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236

THE DELIVERANCE.

[1588. Medina to the Orkneys, and left Parma's gun-boats in the canal of Bruges, could scarcely have been counted upon to do the work of defence singlehanded. It did its work nobly. It saved England in those twelve days of desperate fight and stormy chase. The breath of heaven did what Howard and Drake left undone. "Flavit Jehovah et dissipati sunt "-Jehovah blew and they were scattered-is the legend of one of the medals that recorded this marvellous success.

There are minute and apparently trustworthy accounts of the wretched fortune of the armada, after it had passed the coast of Scotland, which are derived from the examinations of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian sailors who were wrecked in September on the western coasts of Ireland.* Putting this evidence together, we find it stated that after the fight off Gravelines there were a hundred and ten (some state a hundred and twenty) sail left of the whole Spanish navy. After the English fleet left them, the Spaniards cast all the horses and mules into the sea, to save their water. Coming to an island at the north of Scotland, the general gave orders that they should make the best of their way to any part of the Portuguese or Spanish coast. Ships, having lost their anchors, their masts shot through, their hulls riddled with shot-holes, had sunk on the coast of Scotland, and in the open North Sea, or were cast on the shores of the Western Isles. About the 20th of August there came on a great storm which divided the fleet; and, ten days after, another storm scattered them around the shores of Connaught and Kerry. The testimony of a Genoese pilot of the ship called Our Lady of the Rosary, in which was the prince of Ascule, a natural son of the king of Spain, is thus recorded: "He saith this ship was shot through four times, and one of the shot was between the wind and the water, whereof they thought she would have sunk, and most of her tackle was spoiled with shot. This ship struck against the rocks in the Sound of the Bleskies, a league and a half from the land, upon Tuesday last at noon, and all in the ship perished, saving this examinant, who saved himself upon two or three planks that were loose." The duke of Medina kept out in the open sea, and entered the Bay of Biscay about the end of September. A few ships reached Spain, under the command of Recalde, in a shattered condition. Some of the wretched men who were shipwrecked were murdered by the wild Irish; and some, more disgracefully, were put to the sword by order of the lord deputy. the Spanish losses: "Of one hundred and four and of Lisbon, only three and fifty returned to Spain. Naples, but one; the like of the largest galleons of Portugal; of the one and ninety galleons and great hulks, from divers provinces, only three and thirty returned. In a word, they lost eighty-one ships in this expedition, and upwards of thirteen thousand five hundred soldiers."

Hakluyt thus sums up thirty sail, that came out Of the four galeasses of

Before the ultimate fate of the armada could be known, Elizabeth wrote this characteristic letter to the king of Scotland :

"Now may appear, my dear brother, how malice conjoined with might strive to make a shameful end to a villainous beginning, for, by God's singular favour, having their fleet well beaten in our narrow seas, and pressing with all violence to achieve some watering place, to continue their pretended in

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"Certain Advertisements out of Ireland," 1588, reprinted in the "Harleian Miscellany."

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238

SPAIN MAKES NEW PREPARATIONS.

[1589. solemn thanksgiving was offered up, and the glory given to God only. On that day there were also given in every church of the land "public and general thanks unto God, with all devotion and inward affection of heart and humbleness, for his gracious favour extended towards us in our deliverance and defence, in the wonderful overthrow and destruction showed by his mighty hand on our malicious enemies the Spaniards, who had thought to invade and make a conquest of the realm."

The parliament which met in February, 1589, was naturally warlike; exulting in the past success, and resolved upon supporting the queen in the contest which was so truly a battle for national existence. Sir Christopher Hatton, the lord chancellor, told the Peers and Commons not to be deceived into a belief that England was secure, through the Divine mercy which had rendered the vast armada vain and useless. "Do not you imagine,” he said, "that they are ardently studious of revenge? Know you not the pride, fury, and bitterness of the Spaniard against you ?" This was preparatory to asking for a subsidy; and, although there was no precedent for such a mark of confidence, two subsidies were granted in one supply, payable in four years. There was no delusion in the belief that Philip would renew his attempt upon England. It was proclaimed by the fanatical Romanists in their writings, that it was not till two attacks had failed that the Israelites made desolate the towns and villages of the tribe of Benjamin, and smote man and beast with the edge of the sword. The chastisement of the English, they said, was only deferred. Philip resolved to build smaller vessels, and to sail direct to the English coast from his harbours in the Peninsula. He would persevere, even if he sold the silver candlesticks which stood on his table.* The AngloSaxon spirit was now thoroughly roused; and any scheme for attacking Spain was sure to receive the heartiest encouragement. The government of Elizabeth was economical in the extreme; and it was indisposed to undertake any war, except a war of defence, upon a large scale. The people, therefore, were encouraged to fit out expeditions at their own cost, to which the queen lent assistance. It is common to impute blame to Elizabeth for this parsimony; but her revenues were not spent in her own luxurious gratification. In 1592, sir John Fortescue, after reciting how she had sustained the people of the Low Countries in their contest for freedom; and had assisted Henry of Navarre against the League, "to free us from war at home;" went on to state in what other honourable ways Elizabeth had employed her revenues : "When her majesty came to the crown, she found it four millions indebted. Her navy when she came to view it, she found greatly decayed. Yet, all this she hath discharged, and, thanks to God, is nothing indebted; and now she is able to match any prince in Europe, which the Spaniards found when they came to invade us. . . . . As for her own private expenses, they have been little in building; she hath consumed little or nothing in her pleasures." It has ever been a fashion to call such royal economy meauness; and other queens, as well as Elizabeth, have been slandered for their integrity. We may excuse her government, in their desire not to make rash experiments upon the willingness of the people to bear heavy taxation, if they only gave sixty thousand pounds towards a great expedition for winning Portugal from the Castilians,-whom the Portuguese hated, to place the crown upon the head of Don Antonio, an ille

* Ranke, vol. ii. p. 174.

1589.]

EXPEDITIONS AGAINST SPAIN.

289

gitimate branch of the royal line of that country which Philip had added to Spain. Sir Francis Drake and sir John Norris undertook to lead this somewhat rash enterprise. A great body of adventurers joined the expedition. They did not, however, sail direct to Portugal, but attacked Corunna; burnt some ships; defeated a Spanish army; and took the lower town. At last they went on the real purpose for which the armament was fitted out. But Philip was now prepared. Every attempt at insurrection was promptly suppressed. Lisbon was defended by a large force. When the English army under Norris advanced from Peniche, their landing-place, and Drake sailed up the Tagus, they could only obtain possession of the suburbs of Lisbon; and were speedily forced to re-embark for want of ammunition and provisions. On their return they took and burned Vigo; and then came back to England-triumphant to a limited extent, but having lost one half of the adventurers, many in fight, but the greater number by famine and sickness. The young earl of Essex was one of those who took part in this enterprise as a volunteer.

As Drake's ships were returning homeward, with their half-starved crews and soldiers, they received some supplies from a fleet of seven ships, which the earl of Cumberland had fitted out at his own charge to attack the Spanish coasts. A fearful mortality amongst the men of this expedition also crippled their exertions; and, though many prizes were made, the prosperous issue of the great contest was little advanced by this and other detached enterprises. But there was a higher result of such a warfare than the taking of ships or the burning of towns. A grand spirit of devotion to their country was engendered in the people. The energies called forth in that stirring time produced a corresponding elevation of the national character. In one of his earliest comedies, Shakspere, in a scene where a father recommends his son "to seek preferment," has briefly indicated the great principles which stimulated the ambition of the gentlemen of England at this period:

"Some, to the wars, to try their fortune there;

Some, to discover islands far away;
Some, to the studious universities." *

They had been fighting in the Netherlands during the command of Leicester; they were still fighting for the same cause under Maurice of Nassau; they were about to fight for Henry of Navarre. War against Philip of Spain, wherever to be carried on, would be a war of enthusiasm. Discovery, a natural result of commercial extension, was the one thing wanting to fill the "home-keeping youths" with an ardent desire to burst the narrow confines of their own land, to seek wealth and honour in regions where the earth yielded its richest increase to the slightest labour. Knowledge was to be sought; for not only were learning and ability now the stepping-stones to civil preferment, but ignorance had become a disgrace amongst the highborn, who once left the churchmen to the almost exclusive possession of intellectual power. The stormy time of the Reformation had been succeeded by a time of comparative peace and security; but this position had been won by a general enlargement of the national thought, and through this growing freedom of opinion a great Literature was bursting into life,-sustaining and carrying forward the mental independence which had produced it. Gabriel

*Two Gentlemen of Verona," act i. sc. 3

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240

THE HEROIC TIMES.

[1589. Harvey, in one of his tracts, directed, as verses of his friend Spenser had been directed, against some of the ribaldry of vulgar controversialists, shows, in a passage which is worth quoting, the stimulus which heroic action ought to give, as it must have given, to intellectual production: "England, since it was England, never bred more honourable minds, more adventurous hearts, more valorous hands, or more excellent wits, than of late. .. The date of idle vanities is expired. Away with these scribbling paltries. There is another Sparta in hand, that indeed requireth Spartan temperance, Spartan frugality, Spartan exercise, Spartan valiancy, Spartan perseverance, Spartan invincibility; and hath no wanton leisure for the comedies of Athens. The wind is changed, and there is a busier pageant upon the stage. When you have observed the course of industry, examined the antecedents and consequences of travel, compared English and Spanish valour, measured the forces of both parties, weighed every circumstance of advantage, considered the means of our assurance, and finally found profit to be our pleasure, provision our security, labour our honour, warfare our welfare,who of reckoning can spare any lewd or vain time for corrupt pamphlets; or who of judgment will not cry, away with these paltering fiddle-faddles." * This stilted eloquence of Gabriel Harvey conveys a great truth. English nation was growing into loftier proportions in this period of newborn energies. He points to the western discoveries of Gilbert; the WestIndian voyage of Drake; the arctic expedition of Frobisher; the colonisation of Virginia by Raleigh; the hot welcome of the terrible Spanish armada to the coast of England; the voyage into Spain and Portugal of Norris, Drake, and Essex. But he recounts these, to show how the period which called forth such energies ought to bear the corresponding fruits of a high literature, and he exclaims, "what miracles of excellency might be achieved in an age of policy and a world of industry." They were achieved.

"Pierce's Supererogation," 1593. Reprinted in "Archaica," vol. ii. p. 62.

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