lord Burghley,
seven years his senior, passed away, leaving Elizabeth with none beside
her of her own generation. For forty years too, he had been the Queen's
first minister. However we read the enigma of Elizabeth's apparent
frivolity, vacillation, trickery and success, he had been throughout
the one man with whose counsel she would not dispense, even when she
seemed to flout him. Essentially he was a master of compromise, of
balance; a devotee of moderation, of the _via media._ Hardly less
averse to war than his mistress, he would yet have preferred war to
some of the ignominious shifts by which she evaded it; for he had a
cool level-headed confidence in England's essential vitality and power
of weathering the storm, if it should burst, even at times when outside
observers imagined that that confidence was hurrying her to ruin. When
obliged to lean to one side or the other in religious controversy, he
adopted the cause of "his brethren in Christ" as Elizabeth dubbed them
with a sneer, because that was more compatible with his _via
media_ than the other: but he had none of Walsingham's puritanic
enthusiasm. His ideal for England was a prosperous respectability:
breaches of political propriety shocked him. He would take no share in
the profits of buccaneering exploits: but it was the same mental
quality which kept him from any zeal for Causes which might drag the
country into incalculable ventures. When it seemed to him that a
vigorous support of European Protestantism was the only alternative to
submission to Spain, he went with Walsingham, though Elizabeth found
her own alternative in spite of them both: but he did it reluctantly,
and always at bottom with the hope that Spain and England might yet
attain mutual amity. After the death of Nicholas Bacon in 1579 he
inclined more to believe in that possibility, and in proportion as the
war-party was strengthened by the Armada his antagonism to it became
the more marked. After his seventieth year his direct interference in
politics had become less; but his astute son, Robert Cecil, represented
him. All through his career, he was a consistent opportunist, using
without scruple all currently admissible tools, never missing the
chance of the half-loaf. The most industrious of men, a supremely
shrewd judge of character and motive, he was rarely--save in the case
of the Queen--misled by superficial appearances; though his own lack of
sentiment prevented him from fully appreciating the sentimental factor
in politics. Always at all risks he was loyal to Queen and Country; and
habitually, even at some risk, to servants and colleagues. If he does
not stand absolutely in the first rank of English statesmen, they are
yet few who stand above him.