then one of the strongest cities in Spain. Sir John Norris put to good use all the fighting experience that he had acquired in France under Coligni, in Ireland under Walter, Earl of Essex, and in the Netherlands under William of Orange, and Drake was land-soldier enough to render him efficient service. On Friday, the 25th of April, three parties made a simultaneous attack upon different sides of the lower town, and it was soon captured with a loss of twenty Englishmen against five hundred Spaniards. There all the men who could be spared from the ships took up their quarters, feasting upon the food that they found in it, and turning it and all the towns and villages round about into ruins. To the upper town of Corunna, very well fortified, they laid siege, but without any real success. The gates were once entered, but the assailants were driven back. A breach was made in the wall, but the mine laid by the English effected more than was intended: just as they were entering a tower fell and crushed nearly three hundred of them, leaving time to the Spaniards to construct fresh fortifications out of the fragments before another onset was attempted. A second breach was made; but the besieged, led by a brave woman named Maria Pita, precursor in very similar circumstances of the Maid of Saragoza, offered a resistance too fierce to be overcome. After that the siege was abandoned. It was followed by a battle in open field, consequent on the arrival of 15,000 fresh Spanish troops for the *RECORD OFFICE MSS., Domestic, vol. ccxxiv., No. 24. + SOUTHEY, vol. iii., p. 212. 1589.] At Corunna and at Puente de Burgo. 255 66 relief of the town. Intelligence was brought of their being encamped at Puente de Burgo, five miles from Corunna. Whereupon, on Tuesday the 6th of May," wrote Drake and Norris in their report to the Queen's Council, "we marched towards them with 7,000 soldiers, leaving the rest for the guard and siege of the town. Encountering them, they continued fight the space of three-quarters of an hour; and then we forced them to retire to the foot of a bridge, whereon not above three could march in rank, and from whence, although they were there defended by some fortifications, and had the benefit and succour of certain houses and other places adjoining, they were followed with our shot and pikes, with such courage and fierceness as, after some few volleys on both sides, they entered the bridge, whence, with the push of the pike, they were forced to make retreat into their trenches to the further foot of the bridge, which also, being pursued, they forsook and betook themselves to flight, abandoning their weapons, bag and baggage, and lost about 1,000 in skirmish and pursuit."* "How many 2,000 men, for of so many consisted our vanguard, might kill in pursuit of four sundry parties, so many, you may imagine, fell before us that day," says one sharer in this cruel butchery; "and to make the number more great, our men, having given over the execution and returning to their stands, found many hidden in the vineyards and hedges, whom they despatched." Of the English, it * RECORD OFFICE MSS., Domestic, vol. ccxxiv., No. 15. is said, only two common soldiers and one corporal were killed, and four officers were wounded.* For their stay at Corunna Drake and Norris were greatly blamed by Queen Elizabeth. Writing to them on the 20th of May, she charged them with allowing " a haviour of vain-glory to obfuscate the eyes of their judgment," and bade them lose no further time in complying with her former instructions to them to spoil the King of Spain's navy, and then seize his Indian treasure-ships off the Azores.† Their excuse was that, having left Plymouth with hardly a week's store of provisions, it was absolutely necessary they should pillage the first port they could arrive at, and that this they had done with all possible prudence and despatch. They left Corunna on the 8th of May, and proceeded to the neighbourhood of Lisbon. Adverse winds and an angry sea, however, made the voyage a very long one. They were troubled also by much sickness, induced by over-eating and over-drinking at Corunna. On the 13th they fell in with the promised transports, bringing wholesomer food from Plymouth, with which came as a convoy the Swiftsure, which, by accident or plan, had failed to accompany them at starting. In the Swiftsure was an unwelcome volunteer, Robert, Earl of Essex. The young Earl-Sidney's successor, and with far less merit, in Queen Elizabeth's especial favour-had attempted to join the fleet in England. Not yet two * RECORD OFFICE MSS., Domestic, vol. ccxxiv., No. 15. 1589.] Robert, Earl of Essex. 257 and-twenty, being born in 1567, he had spent all his slight patrimony, and 23,0007. lent him by his royal mistress, in dalliance at Court. "Her Majesty's goodness hath been so great," he now said, "as I could not ask more of her. No way left but to repair myself by mine own adventure, which I had much rather undertake than to offend her Majesty with suits, as I have done heretofore."* But the generally penurious Queen was more ready to lend money to the young spendthrift than to do without his gay society. Hearing that he desired to go with Drake and Norris, she had written to them, bidding them, at the risk of her eternal displeasure, prevent his project, and, if they found him, send him back to Court without an hour's delay. Their vigilance had kept him back at Plymouth; and now that he joined them off the coast of Spain, they wrote specially to excuse themselves to the Queen. "As soon as we met with the Earl of Essex," they said, "we did our endeavours for his Lordship's present return; but we doubted whether we might spare out of the fleet a ship of so good service as the Swiftsure," which would have been needed to take him home. Therefore they helped him to become a seaman as well as a courtier. Halting at Peniche, some forty miles from Lisbon, on the 16th of April, Drake landed Sir John Norris and the soldiers. With most of the ships he proceeded to the mouth of the Tagus. Without difficulty he seized * DEVEREUX, Lives of the Earls of Essex, vol. i., p. 206. VOL. II. Ibid., p. 202. S the fort of Cascaes and sixty vessels, chiefly laden with corn, that lay in its harbour, and there he waited for Norris's army, which, after marching up to Lisbon, and attempting to besiege it during three days, had abandoned the undertaking as impracticable with so small a force. The details of its work, being soldiers' and not seamen's work, need not here be given. Nor is there much more to be chronicled concerning this expedition. Meeting at Cascaes on the 1st of June, Drake and Norris found that there was so much sickness among their men, and so much defection among their volunteer shipping, that it was impossible to make any useful effort at further spoliation of the Spanish coast. They returned to Galicia, and there divided their fleet. Norris, with most of the merchant vessels, went homewards as quickly as he could, though with much hindrance on the way. Drake, with the Queen's ships and some others, attempted to fulfil the instructions for proceeding to the Azores, there to lie in wait for prizes. But a violent storm proved to him that his worn-out crews were unfit for further service. He therefore set sail for England, and reached Plymouth about the 22nd of June, twelve days before Norris. The undertaking had been to a great extent a failure. By it had been done much less injury to Spain than had been hoped for: very little booty had been taken; and there had been terrible loss of life. But Philip II. had been insulted in his own land: a Spanish army had been defeated in Galicia: Cascaes had been forced to * RECORD OFFICE MSS., Domestic, vol. ccxxiv., Nos. 77-79. |