226 SAILING OF THE ARMADA. [1588. orders to beware of sands and "cachops," they sweep majestically down the broad river, and having passed the Bar are in the vast Atlantic. Never did such a sight present itself to the gazers on the hills, as when the ten squadrons of this fleet dropped down the Tagus, issuing, in a succession that appeared endless, out of the great bay. The captain-general commanded twelve Portuguese galleons, the largest sailing-vessels. There were the fleets of Biscay, of Castile, of Andalusia, of Guypuscoa; the Eastern fleet; the fleet called Urcas or Hulks, and a squadron of smaller vessels. Lastly, were four galeasses of Naples, and four galleys of Portugal; these eight enormous vessels being rowed by two thousand and eighty-eight slaves. The whole number of ships was one hundred and thirty-six; having a burthen of 59,120 tons; mounted with 3165 pieces of cannon; worked by 8746 mariners, besides the slaves; and carrying 21,639 soldiers. This fleet was accompanied by a large number of trading vessels, ready to supply its wants. Every ship was provided with two boat-loads of stones, "to throw in the time of fight;" and with wild-fire, to be given out to the most expert. All the vessels were to sail as close as possible. Their course was for Cape Finisterre, where they were to rendezvous, in case of separation; or to make for Corunna, then known as The Groyne. Departing thence, "they shall set their course for Scilly." If any ship were to lose the fleet, the crew were not to return to Spain, under penalty of death; but to seek the navy "in Mount's Bay, which is between the Land's End and the Lizard." And so they sailed along in great pomp and security, hoping to be on the south-western coast of England, at the time when another fleet, equipped in the Netherlands, should be ready to sail under the command of the prince of Parma. But when the Spanish fleet had nearly reached Cape Finisterre, a storm arose, which scattered the ships, and compelled the great body of the armament to go into Corunna to refit. The news reached England that the mighty fleet had been nearly destroyed; and the lord high admiral, Howard of Effingham, sailed from England to complete the destruction. But he found that the storm had been less fatal than believed, and that the expectation that no invasion would be attempted that summer was a mistake. He wisely returned, to wait for the enemy in the Channel. For a month did the great fleet lie in Corunna harbour. The prince of Parma's flat-bottomed vessels, for the conveyance of thirty-five thousand men, were lying at Bruges; and the ports of Nieuport and Dunkirk, from which they could have put to sea, were blockaded by a combined English and Dutch fleet. The instructions for the invasion were rigidly laid down at the court of Madrid. The Spanish fleet was to steer for Flanders; and under its protection the duke of Parma was to disembark his army in Kent or Essex, and march to London. The plan was known; and hence the camp at Tilbury, with a bridge of boats to Gravesend, for connecting the Essex and Kentish shores. The Flemish army having landed, the troops of the armada were to be carried to the coast of Yorkshire. There was an arrangement also, that when the Spanish armament came into the Channel it should have the co-operation of the duke of Guise, who was to land in the west, to effect a diversion; whilst the real attacks upon the capital and in the north were going forward. The delay at Corunna disconcerted these arrangements. But Cachops are great banks at the mouth of the Tagus. 1588.] THE ENGLISH FLEET. 227 whilst the triple danger appeared imminent, the English courage never quailed. Guise withdrew his troops to the interior. Parma made no strenuous efforts to take his share in the great enterprise. The storm that drove Medina and his galleons and galeasses into Corunna might have disturbed these plans; but the English and Dutch preparations were not likely to make Guise and Parma confident of their easy execution. The queen's ships at Plymouth, under the lord high admiral, were thirtyfour in number. Their aggregate burthen was 11,820 tons; they mounted 837 guns; and they mustered 6279 seamen. Howard was in the Ark-Royal, of 800 tons; Drake, the vice-admiral, was in the Revenge, 500 tons; Hawkins, the rear-admiral, was in the Victory, 800 tons; Frobisher was in the Triumph, 1100 tons. This was the largest ship of the fleet, of which one-third of the number was below 100 tons. But there were forty-two vessels serving by tonnage, merchant-ships, which had 2587 mariners; and there were thirtyeight vessels, carrying 2710 mariners, fitted out by the city of London. With coasters and volunteers, the whole number of ships, large and small, was one hundred and ninety-seven, having one-half only of the tonnage of the Spanish fleet. The greater part was in Plymouth and Dartmouth; but a squadron under lord Seymour was taking part in the blockade of the Flemish coast. The whole number of sailors in the fleet was 15,785. The mariners were the only fighting men of the ships. The differences of construction and of equipment in the English and the Spanish navies were most remarkable; but they were not so remarkable as the difference of the men on board of them. The Portuguese galleys, each with three hundred rowers, could move against the wind as if by steam. But the poor slaves were perfectly exposed to the shot of large and small arms; and the movements of the enormous vessels were thus liable to serious interruption. The galleons were unwieldy floating towers, with many decks, where the soldiers and gunners were stowed amidst comforts unknown to the mariners. In the orders for sailing of the duke of Medina we find, "for that the mariners must resort unto their work, tackle, and navigation, it is convenient that their lodging be in the upper works of the poop and forecastle, otherwise the soldiers will trouble them in the voyage." But this was the invariable practice in the Spanish navy. "The mariners are but as slaves to the rest, to moil and to toil day and night; and these [the mariners] but few and bad, and not suffered to sleep or harbour under the decks. For, in fair or foul weather, in storms, sun, or rain, they must pass void of covert or succour." The English ships were short in the build; and were rigged so as readily to tack. Every man on board was as willing to assist in working his vessel as to fight. Drake, in his voyage round the world, exclaimed, “I must have the gentlemen to hale and draw with the mariners." Officers and men stood by each other in a brotherhood made closer by a common danger and a mutual dependence. Thus, when the two fleets came together in action, "the English ships, being far the lesser, charged the enemy with marvellous agility; and having discharged their broadsides flew forth furiously into the deep, and levelled their shot directly without missing, at these great ships of the Spaniards." † When * Quoted in "Westward Ho," by the Rev. Charles Kingsley; a romance imbued with the truest spirit of history, and displaying a far higher, because more intelligent, patriotism, than most of our modern histories of this period of heroic struggle. Camden, ed. 1630. 228 THE ARMADA OFF PLYMOUTH. [1588. Valdez, the commander of the Andalusian squadron, lost his foremast; "he lay," says Stow, "like a stiff elephant in the open field, beset with eager hounds." Wotton has compared the movements of the English ships to "a morice-dance upon the waters." On the 12th of July the Spanish fleet stood out to sea from Corunna. The armada kept its course through the Bay of Biscay, with a favourable wind, until the 16th, when there was a great calm and a thick fog till noon. The wind shifting from north-east to west, and then to east-south-east, dispersed the ships; and they were scarcely gathered together when the English coast was in sight. On the 19th they were seen entering the Channel by Fleming, a captain of a pinnace, according to Camden; but by other accounts a Scottish pirate. This captain, whether honest trader or rover, made all sail for Plymouth, to communicate his momentous news. There was a gallant fleet in the harbour; and there were commanders on shore, of the same material as that out of which the Blakes and Nelsons were formed. About the port was a great land force under the orders of Raleigh, who would rather have been at sea. The Howards were there, lord Charles and lord Thomas, with lord Sheffield, the nephew of the lord high admiral, and sir Robert Southwell, his son-in-law. But birth then gave no exclusive title to command. The rough-handed Hawkins, and Drake, and Frobisher, and Fenner, and many another captain who had steered and fought his way upwards from the forecastle, were there; and they went to their work with that hearty will which is best inspired by a free service. And so, on the night of the 19th,after Drake had finished his game at bowls, in which tradition we have a lively faith,-the fleet was warped out of the harbour. Howard told, in a letter of the 21st addressed to Walsingham, the story of his first operations, using the brief style best suited for a man of action: "I will not trouble you with any long letter; we are at this present otherwise occupied than with writing. Upon Friday, at Plymouth, I received intelligence that there were a great number of ships descried off the Lizard; whereupon, although the wind was very scant, we first warped out of harbour that night; and upon Saturday it turned out rain, hard by, the wind being at south-west; and about three of the clock in the afternoon descried the Spanish fleet, and we did what we could to work for the wind, which by this morning we had recovered, descrying their fleet to consist of a hundred and sixty sail." * "At Plymouth speedily, took they ship valiantly; With their fair colours spread, and streamers on their head-- Up the Channel sail the galleons argosies, before that south-west breeze. Letter in the State Paper Office. and the galeasses, the carracks and England is on the look-out from every Ballad, "The winuing of Cales," Percy, vol. ii. 1558.] THE ARMADA OFF PLYMOUTH. 229 Little pinnaces go hill and every beach from the Lizard to the Start. boldly forth from Marazion, and Falmouth, and Fowey; as Howard and his fleet pass the Eddystone, then a bare rock with no warning light. Is the great armada about to attack Plymouth? The day will show. It sweeps on "in front like a half-moon, the horns stretching forth about the breadth of seven miles, sailing as it were with labour of the winds, and groaning of the ocean, slowly, though with full sails." Will Howard not give fight? Will The Spanish Armada attacked by the English Fleet. (From the Tapestry in the House of Lords, destroyed in the Fire at the the daring captains who have borne the English flag from the north pole to the tropics, and some of whom have put a girdle round the earth, will they let the armada pass unscathed? They know their business. "Willingly they 230 THE FIGHT UP CHANNEL. [1588. suffer it to pass by, that they might chase them in the rear with a foreright wind." On the 21st, "about nine of the clock, before noon, the lord admiral commanded his pinnace, called the Disdain, to give the defiance unto the duke of Medina." It was the old feudal challenge; but there was no pause for the answer. The pinnace fired a shot at the first ship it met, and Howard, like a gallant leader as he was, began the fight: "with much thundering out of his own ship, called the Ark-royal, he first set upon the admiral, as he thought, of the Spaniards; but it was Alphonso de Lena's ship. Soon after, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, played with their ordnance upon the hindmost squadron, which was commanded by Recalde, who laboured all he could to stay his men that fled to the fleet, till his own ship, being much battered with shot, and now grown unserviceable, hardly withdrew itself to the main fleet. At which time the duke of Medina gathered together his fleet scattered here and there, and hoisting more sail, held on his intended course. Neither could he do any other, seeing both the wind favoured the English, and their ships would turn about with incredible celerity which way soever they would to charge, wind, and tack about again. And now had they maintained a hot fight the space of two hours, when the lord admiral thought not good to continue the fight any longer, for that forty of his ships were not yet come in, being scarce yet gotten out of the haven." * The night that followed was one of strange tumult in those waters, which a foreign ship had not traversed in man's remembrance without vailing to the English flag. The sea was troubled; the sky was dark; a huge Biscayan vessel took fire; and in the confusion the galleon of Don Pedro de Valdez got foul of another ship, and was left behind. Drake had gone after five vessels that proved to be merchantmen of Germany; and this had deranged the movements of the squadron that was to have followed his lantern. Howard, with two ships, had held on through the night after the Spaniards. Drake coming back from his bootless chase fell in with the great galleon abandoned by her companions; and Valdez became his prisoner, with a booty of 55,000 ducats, which were distributed amongst the crews. At nightfall of that second day the active vice-admiral was again with his commander. The next morning Howard was better prepared for a general engagement. His men were in great heart, for the invincible armada was found to be vulnerable. The remainder of the fleet has come out of Plymouth, and Raleigh has come with them, to take his share in that sea-fight, rather than remain with his inactive army on land. The armada on this morning of the 23rd of July is off Portland. And now, says Stow, "the English navy, being well increased, gave charge and chase upon the enemy, squadron after squadron seconding each other like swift horsemen that could nimbly come and go, and fetch the wind with most advantage. ... The English chieftains ever sought to single out the great commanders of the Spanish host, whose lofty castles held great scorn of their encounter." But the English chieftains knew better tactics than to attempt to grapple with these castles, and to board them. They knew that if their daring sailors could climb to their highest decks, they would there find great companies of soldiers in armour, provided with every instrument of destruction. Raleigh had told them, as he said * This passage is from Camden. We shall use his words occasionally, and those of Stow and other old writers, without always indicating the authority from which we quote. |